THE WARRIOR’S CODE OF HONOR
As a combat veteran wounded in one of America’s wars, I offer to speak
for those who cannot. Were the mouths of my fallen front-line friends not
stopped with dust, they would testify that life revolves around honor. In
war, it is understood that you give your word of honor to do your duty --
that is -- stand and fight instead of running away and deserting your
friends.
When you keep your word despite desperately desiring to flee the screaming
hell all around, you earn honor. Earning honor under fire changes who you
are. The blast furnace of battle burns away impurities encrusting your soul.
The white-hot forge of combat hammers you into a hardened, purified warrior
willing to die rather than break your word to friends -- your honor.
Combat is scary but exciting.
You never feel so alive as when being shot at without result. You never feel
so triumphant as when shooting back -- with result. You never feel love so
pure as that burned into your heart by friends willing to die to keep their
word to you. And they do. The biggest sadness of your life is to see friends
falling. The biggest surprise of your life is to survive the war. Although
still alive on the outside, you are dead inside -shot thru the heart with
nonsensical guilt for living while friends died. The biggest lie of your
life torments you that you could have done something more, different, to
save them. Their faces are the tombstones in your weeping eyes, their souls
shine the true camaraderie you search for the rest of your life but never
find.
You live a different world now. You always will.
Your world is about waking up night after night silently screaming, back in
battle. Your world is about your best friend bleeding to death in your arms,
howling in pain for you to kill him. Your world is about shooting so many
enemies the gun turns red and jams, letting the enemy grab you. Your world
is about struggling hand-to-hand for one more breath of life.
You never speak of your world.
Those who have seen combat do not talk about it. Those who talk about it
have not seen combat. You come home but a grim ghost of he who so
lightheartedly went off to war. But home no longer exists. That world
shattered like a mirror the first time you were shot at.
The splintering glass of everything you knew fell at your feet, revealing
what was standing behind it – grinning death -- and you are face to face,
nose to nose with it! The shock was so great that the boy you were died of
fright. He was replaced by a stranger who slipped into your body, a MAN from
the Warrior’s World. In that savage place, you give your word of honor to
dance with death instead of run away from it.
This suicidal waltz is known as: “doing your duty.”
You did your duty, survived the dance, and returned home. But not all of you
came back to the civilian world. Your heart and mind are still in the
Warrior’s World, far beyond the Sun. They will always be in the Warrior’s
World. They will never leave, they are buried there.
In that hallowed home of honor, life is about keeping your word. People in
the civilian world, however, have no idea that life is about keeping your
word. They think life is about ballgames, backyards, barbecues, babies
and business. The distance between the two worlds is as far as Mars
from earth. This is why, when you come home, you feel like an outsider, a
visitor from another planet. You are.
Friends try to bridge the gaping gap.
It is useless. They may as well look up at the sky and try to talk to a
Martian as talk to you. Words fall like bricks between you.
Serving with Warriors who died proving their word has made prewar friends
seem too un-tested to be trusted – thus they are now mere acquaintances.
The hard truth is that earning honor under fire makes you a stranger in your
own home town, an alien visitor from a different world, alone in a crowd.
The only time you are not alone is when with another combat veteran. Only he
understands that keeping your word, your honor, whilst standing face to face
with death gives meaning and purpose to life. Only he understands that your
terrifying – but thrilling – dance with death has made your old world of
backyards, barbecues and ballgames seem deadly dull.
Only he understands that your way of being due to combat damaged emotions is
not the un-usual, but the usual, and you are OK. Only he understands how
sorely you miss the camaraderie of combat. Camaraderie is a delicate flower
that does not often grow in the stony ground of the safe civilian world.
It mostly grows in the blood-soaked, fertile ground of the Warrior’s World,
where it blossoms into warm, friendly feelings of comradeship among those
who do their duty under fire.
To say this another way, when you and others run toward the sound of guns
instead of away, this act of courage creates invisible chain links of
spirit-love that link/hook/bond your souls together into a band of brothers
for eternity. Then you come home, doff your uniform, and re-enter civilian
life. It is only natural that you miss the camaraderie of the warriors you
left behind. You look around for other combat vets to hand out with. It is a
fact of life, however, that in any given social circle, the numbers of
combat vets are few and none. Thus you are almost always the only guy in the
room who has been shot at. Time after time, day after day, year in and year
out, in virtually every gathering, you are the only battle-hardened warrior
in the room. Little wonder you feel alone, a man apart. It would be strange
if you did NOT feel like an outsider, alone in a crowd. Unless these
corrosive feelings are neutralized by new friendships, they can become so
demoralizing that a warrior may find himself muttering, “Quick, pass me the
bottle.” (And/or drugs, etc.). Those who wonder why some combat veterans may
have drinking/drug problems need look no further than these few lines to
understand why.
Another common consequence of combat is adrenaline addiction.
Many combat veterans -- including this writer -- feel that war was the high
point of our lives, and emotionally, life has been downhill ever since. This
is because we came home adrenaline junkies. We got that way doing our duty
in combat situations such as: crouching in a foxhole waiting for attacking
enemy soldiers to get close enough for you to start shooting; hugging the
ground, waiting for the signal to leap up and attack the enemy; sneaking
along on a combat patrol out in no man’s land, seeking a gunfight; suddenly
realizing that you are walking in the middle of a mine field. Circumstances
like these skyrocket your feeling of aliveness far, far above and beyond
anything you experienced in civilian life: never have you felt so terrified
– yet so thrilled; never have you seen sky so blue, grass so green, breathed
air so sweet, etc.; because dancing with death makes you feel stratospheric
– nay -- intergalactic aliveness. Then you come home, where the addictive,
euphoric rush of aliveness/adrenaline hardly ever happens -- naturally, that
is. Then what often occurs? “Quick, pass me the motorcycle” (and/or fast
car, drag race, speedboat, airplane, parachute, big game hunt, extreme
sport, fist fight, gun fight, etc.). Another reason Warriors may find the
rush of adrenaline attractive is because it lets them feel something rather
than nothing. The dirty little secret no one talks about is that many combat
veterans come home unable to feel their feelings. It works like this. In
battle, it is understood that you give your word of honor to not let your
fear stop you from doing your duty. To keep your word, you must numb up/shut
down your fear. But the numb-up/shut-down mechanism does not work like a
tight, narrow rifle shot; it works like a broad, spreading shotgun blast.
Thus when you numb up your fear, you numb up virtually all your other
feelings as well.
The more combat, the more fear you must “not feel.” You may become so numbed
up/shut down inside that you cannot feel much of anything. You become what
is known as “battle-hardened,” meaning that you can feel hard feelings like
hate and anger, but not soft, tender feelings (which is bad news for loved
ones). The reason that the rush of adrenaline, alcohol, drugs, dangerous
life style, etc. is so attractive is because you get to feel something,
which is a step up from the awful deadness of feeling nothing.
Although you walk thru life alone, you are not lonely. You have a constant
companion from combat -- Death. It stands close behind, a little to the
left. Death whispers in your ear: “Nothing matters outside my touch, and I
have not touched you...YET!” Death never leaves you -- it is your best
friend, your most trusted advisor, your wisest teacher. Death teaches you
that every day above ground is a fine day. Death teaches you to feel
fortunate on good days, and bad days...well, they do not exist. Death
teaches you that merely seeing one more sunrise is enough to fill your cup
of life to the brim -- pressed down and running over! Death teaches you that
you can postpone its touch by earning serenity. Serenity is earned by a lot
of prayer and acceptance. Acceptance is taking one step out of denial and
accepting/allowing your repressed, painful combat memories to be
re-lived/suffered thru/shared with other combat vets -- and thus de-fused.
Each time you accomplish this act of courage/desperation: the pain gets
less; more tormenting combat demons hiding in the darkness of your gut are
thrown out into the healing sunlight of awareness, thereby disappearing
them; the less bedeviling combat demons, the more serenity earned. Serenity
is, regretfully, rather an indistinct quality, but it manifests as an
immense feeling of fulfillment/satisfaction: from having proven your honor
under fire; from having demonstrated to be a fact that you did your duty no
matter what; and from being grateful to Higher Power/your Creator for
sparing you. It is an iron law of nature that such serenity lengthens life
span to the max. Down thru the dusty centuries it has always been thus. It
always will be, for what is seared into a man’s soul who stands face to face
with death never changes.
WRITER’S NOTE
This work attempts to describe the world as seen thru the eyes of a combat
veteran. It is a world virtually unknown to the public because few veterans
can talk about it. This is unfortunate since people who are trying to
understand, and make meaningful contact with combat veterans, are kept in
the dark. How do you establish a rapport with a combat veteran? It is very
simple. Demonstrate to him out in the open in front of God and everybody
that you too have a Code of Honor -- that is, you also keep your word -- no
matter what!
Do it and you will forge a bond between you.
Do it not and you will not.
End of story. Case closed.
I offer these poor, inadequate words – bought not taught – in the hope that
they may shed some small light on why combat veterans are like they are, and
how they can fix it. It is my life desire that this tortured work, despite
its many defects, may yet still provide some tiny sliver of understanding
which may blossom into tolerance – nay, acceptance – of a Warrior’s perhaps
unconventional way of being due to combat-damaged emotions from doing his
duty under fire.
Signed, a Purple Heart Medal recipient who wishes to remain anonymous. Life
Member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, member number L63550. Life
Member of the Disabled American Veterans.
Dedicated to absent friends in unmarked graves.