Summer Reading

I recently found out that my blog has been assigned reading for junior in high school English homework.

I was asked the question by a student the following in an email:

"What do you feel is the driving emotion behind the blog entries and why?" I felt that you felt guilty for killing so many people and devastating their families, while also feeling guilty for leaving yours at home. But truly I would like to know what was your driving emotion behind these blogs"


I thought I would share my response since I haven't written here for some time. I took a bit and reflected on why I did write so much...

Hello XXXXXX,

I am glad that you found my writing interesting. It is an odd feeling to have your experiences and writing read as summer homework but I am honored all the same. As to your question regarding my driving emotions behind my blog entries...

You mentioned guilt for the death I have caused. I suppose that there is guilt there, but if I had to go back I probably would have made many of the same choices. It is war and in war you fight or you die. you return fire or you are killed. That is the black and white of it, I am simplifying things a bit, there are so many gray areas because of the cities, the civilians and such but you still must understand that aspect.

When you do have to go to war, however. When you do have to kill or witness death and sorrow. When you can't look away because it is a child who was killed and you are the only one who speaks Arabic and must go comfort the family who just lost their little boy. Those memories seep into your soul. I began to dream about those things all the time. You see I have what is called PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). It is what happens when you have seen or experienced something so traumatic that you mind has a very difficult time dealing with it. There are many symptoms (nightmares, insomnia, hyper-alertness...) I chose to write about those events. For me it
was my attempts to put my daemons to rest. I still can't sleep very well and I think back to those days often, especially the day I had to see the boy killed.

I don't really know what else to tell you. Take care XXXXXX

Zach

New and Old Thoughts

Slowly I assessed the situation; my gun was near and I know that it can feel so nice having that cold lethal steel pressed against your body, reminiscent of war in desolate sorrowful places where things seem to only become broken. In THAT place my body was perfect, my mind was not however, it was bitter and un-amused with the daily carnage of ‘peace keeping operations’. Money is nice but the purity of thought can become even more addicting especially when you know you could die in the next instant.

That rare rain becomes so beautiful to you because of its simplicity as it brings life to such a dead place. The sun both harsh and incredible shines unrelenting on you and your bristling weapons as you ride under it with the thoughts rattling around your head of your own death or that of another.

There are times when I feel broken from my experiences, times when I can’t conveniently sweep them into that black hole inside me where I send memories to be buried for a while. For some reason they always resurface and with them my retrospection brings both immaculate recreations of war as well as regret and a sick longing for a place where people like me can be. A place where you could die and where it would be so far away that even the land you live and walk on feels like it want’s your blood.

Some times I remember only colors. Then there are things like a night with another soldier who I have long forgotten, we sit and drink a beer we bought on the black market during a trip to Baghdad from our home in Falloujah. I talk about my family and children as he talks of his. This soldier whom I have forgotten, I make him a promise that we will get our families together, he is from another unit, but in war we were brothers. As we get home I hug my children and he searches the crowd of family members for his wife and kids. His kids he sees, they are with his mother. His wife has left him and his kids as well. We never have that promised barbeque and we are no longer brothers because his loss reminds him of that hot Iraqi night drinking Egyptian beer with me.

Those empty promises add up and in my head I find myself remembering them and tallying them up as defeats of my soul. Maybe I could have been a better friend, maybe I could have remembered his name, and maybe we could have kept our promise. Everything revolves around that phrase, ‘when we get back we will…’ perhaps we will be better dads, or we won’t ever argue with our wives, or perhaps we will simply cherish every moment.

I haven’t kept those promises I made in my heart. I have had fights with my wife, I have been short with my kids, and I haven’t cherished every moment with my family. In fact I have at times become just like everyone else. Iraq is a land far away and home is here and now. Home is stressful, home is bills, home is work, and home is uneventful as we forget all we learned on the foreign soils of war and her spiteful malice which was such a harsh teacher. I am sorry, not only do I try to bury those thoughts; I failed to completely learn from them…