TO THE WARRIORS

I’ve been writing quite a bit about Iraq, Afghanistan, war and the Warrior’s Code and I realized that – today on Thanksgiving – there are quite a few of you who don’t have any real idea what war is.

Oh, you’ve a conceptual idea and some have a tactical idea, but I’m talking about a down-in-the-mud idea.

My wife’s sleep-mumbling woke me, and the first thing I recalled on consciousness was standing up and firing a CAR-15 on semiautomatic. My eyelids slapped open with an almost visible noise as the recollection took shape.

It happened on November 16, 1968 – eight days and 37 years ago – and I saw it as clearly as I can see the red “2:22” on the bedside clock. That’s ay-em, Thanksgiving morning, 2005.

But that’s war.

It’s amazing how things stay with you. I’d thought much of what I recalled of that day was more an exaggerated memory or a conglomeration of memories, but I met one of my team members two years ago who told the story to a group of peers while I stood there unable to comment, other than to say, “yeah, yeah, that’s right.” How I remembered the event for some 30 years was how it transpired.

There were four of us and we ambushed 20-or-so of them. I was always afraid of being pinned down in one place in firefights, so I usually stood. Not an intelligent tactic, but I’m still here. I remembering saying “wait” in a whisper over and over, until I yelled “take ‘em,” and off we went. I remember firing semi and popping targets – humans – as if I was on a rifle range. That’s how we were taught, and the teaching worked.

I saw faces as I shifted targets, and I saw people firing back. The closest were about 15 feet, the long shots 50. The story my partner told was more about my actions than what we did, but combat -the event, not the dying - is perceptual, he was a new guy and that’s what he recalled. I recalled killing people, monsoon, mud, brush, and a Montagnyard-cut field.

I remember swapping out magazines, slapping the new one on my thigh as I shoved it in. I can feel the magazine’s edge on the front of my thigh muscle today.

Thirty-seven years and eight days later at 0222 on Thanksgiving Day morning a 56 year old, out-of-shape ex-LRRP remembers war as clear as if it happened earlier in the evening.

Clear enough to rise, grab a drink of tomato juice and write this.

Warriors pay the price for everyone else. The rest of us argue, discuss and debate the reasons why, how, where and when. Some of us support the warriors and some of us don’t. Thanks to the former and death to the latter.

It’s the warriors who carry the load, and who don’t get to sit down with their loved ones on Thanksgiving Day and debate esoterica.

Warriors are too busy staying alive.

Here’s to the warriors … and the rest of their lives.

Happy Thanksgiving.