is driven home in a powerful way in a piece by Ron Kovic at Truthdig, titled The Forgotten Wounded of Iraq Most probably only know about Kovic from the movie biopic on him starring Tom Cruise in an Oscar nominated performance, "Born on the Fourth of July." If you saw the movie, forget about it and just read what Kovic has written.
Here is his opening paragraph, which only hints at the power of what you will encounter reading this piece:
Thirty-eight years ago, on Jan. 20, 1968, I was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in Vietnam. It is a date that I can never forget, a day that was to change my life forever. Each year as the anniversary of my wounding in the war approached I would become extremely restless, experiencing terrible bouts of insomnia, depression, anxiety attacks and horrifying nightmares. I dreaded that day and what it represented, always fearing that the terrible trauma of my wounding might repeat itself all over again. It was a difficult day for me for decades and it remained that way until the anxieties and nightmares finally began to subside.
THis evening represents ten years since our ill-conceived, illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq.
We can talk and write all we want about the financial costs of that decision, how it distorted our politics, how the ongoing "war" on "terror" has led to an erosion of basic liberties and an over-expansion of government intrusion into our private affairs.
And yet, that does not come close to understanding the cost of the war to those who were there.
I am going to quote without comment three additional paragraphs, drawn from Kovic's own experiences, where he was seriously wounded and paralyzed on his 2nd tour in Vietnam - and remember we have troops with many more tours than that in this conflict and in Afghanistan (one of my former middle school students did 5 tours in Iraq, fortunately not in direct combat).
Here are those three paragraphs, which describe what happens after one is wounded:
All the conditioning, all the discipline, shouting, screaming, bullying and threatening verbal abuse of their boot camp drill instructors have now disappeared in this one instant, in this one damaging blow. All they want to do now is stay alive, keep breathing, somehow get out of this place anyway they can. People are dying all around them, someone has been shot and killed right next to them and behind them but all they can really think of at this moment is staying alive.
You don’t think of God, or praying, or even your mother or your father. There is no time for that. Your heart is pounding. Blood is seeping out. You will always go back to that day, that moment you got hit, the day you nearly died yet somehow survived. It will be a day you will never forget—when you were trapped in that open area and could not move, when bullets were cracking all around you, when the first Marine tried to save you and was shot dead at your feet and the second, a black Marine—whom you would never see again and who would be killed later that afternoon—would carry you back under heavy fire.
You are now with other wounded all around you heading to a place where there will be help. There are people in pain and great distress, shocked and stunned, frightened beyond anything you can imagine. You are afraid to close your eyes. To close your eyes now means that you may die and never wake up. You toss and turn, your heart pounding, racked with insomnia ... and for many this will go on for months, years after they return home.
You need to stop what you have been doing.
Turn off the radio or the tv.
Sit in silence and read what Kovic has written.
Eventually you will get to his conclusion, which includes a poem:
We must break this cycle of violence and begin to move in a different direction; war is not the answer, violence is not the solution. A more peaceful world is possible.
I am the living death
The memorial day on wheels
I am your yankee doodle dandy
Your John Wayne come home
Your Fourth of July firecracker
Exploding in the grave
Peace.