Theres been a few diaries of the last few days, about the Tragedy at Haditha and how the Marines who may have committed the crimes may have been in fact victims as well. Victims of a military machine, victims of a government that basically abandoned them to their own devices.
This has not been an excusal of this atrocity at all. The majority of people are simply trying with all sincerity to understand?
But in most peoples minds the circumstances are a catalyst. It is what brought these men to that mindset. A real version of the novel the "Lord of the flies".
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder It is insidious. While we cannot see it on the surface, it is something horrific and mind shattering to those who have been through more than the average person can comprehend. It can be Night terrors and/or sleep paralysis, it can be an explosive temper, it can be fears that do not go away in the light of day. It can be voices, that scream inside their head. It is debilitating, and shatters these men's lives, and their families who are unprepared and uneducated in dealing with it. This is the disease of war, and trauma.
Women who have been raped can suffer from this, children of abusive parents, or sexually abused children can carry this horrific disease for years.
The part that is so very frightening is that it can lie dormant for many many years. Until.....something triggers it.
We read in the news about Vets going off the wall and committing a crime. Their friends and family are either unaware, or they had been trying to get help for the person. Help that wasn't there.
So that brings me back to my title. What are they really praying for?
Mark Twain wrote a piece that was rejected by the publisher. There are several different scenarios, but the date it was dictated was 1904. It wasn't actually published until after his death. Twain was mostly an Atheist, and as always an uncanny analyst of humanity, and character.
The piece titled "The War Prayer" envisions a congregation at a church, they are Praying so very fervently and so very passionately that the lord hears and sends a response, In the form of a stranger:
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory - An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The Stranger goes on to tell the people that the Lord has heard their prayers, BUT! The stranger will tell them what the Unsaid and unheard portion of their prayer really says:
"You have heard your servant's prayer - the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it - that part which the pastor - and also you in your hearts - fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory - must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with hurricanes of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."
This is a powerful and thought provoking paragraph.
It allows that for everything in the universe, there are two sides. A double edged sword, an athame.
If Twain were alive today, would he write another portion? Something to describe the horrors that are left for these poor souls to deal with?
Would it read....?
We implore you oh great lord to Fill our valiant soldiers heads with memories of death and suffering, we ask that all they see in their beds at night will be the eyes of the innocents, killed in the quest for our glory. We ask that their families are forever changed, and that the loss of innocence and stability be carried on to their own children.
What would Twain write today?
And what would the swiftboaters do to him?
Twains War Prayer It is worth a read if you havent seen it before. Its worth a read even if you have seen it before.
The last sentence, always makes me shake my head. Only because it is also, so very true.
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.