*******WARNING, THIS POST MAY CONTAIN TRIGGERS********************

As I sit here beginning this post, my hands are shaking. My heart has the feeling of a hundred pound weight atop of it, and my chest has a burning sensation sitting directly under my sternum. My mind is swimming with ideas, thoughts, and static. It’s almost as if I can have a clear thought for only a brief minute, then it’s wiped away like the image of a distant tree in massive blizzard. Occasionally, the wind will shift slightly, and the snow breaks just enough to glimpse the distant figure only to be wiped away again in a blink. On my way home from work I noticed that it did not take much to piss me off. When I say it didn’t take much I mean, it took NOTHING. I saw a guy on a moped, that pissed me off. A woman was walking along the sidewalk and was dressed somewhat gaudy, THAT pissed me off. My drink shifted slightly in my lap, that pissed me off. But what was I mad at? Certainly not the guy on the moped, or the gaudy woman or even my drink. To be honest, I can’t tell you. Not because it is Top Secret and would threaten national security, but because I really have no idea. Veterans with PTSD often experience these times with completely irrational anger at any and every thing in the world. We have no real explanation for this. We often take it out on, or reflect it to the ones closest to us because, just that, they are closest. And, if you ask, the response will most likely be ” I don’t know” . Maybe what we wish we could tell you is, I am pissed at the world, I am pissed at nothing, I am pissed at everything. We are pissed that we are not with our brothers. We are pissed that some brothers will never be home again. We are pissed we got blown up, shot, wounded, not shot, not wounded, couldn’t do more, did too much, just PISSED.

Just know that we are not truly mad at you. We rely on you. We need you in our lives to remind us that there are things to be happy about. The anger will pass, and our love remains.

Why do we wear combat boots? Well, in my own humble opinion, this is a bit of a complicated issue. One that you may never hear from your vet. The boots represent the uniform. A uniform we wore proudly, we wore during the best and worst times in our lives. We wore them alongside those who were willing to die for us, and us for them. They represent strength and courage, fear and pain. The boots have carried our weight through the hottest deserts, the dirtiest allies, splashed with the blood of our enemies, and the blood of our brothers. The boots are one of the only pieces of the uniform we can wear in the civilian world, and our last grip on a life we left behind. In the military we may have bitched about their comfort, how they rubbed on all the wrong parts of our feet, or cut the circulation to our toes. But back home, they are comfort on a different level. A reminder that were once warriors. They are a feeling that we are still the same warrior we were, because unlike pants, or shirts, almost no matter how much our bodies change, our boots will still fit.

We will never feel like heroes. No matter what awards we earned, the medals, the badges, the ribbons, truly mean we only did our jobs good enough to accomplish the mission. No veteran will ever say that they were a hero. Our image of a hero is one of endless courage, one who did something no one else COULD do. A person who did the gallant for supreme righteousness, which resulted in only the best of outcomes. Many of us have done things that we would more likely associate with a monster. Very rarely can the taking of another’s life be considered heroic. Especially when that life belonged to a child or woman. But war has a horrific way of forcing us into the circumstance that “justifies” such acts. When we speak about them to other veterans or our counselors, they attempt to soothe us with the old “you did what you had to do to survive”. While this may be true, it does not end the pain of knowing what was done. Our enemies often used women and children as pawns in their game. They would often kidnap a relative and threaten the family with torture or death if they did not do as they said, forcing our soldiers to commit horrific acts in the name of self preservation. Just because it HAD to be done does not make it hurt any less. We may never tell you about these events. Not because we did wrong, but because the pain of living with it and retelling it, is just too much to bare.

Why won’t we tell these things? Why won’t we just say what is bothering us? There are SO many reasons. The first of which is, the fear of judgement. If you knew the things we did, would you stop regarding us as a hero, and see us for how we feel inside, monsters, further validating these self-deprecating ideals. Could you ever look at us the same? Would you ever understand why we did those things? Could you possibly understand the things we found humorous? Can you possibly understand the feeling of imminent mortality? Have you ever felt in your gut, truly KNOWN, that you would die at any given moment? Unless you have, how could you ever understand how we felt, or why we did? How can we even put into words what it felt like to see a friend, a brother, DESTROYED in combat? How do we describe the emotions involved by seeing how incredibly delicate the human body is when exposed to burning hot lead, explosive shock waves, and other horrors inflicted upon them?

How do we explain how broken we feel when we get home? So many of us feel like we died over there, even though we may be standing directly in front of you. Often what we feel is that, what is standing in front of you is really an empty lifeless shell of a man that was once a great warrior. We feel guilty that our brothers who died, do not have the same opportunities that we have to be around family. They will never see their fathers, feel their baby’s skin, or make love to their wives. But we can. Why? What made us so special to be the one that came home? But we can’t tell you this. It hurts too much. You may think we are weak. You may pity us. We seek no pity, we are warriors. Warriors aren’t weak. Warriors have no fear. Warriors persevere with strength. We cannot let ourselves be weak in front of those who hold us so high.

Often when we go through our moments of weakness, you will notice. And when you ask what’s wrong, the answer will be short. “Nothing”. We can’t tell you we are not ok. We can’t tell you we are scared. We can’t tell you how our memories haunt us, how the loss of our brothers destroys us on the inside. But, just being there can help. Not talking, sometimes not even touching, but just physically being co-located with us is enough. Please don’t pry the answers out of us. Please don’t be frustrated if we don’t speak. Our lack of interaction does not reflect our love for you.