New To Here

[USMC0311]

The deaths of the insurgents bother me to a degree but also make me feel satisfied that there's one less piece of shit running around trying to kill innocent people. I was also involved in an SVBIED that picked me up and threw me across a room. I had just taken my squad out on patrol and the SVBIED hit 5 minutes after we made it through the very same ECP where the SVBIED made it through. I saw some fellow marines get hurt....nothing too serious, but it killed two IPs we worked with and we had to medevac another out with his arm ripped off. The suicide bomber had half a body and we left him inside our wire for 3 weeks while watching dogs eat the corpse and patrolled past it every day....which it smelled terrible in 120 degree summer heat. Guess that's another instance that bothers me at times. Knowing that if I was 5 minutes later on a patrol return my entire squad, including myself, would have been decimated.

 

[Deleted member 43454]

So many different scenario's so many different outlooks.
So many different out comes, and so many different reactions.
Depending on who, what, where, how it went down.


Anxiety ruins relationships by not going out and the only "fix" I found was pills like Clonazepam helped.
On them I was able to work and I even earned the nickname "Suavecito" cus them shits made me chill.

Anyhow, I had an entirely different understanding of the war and what not. Also about medications.
Stubbornness runs in the blood. My grandpa got Gangrene cus he didn't quit picking at his toe... if they woulda amputated it he
woulda been alright but it ended up spreading up his leg and eventually he had a heart attack. He didn't want to live anyway,
He was in a great deal of pain for so many years after the Korean war.

Me on the other hand if I gotta get something amputated I'll do it. But I am still anti-pill and big pharma. And anti-war.
In my experience it seemed as though God came down an punched the ground in front of my face and said,
"Listen here you little shit, this is all f*cked up. And you gotta change your ways." Plus I was always asking
for his help and never following through on my part of the bargain by spreading the truth. I was consumed by
darkness.

Dreams of my hands searching through blood drenched soil with worms and maggots and blackness. Probably an internal view of my cigarette smoke ridden lungs. I'm glad it's behind me now.
Shit was evil man.

6 years after the fact of that personal encounter and I have finally begun to not be constantly plagued by the image of that man standing in the field of that ghost town.
No way in hell I coulda done 27 years, personally.

 

[USMC0311]

Thanks for all of the input everyone. The darkest place I've ever been in was last year around Veterans Day. In the span of a week, I found a documentary that I was in from Iraq and where I'm standing over one of the first dead bodies I had ever witnessed, it was Veterans Day, Marine Corps birthday week, and the ISIS Paris attacks had just happened. I feel like I completely shut life out and was in a very, very dark place. After two months, I finally broke down to my wife and explained what was going on (she had already known something was up by how much I was numb to the world). I feel very guilty as my daughter was born a month before I hit this dark place and I feel like I missed out on the first few months of her life. I feel much better today and pray each day that I never get that bad again.

 

[CyclePath]

The God of war lives in me. I am a host to it. I think deep down I like it. She is a demanding bitch.

 

[CyclePath]

At least that is what I was thinking a few minutes ago. Now, I remember the hollow eyes of dead men and wonder, as usual, have I been mislead? Is it, was it, worth it? Having lived it dozens of times I think not. In hindsight, I wish I had known how much trouble it is to make peace with it.

 

[Friday]

I feel much better today and pray each day that I never get that bad again.

Hey man... Word to the wise make some plans to be doing something mad chill on the 10th & 11th.

When I'm being smart I take the whole week and go snowboarding, or surfing or some shit. Something physical to bleed the stress. Something I enjoy to distract the hell out of myself. And someplace -ideally out of country, but out in the country also works- to avoid all of the 20 minutes of patriotism and stressors every damn place one looks. Even during my good years, the 10Nov just hurts. And the Celebrate & Mourn of the 10&11? f*ck. If I'm not doing well, I'm just a gutted wreck. Every damn year... That I don't plan in advance to deal with it, and some years, no matter how well I plan. ((Why, yes, there is a mountain out there, with a meter of fresh pow, and my ass is not climbing out of this bed. What of it? I'm not picking a fight in a bar, or massively self destructive in any other way, I'm counting it as a win. Go away. ;))) Plan for the worst, enjoy the rest.

 

[USMC0311]

That sounds like a great idea Friday. I ride a motorcycle which helps to escape everyday stress and not thinking about things.