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Date Posted: Mon, May 09 2005, 19:36:53
Author: Larry Lusk
Author Host/IP: 66.214.57.211
Subject: Re: scarey
In reply to: ashley 's message, "scarey" on Mon, May 09 2005, 11:47:20

Ashley, reading some of the “War Stories” and comments veterans have made on this bulletin board can give you some idea of how frightening being in a war and in combat can be. It’s so frightening that you have to convince yourself that you are not afraid. I know this doesn’t make sense and most people have trouble understanding it. It’s not a matter of being brave or feeling that you are so good at what you do that nothing really bad is going to happen. It’s more like accepting that something bad is going to happen and then not thinking about it. A little like driving a car and you know you are going to get in a crash and get killed or hurt very badly but you still keep driving the car.

A part of your mind is still very afraid but you block off that part so you can’t feel the fear. Bad things happen around you; friends get killed or hurt, you see and hear things that you don’t want to and you do things to other people that you never thought you could do. You can’t let any feeling about these things get into your thoughts. You can’t cry for a friend or even get too angry about anything because then you couldn’t continue to fight and do your job. All these feelings and many memories get shoved into that place in your mind where you are keeping the fear locked up.

At some point after you are not in combat anymore, sometimes many years later, those feelings and memories start to get out of where you locked them away because your brain doesn’t forget most of these things. A veteran will do lots of strange things, at least strange to other people, to keep these memories from coming out. These memories are worse than childhood nightmares because they really happened to you. You can’t just wake up and say that it was just a bad dream and not something that really happened. Facing those fears and memories years after they happened is more difficult than going back into combat for a lot of people.

I’m not sure if I answered your question very well. Maybe the only way I can describe what I still keep locked away in a part of my mind is something that goes way past being afraid. I feel that if I were to let it out all at once I would go completely crazy. People tell me that if I did let it out I wouldn’t go insane but I’m too afraid to take the chance. Many veterans choose never to talk about what happened to them in a war. Some like me can talk around the fear but never really face it.

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  • Re: scarey -- Jeff Northridge, Tue, May 10 2005, 8:39:56
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