Been Through Hell
Henry here. As the old WWII vet began to talk on the TV about the landing on D-day and the loss of his comrades, he began to cry. Over and over I have seen similar incidents of soldiers who are overcome with emotion when they let their feelings emerge about the war.
As I watched the Memorial Day service on TV and the camera panned along the vet’s faces they were a study in profound thoughtfulness and memories. In the background, I could hear the sergeants barking orders. They didn’t seem to notice. I remember in cadets I hardly ever knew what order the sergeant was barking. I just carried on and did what I was trained to do.
I wondered how much they were taken back to the practice fields where they marched, counter-marched, dressed their ranks and did rifle drill. What was missing was the buddy that used to march beside them. Such memories last a lifetime and never leave a person. The landing at D-day and all the other critical moments are defining moments in these soldiers’ lives. Everything else is measured by them. Some of the rest of us have similar moments.
I remember one day in the medical complex, where I was the director of Pastoral Care, I was going from the psychiatric hospital to the veteran’s hospital. As I got off the elevator two nurses were taking a vet on a stretcher to another part of the hospital. As we stood together I looked at the vet. He had once been a big man. He looked to be as old as time, with those sunken eyes, paper thin skin and shrunken body. He looked like his life was largely over and his connection to this world almost gone. That is how the nurses seemed to be seeing him. Seeing my look he raised himself with considerable effort on one elbow, obviously intending to talk. What could he possibly want to say to me, a stranger? With some effort he croaked to me: “I was at Passchendaele.” Then he lay back on the stretcher.
I happened to know that a half a million Allied troops were lost in that WWI battle and more than have as many Germans. I replied, “Then you have been to Hell, Sir.” He lay back, seemingly content that we had connected.