The Beast by Mike Peters                                                                           Bookmark and Share

 


           It’s August 1974, and we’re walking through a large open field of deep grass that is being utilized as a parking lot for the Canfield fair in Youngstown, Ohio. There are quite a number of people heading toward the fairgrounds. Not too far in front of us, some kids set off some firecrackers, and the smell of gun powder permeates the air. The grass is thick, long and somewhat moist from a thunderstorm that had passed through the area in the early morning hours.


           With each step, the grass rolls over my shoes and rustles beneath my feet, a hauntingly familiar sound that begins to trigger something in my psyche. The odor emanating from the combination of wet earth, grass, and gun powder further stirs my senses and heightens the angst I am now feeling.


           I have been here before, not here, not Youngstown, but on this walk and I desperately want to be away from it. To be as far away from this field and this smell as I can get! But I cannot leave, not without having my fiancé and my friends think I’m crazy. So I continue on, and once inside the fairgrounds, the feeling subsides. I realize what it is and try to shrug it off. Telling myself that perhaps it was something I ate for breakfast and had a reaction to.


           But deep down I knew it wasn’t. It was back. That same feeling I experienced every day some five years prior in the jungles of Viet Nam. It was supposed to stay there, in those jungles, in that horrid war-torn country. Everything after that year of hell was supposed to be gravy. That’s what the lieutenant said one day as we waited on the choppers to pick us up for what was to be a long and dangerous mission. All gravy! Now it was back. The beast was back. In reflection, I now knew what had roused my father from sleep those years I was growing up. He was an infantryman with the 26th Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.


           The beast, as it were, was not a physical being. Not something that posed a certified threat to my existence. Nor something I could pick up arms, battle and claim victory over. No, rather, it was scarier than that. The beast, this beast, was nestled somewhere deep in my soul, in my very being. It had found a hollow spot there and had been asleep for those five years and now because of the musky smell emanating from that moist field, it had awakened.


           As death had traveled with me that long year in Viet Nam, ever present, ever looming, as if to say, “I’m always here, one wrong mistake or one stroke of bad luck and you’re mine“, the beast was now my companion. But unlike death, the beast didn’t want my life; it just was there to inhabit part of it with other memories, both good and bad, that had set in long before its arrival. It wanted and demanded, no matter how unwelcome, its rightful place in my soul.


           The beast, of course, is the affliction which medical science has dubbed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD for short. A rather sterile clinical all encompassing term for people, most notably combat veterans, who have experienced a threat of serious injury or death. Those two terms, serious injury or death, are the deciding factors in determining whether a person has the condition or not. The problem is the condition is seeded much deeper than that.


           War embraces the ultimate conflict in men’s souls. Good versus evil, right versus wrong. All values, morals and civilities learned as a child become discordant when one is handed a rifle and taught to, “Kill or be killed.” Most will find it difficult to do the former; some will do anything to avoid the latter. All will carry the experience with them for the remainder of their lives.


           Any veteran who has been in battle and war for any period of time, will tell you there aren’t many days that pass by that they don’t think about it. For most, it is at the very least, a life changing experience. For many, it is the measuring stick by which all further endeavors thereafter will be compared.


           It is also, unfortunately, the reason many men struggle upon their return home to a supposed life of peace. A lot of men cannot find that peace they were promised on their return home from war. For the battles are still being waged deep in their psyches and souls. Maybe not every day or all the time, but certainly quite often enough!


           It might be something as simple as that smell in those fields that I experienced those five years earlier. It may appear as a result of a loud noise, a traumatic experience, a written word, or even the lyrics of a song. It may come shortly after one gets home or, as in the case of my good friend Jack, many years later. He was a medic with the 96th Infantry Division in World War II and was wounded on the island of Leyte in the Philippines, saving another man’s life. The Beast would not visit him until some fifty years later in the form of ghastly night terrors, which would haunt him, on and off, for the final ten years of his life. Any of these things and many more could be the trigger that puts a veteran right back where he was , in the theater of war.

We as a group know this only too well. The lucky of us may never have a problem with it. Many of us will find a way to deal with it. “And This Too, Shall Pass”, and so it does, but it will be back. And we will deal with it again. The unlucky of us cannot put those horrors of war behind. For them, they are always in battle. It doesn’t “Pass” and ultimately takes their sanity or even worse, their lives. A lot of veterans will deal with The Beast sooner or later. It’s how well they deal with it that ultimately matters.


           The human body is an amazing thing. Its ability, with the help of modern medicine, except in the case of debilitating injuries, to heal and mend itself is truly miraculous. The mind, on the other hand, when subjected to a harrowing experience, such as war, must deal with the after effects for many years to come. People don’t just come back from wars and go on with their lives like nothing happened. There will always be lingering effects.


           What most people don’t understand and what the combat veteran inherently understands , is that war is not just about battle or firefights. Firefights, when they happen, often come as a relief from the anticipation of awaiting them. Your instinct and training take over as soon as the first shot is fired, and you react accordingly.


            Rather, it is about the very existence that one leads in a war. It’s about not bathing for perhaps weeks at a time. Not brushing one’s teeth, for fear there will be no water to drink. It’s about eating all of your meals out of a can and losing weight accordingly. It’s about drudgery, toil, long arduous days with very little sleep, and the sleep you do get is restless for you are ever vigilant of your situation and surroundings.It’s about clothes that rot off of you, eaten away by your own sweat, bodily excretions and dirt. It’s about the sores that amass on your feet because of no change of socks. It’s about a horrid existence that the average man or woman would never want to be subjected to in their life. And it’s about death, living with it day in and day out. Never knowing when or if it will happen.


           In war, death takes form. A shroud that is always there, traveling with you every day, along with all of your comrades in arms. He may not take you, but sooner or later, he’s going to take somebody or a lot of somebody’s around you. He doesn’t discriminate; he knows no color, no gender, no religion, no social standing, no rank. It’s just his job, and he does it very well. And if you’re lucky enough and skillful enough to leave, go home and escape his grasp, at times it seems he is still there whispering in your ear, “Sooner or later my friend, we will meet again, and then you will go with me and rejoin your friends.”


           The Beast is just his messenger, a reminder of his presence, in war and in peace.


            These things and many more make up this complex syndrome known as PTSD.Modern medicine has not eradicated it. No amount of medication or treatment will erase its effects forever. But we should spare no cost in our efforts to help those who have paid such a dear price to keep us free.


           Someone once wrote, “For those who have fought for it, life has a flavor the protected will never know.” Very profound, however, he should have added, “But that flavor has a price, and sometimes that price is very steep!”


           Our government and we as a nation cannot do enough to support our troops who are fighting the wars in which we are currently engaged. We must not falter nor spare any cost in our attempt to help them upon their return home. To help heal the scars, both physical and psychological, which many will carry with them for years to come. They and all veterans who served before them. Anything less would be a travesty. It doesn’t end on their return home. Life just doesn’t go on; it changes forever.