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The Death Of Decency

Having survived two tours of duty in Iraq, and having been involved in some of the fiercest fire fights in Fallujah, the marine whom I met about three years ago in a bar in New Hampshire, returned home missing not just the lower portion of both of his legs, but according to everyone who knew him, he returned missing a piece of his soul.

I met this man quite by accident in a small bar in Dec. of 2004 because I happened to be in the same little hole in the wall as he just before he was going to be shipped overseas. He was smartly dressed in fatigues, neatly pressed, and had that military way of speaking when addressed, with the annoying habit of answering every question with "Yes Sir!"

Trying to decipher as to the reason why someone so young would want to run off to fight in what I felt even then was a false war, his reply was the usual standard one for those who have been indoctrinated into the faith. That it wasn't his place to question the legalities of a given conflict, it was only his job to go and protect America. I wrote a piece about our conversation back then, and how we promised to keep in touch, so I would know that he'd made it back alive.

Before he actually left, he actually took me to his mother's house, who promised to make sure that I knew of his home coming, so we would have the chance to meet up again. And meet up again we did.

When this honorable man got back from Iraq, he was missing a third of his left leg, and three quarters of his right. Not given much over to complaining, it was sad to see the eyes that had been so sure and so strong just the year before, now having that glazed over and hollow look of those who are haunted by visions of death and destruction often reveal.

Starting out in a wheelchair, he waited patiently for it to be his turn to be fitted for prosthetic devices, but as time wore on, and the waiting list for him to be flown to Walter Reed became longer, he sort of resigned himself to the fact that he'd be sitting in that chair for awhile, or using the crutches so generously offered by the VA in New Hampshire.

During the time that he waited, he lost the love of his life, which often happens in these types of situations, along with his ability to keep an apartment, and so he moved back in with his mother.

I still remember the last time that I saw him, because it was snowing and he wanted to go to the bar where we met, but it was snowing so hard that he couldn't push his wheelchair through he building drifts,

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