On a Friday night, my roommates and I went out for a few drinks at a local bar to celebrate my roommate's birthday. I wanted to reminisce, play a few games of corn hole, talk about good times, and have a beer or two- the usual birthday stuff. As guys do, we started talking to other guys there striking up casual friendships over a round of bottles on a bar patio.
We met a guy who was a little older than us, and the conversation started off with introductions and then moved to the beers we liked, the scores of college football games, and how our fantasy football teams were looking this upcoming season. The conversation shifted to a more personal subject manner, and when it did I stopped talking and actually started listening.
This guy that we met is a Marine, and he was deployed three times. Three times he took a very long trip to a place where it was understood that he would be try to kill people who were trying to kill him. We in America know what war is, at least we are familiar with the concept, but how many times do we sit across the table from a person that who saw people die for him. How often do we really listen to the true stories of twenty-year olds who take rides in the desert leaning against cartons of live grenades? This man was just a guy we met a bar that we started talking to, but we had no idea that about a year ago he would go to sleep in a tent praying himself to sleep just hoping that he didn't die that night.
I have never been to war, so it is very easy for me to complain about things like a botched relationship, or the constant struggle with student debt. I am not saying that I always support war, but I definitely think I should be aware of it more than I am. This man we talked seemed well adjusted and ready to just hang out at a bar, and have casual conversation with some strangers over a beer. He seemed just like me and friends, just a college kid looking for a chill night in the late summer, but this guy who could have had the exact same experience as I had, did not.
This guy at the bar still wakes up in the morning and reaches for his gun, but that is what you do when you are in the desert surrounded by people who will not hesitate to kill you. This guy was not covered in tattoos he did not look like a man was bitter and hardened from the savage acts that are lodged in his memory to painful to speak of. This guy is now a college student, just a guy who went through hell, and is now back trying to appear normal, normal like my friends and I, I guess. Just because he went through hell does not mean he doesn't carry a little bit of hell along with him, while he is amongst us living here on earth.
