We positioned the floral arrangement at the footstone placed by the local veterans group, put there in memory of my father’s honorable service in World War II.
He, like many thousands of other men and women, returned to his home forever changed, but never ever talked about the experience of war.
Today we understand the importance of being forthcoming with experiences that scar us. Talk therapy along with hundreds of medications are available to help us deal with bad memories, bad days, physical and mental problems, and the necessity of working through problems in order to be free.
But in the 1940s, treatment of mental health problems was in its infancy. And if you were or had been a soldier, you were expected to simply carry on, forget the past, and be productive. Needless to say, while many soldiers did just that, many more suffered for decades.
I recently viewed a POV StoryCorps Short production on PBS. The story was titled Germans in the Woods. It is a confessional piece told by Joseph Robertson, an elderly former serviceman. He was an infantryman in the U.S. Army. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge. His story is heartbreaking, not only for the harsh reality of what it means to kill another human being, but also for the decades long suffering of the victor, Robertson.
Robertson told the story of the cold winter’s night, in the heart of some dark forest far from home in the unforgiving reality of war, when he took the life of a young German soldier. In that split second after the brain sent the signal to the hand to pull the trigger, both young men’s lives would change – one would end, and the other would never be the same. Robertson’s life had changed forever in an instant. The mortally wounded German would not have to try to come to terms with war, but Robinson – he has never stopped trying. Never stopped crying.
Robertson still remembers the vivid scene: the German’s body, blood soaking into the snow and the surreal angelic appearance of “a kid.” That kid has never left Robertson. He says in the film that the dead solider has haunted him ever since. “I wake up crying at night, and I see his sweet face.”
Robertson was in his nineties when he shared his story with the producers of StoryCorps. I wept for him. He had never told his story to anyone, never told of the pain he carried all these decades. Robinson said, “he was like an angel … so young, so beautiful,” a face he would live with the rest of his life and the reliving of killing a kid.
There is a man I know. Richard Pasillas, Sergeant, Screaming Eagles, 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army. Pasillas was the sole survivor of his all-Latino unit. Today, more than three decades after his service, he is being treated from PTSD.
In 1977 when I knew him, he was simply trying to get on with living. One day, Pasillas said to me, “I don’t know why I’m alive and the others are all dead. Why?” He has struggled ever since he witnessed the demise of his entire unit, but when he first returned home, he went about the business of resuming a civilian life. “We didn’t talk back then,” he recently told me.
We never knew that my father was a Bronze Star recipient. Not until his death. He never talked about his war experiences, not once. He was just ‘one of the boys’ doing his duty and then returning home to pick up where life had been prior to war.
As Thanksgiving draws near, I wish I could hold my father’s hand and once again hear his voice and maybe ask him, “Dad, how did you do it?” How did he come home and simply get on with it? How does a person find the strength to carry on?
If you have people in your family who have served in the military and are with you as you gather around holiday tables, perhaps it’s time to ask them to share their stories. Maybe they are just waiting for you to ask. They are all heroes.
Please tell the people you know whose selflessness included putting their lives on the line for what they believed in – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – tell them “thank you” and let their silent voices be heard before the silence is eternal.
By Marilou Newell
