Death Wears Duckie Pajamas - bulletsponge accountabilibuddy thread!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > Death Wears Duckie Pajamas - bulletsponge accountabilibuddy thread!

Fearless: Sep 3, 2003; DRINK MORE MOXIE

That first piece feels like a foreword for a really good book.

# ¿ May 15, 2022 08:42

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# ¿ Sep 19, 2024 15:45

Fearless: Sep 3, 2003; DRINK MORE MOXIE

bulletsponge13 posted:

I don't know how to translate that absolute absurdity of watching Paratroopers try to corral that Tasmanian devil girl. It was actually really funny to watch.

I think you nailed it. A significant chunk of my civilian career was spent working with at-risk youth and I've seen rather similar situations.

# ¿ May 24, 2022 07:30

Fearless: Sep 3, 2003; DRINK MORE MOXIE

SerthVarnee posted:

Tolkien also survived a series of brutal battles that wiped out most of his unit. He survived because he was part of the designated survivors, the ones who were kept safe to keep a core of experienced regulars around to indoctrinate the fresh reinforcements. The rest of the unit was slaughtered in a day. I Think that happened two or three times during the Somme.

It happened quite a bit more than two or three times on the Somme.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2022 02:35

Fearless: Sep 3, 2003; DRINK MORE MOXIE

If you're concerned that talking honestly about your experiences and their impact are an indicator you are a narcissist, you needn't worry because a narcissist wouldn't be bothered in the first place.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2022 17:07

Fearless: Sep 3, 2003; DRINK MORE MOXIE

bulletsponge13 posted:

I actually asked my therapist a question for next session. I don't seem to be able to relate to other combat Vets often. It seems like our individual burdens and traumas are unrelatable, and I don't understand it. It feels like I'm the only G.I.Joe figure with broken thumbs when everyone else has a crotch broke. We're broken, but from different things. Like the experiences I have are removed from others. I'm explaining it poorly, I know. Another poor description- the war was something that happened TO them; it wasn't something that happened WITH them.

Anyway, love you guys.

A couple of things are extremely common after a traumatic event: people often clam up and struggle to talk about what has happened or more importantly what they are experiencing and this itself is often motivated by a deep sense of "nobody could possibly understand the enormity of what I am feeling." I have heard variations on this theme from more kids, soldiers, first responders and adults than I can count and, frankly, it's something I have felt myself after it was my turn in the barrel. It creates this sense of always sticking out, always being different or like you're half a pace out of sync with the rest of society. There is some truth to it in that two people can go through the exact same event, and yet experience that event and its aftermath in two radically different ways-- we are all individuals after all. You've pointed out different times that your upbringing made you go to war in a lot of ways long before you ever joined the army and I can see how that kind of experience could give you certain survival skills that served to change the way you experienced and were impacted by a lot of the terrible things that you encountered. I think it also makes a strong case for considering what happened to you as an example of complex trauma, in that you've been subjected to enough deeply disturbing events that it's not really possible to point at one single thing and say "that right there is what really did the damage" because the injuries had been occurring in one form or another since you were a child and this continued into adulthood.

What you are saying isn't really weird to me, I have heard things like this before and I say this in no way to invalidate the nature of your experiences or how they have hurt you. I think it is also really unfair to define a person in terms of what has happened or been done to them-- so for this reason what makes you remarkable is the deep introspection I've been able to continually observe from what you have shared here and elsewhere. Complex trauma is a real bastard to deal with because of its intricate nature and origins, so being able to confront your past and present as you have is a hell of an accomplishment.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2022 23:59

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# ¿ Sep 19, 2024 15:45

Fearless: Sep 3, 2003; DRINK MORE MOXIE

bulletsponge13 posted:

Thank you, for the comments and insight.

I realized I phrased it poorly. It just feels like the moral injuries we suffer come from such vastly different places. What I'm about to say is crass, over simplified, and stupid- I just don't understand where their hurt comes from, because it's from a totally different locale than mine. I just can't relate to the guy who thought he was gonna die once, because that is only scary if you want to live; just like they can't grasp why a single dead body that I had no responsibility for fucks me up for days. We have different starting points and different values.
Ignoring the fact that enlistment was my slow motion suicide attempt, I viewed my service as something akin to a calling. It wasn't a job where you punch out and go home- I feel and still feel that if you are going to go to war, it should consume you, because those people don't get to punch out. It just feels like for many, they went for them, that their experiences were the only ones that happened and mattered. They weren't players on the stage, they were monologuing before the group musical number; to continue the dumb analogy, I was in the Greek Chorus, faceless in the light. Maybe it feels like I'm not the star in my own trauma, and that is why I don't get it, or that since I had little regard for life or limb, the idea of facing my own mortality and having it scream from the darkness is childish and alien. Related- there is a look I get from friends after I share a bit that says, "OK, maybe YOU need to hear the replay on that one. That's ungood." I got it from my wife, when during a party, I said something to the effect of "Almost dying is only scary the first 2 or 3 times. After that, it's annoying."
I don't know how to explain it- I don't feel like utterly despondent or lost. I know I am not the only one to feel like this. I know I'm not alone; it just feels like someone has the focus wrong. Either me or them, I don't know. I think it's mental starting point- I was a dumb, fatalistic idealist looking for a meaningful death. Most signed up to kill AQ and college money. Not saying their motives weren't pure, or that mine were all above board (if I didn't buy the farm, I wanted to buy a farm plot), but different mindsets. For me, the war was a way out, one way or another, but I just wanted to do good by others. In short- theirs is about them; I feel like mine are often about others.

I also bare in mind I had a very unique war experience, one that in itself is hard to relate to if you weren't there. I've met few troopers who got the opportunity to be close to the locals. I got very lucky.

I think I got it accidentally right when I said "Too smart for the Infantry, too sensitive for war"

I don't think you phrased anything poorly at all-- any disconnect here, if indeed there is one, is entirely on my end. That said, I recognize that another person saying you're not weird might not be something a person can take on or truly feel. With that said, is one of the really unsettling things you had to confront a sense of profound individual insignificance? I get a real sense here that the individual danger isn't automatically something that registers for you personally but the terrible things that happened to others is another thing entirely. I remember you saying "too smart for the infantry, too sensitive for war" before and I think that is very accurate in a lot of ways because there is a very strong sense of empathy that can be observed in your writing-- an impartiality born of an ability to look at the world through the eyes of another person. This might offer some insight into how seeing others harmed, or seeing how immense structural forces grind up individuals consumes them, affects you so deeply.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2022 01:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > Death Wears Duckie Pajamas - bulletsponge accountabilibuddy thread!