tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3422383139355516259.post2374137438114429746..comments2024-03-10T03:36:06.267-07:00Comments on Is this the middle?: More to the story: Marines in conduct unbecomingAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01468655681800817415noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3422383139355516259.post-6773424431372642512012-01-20T09:15:47.880-08:002012-01-20T09:15:47.880-08:00This is such a powerful and necessary post. My fat...This is such a powerful and necessary post. My father served in Vietnam and I believe lived and, for the most part functioned well, with unacknowledged, untreated PTSD for decades after. It wasn't until recently, when he was his county's liaison for the VA and started fielding the stories of young soldiers from Iraq and Afghaninstan that he started getting in touch with his own buried emotions. We often think (if we think about it at all) that the toll of war is measured in fatalities or merely physical injuries, but it is not. It very much is not. And these broken men and women (and their families) need and deserve support on a magnitude much greater than they're ever likely to get from our government or, sadly, from our nation as a whole.Masked Momhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08197019009052401812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3422383139355516259.post-90119574659688482082012-01-18T17:13:27.964-08:002012-01-18T17:13:27.964-08:00Isn't it amazing what our fathers did? My dad ...Isn't it amazing what our fathers did? My dad was 19 as well when he joined the Marines. As he was being shipped out to the Pacific, his beloved mother died. He was sent home for the funeral, then sent to the battle of Iwo Jima where the death toll between both sides was in the tens of thousands.<br /><br />The corpsmen have my greatest respect, but how traumatic for a teenager to be ministering to dying Marines, his friends. <br /><br />The impacts of battle definitely continue down through the generations of a family. Thank you greatly for the comment.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01468655681800817415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3422383139355516259.post-81902110611140280352012-01-18T16:14:25.690-08:002012-01-18T16:14:25.690-08:00This is a powerful post, Melanie and I really appr...This is a powerful post, Melanie and I really appreciate it. My dad was a corpsman in the South Pacific in WW2. He was 19 (NINETEEN , for god's sake) when he first went in. He did all the boot camp stuff and then was put on a ship bound for unknown places. He was away from his family for TWO YEARS and in the service for at least three years. It was a fluke of some kind that he became a corpsman - not his choice - and it was a horrible job. He saw terrible things and more than once had to put the pieces of someone ho had become his friend into a body bag to be sent back stateside. He seldom talked about his war years and even more seldom talked about the tragedies he saw. I know that the images haunted him for the rest of his life. They affected him in so many ways and, by extension, there was an impact on his wife and children. He was a deeply compassionate man who had to live for 50 more years with the knowledge and terror of war. Thank you again for making the tragedy here so real. Powerful.Graciewildehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00142582724233027386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3422383139355516259.post-13447882147395635762012-01-18T06:45:30.374-08:002012-01-18T06:45:30.374-08:00Jane, Thank you. I'm not a violent person, but...Jane, Thank you. I'm not a violent person, but if I were in battle, how would I react? I'm not sure I would always be a credit to polite society. So appreciate your comment and the sharing.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01468655681800817415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3422383139355516259.post-83284123885954945942012-01-18T06:42:18.696-08:002012-01-18T06:42:18.696-08:00Mark, I was so hoping you would have a chance to r...Mark, I was so hoping you would have a chance to read this. Your comments mean more than you know, and I was thinking of you among our brothers and sisters who served in the military as I wrote. Thank you for your service to the country, and for stopping by to comment.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01468655681800817415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3422383139355516259.post-62324854216479947512012-01-18T00:47:54.009-08:002012-01-18T00:47:54.009-08:00Having just marked the fortieth anniversary of the...Having just marked the fortieth anniversary of the day I was inducted into the army, I can appreciate your words and your reaction to Barbara's presentation. The decade-long war that was futile from the outset, having seen how history singles out this nation for unresolvable conflicts, rages on, while I, personally, prepare to host a gathering for a televised sporting event. <br />Your words require that the reader pause, long enough to acknowledge that there are brothers and sisters who are sacrificing much, so that the rest of us can watch televised sporting events on TV. Thank you.Mark O'Neillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16295762252612104201noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3422383139355516259.post-64062920209575646252012-01-17T21:29:59.946-08:002012-01-17T21:29:59.946-08:00We, most of us, don't know. You're right. ...We, most of us, don't know. You're right. But I think I too may understand it. <br /><br />I'm going to share this.Just Janehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02861216483398553225noreply@blogger.com