Your Dying Spouse 145 - Untied Soul {FMF}

Time for another Five Minute Friday, the weekly keyword-themed writing challenge hosted by Kate Motaung.

The word this week is...actually, I have no idea what it will be, because it's Tuesday, and I am hoping to have something even remotely ready to post on Friday. (And see below for an update on when this thing was finalized.)

(OK, Thursday night, and the word is UNTIE.)

Lost a lot of ground in the past few days. If you left a comment last time and did not see a timely reply...that's why.

I'm sorry.

Anyway, here goes. (And before we do, the original version had a lot of really bad language. I excised that.)

This post was supposed to be elegiac. Something peaceful, yet moving. That's what was written over Tuesday and Wednesday. Maybe I should have left it, but today a news item came over the Internet, and the red mist came down.

And my soul was untied all over again.

And I should lead off with a disclaimer. I have nothing to do with the VA. I worked as a contractor. A mercenary. Big boys' rules. I've stood knee-deep in a mass grave; and hell itself caught up with those responsible. That was a good day.

I occasionally follow Fox News, and a story they posted has me enraged at the idiots who claim to 'understand' how do deal with PTSD.

The academics are saying that the use of service dogs, trained to scan a room and 'block', and provide a veteran with support, may actually be reinforcing PTSD, and not providing 'healing'.

A quote -

"Critics of the study object most strongly to the tasks the VA is requiring of the dogs — sweeping the perimeter of a room before a veteran enters, for example, or protecting the veteran by "blocking."

"Isn't that saying that al-Qaida could be behind the shower curtain? That's supporting paranoid, pathological thinking," said Meg Daley Olmert, author of a book on how contact with a dog can create a sense of well-being."

Paranoid? When were you in your last gunfight, Meg? When did you have to last clear a room not knowing if a true-life demon was about to pop out of a closet...and kill you?

You throw around words like 'paranoid' and 'pathological', you better have walked where the real people walked. Otherwise you're irrelevant.

And yes, Al-Qaida does hide behind shower curtains. They also hide behind crowds of kids. They're called 'human shields'.

Ever seen kids die? Sorry, not die. That's too nice.

Have you ever seen kids been killed by people who were making a political point?

No?

Any other questions? Great. Go back to your latte.

A bit more -

Four years in, that research has been plagued by problems. Only about 50 dogs have been placed with veterans, and critics question whether the protocol itself is flawed — with the dogs being trained to do things that could reinforce fears. Others worry the animals could become a substitute for the hard work that comes with therapy.

"You will have the veterans go to more places with the dogs and do more things than they would otherwise do. But they are reliant on the dog, not on their knowledge of ... whether really they are afraid of a ghost," said Dr. Edna Foa, director of the Center for Treatment and Study of Anxiety at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

I love this. I mean., absolutely LOVE it.

"...a substitute for the hard work that comes with therapy..."

I guess that seeing your friends, people to whom you would literally trust your life, blown into lumps of muscle and intestine by an IED or mortar makes you lazy. Gotta work harder at the therapy to overcome that, lazy-bones!

And, ohhh, Dr. Edna...I'm afraid of ghosts!

I guess the situational awareness I developed, at a cost, is useless in our lovely peaceful Kum-Ba-Yah country. We're all pals here, so I suppose that when I feel a threat...I'm just afraid of the bogeyman.

Thanks. Doc, for trivializing my life. I guess I don't qualify for entry into the hallowed halls of academia after all. Guess I'm just the man on the margins, who doesn't really understand the real meaning of The Modern World.

You went to the mall, Doc. I went to Hell.

Let's get real. There are very few people alive who can understand where I have been, and what I've seen., because almost no one else has been there. You can see Saving Private Ryan all you want. It doesn't make you a veteran of Omaha Beach.

I have the mass grave dream every night, and I can still smell it.

Therapy will not make this go away. A group hug will not soften the ache, and not even the fragrance of Jesus - and I am a devout Christian - will overcome the smell. Not in this life.

My service dogs, Ladron and Sylvia, are my lifeline. The are the reason I did not eat a bullet a long time ago.

They get it.

They understand that my scars are what I am; and that the anger inside is my wellspring of life.

THEY KEEP MY WORLD SAFE.

They bind back up what has been untied, to hold it together.

You don't 'recover' from those memories. You don't transition back into the world of The Voice and Empire and Joel Osteen. and "Let's eat out tonight!" You just don't.

What you do, with combat trauma, is to live a world that keeps the faith. You live a world that recognizes that the bell is going to ring again.

And you're going to go back out, somehow, because that is what you do.

PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEFULLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF.

George Orwell said that, a long time ago.

I will kill for you, and I will die for you. I can barely move, but I can still pull a trigger, and still have a Bowie knife. Detcord and claymores are my friends.

All I ask is that you respect the cost to me.

I don't do this for fun, and the money was nothing.

I do this for you.

Because I love you all, more than my own life.

In the end, dear readers, the only this is the only thing that makes living worthwhile.

I give a damn, and still have something that's worth dying for.

So, some music...Buffalo Springfield has been on my mind...for what it's worth.

f you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

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