Sunday, January 29, 2006

Trip to the VA

Here I sit, knowing that I need to get to sleep, so I can wake early and hit the road to hotlanta in the morning. Have to try and beat that awful traffic. I hate lots of traffic like I hate being in large crowds of people anywhere.
Alone in the truck, I realize that I'm pretty lucky not to have to make that insane trip more than 2 or 3 times a month. I try to leave early enough to miss the worst of the rush hour traffic.
I watch the people filing in and out of the VA. Most looking quite whole and sane. Many Dr.s and other personal that work there. Many old and sickly looking. WWII vets, Korean war Vets,
Many Vietnam vets, now lots of Gulf war and Gulf war II vets.
One thing I can say is I have a lot better opinion of the VA now. I've received nothing but kindness and respect from the people who work there. I know that I probably wouldn't be here if not for the concern of a staffer who answered the phone a year and a half ago. I wonder if I'm using up resources that would be better spent on someone else, like the SSG I met a few months ago who had run over an IUD in Iraq. Had his right arm out the window of a 5 ton truck when the device went off on the right side. Numerous operations, numerous opinions that the arm would have to come off. There he is every week working on physical therepy to inprove the function of his saved arm. No complaints, Just thankful to be alive and back with his family.
Many young and not so young troops over there in harms way, doing things we can hardly imagine. All volunteers, keeping the fight there rather than here. Are they heros? Of course many are. We should support and be proud of all of them.

Someone once said, "Peaceable men sleep peacefully in their beds at nights because rough men stand ready to do violence in their behalf".

My friend B. King said "the difficulty is coming to the realization that we're killers".

I think the difficulty is knowing that we have the capacity and the ability, and training, but restraining the beast within is what both tears us apart and makes us heros.

Therein lies the fertile field for the Kudzu that grows within.

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