Book Excerpt--Part 2
22: A Journey to the Edge of Darkness
Arlington National Cemetery, January 2014
The dreamscape shifted from white to a detailed picture. Then Jay realized where his father had taken him. The wide avenues, the close, regimented rows of headstones: Arlington National Cemetery.
“Let’s sit here a while,” said his father, and they eased onto a bench. Jay and his father looked across one row at a younger Jay seated in the dormant, brown winter grass on a cold, sunny day in front of Godwin’s grave.
Jay’s generation of war dead lay in an area of the cemetery called Section 60. Their contribution to the Nation’s tally of those who felt the Republic was worth defending so that others could protest their doing so. Jay knew so many friends there that he had to actually recount who they were as he found them in the rows of headstones. He knew people lived and died in war, and here it was starkly displayed. When Jay would visit them, he walked the silent rows, absorbing the sorrow that permeated the ground. He felt it in the air, even if it was peaceful.
Jay and his father watched Jay’s younger self visiting with Godwin’s. Jay talked to his dead friend. “I have to tell you that not one day goes by that I don’t think of you and everyone else.”
In the dreamscape, Jay turned to his dad. “There are times at night when I can see Burch calling out to me. The helpless feeling returns, that I can’t help him unless I prevent others from being hurt or killed. The choice was agonizing!”
Jay looked around Section 60. “I never told Erica about that day. I have survivor’s guilt. For Burch. For Avellino. For all the people I knew who are gone. Living is a gift, but it came with consequences.”
“No one blamed you for their deaths. IEDs are impersonal. It was just bad luck.” His father said, trying to provide perspective.
“Maybe not directly, but I felt it in their team mates when they looked at me. Those Marines were my responsibility. I let them down.” Jay sighed. They watched his younger self walk down the rows to another grave, followed by another.
“I suffer from my own PTS, dad.” Jay said, recalling two specific vignettes to his father.
“Once, I was walking in the parking lot of a store with my boys, teenagers who were growing older, but still hung out with me, and I heard a vehicle backfire. Startled, I dropped and sought cover behind a car, searching and assessing for threats. I realized that I was in a totally separate place as my children laughed at me.”
“’Crazy war vet! Watch out!’” They crooned. Jay feigned amusement, but it hurt. Those moments were when he needed them most. “Very few people understand what it is to hear a burst of gunfire behind you and the ensuing bullets whistling past your head and wonder why you weren’t hit.” Jay said to his dad. “I think about that. A lot.”
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Then Jay told of driving across France in 2008 at Godwin’s request to conduct the pilgrimage to Belleau Wood, a shrine to Marines, Special Operations or not. Godwin, a great traveling companion, joked that Jay could be an honorary Marine on this journey; the Navy being close cousins.
The weather was rainy and foggy and they raced through the countryside in a massive Mercedes Benz ‘E’ Class sedan. It was a lark of a trip and they obeyed no speed limits, often hurtling along at more than 120 miles an hour. However, they were unaware that in a few areas the speed limit was, in fact, not unlimited, and they blew through the slowdowns past speed-activated cameras.
The camera flashes gave them pause, almost a shock, because they resembled the perfectly round signature of an RPG when it was fired and you were on the receiving end. By the time you saw it the missile was half way to you if you were lucky. They were indeed lucky, and now laughed nervously, wincing at their picture being taken to be summoned with a ticket they would never pay.
Belleau Wood was nearly closed when they arrived in an icy rain, but because of the virtue that Godwin was a Marine they were allowed to enter.
“Take as much time as you want,” the young caretaker told them, entrusting them with the keys to visit the sepulcher font that is Devil Dog Fountain. They drank from that fountain. According to legend, Marines who do serve in the Corps for 20 years. Godwin and Jay each served 21.
The simple beauty of the cemetery at the battlefield was impressive. Immaculate, emerald grass, the marble tombstones so neatly arranged, like all war monuments in Europe. They walked the ground, into the wood itself and to the edge of the Wheatfield. So many Marines had been killed in it that the wheat was colored red at the end of the assault. Those Marines fought in a wool jacket and a small metal helmet. That’s it. No body armor, no ballistic protection. Jay and Godwin both were respectfully impressed at the unreal the courage it took to carry out something like that.
They visited the cemetery chapel and offered a silent prayer to whatever force each believed in for karmic alignment. Jay looked at the names of 1500 missing Marines and Sailors inscribed on the walls and felt an incredible sadness. At least in the case of Burch and Avellino, their families got some closure.
As he came to know more of the dead, Jay wondered why it wasn’t easier to deal with each loss. Seven killed in a helicopter crash. Thirty-one in an aircraft shoot down. Singles, pairs, God took his harvest by way of Death on his errand to collect the souls who couldn’t be forgiven. It was an awful toll, and anymore, for what? Some hill; a terrible person who needed killed; a kidnapper who terrorized people in a nameless hamlet in a shit-stain of a country. On it went. All it really meant is that they were dead.
Jay reflected on their lives since most Americans didn’t acknowledge who these dead were anymore, and, based upon online commentary, they didn’t care. Jay was astounded by people in his own country who considered those who served saps, duped into jingoistic service. These people had a rosy view of the world where the next solution was an app on their phone. When the last plane left Afghanistan in August 2021, Jay’s own people—his fellow Americans—forgot them in an instant.
