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Authors: David J. Morris
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here. I donât know if youâve noticed, but none of us wants to be here in this bullshit. You think Iâm here because I love America? Dude, I joined the army âcause Iâm poor. I joined the army âcause I had nowhere else to go.â
I started to answer him but gave up. What could I say? The blast had shaken me enough that I could barely think straight, let alone argue coherently, and what really was the point in trying to argue with a Humvee full of deaf soldiers? And besides, he had a point, and even though it wouldnât sink in for years, I didnât have any words for him. Turning away, I looked out the window and watched the hot city stutter past. Reaper had been wounded three times before and had handled it with equanimity, or so I had been told by his buddies, but there was something about my presence in Saydia, on this particular patrol, that seemed to have pushed him over the edge, as if the IED had shaken loose some secret doubts within him, as if he couldnât fathom what sort of person had so little use for his life that he would voluntarily go to a place like Baghdad in the middle of a war.
Later, I would realize that Reaper had been on to something, that this was exactly what it was all about, this and several other things. I was here to cover the war, it was understood, but why was it understood? The war had granted Reaper a certain measure of early wisdom, this much I had seen prior to the explosion. Now, shaken by this fourth near-death, he had aimed some of this wisdom back at me, and it hurt, though it took a long time to understand why. Maybe he wouldnât have said anything under normal circumstances, maybe he shouldnât have. The IED had stolen so many things, including his restraint. Or perhaps this was a gift, really, the gift of candor, the bombâs final miracle.
When, after what seemed like hours, we made it back inside the wire, I looked up and saw the sign again. EVERYDAY IS DAY ONE . I looked away as quickly as I could. One part of the war was over, another just beginning.
Thirty minutes later, I was back at FOB Falcon, in an air-conditioned surgical clinic, having my head examined. A week after that, I was back in California.
2
IN TERRORâS SHADOW
W E ARE BORN in debt, owing the world a death. This is the shadow that darkens every cradle. Trauma is what happens when you catch a surprise glimpse of that darkness, the coming annihilation not only of the body and the mind but also, seemingly, of the world. Trauma is the savagery of the universe made manifest within us, and it destroys not only the integrity of consciousness, the myth of self-mastery, and the experience of time but also our ability to live peacefully with others, almost as if it were a virus, a pathogen content to do nothing besides replicate itself in the world, over and over, until only it remains. Trauma is the glimpse of truth that tells us a lie: the lie that love is impossible, that peace is an illusion. Therapy and medication can ease the pain but neither can suck the venom from the blood, make the survivor unsee the darkness and unknow the secret that lies beneath the surface of life. Despite the quixotic claims of modern neuroscience, there is no cure for trauma. Once it enters the body, it stays there forever, initiating a complex chemical chain of events that changes not only the physiology of the victims but also the physiology of their offspring.One cannot, as war correspondent Michael Herr testifies in
Dispatches
, simply ârun the film backwards out of consciousness.âTrauma is our special legacy as sentient beings, creatures burdened with the knowledge of our own impermanence; our symbolic experience with it is one of the things that separates us from the animal kingdom. As long as we exist, the universe will be scheming to wipe us out. The best we can do is work to contain the pain, draw a line around it, name it, domesticate it, and try to transform what
I started to answer him but gave up. What could I say? The blast had shaken me enough that I could barely think straight, let alone argue coherently, and what really was the point in trying to argue with a Humvee full of deaf soldiers? And besides, he had a point, and even though it wouldnât sink in for years, I didnât have any words for him. Turning away, I looked out the window and watched the hot city stutter past. Reaper had been wounded three times before and had handled it with equanimity, or so I had been told by his buddies, but there was something about my presence in Saydia, on this particular patrol, that seemed to have pushed him over the edge, as if the IED had shaken loose some secret doubts within him, as if he couldnât fathom what sort of person had so little use for his life that he would voluntarily go to a place like Baghdad in the middle of a war.
Later, I would realize that Reaper had been on to something, that this was exactly what it was all about, this and several other things. I was here to cover the war, it was understood, but why was it understood? The war had granted Reaper a certain measure of early wisdom, this much I had seen prior to the explosion. Now, shaken by this fourth near-death, he had aimed some of this wisdom back at me, and it hurt, though it took a long time to understand why. Maybe he wouldnât have said anything under normal circumstances, maybe he shouldnât have. The IED had stolen so many things, including his restraint. Or perhaps this was a gift, really, the gift of candor, the bombâs final miracle.
When, after what seemed like hours, we made it back inside the wire, I looked up and saw the sign again. EVERYDAY IS DAY ONE . I looked away as quickly as I could. One part of the war was over, another just beginning.
Thirty minutes later, I was back at FOB Falcon, in an air-conditioned surgical clinic, having my head examined. A week after that, I was back in California.
2
IN TERRORâS SHADOW
W E ARE BORN in debt, owing the world a death. This is the shadow that darkens every cradle. Trauma is what happens when you catch a surprise glimpse of that darkness, the coming annihilation not only of the body and the mind but also, seemingly, of the world. Trauma is the savagery of the universe made manifest within us, and it destroys not only the integrity of consciousness, the myth of self-mastery, and the experience of time but also our ability to live peacefully with others, almost as if it were a virus, a pathogen content to do nothing besides replicate itself in the world, over and over, until only it remains. Trauma is the glimpse of truth that tells us a lie: the lie that love is impossible, that peace is an illusion. Therapy and medication can ease the pain but neither can suck the venom from the blood, make the survivor unsee the darkness and unknow the secret that lies beneath the surface of life. Despite the quixotic claims of modern neuroscience, there is no cure for trauma. Once it enters the body, it stays there forever, initiating a complex chemical chain of events that changes not only the physiology of the victims but also the physiology of their offspring.One cannot, as war correspondent Michael Herr testifies in
Dispatches
, simply ârun the film backwards out of consciousness.âTrauma is our special legacy as sentient beings, creatures burdened with the knowledge of our own impermanence; our symbolic experience with it is one of the things that separates us from the animal kingdom. As long as we exist, the universe will be scheming to wipe us out. The best we can do is work to contain the pain, draw a line around it, name it, domesticate it, and try to transform what
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