Alone.
Alienated.
Abandoned.
Your eyes scan the battlefield.
The sun ricochets off the sand,
blinding you,
forcing you to look away.
The air hangs heavy,
pulling your shoulders down.
The smell burns itself into your memory.
You'll never forget.
Then there are the sounds--
men screaming out in pain and fear.
But what you hear doesn't register,
It's like a foreign language.
Then you find yourself standing outside yourself.
Death hangs over you.
It surrounds you.
Faster than an Olympic sprinter, your heart feels
as if it's going to punch out of your chest,
and just when it becomes too much,
you wake up only to realize
you've already lived this before.
You don't know it when it's happening to you,
but you'll never be the same.
This war is your war, and it has forever changed you.
We don't realize how much our lives change and form every day.
Experiences like these
are constantly shaping and guiding our lives,
ultimately determining who we are in the end.
We can't choose what we will experience in our lives,
but we can determine how we face it and interpret it.
I'm a veteran, and my experiences
have forever changed who I am and how I see the world.
To this day,
one dream returns to me.
It has changed me, rocking me to my very core.
It is midday in a strange land,
and the sun just pulls the sweat out of my body.
I'm standing in what used to be a village.
It might have been there for hundreds of years,
but today it lies in ruins.
It's filled with a thick miasma that poisons the soul,
I look around to confirm
what my nose has already told me--
death is all around.
Once you've smelled that smell, you'll never forget it.
I stand in awe of this village,
which now looks more like a graveyard,
filled with dead enemies.
I'm looking around for my brothers,
only to realize
I stand alone in this destruction.
I alone am responsible for the outcome of this battle.
Then everything changes.
The battlefield is gone,
and I am alone in a dark world
with a single street light beating down on me.
I find myself hunched over
with my head tucked between my knees,
alone and unable to see what lies before me.
Familiar faces begin to float around me,
muttering their hateful spew.
I can understand what they're saying to me.
"You're a freak," they yell.
"Who do you think you are," they ask.
"You don't belong with the rest of us!"
The figures fade, and a light burns away everything.
I wake up confused, angry, and disoriented, asking,
"What does this mean?"
"Why do I keep having this dream?"
Before I can find the answer, the dream returns,
a constant reminder of the person I have been molded into.
Not all combat veterans will have dreams like this.
There was a time when I actually looked forward to having them,
as if being haunted by my dreams
would somehow validate what I had been through.
I could point to my dreams as proof that I had been there,
that I had been in the worst place in the world--
and survived.
For generations, combat veterans
have recounted their experiences in their dreams
only to wake up in a cold sweat;
lost, confused,
and wondering what just happened.
Dreams have a way of pulling us away
and showing us things we sometimes don't want to see
or things that we are trying to forget.
Other times, dreams convey a deeper meaning.
My dreams are a collection of memories
that have been burned into my brain
like a hot brand to the skin.
The scar the brand leaves behind might eventually heal,
but it will always be there, whether I like it or not.
Trying to avoid such dreams
is like staring at your shadow,
hoping it will go away.
Not me though.
My dreams stand testament
to the crucible I have endured.
I kind of like my dreams.