Make Peace With Your Past Especially if it Included Combat Service

I just read a quote from an article on The Daily Beast about a book written by a Vietnam veteran and all I could think of was this.

David Rossi: "Scars remind us where we've been. They don't have to dictate where we're going."

PTSD and the Past That Never Dies

David J. Morris, a U.S. Marine veteran who later embedded as a journalist in Iraq, “disperses” his own experiences in The Evil Hours, an eloquent “biography” of post-traumatic stress disorder. Morris’s style often recaptures the disorienting tone of Dispatches’ stream-of-consciousness approach. But as with Herr, Morris’s excellent book is deceptively controlled and carefully steady.

The past isn't supposed to die. It goes with us everyday and all the subsequent days tag along as well. We cannot undo something or un-say words. We can change what we do from the point of regret onward. We learn by yesterdays snap judgements, gut reactions and angry outbursts as much as we learn from patience, thoughtfulness and compassion.

Wherever you are with PTSD, as a veteran or a spouse, your understanding got you either to point where you have added onto the burden you carry or you are on your way to healing. It all depends on how much you know and if you know the right things or not.

Every scar I have came with a price. I paid it during the event that caused my life to be on the edge of death. I refused to keep paying a debt that I did not agree to. Out of the shadow of death came hope.

I am not a veteran, so don't take my word for it. I am just human with a strange life. You should listen to someone who was there, in Vietnam, talk about what your are supposed to do with your memories. Listen to Sammy Davis, MOH Vietnam!

(No, he isn't crying.  It was hot during this event in Florida.)