Wow, well my skin is still buzzing! When I saw your name on the envelope, I just about had a stroke. In fact, I think I reread those two words about a hundred times just to make sure it was really you. The address isn’t the same—I’ll take that as a good sign, although your old address will be etched in my memory for life.
So you found me through the pen pal program, huh? And through a therapist, no less. The world truly does work in mysterious ways. I’ve thought about you often over the years and always hoped you were doing well. And as mad as you may be at me, hearing from you is one of the best things to happen to me in a long time, which I guess is pretty stupid to say considering how things ended. But you have to believe me, Katie, I never wanted things to be that way. You know I loved you. Those moments we spent together are the best memories I have. You don’t even know how many tough times those memories have gotten me through. We were inseparable, you and I … partners in crime. I don’t want you to think I take that lightly.
I had my reasons for leaving, reasons that are probably best left unsaid. I wouldn’t expect you to even begin to understand what was running through my head at the time. You know what I was going through back then, and at the time we were just two people in two very different places. But I digress … that is not what I wanted this letter to focus on at all.
I’m so incredibly sorry to hear about your father, and I can’t imagine the pain you must be going through. I know how close you two were, and just reading your words makes me ache so much for you, Katie. I’m just so very sorry.
How is your mom handling everything? And Bailey?
You know my pops walked out on us when I was just a kid and how devastated I was when he disappeared. I’m not trying to compare my situation to yours, not by a long shot. I only mean to say that after going through what I did with all of that, struggling with it like I did but still knowing he was alive and well at least, I can’t even begin to understand how you feel right now. I want you to know that, no matter what happened in the past, I will always be here for you. If you ever need to talk, or vent, or just rip into someone, I’m here. I even have email. You could totally bitch me out on there anytime you want!
God, so the man that hit you was a soldier? I wish I could say I’m surprised, but there is an abundance of substance abuse in the military. There are a lot of people numbing themselves, and I can’t say that I blame them. When we lose people day in and day out, watch our friends die, and take lives that we don’t want to take, how else are we supposed to cope? I’ve lost so many friends over here that I’m beginning to lose count. Just three months ago, my best friend was one of them. Jax bled out in my arms. He was a polite Mormon boy from Utah without a hateful bone in his body.
So to answer your question, are we all monsters? No, we’re not. We are fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. We are dreamers, lovers, and God-fearing men. Are some of us monsters? Yeah, we are. Some of these soldiers kill with a thirst, and others can gun a man down and not even think twice about it. Unfortunately, there are some who wear the uniform that do not live within the code of ethics our uniforms represent. But the majority of us are just like you … people dealing with something so traumatic, so heartbreaking, and so horrific that the heart never quite learns to mend. Many of us, including myself at times, have learned to patch together the broken pieces of our hearts using whatever means necessary—and yes, that sometimes results in harm inflicted upon ourselves and others.
I wish I could tell you that I’ve never driven drunk, but that would be a lie. I didn’t change much after leaving Tennessee. And as ashamed as I am to admit it, I got worse once I moved to Pennsylvania—and worse yet after my grandmother passed away. Mom lost her shit completely when grandma didn’t leave a penny to her name, and it all went downhill from there. I started smoking all the time and drinking. I fell in with the wrong crowd. I just wanted anything other than to be there with her in that fucking trailer.
It was my twentieth birthday, and I was on my way back from a bar with my buddy. I was drunk and nearly unconscious in the passenger seat when my friend, who was also plastered, ran into a telephone pole going fifty in a thirty-five. The doctors said the only reason I avoided major injury was because I was passed out and wearing a seatbelt. My buddy wasn’t so lucky. He broke his C-2 vertebrae and has been a quadriplegic ever since. His entire life changed that night, Katie.
Even though I walked away from the wreck, my life changed that night too. I’ve had tremendous guilt since then and often think about the harm we could’ve caused others. To think we could’ve done something like what happened to your dad—to your family–it rocked me to my core. It still does. I joined the Army soon after that. I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I didn’t want to be defined by those actions, and although I knew you were long gone—that I had effectively pushed you from my life—I still wanted to be worthy of you.
The man who took your father’s life could have easily been me a few years back. What’s worse is that I hadn’t even experienced combat yet. We spend our days here immersed in death—women, children, and loved ones killed on a daily basis—and when we go back home, we aren’t the same as we were when we arrived. We become numb, our emotions sedated. Death becomes merely a noun, something we neither process nor heal from.
I make no excuse for the man who killed your father. Maybe he is a monster, one of those who kill with pleasure. Maybe he’s a young, dumb grunt who has no regard for the sanctity of human life. Or maybe he’s one of many who drink away the pain they can’t begin to understand. No matter the circumstance, a life was taken—the life of a wonderful man—and for that I am so incredibly sorry. I can only imagine that that soldier is sitting in a cell at this moment wishing he could take your father’s place.
I’m thinking right about now that I’ve probably done more harm than good. I hope I haven’t heightened the ugliness you see in all of us, me especially, because that wasn’t my intention. I only hoped to explain the potential side effects of playing Russian roulette with roadside bombs and bullets for an entire year. And then another year, and another, and another ...
Don’t treat your grief as we do. Don’t let it simmer until, before you know what’s happened, it’s boiling over the edge. Don’t let this one man and his actions change who you are and who you were meant to be. Don’t let him own your existence.
I know it must be hard, Katie. I’m no expert; I just know I haven’t been doing it the right way. Hell, I don’t even know what the right way is. But I do know that by hanging on to all this stuff and burying it deep down inside, it’ll all catch up to me one day. I can feel the cracks forming already, and I know the foundation will eventually come tumbling down.
I hope to hear back from you. I really enjoyed your letter, although it’s possible that it might be the first letter in pen pal program history where a soldier was called a ‘fucking dick.’
But seriously, thank you for writing. And thank you for not letting the past dictate the future.
Sincerely,
Devin
[email protected]
The letter falls from my hands, the papers floating aimlessly until they come to rest noiselessly on the ground. My mind is racing at warp speed as I work to process his words, but I can’t. There’s too much, too many emotions, too many things he said that I wasn’t prepared to hear or read, and now I can’t seem to focus on anything at all except this overwhelming, indescribable emotion that’s creeping its way through me.
My brows furrow when I think back to the letter that I wrote him and the callous things I said without abandon. And yet here he is, this soldier—this man who should feel like a stranger but doesn’t—fighting for our country, living in his own version of hell every single day, trying to give me peace. He clearly has his own cuts that run just as deep, if not deeper, than mine, but he’s offering me comfort in the only way he can—with his words.
I don’t regret expressing my feelings in the letter I wrote, but after reading his response, I feel like I don’t deserve his compassion. I want it though. God help me, I want it.
I squeeze my eyes shut as his words drift around in my head.
So to answer your question; are we all monsters? No, we’re not. We are fathers, brothers, husbands and sons. We are dreamers, lovers, and God-fearing men.
But the majority of us are just like you … people dealing with something so traumatic, so heartbreaking, and so horrific that the heart never quite learns to mend.
Lieutenant Drexler’s face pops in my head. I’ve only seen it once, pictured on the news, but it’s been branded in my memory and now I can’t help but wonder. Does he have a precious little girl or boy running around who will now grow up without him? Will his kids mourn the loss of their father the way I have mine? Does he have a wife who is scared and lost and lonely? Is his mother crying herself to sleep every night because the son who safely returned from the battlefield will never really return home now?
Not once have I allowed these possibilities to enter my mind. I haven’t wanted to consider anything about the man who killed my father, and I’m still not sure I want to. But Devin’s words have opened a gate, and it doesn’t matter how hard I push, the damn thing won’t shut.
I can only imagine that that soldier is sitting in a cell at this moment wishing he could take your father’s place.