To The Captain I Saw At Cracker Barrel

[Psychoblues]

I cried when I read this. There are so many that really just don't have a clue.

by Richard R. DiPirro, VFP member

Welcome home. Welcome back, sir, and welcome home. Welcome back to the world you once knew, which looks entirely different to you now, which resembles the world you lived in before but seems drawn like a cartoon now and scored with music you’ve never heard. Welcome back to a civilization you couldn’t wait to get back to, but isn’t what you remember at all. There are people smiling and shaking your hand and slapping your back – actors in a bad play about the life of someone who looks a lot like you. There are signs and banners and parades and picnics and they whirl around you. You are an observer at the center of everyone’s attention. “Support the Troops!” They yell until they’re hoarse – waving flags and driving cars with yellow magnets, never trying to explain why they weren’t with you there, suffering 130 degree heat, shaking scorpions from their boots and feeling the weight of sand settle in their lungs. Welcome home, sir.

I saw you at Cracker Barrel the other morning, sir. I sat and ate my Old Timer’s Breakfast and laughed with my wife and forgot about my brothers and sisters living every moment of thirteen months in their own hot hell. I would have missed you if I hadn’t looked up when I did from my hash browns and turkey sausage, would have missed that moment I’ll never forget. I saw your boots first, sir and the brown and tan of your desert camouflage and then your face – a face I knew like my mothers, like my own. You scanned everyone as you walked through the restaurant toward your table, scanned their faces, evaluated their threat potential and moved on to the next. Your eyes held mine for only an instant, one of the longest moments of my life, and moved on to the kids at the table behind mine, content that I posed you and your troops not present no danger that morning. You sat alone then, talking on a cell phone to a buddy, or a woman who wouldn’t know you any more, and I struggled to maintain the peace and happiness I had with my wife only minutes before. That feeling was gone, though – those minutes had passed and I felt like I would never eat again. Welcome home, sir.

I felt that thing inside – that thing I can’t put words to – which spins and tugs and turns and kicks me when it feels the need to. My wife watched helplessly, trying as always to understand that thing she knows she never will. I stood and approached your waitress and paid for your meal and she and the others smiled and waved their flags and told me how sweet I was, but I wasn’t feeling sweet. I wasn’t feeling sweet at all. I stood and began to tremble and needed to approach you and I stepped into your line of sight and interrupted your phone call and held out my hand. I asked you, but I knew you had just returned, and I told you I had been there eighteen years before as a marine corporal and I looked past the false smile you held and into those eyes that had sent me back. Those eyes that were seeing me now but still held the sight of whatever had happened, whatever you had done over there. Those eyes which would never see things in fluorescent lighting, but forever washed out by a bright foreign, guilty sun. You thanked me, and I want to believe that just for an instant, you knew I knew who you were. Welcome home.

I felt like running out of there, but I walked to the counter and paid my bill, and held my wife’s hand as we left your presence. In the car she stroked my head silently as I burst into tears. God sir, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to keep them from sending you over there. I’m sorry for what the rest of your life will be like – for the burn scar you will carry forever on your soul. I’m sorry for the anger and frustration you will feel when you think that no one understands, that no one could possibly know what you had to do there. I’m sorry you don’t know what has been done to you. And I’m sorry for the tears you too will shed one day when you do understand. Welcome home, sir.

More: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/To_the_captain_I_saw_at_cracker_barrel.vp.html

It is indeed a sad day when our Veterans can write a piece like this and our other Veterans can see it for what it is and shed tears even while we bite our lips.

God Bless the Captain and God Bless the man that shared this genuine piece of his heart with us.

[bullypulpit]

I cried when I read this. There are so many that really just don't have a clue.

by Richard R. DiPirro, VFP member

Welcome home. Welcome back, sir, and welcome home. Welcome back to the world you once knew, which looks entirely different to you now, which resembles the world you lived in before but seems drawn like a cartoon now and scored with music you’ve never heard. Welcome back to a civilization you couldn’t wait to get back to, but isn’t what you remember at all. There are people smiling and shaking your hand and slapping your back – actors in a bad play about the life of someone who looks a lot like you. There are signs and banners and parades and picnics and they whirl around you. You are an observer at the center of everyone’s attention. “Support the Troops!” They yell until they’re hoarse – waving flags and driving cars with yellow magnets, never trying to explain why they weren’t with you there, suffering 130 degree heat, shaking scorpions from their boots and feeling the weight of sand settle in their lungs. Welcome home, sir.

I saw you at Cracker Barrel the other morning, sir. I sat and ate my Old Timer’s Breakfast and laughed with my wife and forgot about my brothers and sisters living every moment of thirteen months in their own hot hell. I would have missed you if I hadn’t looked up when I did from my hash browns and turkey sausage, would have missed that moment I’ll never forget. I saw your boots first, sir and the brown and tan of your desert camouflage and then your face – a face I knew like my mothers, like my own. You scanned everyone as you walked through the restaurant toward your table, scanned their faces, evaluated their threat potential and moved on to the next. Your eyes held mine for only an instant, one of the longest moments of my life, and moved on to the kids at the table behind mine, content that I posed you and your troops not present no danger that morning. You sat alone then, talking on a cell phone to a buddy, or a woman who wouldn’t know you any more, and I struggled to maintain the peace and happiness I had with my wife only minutes before. That feeling was gone, though – those minutes had passed and I felt like I would never eat again. Welcome home, sir.

I felt that thing inside – that thing I can’t put words to – which spins and tugs and turns and kicks me when it feels the need to. My wife watched helplessly, trying as always to understand that thing she knows she never will. I stood and approached your waitress and paid for your meal and she and the others smiled and waved their flags and told me how sweet I was, but I wasn’t feeling sweet. I wasn’t feeling sweet at all. I stood and began to tremble and needed to approach you and I stepped into your line of sight and interrupted your phone call and held out my hand. I asked you, but I knew you had just returned, and I told you I had been there eighteen years before as a marine corporal and I looked past the false smile you held and into those eyes that had sent me back. Those eyes that were seeing me now but still held the sight of whatever had happened, whatever you had done over there. Those eyes which would never see things in fluorescent lighting, but forever washed out by a bright foreign, guilty sun. You thanked me, and I want to believe that just for an instant, you knew I knew who you were. Welcome home.

I felt like running out of there, but I walked to the counter and paid my bill, and held my wife’s hand as we left your presence. In the car she stroked my head silently as I burst into tears. God sir, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to keep them from sending you over there. I’m sorry for what the rest of your life will be like – for the burn scar you will carry forever on your soul. I’m sorry for the anger and frustration you will feel when you think that no one understands, that no one could possibly know what you had to do there. I’m sorry you don’t know what has been done to you. And I’m sorry for the tears you too will shed one day when you do understand. Welcome home, sir.

More: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/To_the_captain_I_saw_at_cracker_barrel.vp.html

It is indeed a sad day when our Veterans can write a piece like this and our other Veterans can see it for what it is and shed tears even while we bite our lips.

God Bless the Captain and God Bless the man that shared this genuine piece of his heart with us.

Amen.

[Psychoblues]

Thanks for your honesty and prayer, bp!!!!!!! Do you fink it odd how many views this piece has had with no othe response than your own?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I lose more respect for the chickenhawks with each passing day and their dismissal of genuine heartfelt contributions of the very veterans for whom they should be grateful rather than dismissive. It is so typical..........

[Sitarro]

Thanks for your honesty and prayer, bp!!!!!!! Do you fink it odd how many views this piece has had with no othe response than your own?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I lose more respect for the chickenhawks with each passing day and their dismissal of genuine heartfelt contributions of the very veterans for whom they should be grateful rather than dismissive. It is so typical..........

What type of comments are you expecting sycho? You post a piece of fiction from some asshole that writes crap like this for a site that accuses our President of war crimes....... who gives a shit what they have to say? You know what sycho, we all have our burdens to bear, we have all had shit in our lives that we will live with till the day we die....... some of us don't spend all day, every day, whining about it. There are veterans that deserve respect, that earned respect, and then there are those that were cooks and whiners that now open their mouths denigrating the service that they shouldn't have been in, in the first place.

My guess is that if the fictional Captain did exist, he would have told the asshole, whiner writer to go fuck himself. He would have let that dip shit know that he volunteered to serve his country and was proud of the job he had done in Iraq and would go back and do it again, that he was part of a great group of men and women that helped free not one but two countries from the tyranny of oppressive dictators and low life thugs. He would also tell him that he was sorry that the writer pretended to suffer from mental stress and should have never been part of the military in the first place, but he was fine with his decisions and slept great, knowing that he had taken part in helping keep the citizens of his country safe. He would also tell him to take his whiny-assed pity party to John F. Kerry and cry on his shoulder.


Oh and fuck you and your bullshit chickenhawk line, go write a little blues "song" about it....and you and Bullshit should get a room..... you're one and the same. You second guess the very same soldiers that you claim to have something in common with, the same guys that are very proud of themselves, the President and their country.

[Psychoblues]

I certainly never expected anything different that you have demonstrated from you, zero. You are indeed a sick puppy. Has your owner taken you to the Veterinarian to have you checked out? I doubt it. Your owner is just another sick puppy in my opinion.

Have I told you lately to kiss this? :pee:

[emmett]

Nice piece. I wonder though if the captain feels anything like the writer. He may be proud of the job he has done. There certainly shouldn't be any reason why he should not be.

An American serviceman is not suppose to be the judge of the order. Just follow it. He volunteered! That's sort of different from the guys who served in Viet Nam, Korea and WW2. I'm sure alot of guys didn't give a shit about rather the North or South were right and justified in the "conflict" in Viet Nam. They just wanted to get their asses home in an airplane seat and not a bodybag.

It is always nice for us to be compassionate for our fellow man but the writer, well intended as he may seem, is putting words in the mouth of the soldier.

Nice piece though.

[Psychoblues]

I don't know, emmie. I agree with you that the Captain should be and probably is very proud of his service and the job he did for his country, his unit and himself. But, I don't think you fully understand what the writer is grapling with.

As you know, emmie, I am also a veteran, a life member of the VFW, the DAV and I always participate in every event that I know about involving Veterans and many times Active and Reserve troop activities to which I am often invited. To say that I am proud of my service would be an understatement.

I don't think that is the question here at all, however, emmie. I think the writer has deep feelings about his own involvement in a war, any war, and has not yet come to grips with the reality that he doesn't have to do that anymore. I think he see's that pride in the Captain and recognizes it as something he has also felt and that time and contemplation have changed his thinking in a profound way. I think the writer is silently praying that the Captain does not experience the same or at least has not had the experience that the writer seems to have had that now causes his discomfort with even the implication of any attack on his personal peace. It's a real tough subject, emmie. You and I should talk about it sometimes. I, too, have very similar thoughts and feelings about my own participations.




Nice piece. I wonder though if the captain feels anything like the writer. He may be proud of the job he has done. There certainly shouldn't be any reason why he should not be.

An American serviceman is not suppose to be the judge of the order. Just follow it. He volunteered! That's sort of different from the guys who served in Viet Nam, Korea and WW2. I'm sure alot of guys didn't give a shit about rather the North or South were right and justified in the "conflict" in Viet Nam. They just wanted to get their asses home in an airplane seat and not a bodybag.

It is always nice for us to be compassionate for our fellow man but the writer, well intended as he may seem, is putting words in the mouth of the soldier.

Nice piece though.

As far as the Captain being a member of the volunteer force verses the conscriptive nature of other wars and Veterans, I don't believe that to be a valid observation other than an academic curiosity. I have years of experience in this field and I can tell you that the incidences of PTSD, post traumatic stress syndrone, are roughly equally as prevalent in both types of Veterans. There have been many books written on the subject.

Thanks for the converse, emmie, and I look forward to many more with you or even an expansion of this one!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks, Champ!!!!!!!!!!!