Gliders Over Normandy Series Box Set by Thomas Wood

Author:Thomas Wood [Wood, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BoleynBennett Publishing
Published: 2020-03-15T22:00:00+00:00

Part III

20

September 1985

My Dad died nearly fifteen years ago now, and he took what he had experienced to the grave with him. Still, to this day I do not know how he made it out of that burning box alive, and now I never will. That afternoon before I went to war was the only time he had spoken to me about what had happened to him and, as far as I know, he never spoke to anyone about it ever again.

He continued to carry his scars, the visual, physical reminders of what had happened to him. But they didn’t matter, there were ointments and pills that he could take that would give him some respite from the pain. It was the ones in his mind that continued to torment him, continue to taunt me, and it is those scars, that will never leave.

I never asked him if it had made him feel any better to explain, we never spoke of it ourselves after that, but it had seemed he had needed that one release, that one opportunity to pour his mind out to someone else, share the burden. This is what this is. I do not know yet if it has helped me, I do not know if it ever will, but, to an extent I feel like I have shared the burden with you. I pray every day that you will never experience what I did, I beg that you never even come close, but, if you do, you must always hold fast, and settle things as much as possible within your own mind.

Talk about it if that’s what it takes. Write about it. Share the burden.

The “battle fatigue” that Major Lewis diagnosed me with, still looms over me, clings to me, even forty years on. I sleep now, the dreams have subsided, but the memories that I possess still haunt me daily.

I still walk with a limp, a small piece of shrapnel embedded in my upper thigh. There’s no point in trying to remove it now, it will do more harm than good, so it will always be a part of me. It doesn’t hurt, apart from the occasional twang that is so often followed by a similar twang of uncontrollable guilt.

The dreams have eased, the names have faded but the memory is still so painfully vivid. I cannot escape what I have seen, what I have done, even forty years later. People call me a hero and I let them, not because I think they’re right, but because they do not understand what their heroes have actually done. Their heroes are murderers, interrogators, thieves, but most of all, they are simply damaged.

Their heroes have seen and done some of the most horrific things that one man can do to another, but yet, it was all done in the name of righteousness and freedom. A necessity of war. It’s hard to think like that when you’re on the battlefield. Out there, it’s man versus man, not democracy versus totalitarianism.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.