Special Ops: Four Accounts of the Military's Elite Forces by Kelly Orr

Author:Kelly, Orr [Kelly, Orr]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781504047456
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-08-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

48

Letting Go

Mike Bennett served in both UDT and SEAL units and remained in the teams until 1990. And then, thousands of miles and twoscore years from Vietnam, he had a strange experience. He tells what happened:

This was in 1990 or 1991. It wasn’t long after I had retired in March 1990.

My wife, Nina, and I went in this art store in Washington and I saw this painting—Reflections in the Wall. It’s a picture of a fellow at the wall at the Vietnam Memorial. He’s leaning against the wall with one hand and, instead of seeing names, you see the faces of people looking out from the wall.

But the reflections, the faces in it, were not looking at him. They were looking straight out at me. And they were mad! The faces looked mad. I recognized a couple of them. They were mad because we haven’t let them go.

All the guys in the teams that got killed, in our minds, we just put them on another cruise. When we were in country, they were back stateside. When we would go back stateside, they were in country. We never really let them go.

And the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I broke out in a sweat and then I had to get out of the store. And I walked out.

They were telling me to let them go.

And then I finally decided, that’s what I’ve got to do and that’s what they’re telling me to do. I said, okay. And I thought about all the guys in the teams that I knew that had died and were killed in Vietnam.

And I said, okay, they’re dead. They’re gone. It’s over. And that’s when the faces turned around and looked back at the guy in the picture. And that, I believe, was a real turning point for me, just turning it all loose.

I could breathe and it was like a huge weight, the whole world, came off of my shoulders.

Had you been to the wall itself before this?

Yeah.

And you hadn’t had this kind of reaction looking at the names of your friends?

Right. Because the reflections—the faces—weren’t there. Later on, after I had come to terms with it, Nina bought the painting for me. It’s hanging in the upstairs family room. I look at it every once in a while and it’s a relief. It’s a relief.

Isn’t it strange that a picture would trigger that kind of reaction when the wall itself didn’t?

We all have to have our triggers, somewhere. A lot of these guys just haven’t found theirs yet. And they hang on and hang on until they die. They never really get over it. I’m not sure why that happens. I’m not sure whether it’s because they’re weak or maybe it’s because they were in too deep.

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