A Weight Too Heavy to Carry Alone

“Why do you insist on cleaning everyone’s plates?” I asked.

Picking the last bit of gristle off his wife’s plate and popping it in his mouth, he replied, “I made a promise that when I made it home – any food that touched a plate, I’d never let go to waste. You’ll never experience hunger like you do during war.”

True to his word – at every meal, he was the last to leave the table. And he only did so after cleaning every plate in sight. Sometimes, he’d be there for an exceptionally long time – especially if it had been a large meal… or a particularly bad one.

He’d served multiple tours in Vietnam. His new bride – still with him decades later – wrote to him at least once a week while he was gone. She wrote important things… beautiful things… inane things… anything.

She believed as long as she kept sending him letters – as long as she believed he was there to open them – he’d stay alive. And some of her letters arrived long after he’d been sent home.

He never wrote back once.

“I couldn’t,” he explained. “As soon as I thought about her… as soon as I thought about the outside world… that was it. I’d never make it back.”

But she didn’t hold a grudge. “He did what he had to do to survive. And I did what I had to do,” she told me with a smile.

It’s hard to imagine it’s been nearly half a century since the Vietnam War ended. And since then, there’s been Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Gulf War, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Odds are each of our lives has been touched by someone close to us that has served – a brother, a sister, aunt, uncle, mother, father, friend, neighbor.

And to each and every one of them – to all who have served – I want to extend my personal thanks.

I hope you’re having a relaxing Memorial Day.

But beyond the barbeques, the long weekend, and shaking hands with veterans, I want to share another tradition I have for this holiday. That is… every year, I read Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.

The book is a series of short stories about a platoon of American soldiers during the Vietnam War.

It’s based on the author’s own experiences in the 23rd Infantry Division. And he wrote it because he felt so many didn’t understand the war and what the soldiers went through.

He’s right.

Most of us have never fought in a war. And unfortunately, our views of it are often tinted through Hollywood’s lenses.

We never truly understand the weight of war… both figuratively and literally.

Because it’s not just pocketknives, can openers, C-rations, ammunition, guns, and canteens of water that have weight to them. There are letters from home, love, loss, pain, guilt, fear, hunger, and shame.

For every physical load, there’s an emotional and psychological one inexorably heavier.

That’s something to recognize and remember.

And small gestures can go a long way to help lighten the load of those that carry so much, even long after the fighting stops.

Again, thanks to all those who served and are serving. And thanks to those at home doing what they can to make sure they come back safe.

Matthew