My brother on the right on a better day in Iraq.
I never understood why it is like pulling teeth to get my brother Mark to talk about his war medals. From my naive perspective I would be telling everyone who wanted to listen and even those who did not about them. I come from the world when you win a medal, a trophy, an award… you wear it, you wear it with pride and you yell from the top of the hill … Look what I did! Look what I accomplished! Mark was in Iraq for 18 months (September 2003 – March 2005). It is my understanding in those 18 months 24 Bronze Stars where given out to his Washington National Guard Unit (300+ soldiers)… he earned 3 of them. In that same time period he was recommended for the Silver Star. The Army is still deliberating over this one (whether he gets it or not), if he gets it he will be the first member of the Washington State National Guard to earn one since World War II.
I just spent the last 12 days with my brother on vacation and for the first time after some considerable prodding on my part he opened up to me about his accomplishments from the War. What we talked about was not the situations that earned him these medals, but why he does not like talking about them.
Each medal represents in no uncertain terms, a bad day in a long line of the “worst days” of my brother’s life that was his participation in the War in Iraq. You don’t earn medals for good days; you earn medals for “doing good” within some of the worst situations imaginable. My brother when he remembers these moments (of heroic service in connection with operations against an opposing armed force – to quote the requirements for the Bronze Star) he does not remember what he did right (that merited it’s award in the first place), he questions himself; what he could have done different. What could he have done that would have accomplished the mission but produced fewer casualties. My brother carries the burden of everyone who died or was wounded under or by is his commands. Would a, could a, should a… takes on whole new levels of retrospective self doubt when people where living or dying with every decision you made. The day he earned one of his bronze stars was a day one of his friends died and three others were left spending the rest of their lives confined to wheel chairs… all under his command, all under his care, all his responsibility. All of a sudden I understood my brother’s reluctance to boast about his accomplishments.
I liken it to a football game, but not just any football game… The Super Bowl… You can do everything right and still lose the game and you have nothing to be ashamed about… but you still lost. What I guess is so hard to take for War Veterans is how they, like my brother “won the game”, but only can see how much they lost and thus have trouble talking about the medals they won. (re-posted from my Facebook account – August 2009)
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