It's time to be the voice for their change and my voice starts now
As you remember a few weeks ago I had written a blog called "I Want to Know Why!?" I didn't realize that blog was going to open a door to a new journey that will challenge all that I am. As you know I wrote about a dear friend of my husband who is now battling Lou Gehrig's disease. I was heartbroken, as anyone who knows about this illness knows there is no cure at this time. For me, a huge question began to beat to the rhythm of its own drum when we were told that the VA found him 100% disable. The VA is involved? I immediately thought, that means its Service connected, but how? I also receive VA Benefits and listed disabled. To look at me, you'd never know what I suffer from on a daily basis, but believe you me, it is nothing like what our friend and his family are facing. Something wasn't right, but I put the notion of foul play into the back of my mind for a later date. My womanly intuition told me this was going to be a topic that was going to come knocking on our front door.
We were honored his friend, who I am going to call, his brother, as they are "Brothers in Arms", and his family came to spend a week with us, just before Easter, and we enjoyed the time together to the fullest. I will say I am so glad that my husband was forewarned about the changes his brother is faced with, as I think if we had been told when they got here, it would have been very overwhelming to see and understand. Knowing of his condition a few weeks in advance gave our family time to get familiar with what was happening. His brother's wishes were to see things while he still could, and so we had planned our trips quite strategically so that his brother would not tire so easily, yet could take it all in. Our first of two big trips was on Sunday, April 1, 2012 - The Battlefields and memorials of Gettysburg and the other was on Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - The Air and Space Museum and the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, The Bill of Rights, and The Constitution. Both trips were very educational and memorable, but the best memorable moments came in the form of two men sitting on a retaining wall and in the backyard around our makeshift fire pit. Against my will and feared crying in front of them, I managed to say contained as I watched their body languages and listened to the two of them, as they sat for hours on end, reliving their early military days and discuss limited memories on an event that changed both their lives, but just didn't realize how much until 21 years later. They spoke of both the good and the bad times they had faced, with the worst of all - being in the Gulf War during Desert Shield and Desert Storm from August 27, 2012 - April 11, 1991. It was the comment they shared at once, before they quickly diverted from further discussing it - Being covered in the black soot from the 700 or so, burning oil fields and that never ending taste in their mouths - burnt oil.
Now you all know that I am big one for dates, events, and how they seem to all relate years later. Here it was, Friday, April 13th. Now I used to be one that feared Friday the 13th, until my younger son was born on Friday the 13th in June of 97. This day is now a blessing as my husband and I had created another life after being told we couldn't have any children. This was also an anniversary time frame for my husband. It had been 21 years since that moment when my husband returned to his base command, on April 11, 1991 to be exact, after being deployed to Saudi Arabia nine months earlier. It is not a time in his life that he shares willingly with anyone, with the exception of his "Brother in Arms". I didn't know my husband then, but it was during this time of their return that I was stationed at the same base going through my "A" school training as a builder.
Now have you ever heard of someone being triggered to remember something that for years has blocked for reason/s often stemming, or could be stemming from some form of Post Traumatic Stressors? Remember what I had said about the womanly intuition - well the topic didn't knock on our front door, it found a place in our mailbox instead.
On April 13, 2012 a letter arrived in our mailbox. In this letter was a past that my husband had chosen to block out, with the hopes to never relive the events, especially the dates that were indicated: Feb 24, 91 - Feb 28, 91. My husband not knowing what the letter had contained, asked me to read it while we drove to the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds to do our volunteer ground maintenance. Our Job - cut and weed whack the overgrown grass for the flea market the next day. As I unfolded it, I immediately noticed it had been addressed to my husband’s parents as the author of the letter did not know of my husband’s whereabouts in the world.
As I read the letter out loud, my heart began to pound harder and harder wanting to burst through the walls of my chest. Fear was not only standing in front of me, it had grabbed me by the shirt and was doing its best to take me out. My breath quickened and my voice gone - It was bad news from one of the men he was with in Saudi Arabia. He too is also very sick and has been for years with what appears to be related to the Gulf War and where they were. He spoke of an event that I could see stealing the smile from my husband face as he drove. It was a memory that had been locked far deep inside his mind and was rushing back to shake him up once again. This memory - It was on February 24, 1991, his 21 birthday, and it could have been the date of his death too. Upon reading the materials the letter contained, I was learning the complexities of the man that sat beside me and the pieces of a scattered puzzle, which almost result in our divorce, that began to come together providing answers to many questions. I knew I had to find out what happened to the men of Battalion 5.
How haunting a feeling it was, as I began to research chemical warfare in the Iraqi war and the quiet destruction that would plague the troops years later, after their returned to American soil. They had no idea they were about to face the worst war ever, the war within ones mind, body and soul and this was just beginning. The Military kept blind eyes and deaf ears to endless requests for answers. This time, those answers will be found, not only for my husband, it includes a battalion of men who, for all we know, have their own struggles and don't have the voice, the strength or the finances they need to band together. From one Seabee to another - I will be your voice. Today starts a new quest in finding the green machine from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 5, that had been part of Desert Shield/Desert Storm 90-91. My husband and I have created a Facebook Page so that this list of men can all be checked as found. https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Looking-Four-Nmcb-5-Desert-Shielddesert-Storm-90-91-Urgent/374788309226812 If you have any information on the whereabouts of these men you can send an email to: nmcb-five90-91@hotmail.com Subject: GWV 90/91
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