Submitted by Anonymous

By Paul R. Allen

Purple Heart Medal recipient

Former Combat Infantryman, U.S. Army 7th Infantry Division, Korea

Life Member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH)

Life Member of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV)

Because of its length, this touching piece will occur in two installments, followed by commentary from a UNH student.

As a combat veteran wounded in one of America’s wars, I offer to speak for those who cannot. Were the mouths of my fallen front-line friends not stopped with dust, they would testify that life revolves around honor.

In war, it is understood that you give your word of honor to do your duty – that is – stand and fight instead of running away and deserting your friends. When you keep your word despite desperately desiring to flee the screaming hell all around, you earn honor. Earning honor under fire changes who you are. The blast furnace of battle burns away impurities encrusting your soul.

The white-hot forge of combat hammers you into a hardened, purified warrior willing to die rather than break your work to friends – your honor. Combat is scary but exciting. You never feel so alive as when being shot at without result. You never feel so triumphant as when shooting back – with result. You never feel love so pure as that burned into your heart by friends willing to die to keep their word to you. And they do. The biggest sadness if your life is to see friends falling. The biggest surprise of your life is to survive the war. Although still alive on the outside, you are dead inside – shot thru the heart with nonsensical guilt for living while friends died.

The biggest lie of your life torments you that you could have done something more, different, to save them. Their faces are the tombstones in your weeping eyes, their souls shine the true camaraderie you search for the rest of your life but never find.

You live a different world now. You always will. Your world is about waking up night after night silently screaming, back in battle. Your world is about your best friend bleeding to death in your arms, howling in pain for you to kill him. Your world is about shooting so many enemies the gun turns red and jams, letting the enemy grab you. Your world is about struggling hand-to-hand for one more breath of life.

You never speak of your world. Those who have seen combat do not talk about it. Those who talk about it have not seen combat. You come home but a grim ghost of he who so lightheartedly went off to war. But home no longer exists. That world shattered like a mirror the first time you were shot at. The splintering glass of everything you knew fell at your feet, revealing what was standing behind it – grinning death – and you are face-to-face, nose-to-nose with it!

The shock was so great that the boy you were died of fright. He was replaced by a stranger who slipped into your body, a MAN from the Warrior’s World.

In that savage place, you give your word of honor to dance. This suicidal waltz is known as: “doing your duty.” You did your duty, survived the dance, and returned home. Nut not all of you came back to the civilian world. Your heart and mind are still in the Warrior’s World, far beyond the Sun. They will always be in the Warrior’s World/ they will never leave, they are buried there. In that hallowed home of honor, life is about keeping your word.

People in the civilian world, however, have no idea that life is about keeping your word. They think life is about ballgames, backyards, barbecues, babies and business. The distance between the two worlds is as far as Mars from earth.

As a combat veteran wounded in one of America’s wars, I offer to speak for those who cannot. Were the mouths of my fallen combat friends not stopped with dust, they would testify that life revolves around honor.

In war it is understood that you give your word of honor to do your duty to stand and fight instead of running away and deserting your friends.

When you keep your word despite desperately desiring to flee the screaming hell all around, you earn honor.

Earning honor under fire changes who you are. The blast furnace of battle burns away impurities encrusting your soul. The white-hot forge of combat hammers you into a hardened, purified warrior willing to die rather than break your word to friends – your honor.

Continued on December 12…