Better Left Unsaid

I hold the large shoebox full of letters for what feels like the hundredth time. Will this prove to be like all the other times? The box ends up returned undisturbed to the top shelf of the closet. Nineteen years after her death and it still feels like it will be too painful to open and read through the letters. But no, not this time. Not today. Something moves through me this time. This time there is an overpowering purpose behind holding the box. A pull bigger than I have felt before.

I remember the day my dad handed me the box nineteen years ago, each of us still feeling the fresh loss, and he mumbled out to take the box from him. I could tell from his slumped shoulders and haggard expression that it was hard for him to part with something that belonged to my mom and his wife of 36 years. The only woman he ever loved. Nineteen years later and that is still as true as when he married her in 1964.

I can’t open the box in front of him, afraid that either of us will have the sorrow that is being held barely in check just below the surface flood out. Later, when I do peek into the box, I find that my sweet momma kept every letter I had ever written her from when I was away in the Air Force.

Ten and a half years of my life preserved in this box was like a heavy weight. I felt extremely fortunate because in today’s world of quickly deleted emails and forgotten phone calls there would be no record of these moments of my life. But back in this time, letters were the way I communicated from all around the United States and the world to my family in their little farm home in Denmark, Arkansas.

As I held the box this time, with purpose, I prepared to mentally steel myself for the memories that were held within. The thoughts, plans, actions, hopes, failures, sights, and daily life of my eighteen to twenty-eight year old self. This time I am going to read them and use what I find in them to write about this past life of myself.

I thought I knew how I was going to use these one sided lines of communication, but as I was to learn, that was all to change as I began to pour through the letters, cards, and pictures I found here. My writing wouldn’t be about what the letters did contain but instead as I look back on them my purpose has changed to what they don’t.

The letters to my parents don’t tell the whole story. They are missing details, actions, and thoughts. They don’t contain all the things better left unsaid... things momma especially didn’t need to know.

***

Basic Military Training, Lackland AFB, Texas

Hey Mom and Dad, Greetings from the hot state of Texas. How are ya’ll doing? How is Becky enjoying her summer break? Things are pretty tough here but I’m making it ok. We don’t have much time to do anything on our own. Every moment of the day and night seems to be laid out for us. Food is horrible and I miss your cooking so bad. I’d love to have some brown beans and cornbread or your sausage and gravy. Tell Dad in your next letter to put me in a couple of good scriptures to keep me going. It can just get hard sometimes…..

The heat and bad food really were the least of my problems. That would have been homesickness. That is what my mom was most concerned about for me when I left and I didn’t want to add to that worry. Standing under the shade of the building’s patio I remember cooling off from two hours of drill practice and thinking for the millionth time in seven days, “What am I doing here?” It would be so easy to quit. Go back home. It would be embarrassing for a while to explain to everyone. I could walk up to the Drill Instructor and tell him I want to quit. I could drop out from the heat and hope the doctors would declare me medically unfit. But that isn’t what I will do. That isn’t how I was raised. When things get tough you dig in. I have too much of my Dad’s grit to stop.

Dear Mom and Dad, How are things back home? Time is flying by here and it’s hard to believe I’ve completed five weeks. Yesterday we were at the firing range again. I’d like to send one of these M-16s home to Mike, he’d enjoy that. Today on the confidence course I was having my best run until I missed the rope on the swing over the water pit and had to drag myself dripping wet through the rest of the course which blew my time. I’m still the leader over the third element. It can be rough because any time one of my twelve guys does something wrong I get brought into it…..

Neither of my parents were yellers or ever used a curse word in front of me. So when I got the ass chewing from the Drill Instructor because one of the members of my element didn’t do something quite correct--- fold his socks the right way, miss a step when marching--- it always made me a bit frightened. I knew my mom especially would not want to hear about how her baby boy was getting verbally mauled so that I would just keep to myself. When the screaming and profanity laced storm was raging I learned to just put it all in perspective.

***

4404th Composite Air Wing- Operation Desert Storm

Dear Mom and Dad, Hello family! How is everyone back home? I got two letters and two cards from ya’ll today. It’s really busy and I don’t get much time off. Most of life is twelve hour shifts and I get just Friday off. The base is pretty active and as I am sure you’re seeing on the news (or maybe not) we are launching airstrikes continually against Iraq. I’ve got to travel off base for a meeting in a little bit so this will be short because I still have to go by the armory…..

The fact that we were scrambling to the bunkers with all the air raid sirens from the detection of SCUD-missile launches was more than what mom would need to know. The image of her boy sucking in air through a gas mask and sitting in a sandbag bunker knowing full well that if that missile drops right on him life will be extinguished in a heart-beat did not need to be written. In that fear, I fell back on remembering my father’s strong voice reading Psalms 23:4 “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me.” With that affirmation I felt a comforting well up inside of me. Faith over fear was a lesson well suited here.

Hey Mom and Pop, Hello from the sandbox. How is everyone back there? I am doing ok. I’ve almost been here three months now so you can quit worrying soon it will be my turn to rotate back to the States. My commander signed for me to be awarded the Air Force Achievement for my duty here. It’s hot here all day but when the night comes it gets pretty chilly, not all what you would expect in a desert…..

This time it was an omission from my letter that I wouldn’t keep from them for long. I had already been told by my superior, Master Sergeant Hester, that I would be getting extended there for at least two more months there. Growing up, unlike some of my friends, I never felt the need to outright lie to my parents. They were very open with me and I knew I could be open with them. It felt like I was betraying them by not revealing this information, but I just couldn’t bring myself, at that time, to tell something that I knew would cause extra worry when I knew they probably had plenty of other things to worry about.

But thinking about it now and knowing all my parents had gone through in life I didn’t give them enough credit to be able to handle that news. Both of them grew up dirt poor and worked from an early age to help their families. Financial struggles would follow them as they ran their own farm and put food on the table for five kids. My mom would battle breast cancer valiantly for many years and beat it only to have the cancer return in a different way.

***

Joint Task Force 160- Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

Mom and Dad, Hey folks! How is everyone there doing? I have gotten pretty settled in here. I’m working in the Command Post and have a pretty good schedule (the best I have ever had while deployed) and I am working twelve hour shifts with two days on and two days off. So that means plenty of free time compared to what I had in the desert. We aren’t on the main Navy base here but we can catch a ride to it and there are things to do there. Out where I am, we are living in a tent city, just like all the refugees, but we have a little sandy beach we can go to. So I am working on a nice tan and I am trying to do a lot of reading and studying for my Craftsman level certification…..

All that time off I sold pretty nicely as a positive thing, but in reality it was anything but that. All those things to do on the Navy base proper were clubs or places to get alcohol. I turned twenty-one in Cuba and I made the most of that fact. There was also a liquor store on the base where we could buy and bring back booze to our tent city. Having two days off at a time in conjunction with wanting nothing else but drink and party was just a bunch of bad decisions happening over and over and over. I was definitely not acting the way I was raised. So to avoid the worry mom would have, I made it all sound positive.

***

9th Reconnaissance Wing- Beale AFB, California

Dear Mom and Dad, How are y’all doing? I am so sad that Grandma isn’t doing well. I hope I didn’t add to the worry telling you about my car accident when I called. I really am fine but the car is totaled. Everyone says those roads leading into the back gate are really bad…

The roads really were bad but it wouldn’t have helped to tell them that their son was being a huge idiot and speeding and trying to catch air off the hills with his friends along for the ride. When that Eagle Talon left the road and rolled six or seven times down the embankment it was really good fortune that kept me from killing one of my passengers or myself. The lesson that really bad actions have really bad consequences was one that I didn’t ever want to repeat again. That was also, unfortunately, a lesson best learned through the experience and not just someone’s advice. I never did anything as overly reckless as that again.

***

51st Fighter Wing- Osan Air Base, South Korea

Hello Madre and Padre, Yeoboseyo! Look at me knowing how to say hello in another language. How is everyone back home? Is Becky enjoying high school? I really wished I’d be able to come home for Christmas this year but there is no way that is going to happen. I got some ideas of gifts to send home to everyone though. Things are about the same as they were the last couple times I wrote. Work. Off work. Work. Off work. It is still nice here unlike other places I’ve been overseas, we can go off base anytime we want. I’ve seen a lot of the local sites. Some of us are talking about going to Seoul or going to see some of the Buddhist temples that are supposed to be the must see places here…..

Something that would never make a letter to mom and dad would be how that old fast lifestyle had reared its ugly head. Drinking was so socially acceptable that it made it just the thing to do. Besides the clubs on base to drink there were at least thirty bars, clubs, and sketchy places to drink and indulge within a three block radius of the front gate. I drank every night that I could, and that was almost every night unless we were on a higher threat level. The only thing that kept me dry more than two days in a row was when I was posted with an M-16 in a sandbag bunker waiting for the North Koreans to be rolling down across the DMZ. I wasted most of my time and all of my money living a life that was unsuited to my upbringing. It took near the end of my yearlong tour to learn that this was a destructive lifestyle. A friend of mine lit a cigarette in bed and passed out and burnt himself to death. After that, I never drank to the same level of excess as I had before. I couldn’t bear the thought of my mom getting the news that I had died is such a senseless way.

***

Fort McClellan Army Base- Anniston, Alabama

Mom and Dad, How is everyone back home? I really think I will make it home for Thanksgiving next month! It has been awhile since I have made Thanksgiving. Starting to salivate thinking about your turkey and dressing as I write. Training is pretty intense here, but nothing to worry about. I am going through the Chemical Defense Training Facility next week and then the Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Cell Operations course that should wrap me up in Alabama. Then I’ll go to the Nuclear Emergency Support Team course in New Mexico before getting back to my new team in Idaho. They are pumping my head full of information and training me to a very high precision level. Just more training for whatever happens to come along….

This time I left out information because what I was involved with was, at that time, a big secret according to Uncle Sam. I was training to join a new kind of Department of Defense special team that was spinning up to handle events involving Weapons of Mass Destruction. The teams would respond to incidents and contingencies around the United States and world-wide. It was at first given the moniker Full-Spectrum Threat Response. The training saw me going through live-nerve agent training. Mistakes here in training with just a pin head sized drop of VX nerve agent making contact with your skin or breaking the seal of your gas mask and inhaling Sarin gas vapors could very well leave you dead. The military reckoned if they were sending us against the actual agents in the real world then we’d better play with the real stuff to get ready. I learned a lot more about biological agents and their detection and treatment than I thought my brain could handle. Training also included handling a terrorist use of a radiological weapon and responding to Broken Arrows and Bent Spear nuclear incidents. Eventually though everything became public and my parents were both proud of the accolades I was gaining and my ability to keep something secret from them (if they only knew).

***

Criova, Romania- Operation Noble Anvil

Dearest Mother and Father, Hey! What’s up there? How is everyone doing? Things are ok here. Two months into my time here and it is such a routine. I don’t fit in very well here. Everyone else but two other people here in this unit is assigned to the same Air Control Squadron. I’m feeling a little like the lone wolf in a field full of sheep. I was assigned to come as the Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Cell operator. So far there has been very little real use for me. I did get to go offsite with some Army guys on a field operation, but I’m starting to think that’s going to be it for me. No worries, but I’m hating it here…..

I was pretty demoralized on this trip. I wasn’t getting to put my training to use. Only the security forces liaison and I were armed as most of our security was being provided by the Romanian army. I didn’t fit in because I had serious moral disputes with what was going on around me. This unit was away from close oversight given its deployed location and its Commander, in my opinion, was not a man I could respect. To me every violation of military rules and regulations I witnessed was like a stab to the heart of one of the Air Forces’ main core values--- Integrity First. The moral compass displayed by some of my fellow servicemen bothered me greatly.

I was in a tough spot and I couldn’t compromise myself or my position by telling my mom what was really happening. I wanted to serve my country in the capacity I was assigned but this was grating on me. About a month after this particular letter I felt confident that things would not get better and that my leaving here would not affect the mission. I approached the Lieutenant Colonel and asked to be rotated out. He bluntly refused. For the only time ever in my career I choose a route that some would label insubordinate. I called back to my home unit and got in touch with my Chief Master Sergeant and detailed what was happening here. Within hours I was called back to the unit commander who cut orders for me to be sent back stateside. The man was seething with anger and his eyes were filled with fire, but he kept his words in check. He may have been a high ranking officer but when faced with the tenacity of a Chief Master Sergeant, the highest enlisted rank in the Air Force and one that comes with much respect, he was no match. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

***

332nd Air Expeditionary Wing- Operation Southern Watch

Mom and Dad, How is everyone back at home? Becky enjoying her Senior year? I haven’t heard much from the boys, they all doing ok? Things are going ok here. I have been here exactly one month. What a different experience this time compared to last time in the desert. Can’t tell you much about this trip or where all I’m traveling around to. I am based out of Kuwait but doing a lot of traveling. I have a lot more pressure on me these days and a lot of important people are interested in my progress…..

There was no surprise this time that there were things they were missing out on hearing. It was nice to leave out things and not have to feel deceitful about it. I had been given a pretty prestige assignment as the program manager over a 12 million dollar system. I was running as the point man for the Portal Shield program. My job was to oversee the installation of the biological detection system in Southwest Asia. There was a lot of stress in getting this in place and definitely the biggest assignment I had ever undertaken. I was handling all of the field work of the installations, meeting with host nation officials, and briefing officers who were in turn briefing more important generals. I would go on to be awarded the Air Force Commendation Medal. This was one of my best learning experiences. I built up a lot of confidence in my ability to be a leader during this time. Something my momma had said I possessed a long time ago.

***

I realize my initial math was incorrect. My mom passed away during my time in the service, so this meant the letters only contained eight years of my military life. No mom to write home to after that. I dwell on that thought. I’m not sure how I would have done that. Those last two years held some truly sorrowful and tough events. Post Nine Eleven and a more brutal trip back to the desert.

I would have figured out how though. How to paint that good picture. How to leave out the things better left unsaid.

Dear Mom, I sure miss you! Your laugh, your smile, your good advice. I hope that you know how influential you were and continue to be in my life. All those strong morals that you and dad shaped in me, I continue to uphold and try my best to pass on to all of my kids. I love you so much. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you and miss you. Not much is a secret to you up there anymore in heaven. I hope you forgive me for the times I was weak or the times I let you down. I hope you see that I always tried to live a life that would make you proud and that when I did stray I always found my way back to the safe harbor of your upbringing.

Your loving boy