How Can I Tell You….

[bangersandmash]

This is a poem I wrote in honor of my husband Sgt. William Wallace Campbell injured during Operation Iraqi Freedom. From first appearances you wouldn’t know that my husband has a lifetime rating of 100% disabled. There are no external signs that tell you that this once bright mind, whose Master’s thesis sits in the State Capital Library, now has debilitating memory problems and suffers from a Traumatic Brain Injury caused by a car bomb. He endures cruel flashbacks that cause him to breakdown and relive combat nightmares he’d much rather forget. An unwelcome invasion of his mind that leaves him trembling and shaken. These flashbacks are unsuspectingly triggered by commonplace images; it could be the shape of a railing that resembles one he saw in Iraq, a car with a flag flapping that reminds him of one of the cars in a convoy in Iraq, or a scene in a movie that shows soldiers kicking in doors or enduring mortar fire. This is my tribute to him........

How Can I Tell You….

How can I tell you friend of mine, of hell on earth inside Iraq. To be a walking target there, patrol all day in sapping heat. With gun in hand observing roofs and doors and crowds, each face regarding with mistrust while I look on with equal hate. When given half a chance dear friend they seize the glory to attack, their holy jihad plan fulfilled then claim in Allah’s filthy name their martyrdom like some sick prize.

How can I tell you friend of mine, unwelcome cries five times a day, of wailing clerics calling men to prayer from spired towers tall polluting Baghdad’s scorching air. And even now, though I am home, I hear that sound in some dire dream won’t leave me be, its melancholy echo haunts again please leave, please leave me be.

How can I tell you friend of mine, just how it feels to be assailed by noise the likes you’ve never heard. The whining path of mortar flight as deadly shells drone overhead and moaning pleas in foreign tongues of wounded men and panicked wives. And coating each horrific sound are layers of acrid smoke and stench and bodies littered on the ground amid the fragments of the blast.

How can I tell you friend of mine, to understand the wrenching fear that grips your gut and twists its rusty jagged blade and breaks it off inside your chest to leave it there for you to clutch.

How can I tell you friend of mine, for you are blessed, you were not there.

END

[heinzs]

I can feel the deep hurt expressed in this. The only thing I wouldn't agree with is the editorial "filthy" ascribed to Allah's name. IMO this piece would be elevated immensely by the simple deletion of that one word. It would not affect the piece itself, but would remove an expression of the poet's bias that is not appropriate for a piece intended for broad dissemination.

Welcome to PP, bangers. I hope that the passage of time will help to alleviate your husband's PTS symptoms. The psychological effects of war are highly underrated yet far exceed even those that make their way to public view.

[bangersandmash]

Thank you for your feedback and I agree, in retrospect, that the deletion of the word "filthy" will make it more acceptable to a wider audience.