The Price

(started this a while ago, and finally finished).

With the passage of Memorial Day and the recent loss of a member of the CSAR community,  I have been thinking deeply about the price military members pay in service to our country. In my personal experience, and through observation, the toll of service appears to be one with unforeseen costs.

From my own perspective, I never walked into the life of military partner/spouse feeling a sense of romance and grandeur. I entered with a cautious heart knowing our life together would be filled with challenges and fears. I choose that life because of Chris. I knew there were risks, and I entered anyway. I bear sadness as the price of the immense love and happiness I felt at one time. Though I never understood how devastating this would feel. And yet, I often find it hard to justify my grief because I chose this life. That choice can make it hard to truly acknowledge how I feel.

I see many men and women entering the military weighing similar choices. There are risks, but there is also opportunity. At the start, I would imagine many of the fears feel distant and unlikely. Until they become a reality. So what happens to the men and women who encounter those very tangible costs—the service members who encounter war, loss, moral conflict, physical trauma, sexual trauma. In a system that values courage, strength, and bravery, what is left for the service member who feels sad and/ or scared? What happens to the person grieving friends, or a sense of safety, torn away by war?

My fear is that there is little space for the reality of pain in service member’s everyday lives. Culturally, we worship the valor, we honor the sacrifice, but we do not seem to acknowledge the cost.

I have been reading a lot about masculinity and anger as part of my personal learning. I am curious to discover new thoughts on helping military members understand and deal with the reality of their pain, while operating within a culture of that defines heroes as invincible, rather than honors them for their humanity. In her book on masculinity and love, bell hooks challenges patriarchal notions that I believe often silence military men and women. She writes:

“ When females are in emotional pain, the sexist thinking that says that emotions should and can matter to women makes it possible for most of us to at least voice our heart, to speak it to someone, whether a close friend, a therapist, or the stranger sitting next to us on a plane or bus. Patriarchal mores teach a form of emotional stoicism to men that says they are more manly if they do not feel, but if by chance they should feel and the feelings hurt, the manly response is to stuff them down , to forget about them, to hope they go away.”**

In thinking about service men and women, I would extend what hooks writes beyond “men” to include all those who serve within a masculine culture that can define strength as silence. The terrifying reality is that those emotions—the ones shoved down—do not go away. They live on in what I like to call the “emotional rucksack.” Unseen, they still carry weight. And that weight is heavy without understanding why.

No one ever teaches us how to carry pain. It is a lost art. How many times in childhood did most of our parents sit us down and say, “life is going to be really hard and confusing, and here is how you honor what you feel in the process of moving forward.” That doesn’t happen-- unless maybe your parent is a therapist.

To suffer, then, is to be weak. To struggle is to be alone, because it is honorable to be silent. It is brave to bear the burdens of war, but it is not brave to talk about that burden.

I think about how I have contributed to that belief system—how I demand that others suppress emotion in order to make me feel comfortable. I tell myself to suck it up all the time. I have called male friends pussies for being emotional. I am not proud of that.

What breaks my heart is that people are losing their lives, caught in world that does not acknowledge the full weight of service. A world that silences the struggle and projects a sense of brokenness for experiencing valid, deep emotions. The fear is, what does it say about me to struggle? My counter thought, what does it mean to not struggle on some level?

Pain tells us something is wrong. It does not mean it cannot heal, it means we need to tend to that pain.

Moving forward, I challenge friends to consider how you create space in your world for friends who have served? How do you create an environment that makes it safe for someone to put down the rucksack, just for a moment, and stop pretending it doesn’t hurt? I am not advocating for providing therapy as a friend—rather how can you (and I) support the efforts friends are making? How can we ask, “how are you” and truly mean it?

One of the things I am trying to do within my own life is model what it looks like to acknowledge my own pain—to lay down the tough-woman façade a little and say I need help. I would not be in the place I am today without the support of an amazing network of friends and a loving family. I have needed strength from others to rebuild myself. Speaking that truth, I hope, helps others see that reaching out is an admirable thing to do. My hope is that others do not have to suffer alone.

I pray that as we see others struggle, we can reach out in a way that doesn’t silence and truly offer support. In that way, maybe we can reach beyond the isolation of depression, suicidal ideation, PTSD, to acknowledge the price and let others know they are not alone.

**hooks, bell (2004-01-06). The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (pp. 5-6). Atria Books. Kindle Edition.