Uncomfortable Truths  

Something I wrote eight years ago has been bugging me, lately: On Redacted.

In that post, I offered the following reasons for my self-censorship: being a federal employee at the time, still serving in the Army, professionalism, the audience, and the desire to allow the audience to draw their own conclusions about what I had shared up to that point.

Though the former justifications have evolved over time, the latter still rings true – that I have wanted the reader to consider what I have shared and what it might mean to them.

What has been on my mind for the last few months/years is how much self-censorship becomes too much – when do we dilute the essence of that which we stand for to the point where our biggest concerns and worries are watered-down and bland?

There are uncomfortable truths I think folks need to understand on a foundational level, and those perspectives are not governed by identity, political affiliation, financial status, or belief values:

• Veteran perspectives
• Factual history
• Threat
• Cohesion
• Repercussions/Consequences

Veteran perspectives

A recent thread on X recently had me doing down the rabbit hole of comments involving one Veteran’s experiences during the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Within 24 hours, it has been viewed over 9.2 million times, generated 2.6 thousand comments, and been reposted 13 thousand times. It is an extremely uncomfortable perspective from someone who was far closer to the threat than I ever was… and for most folks who have never served, some of it is the stuff of nightmares – and for those of us who have studied history a bit more than a casual familiarity with the subject, some of it echoes to other dark times in human history.

A reposting caught my attention and provided the spark to my own ideas on the subject:

“Because Army vets haven’t felt safe to tell the full truth.”

Very true.

I was fortunate. I only saw the intermediate results of combat – the bloodied patients we moved to the CSH for two deployments (Iraq); the broken and casualties of one deployment (Afghanistan).

But I know the stories from those who saw worse. The results of those who were haunted by their experiences until they weren’t… the echoes of their troubled times before they removed themselves from the equation.

If telling those stories is uncomfortable to the audience of the electorate, good. Sharing is intentional and warnings that need to be heeded.

Because what is at risk is a deadly and unnecessary repetition.

Share.

Share the traumas not to say “I told you so” but to keep it from EVER happening to anyone ever again.

Read.

Read the perspectives of @infantrydort and @TheBuddyCSM. Get distressed. And remember so that it is never revisited or allowed to happen again.

So that we become better.

So many vets of the previous wars carried their traumas in silence.

It could be that what happened, happened, and they just wanted to be done with it… Or, they figured that it would not be proper to transfer nightmares to others.

Noble and commendable rationalizations.

However, the viciousness and violence slipped anonymously into the void. Only for someone else to come along and think they are doing something new… without consequences beyond the immediate.

Maybe those stories would prevent revisitation.

Maybe not.

But wouldn’t it be worth it to try and change something different, even if sharing those experiences is drastic?

Would things be different if S.P. Melgunov’s 1924 book, Red Terror in Russia 1918-1923 was more widely read?

Dunno.

Read it for yourself and decide if you want to reincarnate all this again – look at the figures and decide if you want those pictures in UHD:

https://archive.org/details/RedTerrorInRussia1918-1923

It’s happening today.

You don’t see it because YouTube will flag it. You don’t hear it because it’s not “newsworthy.” You don’t know it’s happening because you’re told it’s someplace else – Africa… Myanmar… someplace distant and inconsequential. But it IS a lot closer than you think.

Censored for modern discernment and direction.

Factual history

Melgunov’s book resurfacing from a previous post in 2017 is only one example. Are there other historical primary sources out there?

Sure.

Do I want to revisit them at this moment?

Not really – maybe later. While the point of this post is to reiterate the importance of such accounts, it won’t turn into an Annotated Bibliography. That is all on the reader and how much they want to understand that what is happening today has happened before – in some variation or another.

Let me restate that again – I’ll even emphasize it for clarity:

That is all on the reader and how much they want to understand that what is happening today has happened before – in some variation or another.

You must understand that there have always been oppressors and the oppressed; attackers and victims; evil and good. You also must understand that history is never easily reduced to a simple explanation or a 120-minute movie with the best-looking leading personalities and the most eye-popping special effects. It can be a boring subject for academic research and, for those who experienced it, moments/hours/days/months of terror, fear, hopelessness, and hatred. Understand that, if it is “based upon true events” and all questions about “why” and “then what happened” are easily answered, it is more than likely wrong and very loosely based upon true events… for… reasons – time, convenience, messaging, or all three.

Threat

Interestingly, “time, convenience, messaging, or all three” applies to the concept of threats as well. Timeliness can produce new threats through neglect or design, convenience might direct attention to a specific target while overlooking the factors which lead to that target being a danger, and messaging could be any shape or method – from subtle repetition on social media to condition perception or overt distortions of fact.

None of these changes the fact that threats exist, however. And in the case of what some Vets have experienced, those threats experienced “over there” are becoming increasingly likely to be the threats much closer to home.

“Which Vets? What threat?” one might ask.

Go look at the Galleanisti from over a century ago and the First World War veterans.

Go look at the McCarthyism from half a century ago and the Second World War veterans.

Go look at the Cold War and the Veterans of the proxy wars all over the world in the last 80 years.

Look at Veterans now and what they have had to contend with over the last three decades.

Is there one group who is a definite threat to the U.S. today?

Sure. Though that threat will vary, depending on who you talk to. It might not even be the threat you thought it was supposed to be (according to traditional and social media).

Cohesion

Most important is not the concept of an external threat, but of the damage we will inflict upon ourselves if we continue to allow others to exacerbate the festering wounds we were trying to heal. One would have to be completely blind to not see the damage done over the last decade or so to our own national identity and solidarity. Damage self-inflicted over identity, politics, or a litany of other easily exploited factors. Damage we filmed, shared, and viewed on YouTube… on TikTok… on Twitter/X… all eroding our faith in each other… in compassion… in the desire to understand and listen to dissenting perspectives.

Repercussions/Consequences

Finally, the most uncomfortable truth is that of what repercussions and consequences might lie ahead if the stories Veterans might (and should) tell are not heeded.

I am not sure where this scribbled-down quote came from, but it is relevant:

They don’t actually feel bad for what they did to them; they just regret the consequences of what they did to them.

Ignoring the past, dismissing the threat, encouraging the breakdown of relationships and cohesion… these actions will have dire consequences for many years to come.

As I mentioned many words earlier: “So many vets of the previous wars carried their traumas in silence.” Perhaps that didn’t work, and we are finding this out now, as a result of the consequences of keeping uncomfortable truths suppressed.

Listen to the current Veterans – what we are worried about… what we consider threats… what we cherish… what we were willing to give everything to protect… what is important not just to us as individuals, but to us as a whole.

Consider the clarifications offered:

You’ll have to work very, very hard to call me a racist. And you’ll have to do mental gymnastics at Olympic levels to twist my body of work into anything other than what it is:

An American telling the truth about what he saw, what he believes, and what he wants to protect.

I don’t speak for everyone. But I speak clearly.

I am not hateful. I am not a bigot.

I am an American.

And I want what’s best for America.

Read the primary sources so that future secondary sources aren’t questioning your motives, action, or – most critically – willful inaction in the face of obvious imperatives.

What tomorrow brings…?

We shall see – choose wisely and prepare to defend your ideas and self accordingly.

…Always, viciously optimistic.