I was standing in an army barracks in Lancashire, soaking with sweat, dressed in combats, boots and a regimental sweatshirt; we’d just come back from a platoon run. I was about to get undressed and someone came running into my room saying that a plane had crashed into some building in New York.
As we stood around the TV discussing how such a terrible accident could have happened we saw the second plane hit. It slowly dawned on us and those presenting the live news feed that this might not have been an accident. There were a few of us in my infantry regiment that were rather up on current affairs, we read a lot and had an understanding of global politics. I counted myself as one of those and a guy nicknamed Cat was another. We happened to be standing next to each other watching this unfold. We both muttered: ‘We’re going to war.’
Fast forward two years: I’m standing in down town Basra.
Fast forward six years from then: I’m making arrangements to bury a friend.
It’s strange, isn’t it, that one can only fast forward in retrospect. Or rather, it isn’t. It isn’t strange at all, since one needs the series of events to have already occurred in order to move forwards through them. However, there is another thing altogether that I call ‘making indices’. It’s a monumentally disturbing process that actually allows one to fast forward from the beginning of the path. It’s essentially that thing where one goes, for example: “I can’t wait to be seventeen, so I can learn to drive!”, and then one finds that one is suddenly seventeen. Or even worse, where someone might say, for example: “Well, that was rather traumatic. Given my understanding of human psychology, I expect that it will take me about two years to ‘get over it’.” And lo! and behold, one is suddenly two years older. Beware those ‘indices’ they can be a right bastard!
Just thought I’d share that with the class.
The power of the image of the towers being struck to bring back the moment and the horrible weirdness of it all is quite extraordinary.
Watching anniversary coverage this weekend also reminded me of the other television ‘event’ of the time, rather less arresting but still memorable: the haranguing by the Question Time audience of the US Ambassador to London. I still find that the discourtesy and insensitivity makes me profoundly angry. The man was close to tears. (The BBC did apologise to him afterwards, I believe.)
I’m very sorry to hear that you’re burying a friend. I trust his family are being looked after by the army.
Society often discusses the physical losses we experience through war. The death of soldiers and, indeed, civillians through various dreadful and usually painful means.
What saddens me is the tendency to ignore and even find distasteful the servicemen and women who dissapear psychologically. My brother thankfully made it. One of my best friends has not. He sits before us drinking and chuckling in much the same way as before. The difference is the drinking is ceaseless and he turns ‘dark’ in a heartbeat. Something has left his eyes. They are dull. My fear is that he has lost his hope.
Volequeen.
[…] reading because it deals with “a” reality of war and peace. Please take a look : 9/11 – Where I was *** In a series of posts, Lyle Denniston analyzed the issues and contentions concerning the status […]
i have prepared a speech for today and i’m sure, that 9/11 wasn;t a terror act. and i didn’t find any real evidences that it was a terror act
[…] Just to make it absolutely clear… this is the type of tweet I like to see…it reflects social and pleasurable interaction. Oedipus_Lex doesn’t just tweet – he also writes a very good blog. Here he remembers where he was on 9/11 […]
An excellent point and something I’ve not covered before. I feel a post on PTSD and the effects of going to war coming on. Despite an increase in media coverage of the mental effects of war, many of us are still scared to talk about it and I think perhaps I should.
You’re right, nobody should have to be subjected to that.
I may or may not see you soon depending on if we actually have a course to go back to!