A Thank You To Soldiers
It is fair to say that every time I share Touch Practice with another man, it is a life-changing experience for me. It’s not possible to hold someone for an hour and not be deeply touched (pardon the pun) on every level.
But some of the most challenging, inspiring and thought-provoking experiences have come from the few times that I have been privileged to do Touch Practice with men who are on, or recently completed, active duty in combat missions.
Like many people, I have personal beliefs and political positions regarding war: how and why military force should or shouldn’t be used, how much budget should flow towards our defense needs, if and when it is ever right to kill another person, and many other hot topics which shouldn’t be discussed at polite dinner tables, and which I won’t discuss here.
What I do want to describe here is what it is like to hold the physical bodies of the men we send into war, the men who at times kill on our behalf, and who place themselves at risk of being killed on our behalf every time they show up for work.
The half-dozen experiences I have had working with soldiers cover pretty diverse terrain. Some of the guys I have held feel like grown men; some of them feel like young boys. (Relative to my own age, they are young boys.) It hurts me to imagine a grown man being put into a place where he must kill someone, but it particularly pains me for a boy to have that experience.
Some soldiers feel intact; I can sense their own sense of their boundaries and the “capsule” of their energetic body. Some guys feel like ground beef; their insides are unlike anything I have sensed, like an energetic body that was placed in a blender and scrambled.
Some come from curious and playful interest in Touch Practice, and some
come deeply traumatized, wanting to be held so they can mourn and heal from wounds they carry. The work of holding a soldier who needs to mourn and grieve what he has experienced is among the most difficult work I have ever had to do in Touch Practice, and, not surprisingly, among the most rewarding. The very, very least these guys deserve is someone to hold them. I wish I could do so much more.
The personal impact of this for me is that I have gotten less interested in the political and idealogical positions related to the military, to defense funding, to the use of our forces and to the role of the United States in world affairs. Those things are important topics, to be sure. But my attention has been drawn to these men, these individual beings, these brothers, and to the impact that our many theoretical and philosophical positions have had on their very real lives, their very physical bodies, and the emotions that they individually carry through their lives.
Regardless of my political feelings or philosophies, I have deep respect and awe for soldiers, I have gratitude for them, and I regret the impact that combat has on their physical and emotional bodies. I pray for peace not because of my political convictions or personal philosophy. I pray for peace because of what my body has witnessed. I bear witness that many of these men, despite the honor, courage or strength they bring to their work, come away hurt or damaged from their experiences. That they might be hurt on my behalf, with my consent, by my inaction, is something I am going to have to sit with. Sitting with myself on these issues may prove ultimately more difficult than my time with any of these soldiers.
A word of thanks, this Memorial Day, to all those men and women who protect and defend us.
Footnote: Every single day, an average of eighteen veterans commit suicide.
Have thoughts you’d like to share?
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Thanks! As always, thoughtfully written and heartfelt truth. One of my confreres ministers to soldiers at Bethesda Naval Hospital and has shared powerful stories of the physical and emotional wounds these men and women bear on our behalf. Again, let us all pray for peace for their safe return home to their loved ones.
Barry: thanks for writing and for sharing your thoughts. As is the case in many areas of our lives, I had all kinds of thoughts, feelings, opinions and positions about soldiers until I actually met individual people, became close to them, and formed a deep, personal relationship with them. And then my thoughts, feelings, opinions and positions all changed, because there were real people involved. Much of my life has been insulated from interactions with people in uniform, and I have known about them only from second-hand reports.
That might sound strange, but it happens all the time. How people react to (fill in the blank: gays, Republicans, black people, atheists, vegetarians, Mormons) as a class often shifts remarkably when they suddenly discover that their son “is one” or they become close to a neighbor who “is one.” For me, all of a sudden, war has become personal. Very, very personal. And that has made all the difference.
Thank you Kevin, as always. I think you have touched upon a deeply important issue, how we insulate ourselves from that which we don’t understand or can’t bear to investigate. It is more than sad that young men and women are the ones who must pay the heavy human price of war that is ostensibly for our “benefit”, or a way to say thank you in a meaningful way.
I stumbled upon an odd YouTube video this morning that was originally made during World War II as propaganda fodder for the German Army. The famous and gifted cinematographer Leni Riefenstahl was responsible for the footage of young men who were being assembled for yet another war. If one can set aside the politics for a moment and just look at the footage, one can see the innocence and beauty of brash youth— the pride and joy of all fathers and mothers around the world. It was also a time when touch was still a natural human response. You can view the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJdwoFT-bSc
Baba, thanks for your post and that very interesting video. There are a number of interesting male mammal behaviors in there relative to an earlier blog of mine, “Men are Animals“–first, you can see packing behavior pretty easily, but another thing that we do instinctively, if we allow ourselves to, is grooming behavior. Many male pack mammals groom each other; it was pretty striking in the hair-combing footage. It also was another time, as you point out, when men could be in a sauna offering each other massage and care-full touch without a thought given to sex or sexual orientation. Nowadays that kind of footage is mostly limited to pornography.