The Iraq Museum

by Lorraine, NeoVox Project Director, October 9, 2008

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She told me the story over a meal. Her voice was calm but controlled, the way we tell each other stories when something hurts. It's like watching a frozen river right about the time of the thaw; at some point, the ice is going to crack and all that pent-up energy is going to come pouring down in a surge that will knock down bridges and flood the banks, and sweep people away who are naïve about the thaw.

It was about her brother. Her beloved brother. Proud Marine who had served two tours in Iraq. Her fun-loving brother who had been the heart of his family, made everybody laugh, loved his wife passionately, loved his country.

"He sits in the house all day and drinks," she says. "He used to go down to the VFW at night, to talk to the guys, get some perspective, be able to tell his stories without judgment. But some assholes have decided to come into the VFW and harass the vets, and now he has nowhere to go."

She hates the war. She was against it from the start, but she loves her brother, and so, when he went, she worried over him, supported his decision even when she thought it was wrong. That's what big sisters do. We look out for our little brothers, even when we don't agree with them.

Yeah me and Frankie laughin' and drinkin'
Nothin' feels better than blood on blood
Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band
Played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

I catch him when he's strayin' like any brother would
Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good

"He's built a museum, you know," she says. "He's written to all of these soldiers, asked them to send him stuff. He's got a room full of it now, and he just goes and sits in there."

I've got nothing to say. Once upon a time, when I was 17, I loved a man who was a Viet Nam vet. He drank a fifth of Irish whiskey every day. Walked with a permanent limp from the shrapnel embedded in his thigh that had destroyed his quadriceps. I would come home sometimes, find him in front of the stereo with the headphones on, singing "Born in the USA" at the top of his lungs. He felt kicked around. Unappreciated. His government didn't want to know about him. His friends couldn't coax the stories from him. All we could do was sit with him, hold his head when he was dead drunk, try to quiet the demons that chased him. I tried for seven years. I finally gave up. I'm sorry. I was in over my head.

Listening to her story took me back. Another generation of young men living with nightmares that would never go away. A government that swore it supported the troops, but didn't provide adequate counseling for them.

"His wife has left him," she says. "I can't blame her. He has alienated all of us. He's so mean to all of us. We know he's hurting, but he won't let us in. She felt in danger, so she left."

Donald Woodward's widow is suing the Defense Department. Her 23-year old Iraqi veteran husband shot himself. He chose one of his favourite hiking spots as his resting place. Was it peaceful when he pulled the trigger?

In July 2005, his wife sought help for her husband at the Lebanon VA Medical Center. She was told her husband would have to "come in voluntarily."
On Nov. 19, Woodward set his pickup truck on fire and then climbed inside in an attempt to end his life, according to the suit. He was saved by his wife, and the suicide attempt was reported to Lebanon medical center officials.
It was one of three suicide attempts.
On Nov. 28, 2005, Woodward reported to the VA medical center and was screened for depression. A doctor wrote that Woodward "does not meet criteria for major depressive disorder. The patient will be referred to a Mental Health Professional for management of depression."

You try to kill yourself three times and that's not major depressive disorder? I'm sorry, but what the fuck?

Patrick Henderson hanged himself in the shed in his backyard.
The 35-year-old soldier was the fifth Houston-based Army recruiter to commit suicide in seven years.

This quarter, Virginia Quarterly Review devotes itself to the plight of returning soldiers. Reading about Noah Pierce will break your heart.

Noah Pierce’s headstone gives his date of death as July 26, 2007, though his family feels certain he died the night before, when, at age twenty-three, he took a handgun and shot himself in the head. No one is sure what pushed him to it. He said in his suicide note it was impotence—a common side effect of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It was “the snowflake that toppled the iceberg,” he wrote. But it could have been the memory of the Iraqi child he crushed under his Bradley. “It must have been a dog,” he told his commanders. It could have been the unarmed man he shot point-blank in the forehead during a house-to-house raid, or the friend he tried madly to gather into a plastic bag after he had been blown to bits by a roadside bomb, or—as the fragments of Noah’s poetry might lead you to believe—it could have been the doctor he killed at a checkpoint.

I can't change anything that I'm writing about. I feel as if I am here to bear witness, to call attention, AGAIN, to how we have turned our backs on the men and women that we asked to go fight a wrong-headed war.

Can I say this? I try very hard not to let hate into my heart. But I hate this administration. I hate what they have done, continue to do. I hate that they strut around the barnyard like the fucking chickenhawks that they are, their tail feathers all splayed, their dicks hard, and they don't give a fuck about what it costs others to stoke their fragile egos.

It is not time for the spring thaw, but I can feel the dammed up emotion behind these words, can feel this awful need to scream into the wilderness.

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