Guilty Conscious.

Disclaimer: As per usual I have to warn everyone that my language is somewhat colorful. If you are easily offended please stop now and forever hold your peace. For everyone who does continue please feel free to pass this along if you feel it's appropriate. 


Before I even go anywhere with this one I want to key you guys into something. I write to kind of enlighten people who normally wouldn't know how some of us feel. You see, I was once told I have a gift when it comes to the written word. Although I know I'm not that great and I know there is a lot of room for improvement I still seem to have a knack for expressing things. So I write. Dylan Thomas is one of my all time favorite poets and this quote encapsulates how I feel when it comes to writing.


"I do not want to express only what other people have felt, I want to rip something away and show what they have never seen."


So with that, read on.


Have you ever felt guilt? True unadulterated, haunting your soul, compromising your sanity kind of guilt. The kind of guilt that keeps you up at night. The kind of guilt that sometimes makes you wonder if you really deserve to be on this earth among the living. The kind of guilt that makes you question your humanity. The kind of guilt that causes nausea when someone offers thanks for what you've done. The kind of guilt that causes a grief within you that few will ever know. Have you ever felt that kind of guilt?


Many of us have. We try to bury it in places we think will keep it at bay. We try to hide it in a corner of our soul and lock it away. The problem is that it doesn't always work. It comes out and reminds us constantly of what we've done or what we've witnessed or of what we didn't do. It robs us of sleep. It robs us of peace, serenity, and often times the ability to feel happiness. Hell, sometimes it even robs us of the ability to feel any emotions at all. It's debilitating and we live with it constantly. 


Many ask why I don't believe in Heaven or Hell after what I've been through. Here's the simple answer. If hell exists in the afterlife then why have we had to go through it here on Earth?


War is glorified in TV shows, Movies, Music, and in Games. War holds no glory, it holds only horrors. Horrors that follow some the rest of their lives. Horrors that cause some to end that life prematurely. 


In the past I've written about being called a "baby killer" and being accused of committing a plethora of heinous crimes. To be honest, we may have. Have you ever witnessed the devastation caused by a 2,000 lb bomb? You can't recognize what's left. That may have been the enemy, it may have been a dog, a woman, a child, or maybe even a slaughtered goat someone was preparing for dinner. You just never know. Modern weapons are designed to wreck havoc. They do this very effectively. 


Have you ever seen a dying man? Seen the last remnants of life fade from their eyes? Felt the weight of a body that you are carrying to a helicopter to be transported home? Home to a family that just lost their son, brother, fiancee, friend, their loved one, a part of their life that can never be replaced. 


Have you ever opened a van door and realized that wasn't a vehicle born improvised explosive device but a family who didn't know what all those signals meant? No matter what you did to try to get them to stop, they just didn't, they kept barreling towards you. Yesterday, in the same situation, that van exploded. That explosion killed and wounded people that you knew. That explosion killed and wounded your allies. That explosion killed and wounded a lot of innocent civilians. What were you supposed to do?


Have you ever survived something and truly wondered how or why? Have you sat there and contemplated the meaning of life in a broad sense? Dead at 19. Single, young, an entire life ahead of him taken away in an instant. Never having the chance to find that perfect match. Never experiencing raising a child. Never having a chance to experience... Yet you've had that and you wonder why you survived. 


Have you ever seen the tears of a mother when her son is laid to rest before his time? Seen the grief in her eyes and the anger because he died doing something she didn't believe in? The guilt she expresses because she couldn't talk him out of it? Have you ever felt the anguish of not being able to do anything about it?


Have you ever seen the inexpressible pain and anger of a mother who's son lost his legs? Knowing that he's fighting a war that should already be over? Knowing that his life will forever be changed and will forever be a challenge. Challenges that he shouldn't have to face. Will he ever experience life the way he deserves? 


Have you ever felt that kind of guilt?


Do you know what it feels like to keep something buried and not being able to talk about it to the people you love? The people that accept you with all your flaws. The people you should be able to talk to about anything. But you can't, because deep down you wonder, if they knew, would they still feel the same way?


Maybe if people understood the basic concept of such a vast and all encompassing guilt they wouldn't be so quick to judge. They wouldn't be so quick to ask or accuse. Maybe if they understood that kind of guilt they wouldn't send people to do the things that cause it. Maybe...


Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
by Dylan Thomas


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning that they
Do not go gentle into that good night.


Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.


Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.