I am a student at College of the Canyons and a veteran. As such, I would like to offer my comments regarding Bill Renyolds’ story “Brotherhood and healing” published June 23.
Remorse, also known as “survivors guilt,” in battle and after battle is hard to express to someone who has not felt the loss and pains of war. The hardship of fighting for your life, fighting for your buddy’s life, linger forever.
Fighting, and knowing in a heartbeat you would give your life for your buddy next to you and knowing in your heart that your buddy would gladly give his own life for yours, is not something most people experience.
I came home from my first tour in Iraq to a world that continued to function in normalcy. I came home to people who did not understand that my friends did not all return home with me.
The anguish in my soul, the void and emptiness this place could not restore, is something with which I have to cope every day. Some days, I don’t do well. I understand the tears the men of Bill Reynolds’ article shed.
I am forever stained with an emptiness that I cannot accurately describe. I am and will always be brothers with these men and the battles they fought and the absence only those who fought will ever understand.
I hope that some day, all veterans will find a way to connect to people who do understand what we endure. Thank you, Bill, for writing this story. It is an important one that must be told.
David Wiley
Santa Clarita
