“Why do you keep bailing that drunken loser out, Mama?”
I wiped the sneer from my son’s face with a look. “That loser raised me when our parents died. And then he fought in Vietnam. He lived through horrors you and I can’t imagine. He’s ill, not a loser, Mikah.”
This story was inspired by the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry.
Black troops made up 11% of American soldiers in Vietnam, but only 2% of the officer corps, and a whopping 25% of combat deaths. Black or white, many soldiers came home forever changed, suffering from PTSD that was not recognized at that time. When we see people who are down and out, it’s too easy to judge. What have they seen? What have they lived through? Compassion combined with adequately funded mental health care is what is needed, not more jail cells.
After visiting Prince Edward County and learning about Wayne's father who came home from the second world war a broken man, I wrote a poem. My heart was in pieces, thinking about him and how hard it was for him to try to return to the life he left behind. He never succeeded. I'm so thankful we have so many now that see that pain and understand the support these heroes need although, unless we've been there, I don't know that we could ever truly understand how they feel. I am conflicted about war. Sending humans to kill humans. But Nazi death camps were wrong and I can't believe it is ok to turn a blind eye to human suffering just because I can't hear the tears outside my window but sadly they are more often politically rather than compassion driven. And so I pray. I pray every day for world peace and I pray one day my prayer will be answered.
Wars have proven how inhumane and cruel humanity can be. Many lacked the compassion and understanding required to heal and help those who have become victims of a war they didn't want to be apart of. Soldiers are also victims of wars.