SOLDIER ON

I did a psychic reading recently for the wife of a man named Roger.  Roger’s life was rich, interesting, and punctuated by this: in the late 1960’s, he was drafted into the Army and sent to the front lines in Vietnam.  With a college degree and a good head on his shoulders, Roger was quickly put in charge of his platoon.  He did not want to be there, did not believe war solved anything, and did not feel that those in charge of orchestrating the bloody mess understood the situation on the ground.  His tour of duty was a mixed bag: he made life better for those around him by protecting the weaker guys in his platoon without singling them out or shaming them, and he did things like create an indoor gym and an outdoor obstacle course as a place for “the guys” to blow off steam.  But the positives were far outweighed by the negatives:  a variety of ill-conceived missions with heavy casualties, and a lot of days and nights spent wondering what on Earth he was doing there.

Read more