[A continuing series by guest author Ross Caputi]
The more I thought about it, the more I felt like there was something about these experiences that the world needed to know.
Everyday at the barracks it was staring me in the face, and every night it replayed itself in my head. Bradley and the old man he shot, Brendan’s mother, Fallujah, the innocent Iraqis who never wanted any of this, all the drinking and drugs, and everyone who told us that we were heroes–all of their individual stories put together seemed to tell a much larger story.
I tried writing, but at first everything that I wrote didn’t seem to do justice to what actually happened. Like that feeling in my gut, my story could not be put into words. I could not seem to put my finger on the significance of it all.
After many years of writing and editing and starting over, I began to realize that the elusive feeling was the significance of my story. Over time I dug deeper into my own psyche, and over time I was able to handle the pain of being brutally honest with myself.
That period was the worst and the most necessary in my life. That tormenting, indescribable feeling set me down a path that led to where I am today. It was that feeling compounded with everything that had happened and everything that I was seeing daily. It all seemed so incredible and tragic.
I could not make sense of it, but I wanted to. So I set out looking for answers. The answers I found were far more troubling than that feeling ever was.
To understand the change that I experienced, you have to understand the world that I was a part of–the Marine Corps and how Marines see themselves. You also have to recognize my ordeal in Fallujah, and in the ghetto where I bought drugs, and on a long and difficult journey through my tormented mind as I tried to understand how it all happened.
Ross Caputi, former Marine, founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, and former president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition