Once you pledge your life to something, to someone, to a unit, you are not free to destroy yourself. There is NO such freedom - suicide is NOT a choice. It’s a failure. You can die, but you have to try. You can only forget that if you’re alone. That’s one of the reasons suicides isolate themselves.
Don’t let that happen. Don’t leave a man behind, just because he tells you it’s all right, he’ll be along shortly. He won’t. You don’t want to live with that.
I don’t anyway. I’m glad I didn’t. Ted... well, Ted never thanked me for my service. I don’t mind. Just watching him walk out of that loony bin with no idea of what we did for him, back to his frightened wife, and frightened, but proud, sons - that wasn’t something I want to be thanked for. It was an accomplishment for me and his other roommates. A kind of gift. Wasn’t expecting that.
I was getting better. Hard to believe that was even possible. But I was. Some thanks to Ted. I didn’t tell him that because he was leaving and he wouldn’t have understood anyway. I’ll tell him now. Thanks, Ted. Proud to have served with you. You helped me out. You helped us all. You were the most likely to get left behind, and we didn’t let that happen. We did that. In there.
Makes me believe that we’d do that anywhere. Maybe not, but I choose to believe it anyway. It’s a good thing to believe. No man left behind.
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