I suffer from severe Confrontation Fantasy Disorder. The syndrome isn’t real, but the discomfort it causes very much is.
I spend significant time and energy imagining conversations going terribly wrong. Before asking my boss for time off, I prepare dramatic arguments in anxious anticipation of his imagined tirade. When the real event arrives, instead of screaming threats of termination, he would more likely smile. “Make sure to fill out the proper form, but no problem,” and I would walk out of his office not having been compelled to throw over his desk after all.
My CFD flared up bad in Starbucks as I approached a table of veterans.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” I said, “May I join you, perhaps to talk about your experiences?”
I imagined an onslaught.
Get out of here, boy! The men are talking.
You call that little thing you served in a war? I was at Pearl Harbor!
I fought on D-Day! We lost more men in 10 minutes than died in Afghanistan in 10 years!
But no attack came. Instead, they shrugged and motioned toward an empty seat. A man commented on my “Doctor Who” T-shirt. Others asked about my writing in general and this column in particular.
There were about a dozen veterans there, sipping coffee and smiling. They welcomed me, but still, I felt like an intruder, an imposter. I am legally a veteran, and I honor the service of all who, like me, served in the War in Afghanistan. My time there was not without challenges, but I know my service was easy compared to the medic who’d served in a hospital at Chu Lai in Vietnam or the man who fought at Pearl Harbor.
What could I possibly tell men like these that would come close to measuring up to what they had experienced? Once in Afghanistan, sand got into our PlayStation, so we couldn’t play “Grand Theft Auto” anymore.
One of the greatest generation, a man in his 90s, leaned forward at the end of the table. “If you want stories, don’t just come for a half hour. Join us. Keep coming back, and you’ll hear plenty of stories.”
They began to talk one another up, a Korean War Navy vet pointing to a former Marine, explaining he had been pulled off his other duties when the Corps learned he could pole vault and needed him for a Marine track-and-field team. A former Army medic who’d served in Vietnam explained that the man across from him had seen the nuclear fireball rising in the distance over Nagasaki in ’45.
“How was Afghanistan?” someone asked.
What could I possibly say, but the first thing that came to mind? “It was hot. Real hot.”
They laughed and nodded. An old sailor said he would have preferred that to his freezing duty north of the Arctic Circle.
“Our hospital was on the South China Sea,” said the medic. “Perfect weather.”
Then came stories of U.S. ships accidentally beached, pranks pulled on Army officers, and humanitarian missions. Laughter over the familiarity with stories like these. Around that table were men from four different armed services and at least as many wars, having served across a span of 70 years. At age 40, I was, by far, the youngest veteran there, and the conflict I’d imagined with the group was only a figment of my CFD. Hostilities had been left behind on past foreign battlefields.
That morning, enjoying peace, coffee, and conversation were seemingly disparate veterans united by their shared understanding of the sacrifice, horror, and hilarity of war and military service. They welcomed me, and I felt honored to be among them, the camaraderie proof that the U.S. Armed Forces are a brotherhood that spans not just battalions but generations.
[Also read: Camo and ashes in the desert]
Trent Reedy served as a combat engineer in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a year’s tour of duty in Afghanistan.
