“We have been discussing things for years and all kinds of things have come up. I think we’ve touched on most everything and most things we’ve talked about over and over,” I told the soldier the other night.

“Yep.”

“I don’t have very many memories but I do have some and they are vivid. You told me a lot of things when we were kids. You used to do nothing but talk and I have good recall of some of the stuff you said and most of it we have talked about since, in the current day. But what kills me is you told me about something back then which I never forgot. And I’ve waited… since 2003 for it to come up but it never has. I think that’s strange.”

“What is it?”

I told him. “I remember that in great detail. You made an impression on me with that, I have remembered it all my life. It impacted me, greatly. How come you’ve never brought that up again? You’ve brought up everything else.”

He laughed. “Well that’s nothing, P. It was something at the time. I thought it was something when it happened but it’s nothing compared to what has happened since. That’s like… it’s like being slapped and then later in your life, someone comes up with a machete and whacks your whole arm off. I mean your whole arm is gone, you can’t get it back and once that happens you realize the other, while it was not pleasant was really not that big a deal.”

I sighed. “It is my most precise memory,” I said. “I remember it in great detail, I always have and it has defined you for me. It’s something I never forgot and you know I forget.”

“Well, P, I haven’t forgotten it either. It’s just that other things have happened that made it pale in comparison.”

“Okay.”

I didn’t say more because I didn’t really know how to process the idea something so important to me has such little significance to him. But there is another element.

What he told me at the time was horrifying to me and I am not that easy to horrify. What this means is that over the course of his life something horrifying has become innocuous so I had to get that into my head. Because we are talking about torture here - real torture inflicted in captivity that he endured as a teen.

But a few days later I realized that he’s spent his life at war. He’s had his friends killed as he is stood alongside them, their faces blown off their bodies and when you consider it from this perspective it’s easy to understand how he could discount, torture. And there is another angle too.

I am in similar circumstance. I also shrug at events in my life others find horrifying so what we’ve got here is a mirror, we are peers.

To be continued.

Have you ever looked at someone and seen your own eyes looking back?

Skip to Hard Pill To Swallow