THE QUESTION IS: “WHEN?”
by One Pissed-off Vietnam Vet
(Mar. 1, 2012) — The dude had a crazed look on his face, was sweating profusely, and yelling, “I’m going to kill an officer!” He was waving a butcher knife, and that was cause for concern. I knew the guy, so I walked up to him and said, “Look, I know what you’re trying to do, and you’re doing it very well. Just don’t hurt anybody,” turned my back on him and walked away.
It happened on the mess deck of the ship that I was on, a guided missile ship off the China coast in 1965. He was a shipmate. All I know was that he got a Section Eight Discharge (“psychological unfitness”). He wanted O-U-T of the madness that was Vietnam. Nobody blamed him; we just felt kind-of sad for him and those of us who were left. You had to be there to understand what it was really like. He was subdued without injury and, eventually, left the service of his country.
You give the recruits all the tests and the training that is logically feasible, and still a certain percentage crack under the stress. Some cave in quickly, while others may take months or even years to see the elephant. In Americana lore, the elephant was a mental barrier that some people couldn’t navigate over, under, around or through, mostly associated with settlers heading West in wagon trains, traveling in great numbers to afford the most protection against hostile forces. Those who did see the elephant were not ridiculed, made fun of, or made to carry any social stigma whatsoever; they just saw the elephant, and that’s that.
Every one of us has a breaking point, a point from which there is no return, no crossing over, no going back. Divorce is a good example; so is not going back to the restaurant where they charged too much for too little quality and/or quantity. I read a book of 400 pages, and on page 380 I just couldn’t take it anymore; I suffered enough. I thought I’d hang it up around the halfway point, but decided that, because I had 50% invested, I’d stick it out. Well, near the end, I saw no reason to continue the torment, so I gladly returned the book to the library and that’s the end of that story.
I suppose I could say that I saw the elephant when I was being mentally abused while reading a very poorly-written book. Those pioneers who saw the elephant were a part of a loosely-knit group: any one of them could stop and take root anytime during the journey. And I saw, first-hand, a military man seeing the elephant in a tightly-knit group in a combat zone.
Any one of us can see the elephant at anytime.
The only criteria required to see the elephant is the same constant stimulus until the brain says “ENOUGH!” Our brave Revolutionists of 1776 saw the elephant, en masse. A group sighting, if you will. Everyone seeing the same elephant at the same time.
Today we have all the ingredients in place: we have ballot and election commissions in all of our states ignoring the fact that Obama has never been properly vetted and yet refuse to remove his name from the 2012 ballot; we have a person occupying the office of president who lied on a Selective Service Registration and using a Social Security number not issued to him, along with numerous other transgressions, both legally and morally; we have law enforcement and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Legislative and Judicial branches turning a blind eye to the crimes committed against our Constitution. Yes, indeed, all of the rotten continuous stimulus has been bombarding us daily for almost four years.
There’s nothing to be embarrassed by or ashamed of seeing the elephant. Some see the elephant sooner than others, that’s all; but you’ll all, eventually, see the elephant. The sooner, the better. We can take only so much, and we’ve taken way too much as it is.