It all started when a famous health professional who specializes in sexual health got a bulletin on how suicide rates in the army were at an all time high. She was curious and read the long and boring facts on data collected about this new phenomenon. Nothing was clicking until she read a sentence relating the fact that over 50% of those who were studied had exhibited or mentioned an inability to intimately connect with another human being in their life. Deep relationships, intimacy, gone.
This health professional wondered if there was any research, military or otherwise linking war with an inability to achieve intimate relationships...she went back to world war 2...their was really nothing studied or documented which could better inform her, no answers really.
She still wondered. What is it, in the military experience that could make an otherwise healthy human unable to connect with another human.
She offered her services to military health professionals in order to engage with some of that 'community' to see what their understanding of this issue was. No one seemed to be wondering the same things she was. And then she was asked to speak with a specific unit for educational purposes. She started her little talk on sexuality, intimacy, physical expression and emotional connection...blah blah blah and half way through she stopped and just asked if there were any questions so far. What was on their mind...that kind of thing.
One young man raised his hand, a medic. he said, "I know why God made the night dark."
This health professional could have cared less about God, but wondered what on earth this 'boy' was getting at.
He continued by adding he had been on two tours, spending countless hours patrolling. 'We wear night vision goggles,' he said, 'we see everything'. 'We see what men do to women and children, to other men when it's dark, we see it all.' Then he stopped. She continued her lecture, despite wanting to go over and give him a big hug and wipe all his bad memories away. By the time she ended, he was gone.
She hasn't forgotten him, and when she addresses issues affecting sexuality and intimacy, she always mentions war.
As much as I worry over people that are being taken advantage of, of corrupt governments and oppressed people who need some saving, who need help. A saviour. I also worry about those brave souls who rush in to save them. The ones who still believe in honor, duty and integrity. I worry about people with good intentions, a big dream, and some ammunition. I worry about doing good that only brings about more harm. I worry about being a nurse who tries to fix symptoms and ignores the person. I worry that I will pat myself on the back for finishing my shift and leave a battlefield full of dying people. I worry that the medicine has side effects that cause more problems than they cure. I worry that the ones fighting infection at the site are the ones making super bugs unknowingly.
And that is why the story of that medic makes me a little bit sad. That is why the rest of our sexual health class, we were subdued. We have built up the pursuit of knowledge as some sort of saviour for all the simple minded. The ignorant, the naive. We have given the power of determination over to ourselves and maybe we have succeeded in becoming the empowered person we always wanted to be...but as gods of our own wee universe we have lost contact with everyone else.
I am studying now...really, I am studying...I just had to get out my worry post...
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