M*A*S*H studio set, Malibu Creek State Park, California (not my photo)
[from FB post: December 15, 2017]
Snippets of Reality
My friend got married last night which means an old group of friends, mostly young medical doctors, were reunited after a long time. I have known these guys since their last years of med school through their internships. I got a chance to speak to Saad, a quiet young guy who thinks sipping a glass of wine on the Gran Via in Madrid is pretty "daring" and "edgy", given he grew up in Southern Saudi Arabia in a conservative family.
Saad is a primary care physician at a family clinic in the neighboring town of Khamis Mushait. He deals with flu and typical minor ailments and not much more. He works more or less in an "Urgent Care".
However..... (dark music) Saad is a government doctor and was sent to the front lines of the war with Yemen. He said he was sent into an active war zone and had to deal with battlefield injuries with little to no preparation. Mostly he did triage but still he had to stabilize gravely wounded soldiers. The stories he told were bone chilling and harrowing. His life has been permanently changed and he said "I really understand the word 'war' now". I thought of my father who said the same thing after he got off the troop transport in Incheon, Korea. His impressions were eerily similar to Saad's even though they were divided by time, distance and culture.
And I reflected on my very entitled and lazy students and how little they know about what is happening in their own country (or at least on the edges of it).
I think sometimes it is better we are buffered from reality even if we really think we "want it straight". The real world is just too overwhelming.
Reading these comments again five years later, I look at the current conflict in Ukraine and the comments being made about the Russian soldiers as very young, very scared, and very unprepared. I reflect on my early years and the news out of Vietnam. Young American soldiers were returning home drug-addicted with PTSD mainly because they had no clue where they were going to fight nor what they were getting into. So many years ago, yet nothing has changed. Maybe this aspect of our species is hard-wired into us.
The short Monkees anti-war song "Zor and Zam" (Bill and John Chadwick) comes to mind:
The king of Zor, he called for war And the king of Zam, he answered. They fashioned their weapons one upon one Ton upon ton, they called for war at the rise of the sun. Out went the call to one and to all That echoed and rolled like the thunder. Trumpets and drums, roar upon roar More upon more. Rolling the call of "Come now to war." Throughout the night they fashioned their might With right on the side of the mighty. They puzzled their minds plan upon plan Man upon man And at dying of dawn the great war began. They met on the battlefield banner in hand. They looked out across the vacant land. And they counted the missing, one upon one, None upon none. The war it was over before it begun. Two little kings playing a game. They gave a war and nobody came. And nobody came. And nobody came. And nobody came. And nobody came.
Would it ever be that people will just say "no, I am not going to do that" when people in power make reckless decisions that destroy lives, cities, and entire countries?