iâve mentioned this here before, but it will remain one of the most ideologically influential experiences of my life: when i was in fifth grade i did a report on post traumatic stress as manifested in veterans of the vietnam war, and my father did me the huge favor of connecting me w/ a vietnam vet friend of his who was diagnosed with PTSD, assuring him that while i was only ten i was bright and curious and he should be as honest with me about his experience as possible.Â
i remember entering his office with my tape recorder, sitting in a chair that was too big, and asking him questions about war, and his life after war, while swinging my legs over the edge of the chair. i remember being very, very quiet as he spoke of pulling the car over on the highway for fear of crashing when his hands would shake uncontrollably in response to song on the radio or a smell that he couldnât be sure was real or sense-memory. and of ruined relationships and anger and american hypocrisy.Â
and i also remember that was the day i learned what âvalorâ meant. he used âvalorâ in a sentence and i didnât know that word, and when i asked him to explain âvalorâ he became very quiet. and i canât remember precisely what he said, if he ever offered me the dictionary definition or not, but i do remember him looking very sad, and saying something about our countryâs idea of âvalorâ, and also something about a broken promise. and there was an edge to his words that i couldnât parse at the time that i would later come to understand was bitterness, that he sounded bitter.Â
to this day i canât hear or read the word âvalorâ without seeing sunlight coming through his office window at a slant, close-to-sunset light, and feeling the kind of quiet, confused, completely internalized panic a child feels when they sense that a grown up is trying very hard not to weep in their presence.Â
