In the military when we’re deployed and we take enemy contact and lose a member of our unit, we don’t have a funeral. We have what’s known as a ramp ceremony; the company or unit, lines up and salutes the fallen service member as they are taken to the “Angel Flight.” The flight is different than a medevac flight, simply because the service member is a confirmed KIA. The fallen member is carried out by an honors detail past their company who render a final salute, and then they are placed on the aircraft and taken off the battle field and brought “Home.” 

That is as close to a funeral and burial for their fallen comrade as combat troops get. For us, this is supposed to be closure. I can tell you that for me, as someone who has been through this, it was not. It actually seemed to make the loss worse. For me there was no actual closure. Yes, I witnessed my brothers placed on the aircraft. Yes, they were taken off the battlefield, but I never got to see them placed in their final rest. I (we) never got the sense of closure that the family did. Granted, we were not family in the traditional sense of the word, but make no mistake, we were family. 

We knew things about each other that true family didn’t know, things that we would never share with blood family. People might ask why, and that’s a simple answer. We would want you to remember us as we were, as the innocent ones that you kissed when we boarded the bus or plane to head off to some faraway place that you could only point out on a map. A place we would call home for the next year. We wouldn’t want you to think of us as anything but what you knew before. What we had to become, Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, willing to, and possibly having to do the unspeakable, the greatest of all sins, in the name of others, in the name of country, is not how we would want you to remember us. This is an image of us we would never want our loved ones to have of us, ever. 

When a veteran returns home from combat and musters up the courage to go to the gravesite of a brother or sister, (and for some this can take time, in my case it took 10 years), it is an incredibly emotional thing. All the time that has passed since they last saw their brother or sister just disappears. All the times we had laughed together, cried together, celebrated birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, the birth of a child, or celebrated  other milestones together, come flooding back like it was only yesterday. They may have been with them when they were killed, and that will bring up a whole other host of emotions, feelings of self-doubt, anger, helplessness, and in my case responsibility. 

We know we’re not responsible for what happened. We didn’t fire the rockets, mortars, or pull the trigger, but as soldiers we are told, taught, and instilled with the belief that you are responsible for you “Battle buddy,” your friend, your brother or sister, and we take that to heart. It is said that a soldier never fights for what’s in front of them, but rather “Who” is beside them. I can honestly tell you that this is true. You never want to feel like you let them down, and to lose them in combat is to feel as if you did just that, you failed them and let them down. Every Soldier, Sailor, Airman and Marine, swears to themselves and their buddies, not just swears, but promises them, that they will keep them safe and bring them home, no matter what. The worst feeling you can have is the feeling that you failed to do what you promised. You failed to do what you said you would do, to keep them safe and bring them home. 

You broke that sacred promise, you did the unforgivable, you failed to uphold a solemn vow, and that is unthinkable. 

These are battle scars we carry that you don’t see. We don’t get medals for these. There is no Purple Heart awarded for this combat injury, just a solemn pain that is ours, for making a promise that we should have never made, because we are not God, we cannot know the future. I myself made that sacred promise, and I was not able to hold my word, I did the unforgivable, and it haunts me every day, and it will be my penance for the rest of my days and I have accepted that. All I ask is that on the day of my judgement, almighty God understands why I made that promise, and he and those that I made it to, will forgive me for not keeping it. 

Now I find myself at a crossroads, between trying to make amends with the ghost of my past, and living a life worthy of their sacrifice.