I met Lyman tonight on the way home from work. I missed my bus by ten seconds tonight after leaving Outback. So I naturally tried to catch it down the street a ways, but as it turns out it was a bit longer of a ride (on my bike) than I had anticipated. So instead I sat there on the side of the road and played with my phone while I waited the thirty minutes for the 11:20 bus. While I was waiting a drunk guy walked up and started talking to me. His name was Lyman. He was a vet. He told me that every memorial day he gets drunk and walks around making a fool of himself. I told him that he didn’t seem to be acting too foolish right now aside from sitting too far out into the street (at my suggestion he moved more onto the sidewalk at this point). He clarified by saying that he didn’t do too much stupid stuff, just cried a lot. Lyman went on to tell me all about the twelve guys that he spent a few years with in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. They were rangers. He showed me his Southeast Asia tattoo on his arm. I asked him if he would do it all over again which lead to us talking about the war in Iraq and how if he was 20 years old right now he’d enlist in the army and go over to Iraq and shoot every mother f#$%@& with a gun. That’s how you win wars, not by fudging around and going in…well, just fill in a whole handful of dirty and nasty words here…He told me about how they were supposed to get information from people. How are you supposed to get people to talk, he asked me. He answered his own question when he began telling me of different torture techniques they’d use to get people to talk. Of the twelve he went with only three returned to the States. The other two, Carl and John, both committed suicide within the first two years of being home. Prior to their suicide they told Lyman that they couldn’t handle things, that it was too much to have on their conscience. He retorted back that they just did their jobs. They did what they were supposed to do!
He asked if I had a smoke. I apologized and told him I didn’t, but that there were a few people smoking up at the bar across the street. Lyman began to head over there and then paused to turn around and tell me that I’d probably never meet him again. His pancreatic cancer came back and would probably kill him this time around. So I shook his hand and asked if I could pray for him. He didn’t tell me no, just kind of gave me an awkward look and walked away. I prayed for him silently instead. I wasn’t sure what to pray for. Grace I guess.

Who knows how much of his story has been colored by his big gulp filled with whiskey, by years of stress and storytelling. It doesn’t really matter. It makes me sad that we send people over there to wrap wet towels around peoples heads until they talk. It makes me sad that we send people to warfare that so damages them that it is better to take their own life than to live with their memories. I know plenty of people come away from war just fine, but the reality is that if you’re a vet (and we’re not just talking old crazy vets, because the highest suicide rates among vets is the 20-24 year olds who have served in the war on terror) you’re twice as likely to commit suicide than the average American. In 2005 an average of 17 vets committed suicide every day. If only we had a statistic for how many vets wander the streets nursing a whiskey and water out of a Slurpee cup while crying on strangers shoulders. How many vets hold signs on street corners asking for money? Where are those stats?

I hate war. War sucks.
Hey, if you have a second, in honor of Memorial Day (which as I’m finishing this post was actually yesterday) pray for Lyman. Pray for peace. Pray for the grace, love, and peace of Jesus be more evident through his church and in the world…’cause the world desperately needs it. We don’t need a presidential candidate that brings change, or hope, or a candidate that we can trust in because they’ve proven to be strong or courageous. Rather our hope and our future and our trust should be in the strength and change that only comes through the transforming power of Jesus’ love and peace. That’s why Lyman needs. That’s what our world needs.
Happy Memorial Day.