When you hear the news find a good place to sit. Don't stand. You were always great at sitting wherever there was a chair nearby.. Best to be sitting when your whole world gets knocked over or you're gonna fall with it.
You shouldn't keep this to yourself. You're gonna want to. You always had some rustic principle you relied on about why it was your job to carry these things. Something about a packmule carrying all someone's stuff on their back without cracking a smile so you're gonna do one better. Whatever saying you have probably isn't even real but you say it like it's real to someone. Whatever these are, you can't let it control you.
Crying makes you look like a mess, but do it anyway. All at once or space it out between the days. It doesn't matter what you look like- too old, too broken, too out of shape. This is the one time they're gonna look past that.
The looks are gonna cross your mind too. All sorts of them. The way they look at you with that special sort of sympathy that realizes as hurt as they are they're not gonna be hurt as you. If it's sorrow, confusion, or jealousy that comes with those looks, deal with it. It's funny how all of the other nations, yours included, looks like you're taking up the stage, but the country who lost the most will take you in like a brother.
Then there's the other looks. Don't be afraid to look in the distance trying to find something. It won't be there, but look anyway. At least your eyes are somewhere else.
Then there's the looks you can't determine- how a copter that looked in the clear found its way to the ground. How someone who looked like an ox- like they could carry an ox- could be put down that easily. You won't be able to see things the same way you used to as an officer before then- war movies, public executions, whenever someone lets a unit get swept up in the storm when you know, you know, they could have been saved.
Be ready for all the terms you knew like the back of your hand to sound like total mysteries out of the mouths of someone else. Capturing, sacrifice, loss of unit, prisoner of war- things you could read off a paper no problem but can't stand coming out of her pretty mouth. If they never sound right again, that comes with the territory. If it seems like it only happened to you, don't.
They're going to welcome you with open arms, but don't go back there again. You remember the young ones helping you take back the factories, leading their troops either against what you'd even reckon or just like you imagined. There's someone there you always used to look at like the distance you couldn't make anything out of. If you need to see them again, don't be afraid to get lost, even if she's not the only person you used to ever look at.
Go home. Stay home. Fight for home. There's a reason you went over there- you can say it's about who owns what (which you never cared about) or who's been good to you (which isn't unique considering who you know). It's something so instinctual, something you never felt over there, that it pulls at your gut. You thought you were honest telling the enemy off when you said there wasn't anywhere they could set up shop that you'd be angry at, but the true honesty, the real boil of your blood, comes from when they laughed about crushing cities beneath your feet. If that still makes you angry enough to spit every time you think about it, stay there. Even if they lose sight of you, don't lose sight of them.
If the self-help books say it, give it a try. Even if you dump it a few hours later, you're the one who said you'd try anything. Talk to new people. Talk more to old people. Stop talking to the people who matter. Things might change, but things will get better. You'll remember that you're still alive, that there's never been a gun aimed at you as long as you knew them. Don't regret that you're not dead yet. Your home needs you.
Don't be afraid to go back to normal, or as close as you get. If it feels like something never happened, you're doing something right. It'll leak into what you do like a wine stain that you can't remove from your long brown jacket. Sometimes you'll feel a hollow pang, like you've been stabbed but have already forgotten what the knife feels like. You'll wonder if you should have felt it or not, and no one can tell you the true answer. All you know you can do is walk along with the knife still in your gut. Do it.
You're going to find your way to the grave when things feel normal. Maybe it's because things feel too normal and you need to jump into the wounds you forgot were opened. Maybe it's out of morbid curiosity even though you never visited before, for better or worse. Maybe it's just a sign of disrespect to whoever designed the little memorial for your friend, as though they'd be caught dead around the ribbons and plaques and stones with a country emblem that used to be yours and a sign taller than even he was.
Say whatever you want to say there. Say as much as you need to let go of to keep from carrying it with you. Say what you'd never say to anyone else who's lost someone, or what you wish you could say to them. Say what no one else wants to listen to. Say what you don't want to listen to. Say something. It's about damn time.
Whatever you say, it's being heard.
Whatever you think, it's being said.