Themes

Love

If we are lucky, as I have been, we will experience true love in our lifetime. That is not to say that any love can be false, for in our years we find it in many ways, and each and every one is unique.

We love our parents differently than we do our children. We love our pets differently than we do our material possessions. We love our spouses as we love ourselves, and sometimes when it is the real deal, we love them more than ourselves.

The most intense love I have ever felt for my fellow man was the love of my comrades in arms during the Vietnam war. There is a bond that warriors have that will go on for as long as we live. It is a bond forged in the blood we shed together for someone else's cause. Right or wrong, we only knew to care for one another. In down times, we talked about what we did in the free world and what we were going to do if we made it home alive. For those who did not make it home, we feel a love born of sadness and regret. A love of our own guilt for having been spared.

Love is undefineable. Poets throughout the ages have been trying to write what love is, and they have never been able to make it known. Because it must be felt by us individually. How could I ever begin to tell of the love I had for Major Lynnkat?

Time

It is said that time heals all wounds. Wrong. There is no balm, but I have found that love can be a magic elixir. Love, the true "Balm of Gilead." I look back on time and weep at the things I wish I could have changed. I cry for the mistakes I have made. I lament in the privacy of my prison cell that I could not go back and prevent the Major from dying of colon cancer.

Fate

The future will take care of the future. I have this moment in time. It is all I own. This moment is my true reality, and I am happy in it.

Versions of reality

I knew everything I needed to know when I found out that I knew nothing. I am pitiful in my know-nothingness.

Memory and the past

I have tried to come to terms with my past, but the memories are so vivid that I can still feel soft kisses in my pillow. When I close my eyes, I can travel to wherever I want to in the past. I have come to terms with the fact that I cannot change things as they were, and in many ways I am happy that I cannot. Some "one" knew better than I what road I had to travel to get to where I am today.

Love heals trauma

I do not believe that love can heal trauma. I do however believe that it can be a substitute for pain. I was a pig. At one point in my life, I thought sex could help me forget the bad dreams of war. The more I did it, the less I thought about death.

Joe Labriola

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