Even Darkness Must Pass

 

If you've watched the Lord of the Rings or read the trilogy, you have been made privy to what it means to be a Veteran. 

J. R. R. Tolkien has woven the most intimate threads of soldiering throughout this war story in such a crafted way as to be a beautiful explanation of our particular state that no three textbooks of any size could possibly do. In artful ways, he spins the threads so they appear to be everyday, everybody kind of stories. The Easter eggs just sometimes need to be pointed out to those not acquainted, but follow along with me and see what you think.

Oddly enough, as I set out to make notes while re-re-watching all three director's cuts (the only way, lol) my expectations were that this would be about Frodo, or that it is Sam's story -- only I found this is really about the various responses to the notorious horrors of war and its adjacent industries. 

Tolkien uses many situational anecdotes that are special to military service. The first note I made was about Sam's salt. Not only do soldiers bring trinkets of all kinds to the field, they have been known to collect things they come across in their travels, and do anything to improve the conditions of their service! The salt was especially endearing, and I was laughing hard this time watching Frodo call him out on it, and Sam's reasoning for the seasoning (sorry, couldn't help it). Suddenly I saw the guys in the barracks again. The author also puts the story in terms for civilians, calling it a Fellowship instead of a Brotherhood. One differentiates an exclusive militant code; the other is accessible to all who dare participate. It rightly involves the whole community in support.

Sam defended Gollum during his violent interrogation, even though he viewed this sketchy creature as more enemy than friend -- that he was too small to defend himself against these cruel tallfolk, and would rather see Gollum run off than killed in any case (at that point). Sam is constantly demonstrating what it means to be a battle buddy, with his encouragement, orders to go on, bridging with a reason to always be pushing on, while Frodo quickly moves into trauma mode, at times unable to tell friend from foe. Sam is rationing lambas for the journey home. His hope carries the mission.

The speech Sam makes at the end of the Two Towers says volumes. The stories, he says, the ones that really mattered. So horrible, you sometimes didn't want to know the end -- because how could it make up for all the bad things that have happened?  This surely isn't limited to vets, just especially concentrated in some. It recognizes that worry, vocalizes a fear that he hasn't even seen the worst of at that time! And then he goes on to drop two more mindful gems: "In the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come..." which echoes the wisdom of there being a turning of tides that even evil cannot escape, even if it happens on a scale we are "too small to understand." His second gem is acknowledging that the only difference between heroes and others was that in each of the many opportunities we all have to turn back, a few choose not to. Because they were holding onto something.  He doesn't get into what, because that isn't the right question. Each has to find that something for themselves (see Pattern #1 of the Traveler's Cloak, "One Thing"). This often takes the form of talking around the proverbial, more metaphorical water cooler (like a lister bag or getting morning coffee) about what is waiting, for better or worse, upon return. 

Merry and Pippin have their own experiences, their own flavor of trauma after seeing visions of their home burned, songs of lament for the loss of their friends and anything simple. Sam is basically told he was unfit for the mission when Frodo told him to "Go home!" and it hurt him to know he was needed, his place was supposed to be by his side, and danger is still a present threat. Eventually Frodo would become captured and wounded, and become touched by the hurts "that time cannot mend... that go too deep, that have taken hold." Now we call it post traumatic stress syndrome, especially for POWs, and realize the somatic changes that accompany it, the way ordinance damages fragile intracranial systems and cause psychological behaviors (think of Bilbo's curious and eruptive paranoia).

Perhaps the heaviest toll shows on dear Smeagol, having had the worst and longest exposure to the Machine. His love of it deformed his extraneous shell as one of the Riverfolk into a trollish, compact being, more efficient for his task -- supported and nourished somehow by the machine's power. Single of mind, he obeyed the power in every way. Hence his confusion  and reticence in his recounting of being hated by people, at the beginning of The Return of the King: "They cursed us. Murderer, they called us, and drove us away... and we wept to be so alone. We forgot the taste of bread, the sound of trees, the softness of the wind. We even forgot our own name."

There was no way for JRRT to know this would continue to describe vets and the public's response to war, notoriously Vietnam Veterans' receptions, and the complicated things that led to the homeless epidemic arising from all kinds of service people who have been used up as government property and written off as cheaply as possible. Vets in all eras have a love/hate relationship with their government and their country, and are aware more than most of the difference between the two. There is no real way to communicate to anyone who hasn't felt that level of betrayal, no common frame of reference, exposure to the wild while wounded and left outside the fence for dead, to fend for ourselves. Bad enough the shit that rolls downhill from the Machine; sometimes even the people of the country we love so much won't spit on our guts when they are obviously on fire and self-immolating about once every half hour (or whatever the current veteran suicide rate is when you read this. We gotta be running out soon, right?)

Just as Gandolf says, is true: "Not all tears are an evil," as we often also relax and weep at a mission accomplished, when the work is finished. Completion of a Fellowship is an acknowledgement of the turning of the world, of a once important task fading into obscurity, once important people falling into uselessness. If we care for them properly, not into unimportance; but Galadriel warned us in the very beginning: "The world is changed; I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost -- for none now live who remember it." Oh, that all wounded warriors were accorded the honor shown by the elves on that pier.

It will always be with Frodo and Sam, the memory of being perched upon the rocks, "Here at the end of all things." The most dire of situations bring out the absolute best people have to offer. We all need a buddy to tell us to hang on, and don't let go, even when we feel it isn't in us to keep going. Civilian life doesn't lend itself to this level of bond. We know when we leave the service, that brotherhood -- that fellowship -- is gone too. When Frodo misses "... the taste of food, the sound of water, the feel of grass," Sam tells Frodo "There is light and beauty up there that no shadow can touch." It's the memory of light and beauty that becomes important when neither can be found. Strange aside, how being rescued by the eagles is eerily akin to the chopper lifts out of Korea and Vietnam... just an odd side note, coincidental at best. Safely home, Frodo asks, "how do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, in your heart? You begin to understand, there is no going back." Even Sam admits he knows there will be no return journey. We hear about it ad nauseum, any of the trips could be your last, which is why nobody deploys without a goodbye letter and a parenting plan if you have children. 

The wizard tells us in the end, "We cannot always be torn in two." There are some people called to serve who experience things and can go on, finding happiness and family, staying knit together -- and those who don't find that easy, or possible. Healing ourselves in our own way, we must allow others to do so. Acknowledge that we may not know how, in ourselves or in others, while holding space that someone or something somewhere may be a key. It is rarely found in authority, which means depending on the same government who created this situation to fix it is like asking the fox to fix the henhouse.  We don't want people to carry our burdens, but once in a while we do need someone to carry US.

There may always be those willing to dive into the fray, like Gimley putting forth a Marines style cree when he exclaims, "Certainty of death? Small chance of success? What are we waiting for?!" But we must also have something for them to do when they aren't fighting. It was nice to see modeled what it must look like when a country honors its surviving fighters. We know, like Frodo says, that we saved the Shire... maybe someday there will be room in it for us. Here, here is our book, our history we have all been contributing to, the story of going There and Back Again... the last pages are for you.

What will you write?