Survivor

One of the World War II veterans came to the travel office the other day. He proceeded to tell us about being captured at the Battle of the Bulge while trying to save a wounded soldier. He was a medic. The Germans threw him into a POW camp where he lived in a small room with six other prisoners. They were fed one loaf of bread each day to split between them. He told us that they used a playing card to measure and cut the bread into six equal slices.

Then he asked me a strange question, "Which piece would you take if given the choice?"

I thought for a few minutes and then told him I would take the middle piece to avoid the slender end pieces. He looked me in the eye and said, "Good choice, you are a survivor".

The startling thing about this conversation was the timing. I have been thinking quite a bit about being a survivor lately. There are certainly advantages to being this way, but it is also dangerous. There is an ugly side of survivor instinct, a side that is single-mindedly focused on self-preservation and willing to destroy anything standing in the way. A survivor does what needs to be done. A survivor makes hard choices. A survivor will not be stopped by anything or anyone.I would like to think that my protective inclinations balance me out, maintain my humanity.

We became such different people in the war. The sweet country girl became my best friend after she morphed before my eyes into one of the strongest, most ferocious women I have ever met. In light of our precarious position, being two of the only females in the pressure cooker of an army aviation platoon, she became a vicious man-eater. If a man approached her, or dared to speak to her, she would verbally assault him and send him away in a state of shock. There was a young man from Texas on my truck with me. A generally soft spoken soldier, he became a territorial animal. He staked his claim in the front corner of the vehicle and would go ballistic if anyone attempted to take his coveted spot. He would scream "Stay off my property! Stay off my property!" like some deranged version of Yosemite Sam. Me, I became a bi-polar volcano.

I had an anger in me, constantly boiling and burning just under the surface of my smile. That is when I learned to paint my smile. I played the game, smiled and did my job. And I would explode. I learned to survive with that smile. I also learned to lie. I lied to protect my life, I learned to lie to protect my friends, but I did not lie to my friends. Ironically, I valued my integrity and my word above all else. It would throw me into a fit of rage to be accused of lying. I suppose I found a way to make the survival lies a form of my own truth. Yes, it is interesting to see who we become when forced to fight for our lives.

The anger has burned-out. I still feel a flair here and there, but it no longer rages inside of me, constantly threatening to consume me. As the rage died, the tears began. I cried so much and so hard as the fire died over the last four years. The tears have dried-up now too. I feel the familiar desert in my eyes I had for all those years as a soldier. I long for tears sometimes, but they just aren't there. Perhaps that is what has turned my mind back to the survivalist residing within me. There is no time for tears when you are fighting for your life, so what am I fighting right now?

I am poised to attack. I am strong and protected on the inside, I am circling those I love like a mother bear, I laugh a lot because nothing is so serious in the scheme of life, yet there is a serious undertone to everything I do. So what has triggered this response? What has brought this soldier back?

When I begin to concern myself, I excuse my thoughts with the sentiment that I am not good or bad, simply human. That is something she would think. I am not that girl in the desert, I am even more dangerous; I am a controlled, mature version of her. As my mind gears up for an unknown battle, I beg her to maintain her humanity, to stay kind, to stay good,to stay soft; to keep the best parts of herself regardless of the fights ahead.