Five times in the past three weeks I’ve found myself supremely fortunate to be reunited with men and women I’ve previously served beside during my time in the military.  Not to be confused with the meeting of old friends from high school, reunion between former members of a military unit has a special significance.  There’s a feel to it that I’ve simply not experienced elsewhere though I imagine it exists as strongly amongst policemen, firemen, and any other profession wherein one is expected to risk their own life to protect the lives of others.  It leaves one both nostalgic for times past—simpler times, we tell ourselves—but also in an almost surreal way it takes us back emotionally, and maybe psychologically, to those earlier times and the intervening years seem to fall away.

While I’d experienced this odd sort of time travel several times in small groups or with one or two rediscovered comrades before, the power of this feeling hit me hard for the first time at my twentieth West Point reunion some years ago.  Having not visited the military academy, essentially, since I’d graduated, I remember going into the event apprehensive of how I’d feel about that place.  Four years spent in a state of supreme discipline and order at a time when most of our high school classmates were wearing underwear on their heads at toga parties just beyond the stone gates can leave you feeling that way!

Still, what I found there was . . . well . . . without trying to be overly dramatic, it was some kind of magic.  Despite the graying of heads and tactical withdrawals executed by many a hair line (including my own), the group was instantly recognizable, even at a distance.  Well-remembered voices rise out of the crowd triggering deep memories that have, until now, found no reason to surface, always a part of you, but never really dwelt upon.  It was truly an odd sensation having so many images and emotions flood back into my consciousness without warning, and it actually caused me to hesitate for a moment in order to process it all before physically entering the venue.

Immediately upon immersion in this sea of long-forgotten (or long-suppressed!) memories you find yourself reliving past events, not just talking about them.  These incidents—unbelievable unless you were there, sometimes—felt as if they’d happened days and not years ago.  Within minutes of being surrounded by my classmates—especially in that place—I felt as if I’d just stepped out of a time machine . . . and found myself once again twenty years old, full of energy, naiveté, and future aspirations.

Oddly enough, wrongs suffered in those youthful days seem to melt away, and one finds the old grudge—no matter how deeply held at the time—fades away to nothingness or becomes just another comedic addition to the collective memory of the group.  For a few brief days I was surrounded by the very people who would so influence my life for the next twenty-plus years, though I didn’t know it then.  The experience can’t help but leave you contemplative, and made me wonder both at the time and since just what impact I’m having on the people around me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve run into folks that I knew in the past outside the military as well, and those reunions were truly enjoyable experiences.  They too are often full of stories, shared memories, and characterized by laughter.  But there’s just something different about running into old comrades-in-arms that has an odd effect on the psyche, and—dare I say—the soul.

This month has been incredible for many reasons, not least of which that I got to link up with so many former colleagues who I’d last seen too many years ago.  The stories that defined our shared military units at certain points in their much longer histories were told and re-told, much funnier now in the absence of consequence than the episodes seemed at the time—bearing in mind that in the Army those consequences can be serious indeed!  And yet now, with a viewpoint imposed by the passing of time and the wisdom which generally accompanies it, the incidents take on a different meaning altogether.  Now, they bind us together in a way that is simply very rare, I believe, outside the military.

The soldiers, NCOs, warrant officers, civilians, and officers with whom I’ve worked closely in the past, formed incredible teams that carried our units to success time and again.  I respected them when we worked together, and I continue to respect them today as they work, raise families, study, and remember altogether different times, different relationships, and different circumstances.  These are people—Americans, Koreans, Japanese, Czechs, Danes, Norwegians . . . the list goes on—who I am very proud to call my friends, brothers, and sisters still today.  Humans with their own problems, their own dreams, and their own aspirations, who nonetheless set all that aside, consistently giving their all, and working together to achieve something larger than themselves.  It’s a beautiful thing and it continues to draw me to the military culture some twenty-eight years after I entered the Academy.

And so over the past few weeks I’ve relived many an event from my own history, often gaining new perspectives from folks who either couldn’t share their viewpoints at the time or simply didn’t feel comfortable doing so.  Unsurprisingly, perhaps, their telling of stories I thought I knew well altered how I now perceive those same incidents.  My comrades re-hashed successful coups, castigated old villains, and praised the heroes who vanquished them, or at least never gave up the fight, often in terms which greatly magnified the importance of the event.  To hear us talk you’d think we were changing the courses of nations!  The infamous DLD-G Hunger Strike . . . the Great Alpha Battery Book Burning . . . the Last Train to Roppongi . . . Death by Awamori . . . the Impossible Return from Gangnam . . . the list goes on and on, but these were very personal, sometimes emotional experiences that are only shared between a small, elect group of human beings.  The memories mean something to members of the group, and may very well be the glue that holds them together—closely together—for so long.  

Each of the individuals I’ve so recently met, my comrades-in-arms, have become cherished friends and family, and the desire to re-connect after years spent apart is strong indeed.  This is why we address one another as brothers and sisters, they’ve become just that, and there’s precious little indeed one would not do for a member of the family.  After twenty-four years on active duty, I’ve acquired a large family indeed!

Thank you all—you know who you are—as I’ve tremendously enjoyed my brief time with you and anxiously await our next opportunity to meet again.  Till then, keep up the fight, stay focused, and continue doing great things for yourselves, your families, and your countries.  I wish you all the best in 2019. 

Happy New Year!

M. G. Haynes