Taken from new book I am writing: “Royal Warriors”
Suddenly, the sound, the smell of diesel and cordite triggered a recall of what I had encountered that day when I was wounded. I did not expect this and did not really know what to do. No one told me, or counselled me. We did not have that ‘luxury’. I had two choices: run and hide somewhere — under the vehicle … and never go operational ever again, or get involved right now. Make or break. I joined in firing my weapon at nothing. I had no target but I joined in. One of the soldiers was looking at me and he said with a puzzled look on his face.
“Sir, what you doing?” My reply, “I am with you”. That was it. I had discovered ‘one bridge’ out of woundedville.
So what happened? I thought wounds had healed and I was healed everywhere inside and out, but in that split second I had discovered there was something else lurking around in the background with teeth on it. My soul had space-banked some stuff I did not want. I had to learn to shred unwanted data and that was a process.
When something does not go the way you expect and you encounter ‘a hit’, something happens deep inside your soul. When a man is wounded by the blows of life, the wounding causes one to be off balance. His perspective on certain decisions, opinions, and belief values seem to warp or become distorted. The worst value and opinion is the one you did have with God, and somehow it has moved or changed and it no longer fits. We all seem to cry out, “God where were you in all this?” Man and God once intimate friends no longer seem to agree. For the Christian, the agreement established between God and man through Jesus Christ no longer seems experientially valid. The experience of the wounded believer with God is that of distance, alienation, and of God who seems no longer present or active in ones life. You know you have killed and somehow violated the Creator. One act and then … the fig-leaf mentality, in other words hiding from God or truth.
In a war, in a fire-fight, you’re both victim and perpetrator at the same time. A trauma, and especially a war trauma, leaves a wound to the human spirit and soul.
There is a “tear, rip or laceration” in the masculine soul — there is left a gaping hole or wound that leads to a profound insecurity.