Peace is a Vacuum

I sat in my hooch last night, half reading James Hillman’s The Terrible Love of War, half thinking about my recent close calls. Just as this good but slightly dull book was putting me to sleep another helicopter flew over, shaking my trailer like a tornado, albeit a small one.
24/7 they fly 100 feet, 50 feet above my trailer, above my office in the palace, bringing in the medivaced wounded. They shake the thin aluminum wall, they rattle the windows. Tuesday I was going to walk down to the hospital with my roommate and visit the wounded soldiers and Marines, take them beef jerky, candy, and lemonade mix that I have left over from care packages.
But I didn’t go. I couldn’t think of what to say. Inherently I’m not a talker with people I don’t know…when there’s no reason to talk I don’t talk. But I also knew if I went I’d draw on my officer skills, ask the soldier how he was doing, give him a forum, a chance to say whatever was on his mind.
But I didn’t go. I went running instead.
In his book Hillman says peace is a vacuum – an absence of, a freedom from. Nature hates a vacuum. What will we fill it with? The sound of helicopters flying low and fast.