"Death was all over the place"

For those that Still don't get what War does to a Human Being, and not only those fighting, nor understand the same happens to civilians who experience extreme trauma, like the recent reports about the young girl kidnapped and now found almost two decades later, Read This Short Article!!

Friday August 28, 2009

World War II veteran can finally open up about horrific battle- "Death was all over the place"

John Landry, 85, in the kitchen of his Thetford Township home, Landry fought for the NAVY in WWII as a top turret gunner and as a ground soldier in the battle of Okinawa in Japan. Landry has never talked about his experiences during the battle of Okinawa until recently, when he decided he wanted to tell his story "I didn't talk about the war because I didn't want people to hear about it, " Landry said.

He wasn't even supposed to be there.

John Landry never spoke about the island, the scattered bodies, the smell of death -- but six decades later, nightmares of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II woke him up from his sleep soaked in sweat.

"They were things I could never talk about, but it's time I told it like it was," said Landry, 85, whose buried memories began haunting him after he saw scenes of the Iraq war on television.

"I don't want to leave this world and take it with me."

Snip

"The things that went on on that island are things you never forget," Landry said. "Death was all over the place."

Except for a long time, Landry did manage to push down those memories.

Only recently have the long-blocked scenes started to come back to life.

He can suddenly see mothers clutching babies and leaping off cliffs into the water. He can see the natives fleeing into caves engulfed by fire minutes later from grenades.

"What got me was these people were trying to get away from us, and it was their island," he said. "I hadn't seen the destruction we were doing from the air. Now I'm on land and I'm seeing the bodies, the kids. I could smell burning flesh, which is something if you ever got near it, you never forget."

Snip

The father of five sons said Okinawa scenes have started coming back in bits and pieces, many times through nightmares.

"I'm lost and I can't get to where I want to be," he said of his dreams. "I think it's because I don't want to do what I have to do. I don't want to wake up in a foxhole or in the dirt."

He has finally began sharing with his family the details he had intentionally forgotten.

Many, never having problems with the realities they lived through, burying them deep in their minds, from WWII to Korea to 'Nam, and all between them, to the present past were starting to relive, in their minds,their own experiences long withheld within, as these two occupations started and continued, some right from 9/11, Our Brothers, and those the country ignores!!