13 Moons over Vietnam, 7th Moon Heartache

Heartache:The Struggle to Protect Love

The view that truth is the first casualty of war has a long lineage initially attributed to Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy. Our author poses that innocent love is truth's younger sibling and the second casualty.

Love is the antithesis of war. Love radiates a protective and endearing orientation toward others, whereas war rides roughshod over civility and compassion. When bluntly executed, which is its very nature, war prioritizes the subjection or destruction of our fellow man.

Love is an intense human emotion and a powerful influence on behavior. But, men take different paths to protect their spirit of love during wartime conditions. Some strive to sustain themselves by clinging to thoughts of love. They hope that focusing on love will provide a sanctuary from loneliness and the horror of war. Other men choose to bury their feelings, rationalizing their best survival chances will come from fully concentrating on immediate circumstances. Finally, another approach is taken by those believing they have the power to control the innate tension between love and war. These individuals kept their hearts open toward love while engaged in the violence of human conflict. Ben Thieu Long tried each approach in his struggle to protect love, with mixed results and costly consequences.

War powerfully affects participants, as the experience can produce more emotional pain than physical injury. War mutilates the human psyche and leaves deep scars, while men are left vulnerable when their refuge of love collapses.

One of the most damaging consequences of a wartime experience is the formation of a wedge partitioning a person's emotions into discrete, isolated chambers. Men may still experience love after a war, but some permanently have lost the fullness of their innocence. Instead, these men tend to withdraw to a corner, like an abused child nervously fearing the next painful blow. They lose their unguarded openness to others, e