Excerpt of the day: Afghan stoicism
…Many people have the idea that once a limb is amputated the pain stops. That’s not true. Pain from damaged nerve tissue lasts for months, usually longer if a clean amputation is not done soon after the accident, which was always the case in Afghanistan, where painkillers were not always available. Add this to weeks of drugged discomfort, for patients were all but drowned in antibiotics in order to prevent tetanus and other infections caused by mine fragments.
Yet, despite the pain and a missing arm or foot, the patients in these wards looked healthy and normal. There was a vibrancy in their faces, a trace of humor even, and a total absence of embarrassment. “I have given my foot to Allah
,” said a twenty-seven-year-old man, who also had one eye and a burned, deformed hand. “Now I will continue my jihad in another way.” This man had a wife and three children. At first, I dismissed what he said as bravado meant to impress a foreigner. I found it impossible to believe that he really felt this emotion, that he truly accepted what happened to him. His eyes, however, evinced neither the rage of a fanatic, which would have accounted for his defiance, nor the shocked and sorrowful look of someone who was really depressed. If anything registered on his face when I spoke to him, it was bewilderment. He didn’t seem to understand why I thought he should be unhappy. He had lost an eye, a foot, and part of a hand– and that was that.
Soldiers of God
Robert D. Kaplan
quoted in Writing War. Read as part of a class assignment, but I plan on reading the whole thing afterwards
