Dear...

I don't know who I would address this to. Dad, maybe? Do I look like the kind of guy who really loves his father and who waits on his last word on every question I have and who would send me into a depressing spiral when I found out he died? Or maybe I'm a momma's-boy. Do you think I still lived at home with her until I joined the military? Should I write to my wife? My son?

I look in the mirror and I recognise myself. Then I see myself and I lose that recognition. My eyes, my nose, my mouth, my everything; I know it's mine, but I see it and I don't know. I think I should know. I know I knew. I can't really describe it. I recognise myself and I don't know who I am.

I know I was - still am, I suppose - a soldier. The Army, the Navy, the Marines, maybe even Air Force. In this desert wasteland there isn't much else I could be doing. But, why did I join the military? Was I a good soldier? Did I lead strong battalions into the fray or follow a great man into the heat of battle or help some desperate man on death's bed overcome?

But then, wondering that leads me to wonder the biggest questions of all - why am I here? Why can't I remember? What was I doing when this happened? Do my actual friends and my actual family miss me? Did they cry when they found out I was missing? Was I declared dead?

Of course, there are good people here. The nurses, the doctors, that reporter writing my story. I like them and I enjoy their company. I could move on. I could become the person I recognise in the mirror, banishing the stranger I see. Yet, I still wonder about what I know but do not know. I don't think I can ever remove those thoughts entirely. So, how would I become someone who completely contradicts that stranger that is me, staring back from the reflection? Can I?

Would that person before me have moved on? Would he have thrown his old self away to become a newer, maybe even better man? Was my life before so terrible? Maybe it was so good I didn't deserve it. Maybe I was a reprehensible soldier and this was karma paying me back.

Has my wife continued her life? Was I even married or engaged or dating? Did I have any children? Scratch all that - am I still married? do I have children? Even if I moved on, I think that would still come back to me if I ever met them again. I must have really loved that woman if I married her. Then, I can claim "I died" to my wife, but what could I say to my children? "I don't know who you are?" "I'm sorry, I don't remember the day you were born or your first words or the first time you ran to my room after you had a nightmare or how I would comfort you when you came to me with your problems?"

I simply don't know. I know; I know I have some Asian descent and I know I have blue eyes and I know I speak multiple languages and I know I'm pretty strong. But I don't know why. Why am I Asian and which side of my family did it come from? Was it my mother with kind blue eyes, or maybe my steely, hard father's. How did come to learn so many languages - did my wife speak it? Was it just my years as a soldier that made me so strong, or was it something else?

Why don't I know?

Sincerely,
A Man, a Soldier, a Victim