The Canyon Sunset

The ultimate bond

When I became an adult of 21 years old, my dad drove me up the canyon, as he had so many times before, to watch the summer sun set perfectly aligned between the edges of the steep canyon walls. Except this time, he shared with me some very real stories of his days in Vietnam. Stories no lips should repeat in the open. Not to frighten me or to traumatize me, but to explain to me why he is the man he is. For me, it put a magnifying glass to the men and women who have served to protect this country—not for all the usual dignified pleasantries we give them when we thank them for their service, but for a sacrifice that none of us will have to live to know.

My dad cried. I don't recall ever seeing a moment where my dad was vulnerable with me, especially about this.

"I'm sorry, dad," I said.

"Don't be," he replied. "I want you to know why your dad seems so rough around the edges at times."

"Dad, your bark has always been louder than your bite. And knowing all you have told me, I see why that is. It's beyond belief that you have been such an amazing dad."

He cried and said, "But Justin, I will never forgive myself for my faults."

"Dad, I would never have thought to ask forgiveness from you for anything. I am blessed to have a dad with faults who can bear his raw weaknesses and share things he should never have had to live with."

We cried, we hugged, and we enjoyed that amazing sunset perfectly situated between the canyon walls. We solidified a bond that could only have the gravity of a bond between adults.

For him to serve in a war that many criticized so deeply, and to come home and have to feel the sting of that, is something almost worse than what my dad did out of duty for the country he loved so much. He has served a lifetime of sacrifice in learning to find pride in fighting for a cause he himself has struggled to justify, wrapped in the pain of what he had to endure during his time spent in a faraway jungle on the other side of the planet. War will never look the same to a person who hasn't had to endure it.

Yet, my amazing dad came home, strapped on his civilian vest, and raised four amazing children. He has been fiercely loyal to a wife who has had to endure those same pains through the lens of a partner who has quietly struggled with the realities of what it means to be a soldier.

My dad came home with s Purple Heart and 7 other awards for having his shoulder nearly blown off. He has spoken often about the trivial meaning behind the medals awarded to a soldier. He said nearly every man out there deserved one—not for a specific act in general, but for the fact that they were made to do and see things no human should ever live to endure.

He has always spoken of my mom with a reverence that is often only heard in whispers—the endlessly kind and generous soul she has been in the face of having to live with a man who suffers the very definition of PTSD, or what they once referred to as shell shock. My dad will always call my mom the hero of our family, the glue that will forever bind our family as a unit. And she is all that. My dad is all that, too.

It has always felt to me like any words to describe the heroes my parents have been would only cheapen what they truly are. There will never be an award that can describe the gratitude that my siblings and I have for the parents they have been to us, regardless of their plight before we were ever born.