The Scent-of-Freedom

 

The Scent of Freedom
Monday, May 25, 2026 by Brave Knight Writers

It’s Memorial weekend as I write our blog and a dreary sky does not offer prime circumstances for a bar-b-q or picnic. Although this weather might be appropriate for the meaning of the day, as a chill and rain can slow us down. It gives us time to reflect on life’s meaning, and our interactions with others. So, sit in a quiet room, read a book about a veteran, take a nap, or fall asleep in deep reflection of your blessings, lost loved ones, or future sunny days. Rain and chill slows our actions, creates a lull, and allows us to take a breath.

This is the weekend we honor those who sacrificed everything, some in the heat of battle, others from disease or accidents, but all in the spirit of making life better for the survivors. One thing we must keep in mind, the ultimate sacrifice may not come during the main event or when all the news outlets are trying to cash in with the most tragic headlines, sometimes the sacrifice festers and comes years after everyone quits talking about the battles.

A recent phone call from an out-of-state friend brought it all home to me, a call for help. My friend’s brother, an Army veteran with twenty years of service, committed suicide. The veteran lived a half-hour from me, but we had never met. My friend asked if I could help sort through his brother’s belongings. The sorting proved to be massive, overwhelming. Since the veteran lived alone, made good money, and purchased without limits, his apartment and garages evoked all the comforts of a warehouse.

My grandson and his friend agreed to help, and their help was a blessing in many ways, such as the contrast of my life versus this veteran who had no children or wife, no support system in place. A veteran of three wars, a short marriage while serving, nothing we encountered spoke of emotional comfort or support. A life lived in stark preparation for an unknown threat, ultimately terminated with his own hand.

Everyone needs emotional support; it is as basic as food and water. Our veterans serve their time, then walk into a world structured in ways they are no longer accustomed to. Many of them began their service at such a young age, they never functioned in the civilian world as an adult.

Their military life had a routine—a support system comprised of peers, guidance, preparation, training, and an identified mission. In the civilian world all these are available but spread out, offered but not imposed, leaving the individual to seek out help for his own needs and wants. This is where many veterans fall apart. One might prepare, but without a clear mission they may fall into a malaise, a wandering. Without a group of like-minded peers, one becomes lost in their own thoughts—tapes played again and again without resolve, without a challenge as to validity.

Without a spouse or children, nothing tenderizes or softens the harsh realities of being. Many folk scoff at those who hold onto the stories of the Bible and belief in God, but the truth is, both can provide comfort.

During their service, what words did the veteran cling to? How often they were told: Be tough. Learn to live without. Follow commands. Don’t question. Sacrifice. Prepare. The mission matters above individual needs.

Military success requires a mindset totally detached from the freedoms of civilian life. Survival and mission success in military terms are stark, unforgiving realities requiring an individual to refrain from conforming, to morph into a stoic.

All these factors alone create scars, without a consideration of the horrors brought on by intense moments of battle, or the slower impact of wading through the aftermath of battle carnage and discovering atrocities. Some veterans follow the battle as cleanup crews, bagging bodies and collecting parts. Of entire villages. Imagine. You can’t.

It is safe to say, everyone has experiences where a song, smell, or vision stimulates strong memories of an experience as far away as childhood. A song reminds one of a lost love, a smell reminds one of grandma’s Thanksgiving, or a sunset watched somewhere special. All memories aren’t pleasant; some take us into dark places. Words can do the same, even tones might trigger a repressed event.

Sorting through our accumulated mess might take professional help, especially if one does not have a healthy support system in place. Decline comes gradually, the individual doesn’t recognize where his path leads, and no one offers a kind nudge to keep them in check. The voices in their head warn them, confuse them, lead them in the wrong direction. The path clogs with unfinished business, until they stagger from one uncompleted project to another. The voices distract them, but they find they can’t fill their needs. There is never enough stuff, because stuff isn’t what they lack. Stuff adds to the confusion.

Not only do they reject and not seek comfort from the world, but they also refuse to comfort themselves. Veterans might end up homeless, or they end up overburdened in a home they lost control of. Their thoughts and efforts never bear fruit.

During our sorting, a few aspects of the memory factor became clearer to me. I offer some excerpts from Harvard medicine, The Magazine of Harvard Medical School April 2024 by Molly McDonough.

“What can you do with your nose?”

That’s the question psychologist Donald Laird posed in a 1935 paper — one of the first studies exploring links between odor and memory. Even as many of his contemporaries in sensory neurobiology were preoccupied with vision, and prominent scientists, including Darwin and Freud, had disparaged humans’ sense of smell, Laird, a Colgate University professor, argued that olfaction had been unduly dismissed. “Even our contemporary psychologists,” he wrote, “with dignified aplomb, casually pass by the sense of smell as something that is notable among animals but sadly deficient in mankind.”

Laird had an inkling that the human nose could do more than it got credit for, that it could even hold clues to the inner workings of memory. So, he and colleagues asked 254 study participants to record moments in which smells spurred flashbacks to the past. They received hundreds of anecdotes, from a whiff of perfume reviving the discomfort of an awkward dance class to the smell of wool recalling a long-lost uncle’s overcoat. One participant, the son of a sawmill worker, reported that the smell of sawdust brought on “a series of vivid pictures so graphic that for the moment I live the scenes again.” The mere sight of sawdust, in contrast, fell flat.

The memories these passing odors evoked were remarkably intense, emotional, and deep-seated — more than just “casual will-o’-the-wisps in our mental fabric,” Laird wrote. The study’s insights provoked a bigger question about smell: “Can this be a sense which educators have overlooked,” he posited, “as an avenue into the mind?”

So why do I focus on the sense of smell? My friend shared with me that his brother often complained he could never rid himself of the smell of rotting flesh he experienced in Kosovo. Imagine playing mind tapes of bodies stacked in villages, rotting in the sun, mutilated—and covered in flies. I can’t, and unless you have experienced such, nor can you.

Imagine looking around in civilian life, unable to come to terms with this soul-wrenching pain, knowing no words can do justice to the witness of man’s inhumanity to man. Without ever knowing this veteran’s other pains, this one was enough to generate compassion.

While we went about our days of work, a neighbor shared his experience on the veteran’s final day. “I was walking my dog, the veteran came out into the parking lot carrying a rifle in each hand. Without a thought I asked if he was the terminator. He just gave me a cold stare.”

In an instant I was struck with wonder, who would ask such a thing of someone carrying two guns?

The neighbor went on, “when I came back through he was sitting up on the deck. He looked distressed. I offered a brief salutation, but his response was again cold. I only walked about twenty-five feet when I heard the shot.”

How can we reconcile the action of this vet? We can’t. Nor can we judge.

Our veterans need us, and our support. We must recognize we cannot put ourselves in their place. Each veteran had a unique experience of service, all with one mission in mind—a willingness to sacrifice for the betterment of civilian life.

As civilians we are in debt, no payment we make can clear the debt, so let’s focus on interest. Interest in stopping the twenty daily suicides of U.S. veterans. These veterans suffer from depleted spirits, lost in confused thoughts, and a loss of mission. The Veterans Administration can only do so much. This veteran had an appointment with a V.A. psychologist scheduled for the next day, the day after the event. We don’t know if he had sought earlier intervention, but I do know our systems are difficult to navigate for a person of sound mind—how does a damaged person manage?

There is no clear answer to this problem, how can we find one? Kind words, intuitive interactions, contemplation of why others act the way they do. We all suffer, become broken, and need compassion. Veterans have an additional layer to deal with, let’s never forget their sacrifices and needs.

To punctuate this post, I’ll be brief in sharing two more experiences from our task. During our work of sorting all of this veteran’s worldly possessions, the landlady showed up—screaming at my bereaved friend with threats of legal action—calls to her attorney— and demanding we stop since we had no legal right. Here stood my friend who just lost his brother. He drove a thousand miles to settle the estate of a veteran, and this woman showed not an ounce of compassion.

Then, there was the moment I dropped duffle bags filled with uniforms and unknown items into the bin at the Salvation Army. These bags represented twenty years of service. My friend and I had not rifled through the bags, even though I threw out the thought of stashed cash. My friend just said if there was any cash it would be an additional donation. Let’s be grateful for what we have, let’s be kind, never forget those no longer with us, or how much they contributed to our lives.

We have no idea who all these people were. Each was an individual, we only know them as the military, while they knew us as civilians. In the end let’s never forget where our blessings come from—and share those blessings with whomever we encounter.

 

https://braveknightwriters.com/blog/1086-The-Scent-of-Freedom