A couple weeks ago Sirius XM had a limited time 24/7 Metallica channel going. This was to celebrate the anniversary of the “Black Album.” On that album is a song called “Nothing Else Matters.” This was Metallica’s first love song. However, over the years I have applied the lyrics to various situations and or people. Mylie Cyrus does a few different versions of this song and in an interview with Metallica she mentioned how to her the lyrics meant nothing else mattered, but her love of music and how it was getting her through a divorce and her house burning down. I never considered Miley Cyrus as a voice of reason or inspiration, but what she said really resonated with me. It got me thinking of what really mattered to me and how music and hockey and my people were carrying me through a tough time.
I found this to be a powerful perspective as music has always been a form of therapy and a really good friend. Metallica like the Force runs strong in my family. I love them, my cousin Wade loves them, and my cousin Alex loves them, and his little brother Gunnar who was killed in Afghanistan in 2008 also loved them. While I was listening to the Metallica channel every time I was in the Jeep, Afghanistan was being re conquered by the Taliban. Our illustrious leaders decided it was time to leave in the most disastrous of fashions. This had me thinking of Gunnar a lot. I felt a little bit like he was closer when listening to one of his favorite bands.
How we were giving up made me outrageously angry. The Taliban has taken over every piece of ground that Americans and their allies took from them. Twenty years of war for what? Not to mention we proceeded to leave our own people behind and they to this day continue to lie and shift blame. It makes me physically sick to my stomach to think about.
During the quick couple of weeks it took the Taliban to take over the entire country city by city, veterans and Gold Star families all over the world started feeling betrayed, disgusted, and angry. Well at least this veteran did. I found myself sinking into a hole of anger and depression I could not climb out of. I couldn’t get enough of the news which was only worse by the minute. Facebook etc seemed to be cruising along like normal. I guess after the election etc people didn’t want to be political anymore. My friends and family didn’t really seem to wonder if I might be hurting or angry. I didn’t reach out to my fellow veterans either and I am not really sure why. Maybe I thought they’re tired of hearing about it. When it comes to Gunnar maybe people are tired of me talking about him.
So I sulked and got angry. It wasn’t until I went to practice the week Kabul fell that I found out I was not nearly alone. That message came from an unexpected place. Coach “Harv” Harvey with my St. Louis Blues Warriors addressed us before and after practice one morning. We always meet at center ice before and after practice. He talked about not knowing what we all must be feeling and what a terrible week for us it might be. He said he knew some of us must be really struggling. I really was. I found out later so was everyone else. We had some great talks about it with Harv and our teammates. Again this team was coming to the rescue without even really knowing I needed it.
Not so many years ago I had a long chat with the youngest son of my dad’s brother. His name was Gunnar. He was kind of a wild child and we chatted about his future. Much to my soul crushing regret I convinced him to go see an Army recruiter. I felt he needed the same thing I needed when I was his age. To get out of St. Louis and have someone make him straighten up.
When Gunnar was little he and his older brother would have weekend or week long stays. I’m quite a bit older so occasionally I’d end up on babysitting duty which of course is annoying to any teenager. However, you could not help loving those two. Gunnar would do just about anything to get a laugh. This continued until the end of his life.
He followed in the Zwilling tradition of hugs you would remember. When we hug we mean it. He had a laugh and a smile that even if you were totally pissed at him he could disarm you almost immediately. On July 13, 2008 a couple hundred murderous, ignorant, evil cave dwelling animals killed that smile and laugh. At 20 years old he would never hug anyone with all his heart and tell them he loved them ever again. For What?
Eight of his brothers in arms were murdered that day by these same savage cowards. Twenty seven more of his brothers were wounded. Why you might ask? What did the national security of our great nation gain by the deaths of these young men? Well nothing. I urge you to Google the Battle of Wanat and you can read on the absurdity, incompetence, and criminal actions that lead to these deaths and injuries. Wanat was just another shit hole in a country of shit holes. After a string of outrageous leadership failures and buffoonery we just killed everyone there and left it anyway.
An Army official remarked to me during the funeral planning for my cousin that I, “shouldn’t worry after the helicopters, airplanes, drones, and artillery were done none of the enemy or anyone in their family were left alive to hurt anyone else.” My response was an incredulous “Well why didn’t you just do that in the first fucking place?” My cousin’s platoon was sent into an unwinnable meat grinder to take and hold a village in the bottom of a valley that meant absolutely nothing even in 2008. Oh the clown that ordered this epic failure in tactics and common sense saw some kind of tactical or moral victory in holding this one last shit hole before Gunnar went home in two weeks after fifteen months of non stop battle. My point is it meant nothing then obviously because they just blew it up and left it anyway, it certainly means nothing today. I say this with all due and utmost respect to the men that were there. To them at the time it was the mission. Of course the mission mattered it was what they were ordered to do. I will just never understand or respect the Why.
Twenty years of war. Over two TRILLION dollars wasted. Over 2000 American lives and who knows how many innocent Afghan lives taken. Tens of thousands of wounded. Stats we won’t see are how many suicides, divorces, bankruptcies, domestic violence and mental health issues it caused and will continue to cause. They could have given every living American over a hundred thousand dollars in cash in 2001 when we started. Imagine what that could have done. Instead we sent the same groups of American boys, girls, men, and women over and over again with no clear goals or end game.
They were ordered to keep a laughable amount of restraint against the Taliban who are child rapists, sadists, and murderers. They are instructed by “God” to round up any and all homosexuals and throw them off buildings, hang them, or behead them. Lesbians they stone to death. Our troops were forced to witness this behavior. When they tried to do something about it they were reprimanded. I know this to be fact because it happened to me in another shit hole country the US thought they could fix, but then bailed out when they decided it was going to take too long and there was no real money in it.
It’s not really relevant to go into some of the other nasty habits of the Taliban like throwing acid in young girls faces for trying to go to school or even learn to read. Stoning their wives to death if another man rapes them. Drowning people of other faiths in cages, beheading foreigners on tv, and on and on. I only point out these fun facts because the White House Press Secretary mentioned acknowledging this cult of psychopaths as a legitimate government that shamefully outlasted the mightiest military force the earth has ever seen and sent us scurrying away. Not to be political, but I just can’t help but mention after saying specifically there would be no evacuations by helicopter on the top of buildings like Saigon, we repeated that exact photo down to every detail.
What a shining victory or righteous justice it would have been to have spent twenty years vanquishing such a disgusting and evil enemy. Instead we fought the war with our hands constantly tied behind our backs. The treacherous General Milley, our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was a Brigadier General in Afghanistan in 2008. He approved the Battle of Wanat. Fast forward to August 2021 and his derelict leadership cost the lives of 13 more young Marines, a Soldier, and a Sailor. Again he allowed our heroes to be placed in an indefensible and dangerous situation for no reason. If you hadn’t heard we had a perfectly good and secure US Air Force Base in Bagram, Afghanistan that would have been the ideal place for the evacuation of our allies, American civilians, and the troops.
Instead we handed it over to the Taliban fully stocked with billions in vehicles, arms, and cash. Then we relied on Taliban goodwill and intel. All operating on a 3rd world airport in Kabul. The President said on live tv we would stay until the last American was rescued then inexplicably he held to his completely arbitrary date and snuck out in the middle of the night leaving hundreds behind.
But I digress. Nothing Else Matters.
Marine Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz was a 20 year old kid killed along with the 12 others that day in Kabul. LCPL Schmitz was from my area. He went to the same high school many of my son’s friends go to. He was the same age as Gunnar. His body would be brought into Lambert Airport same as Gunnar. He would then be transported to the same funeral home as Gunnar. This would include the closing of highways and massive police and Patriot Guard escort in a procession exactly like the one I rode in for Gunnar.
Because so many people had lined the roads for my family when Gunnar came home, I felt like I owed it to the Schmitz family to do the same for them. I knew it was going to bother me, but I had no idea just how much. I went with a group of my brothers and sisters from my St. Louis Blues Warriors hockey team. Standing on an overpass in the summertime with all of these people lining the highway just like in July of 2008 was a scene that just about knocked me down.
You see unfortunately between my PTSD, head injuries, and experimental anthrax vaccines, I have a lot of memory problems. I however, remember every single minute and detail of the day Gunnar’s body was brought home. As my unit the 131st Fighter Wing was still stationed at Lambert in 2008, my uncle asked me to help coordinate with the Army liaison for all matters military in Gunnar’s arrangements. I helped setup honor guards etc. and coordinate and communicate his arrival. His plane would drive straight onto our restricted flight line normally reserved for our F-15 fighters. I cannot ever forget no matter how hard I try watching a silver metal box carrying the remains of my baby cousin come off that plane.
I will always feel the pain and anguish of his father and brother when they approached the box. I cannot unsee the tears of his platoon mates that accompanied his body home from Afghanistan. I will never forget Interstate 70 being completely shut down from the airport to the funeral home. Nor all the hundreds or thousands of strangers lined along the streets and highway waving the American Flag, saluting, crying, and holding their hands over their hearts. I won’t forget the hundreds of police vehicles and Patriot Guard motorcycles who led the way nor the traffic on the other side oh I-70 also stopping in all lanes as a sign of respect.
Now in August of 2021 I was standing on the other side of that procession. Watching the motorcycles start coming up I-70 hit me like a ton of bricks. As Gunnar’s brother said to me later watching the procession was like “living in a flashback.” I pray you have no idea what a flashback feels like (they’re always for something bad for some reason).
It isn’t as pleasant as a tv or movie flashback. It is a physical feeling of returning to a place or a scene in your life that was incredibly traumatizing. For me it usually only lasts a second or two, but it can feel like an hour or an entire day even. It is not a memory you see in your head while you’re still aware of what you are doing at that particular time in the here and now. It is an actual transportation to whichever horror you are reliving. You are in that place and it is all you see. In fact, you can only see, hear, smell, taste that traumatic scene. As far as your brain is concerned you are there. Lucky for me if I’ve been driving or whatever when one hits me it’s gone quick enough, I’ve never wrecked the car or anything. It is that real.
My cousin was right. Watching this procession with all these people not only had me remembering how that day back in 2008 went, but it felt like I was in a flashback, but still in the current moment on that overpass. It was a surreal feeling that I am not doing a good job of explaining. Maybe it can’t be explained. I could not have been surrounded by a better and more supportive group of people than my fellow Blues Warriors. They would constantly check on me asking me how I was doing. When tears began to stream from under my sunglasses, they ignored them and just hugged me.
We decided after the procession was over we’d hit one of our local bar and grills and have lunch. I was in the Jeep with the doors and top off in a lot of traffic. Other drivers could look straight in and see my face. It took everything I had to choke back the intense sobbing I could feel was going to be inevitably taking over. I was still biting my lip when I walked up to the bar. As my Warrior friends filed in, I decided I would try and keep my cool. Normally my PTSD/Depression/Anxiety meds will actually prevent me from crying even if I want to. I guess these memories and being able to picture everything the Schmitz family was going through that day from minute to minute, and how they were feeling, what people were saying to them, well it just became too much.
I attempted to try and hide the tears I couldn’t hold back anymore by going by myself up to the bar and biting my lip. One of my Warrior brothers just put his arm around me and said, “Just let it out brother we got you.” That was it. It was a full-on bear hug between us with me sobbing out loud and snotting all over him. As I got hold of myself, I realized we were surrounded by the other Warriors that came all wanting to hug and pat me on the shoulder telling me it was ok, and they were sorry. Almost everyone in this group had been to Afghanistan themselves and they had lost friends.
They put their personal grief aside and in this moment they were there for me. They knew I had lost family. The friends they lost were of course like family, but Gunnar was real family and I was reliving that nightmare all over again. I am getting to what Metallica and the song has to do with this.
Obviously, I am still bitter about Gunnar’s death and there is a list of people from the White House and the Pentagon I will never forgive for it. The deaths of the 13 in Kabul and LCPL Schmitz is also unforgiveable in my mind and it’s even some of the same people from 2008. I could go off on the rant of all rants about the politics and tactics of both events. That’s how this blog started, but it changed when I heard that interview with Metallica and Miley Cyrus. As weird as that sounds.
You see I could go on being bitter and angry about what my family and the Schmitz family have gone through. Nothing will change that is good for me by just sitting and soaking in my anger and bitterness. What I can focus on is how good it feels to be surrounded by people who understand me. They may not have the full effect of grief of losing a loved one in a war that may now feel meaningless, but they have completely got my back. What matters more than that? Well, nothing of course.
In the lyrics is the line, “Never opened myself this way.” Obviously in my case that’s not necessarily true. I mean I write a blog about my feelings every couple of months. I don’t know that I have opened up about funeral processions or plans for my cousin. It was awesome to be able to open up in front of a group of warriors I respect without fear. It reminds of the line, “Trust I seek and I find in you.”
Really nothing else matters. Least of all the politics of the thing. What matters is that I have a family and friends that love me. I cannot change what happened. The song has a whole new meaning for me now. I stood next to Gunnar’s brother at a Metallica concert not long after he was killed. Gunnar should have been there with us. In a way he was, I wore my “We Remember CPL Gunnar Zwilling” t-shirt to the concert and we talked about him quite a bit. And they absolutely rocked and we were both able to exercise some of the pain and anguish we were feeling. We still had Metallica and we have each other. Again, Nothing Else Matters.
If you made it this far through my rambling, I pray that you have a “Nothing Else Matters” in your life and that you are able to focus on that in your greatest times of need. Whether it be God, a spouse, partner, music, friends or a combination of those things depending on the situation. I encourage you to let the anger or sadness go and focus on that. These are dark days we are living through full of anger, division, and fear. Try as I am and focus on what really matters. Stop hating and arguing. Start hugging and laughing.
Make “life yours and live it your way,” but be respectful of others. I am talking to myself here as well I promise. We don’t need to care what anyone else says or does enough to react poorly to it. Let “everyday bring something new” and have an “open mind for a different view.” I don’t think these words could apply anymore to us all then right now. You cannot disagree with anyone anymore it seems like without someone getting mean.
Here are the lyrics that have come to mean so much to me. I highly recommend you give the song a listen. If Metallica isn’t your thing, they just released an album where this song is covered by multiple different artists called “Blacklisted.” You can YouTube a lot of it. It’s awesome. My favorite is Chris Stapleton’s version of this song.
So close, no matter how far
Couldn’t be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
And nothing else matters
Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words, I don’t just say
And nothing else matters
Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
And nothing else matters
Never cared for what they say
Never cared for games they play
Never cared for what they do
Never cared for what they know
And I know
So close no matter how far
Couldn’t be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
No nothing else matters
For me it’s my faith in God, my wife, kids, and grandkids, family, my fellow Blues Warriors, Coaches, and everyone else that loves and puts up with me. And of course music. I love all of you. And I am so very grateful for you all.
I love you Alex.
I love you Gunnar.
and No Nothing Else Matters.
Thanks Metallica.
Jacked Up Dad 