It was reported today that there are many superstitions among US troops, like not eating M&M's while on a tank turret. Or the many men who carry love letters from their wives and family tucked inside their helmets, a secular philactery, for protection and proximity to their loved ones.
Many soldiers are reportedly carrying --- in their helmets --- photographs of their loved ones. Snapshots, wrinkled and stained by the sweat of terror, carried against one's head as talismans of memory, hope and protection, a golden thread to what was good, significant and true in their lives before the war. It is easy to imagine soldiers taking their helmets off in a quiet moment to look at these picures and, for a moment, finding their way out of that hellish labyrinth and back to their loved ones for a few minutes.
The helmet provides the real, secular-world shield of protection. The echoes of light trapped on paper, an additional, magical layer of love to help ward off harm.
--- Luis
