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PTSD, My Story, The Better, Stronger Me

One thing was a certainty in Vietnam, we were all counting the days until we would leave for "The World", if we survived. The new guys, the cherries, weren't as obvious as those of us who had most of our tour behind us with our short timer's calendars, because who wanted to start counting with 12 months to go. In case you hadn't figured it out "The World" was back home, the United States, a place where no one was hunting you down to kill you. The land of cokes, hamburgers, steak, flush toilets, light switches, beds and so much more.

The guys who were lucky enough to have rear jobs on the more secure bases didn't miss those things as much as the grunts (infantry). Some of them may have never had a shot fired at them while the grunts may be dodging bullets everyday. We drank warm water from our canteens that had a plastic taste, ate the same old C rations day after day, slept on the ground, our sleeping positions becoming mud puddles when it rained. During the monsoon that was everyday and night for weeks. We would be so wet and dirty that many of us would get boils. And in the morning we had to check ourselves for leeches.  Even with that being as bad as it was, the worst part was the firefights and seeing your buddy wounded or dead. That can make you feel mortal very quick.

We had been "in the field" as we called it, which meant out in the jungle on missions. Sometimes with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. That seemed nice when we could ride on the tracks (APCs, Armored Personnel Carriers) instead of busting through tangles of vines and brush with a pack that weighed around 70 or 80 pounds, our weapons, ammunition, hand grenades, water and more. We had contact with the enemy several times as a line company in the jungle but this time we were with the 11th ACR when we found the enemy in a bunker complex. The tracks got on line and pushed into the enemy weapons fire with us trying to keep up with them. Trees were falling everywhere. I saw a tree come down on top of an APC and hit the guy in the turret on the head. I was stepping over fallen trees when I looked down and was about to step on an NVA (North Vietnamese Army) soldier. I thought I was dead. Then I could see he wasn't going to be shooting anyone. It looked like he took a .50 caliber round in the shoulder area and the arm was still attached by some muscle and tendon.

Seeing gooks, NVA soldiers, VC (Viet Cong) dead was a good thing, right. They couldn't shoot at us or ambush us if they were dead and besides, that is what my country had sent me there to do, what we had been trained to do. Many years later, I learned our training was designed to get us to respond with rage to overcome fear when we were in a firefight. It didn't always work for me and I have carried a feeling of not being brave and dependable, of letting my buddies down for many years. Maybe it is part of survivor's guilt.

We were in Tay Ninh Province, northwest of Saigon, and our mission was to search for the enemy and destroy them. The NVA, of course, had the mission of killing us, and trying to keep pressure on the capital. We were near the southern end of the Ho Ci Minh Trail. Our pointman signaled he saw something up ahead. It turned out to be a bunker complex and fortunately, no one was there. Our orders were to setup a defensive position in the bunker complex and send out patrols trying to find trotters (trails) where we could setup automatic ambushes (claymore mines rigged to explode killing anything up or down the trail for several meters). I had a very strong feeling that someone was going to die. It was a particularly hot day and felt like the fires of hell to me. One of the patrols had returned and was heading back out to set up an automatic on a trotter they had found that had signs of frequent use by the enemy. On the way out, the patrol was ambushed. The shooting and explosions seemed to go on forever. I saw one of the guys grab an ammo can of machine gun ammo and crawl toward the front of the firefight. I started looking for ammo and found some magazines of M16 ammo and headed toward the front of the firefight. The brush was thick and I ran into our sergeant and another guy carrying someone. I couldn't see who it was and I was told to grab his feet and help carry him back to the medic while our sergeant took the M16 ammo up front. When we got to where we set the wounded man down, I saw it was someone I had just been talking with a short time before the shooting started. I thought I had found a friend, but now he was dieing. I tried to help the medic but it was no use, my new friend was wounded too bad and he died while I was telling him to hang on, he was going back to the world.

After the enemy broke contact, we had to reorganize, get re-supplied with ammo and load the dead and wounded on medevac choppers. Ammo and food were taken from the packs of those who had been killed or wounded. I remember sitting there confused trying to think or reason what should be done for those who had just been killed. It almost seemed barbaric to take anything from their packs, even if it was ammo or food that we may need. There was no way to have any type of service or anything to honor them. It felt like all feeling and emotion drained out of my body and I was an empty shell. All too soon, it was time to saddle up and move on. We continued our mission of search and destroy and I had been changed forever.

When my tour of duty was over and I returned home to my wife and baby, I felt I was a better, stronger person. After all, I was a combat veteran, if I could survive that I could take on anything. It wasn't clear to me and I didn't recognize it, but I also felt the world was no longer a safe place and you couldn't trust anyone.

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