A few years after I returned from Vietnam I checked myself into the VA hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. My symptoms were uncontrollable anger, nightmares which would wake me up, sweating, a metabolism that raced, hands that shook so much I sometimes spilled my drink, and drinking to excess in order to calm my nerves.
After they checked me in I was put in the amputee ward—there wasn’t room enough anyplace else in the hospital. After I had been in for a few days all the patients were invited to a social, a party of some sort with a live band and Donut Dollies to dance with us. I remember sitting on the sidelines scoping out the scene when I spotted a nice looking girl out on the dance floor. I was sitting next to two black guys—I remember them very well. Both of them were tall and skinny, sort of basketball player types. I mentioned the girl to one of the guys, you know just to strike up a conversation really. I didn’t know anybody in the hospital yet.
"We can’t see her man." One of the guys said. "We’re blind."
It was one of those things that somebody can tell you that is so far out that you have a hard time believing it at all. It was as if the guy was lying. My mind wanted me to ask, "what do you mean you’re blind? What do you mean you can’t see?"
It took me a good five minutes or so before I could actually accept the fact that two guys, my age, sitting next to me at the dance were blind. Maybe they were wearing sunglasses at the evening event, or maybe I looked up at their eyes to see if they were lying or not. I no longer recall these details, but what I do remember is how weird, how foolish, how odd I felt sitting next to these two fellows, me trying to accept their injury.
Back in the amputee ward, I remember waking up early to the screams of guys as they wheeled them out to the operating room in the morning. We all knew who would be going into surgery the next morning so that was no surprise. It was just another thing that was weird about being in the New Haven VA Hospital following my time in Vietnam.
As for me, I know now that I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but nobody knew what it was then. VA Hospitals across the countries were getting inpatients with the same symptoms I had—lots of patients. Because they were coming in droves it drove them to figure out just what PTSD was. In other wars, as most people know, they called it Shell Shock. In my mind, that’s a better name for it because it sounds more like a real thing. I mean what the hell is a "disorder?"
When I see the young soldiers on the news to Iraq it brings to mind PTSD. With that, it also brings to mind my time in the VA Hospital and that makes me think what it is like for the soldiers coming back from Iraq today.
Injuries are the results of war—the things that the young soldiers have to deal with when they return. Wars produce amputees, soldiers blinded, burned and wounded and it produces Post Traumatic Stress which is a very real injury that some soldiers will unfortunately be forced to deal with for the rest of their lives.
I think it is good for all of us—those who have been touched by war and those who have not—to know what it is like, during and after a war, for soldiers who fight for a cause. The reason I think it is good thing to know is because knowing about the human toll might help us not want to enter into war in the first place.
I remember thinking when the War in Iraq began, that the main reason we shouldn’t go is because of what would happen to those who fought. It is a difficult thing to weigh the reasons for going with the reasons for not. But those that choose to enter into war and those that chose to fight should both do so being aware of the human toll.
In the two instances I am mentioning here, Vietnam and Iraq, I am talking about what I know which is the toll taken by Americans. The toll taken by the enemies—the Vietnamese and the Iraqis—is the other part. In both wars that we Americans have entered into, the toll on the enemy was far greater, in terms of numbers of dead and wounded, than the toll taken by our own soldiers.
War is all about killing and dying. That is what it comes down to in the end. It seems that in the years that pass, afterwards, the human toll becomes more obvious and as it does there appears to be less difference between the good-guys and the bad.
More than thirty years after Vietnam has ended and all the reasons for going have been blurred in the light of reason, we no longer look at the Vietnamese as our enemies and we can now feel as bad for their dead and wounded as we do for our own. I suspect that thirty years from now we will feel the same way about the Iraqis.
I pray for our soldiers and all their loved ones, for those in power who chose to send them their and for all the innocent people affected by that choice.
Something about the weirdness of what happened reminds me of Vietnam—a bunch of people sitting down to eat, talking about life, laughing about life, then caboom--death! That’s what war is like, isn’t it?
What happened yesterday reminded me of 30 something years ago when our Brigade Chaplain was called from our LZ to the airbase in the rear at Chu Lai when a plane full of soldiers had died. A C-130 crashed on take-off. It was flying the guys down to Cam Rhan Bay where they were heading home.
I remember how weird it was, thinking that the guys had survived a year in the field and then when it was time for them to go home, they died. I remember how sad we all felt.
That’s the way war is—things rarely happen as we think they are supposed to. Once again, watching the news, hearing the news about these people getting killed while they sat down to eat, saddens me. I know that everybody that’s been in a war feels the same as I do. War sucks plain and simple but things like this make it seem even more sad, even worse.
What happened in Mosul reminds me once again how stupid it was that we got into this mess in the first place. As bad as Saddam was I’ll bet that the parents or the wives or husbands of anybody that got killed in Mosul will have second thoughts about this war.
The War in Iraq reminds me a lot of Vietnam now. I recall how much I hated President Johnson and McNamara and Kissinger and all those insane people who kept the war going while my friends and I watched people die. I wonder if some of the soldiers in Iraq don’t feel the same about the people in power now.
The way I feel today is: This war sucks now just as much as Vietnam sucked then.
I have been unable to write here for some time now. I felt like I had nothing new to say and I didn't want to say the same old things. But now, something has happened that has made me feel fresh and new and like a child again. And that is, I am discovering that although I may have no answers, I have many questions. This is my entry:
RECOGNIZING THAT I AM A SEEKER
Ever since I was a boy I have been asking myself basic questions—big questions—What is? Why am I here on this earth? What is the meaning of life—my life in particular? What am I supposed to do with my life? What makes the most sense? What will do the most good? What are the most important things we are to do with our limited time here on earth?
The questions go on: What are we here to learn? Who has the answers to these questions? Who are we to believe? What rings True?