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View Full Version : Healing the past



alevin
05-24-2016, 09:08 AM
This post won't be for everyone who has served, but some may find it gives them some new ideas and even some hope for resolving post-combat traumatic memories they still carry, perhaps even decades after their service years.

The US veterans going back to live in Vietnam - BBC News (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36363537)

TSP-roulette
06-18-2016, 08:15 PM
This post won't be for everyone who has served, but some may find it gives them some new ideas and even some hope for resolving post-combat traumatic memories they still carry, perhaps even decades after their service years.

The US veterans going back to live in Vietnam - BBC News (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36363537)

Good read on the issue and thanks for posting the article. I served in that far away land for 18 months, a tour and a half. I stayed longer than the routine one year tour, my unit was under manned so I volunteered to stay for an additional year. Did not finish the 24 month stay, service connected injuries caught up with me was hospitalized for nearly a year, enough said. Regardless, I have a few combat bros who have returned to Vietnam as they say "to look for closure" and hoping to be rid of the combat PTSD demons. I know two combat bros who married Vietnamese women and moved there permanently, others have traveled seeking closure, unfortunately their experience in going back caused them to regress to those bad old days, they returned home a mess, mentally. It's impossible for most of us to find closure and put the entire madness to rest. I love to travel, I've traveled to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Guam, Thailand which is a lovely country, went on RR to Australia and a quickie trip to New Zealand, but unlike some Veterans I cannot find it in me to return to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, no closure for me in those countries, I have been invited by groups of Vets who return to visit and mingle with the local people, I decline the invites, can't do it, I find the idea of going back unbearable, as Billy Joel says in his song "Good Night Saigon": "They left their childhood on every acre"...I can only say to the bros, thanks but no thanks. Good article though, and if the Vets have found peace of mind and closure by making that country their home then that's a good thing, noble and perhaps commendable. Thanks for the article Alevin. good read.

burrocrat
06-18-2016, 08:45 PM
well i don't know about all that. but i do know 3 vietnam vets, and ain't one of them right in the head, so whatever they saw or did over there must've been really bad because these men were born and bred for the hard unpleasant work.

rueben got dropped out on discipline charges but he tells the story different. he has no sense of propriety, none, not how he looks or how he acts or what he says. the whole town still lines the main street on veteran's day and salutes them all and puts on a big dinner just the same. sometimes we just go for drives.

tom he can't hardly talk, he stutters, he is smart though, but he got slowed down somehow. i gave him a rifle that was too big for my kid at the time we didn't need it and he had a raccoon problem. well i didn't give it to him we arranged a price but he has not yet paid, neither of us talk about that. i also sold him an old pickup when his was messed up and we will settle up on that later too sometime. he runs the landfill and folks mostly leave him alone. but they look down on him, i don't.

pat. pat is a different story. we go hunting once in a while. he is a crazy mofo. he can shoot a mile. maybe not a mile but a long fuckin ways. he has a hair trigger. he has a sixth sense, he hears things but when you poke your head up over the draw it is just like he said and then he knocks it down. if he gets mad he wants to kill you and eat you. he was a tunnel man, he crawled into some awful places and it was dirty work as i hear it. when pat is in the house i always know where i am in relation to the two doors and my weapons and his mood. we have not had a problem yet. pat is cool and we get along because he only drinks rainier beer. when i worked in alaska we used to buy rainier by the pallet load and stuff it in the hold whenever we were in seattle. it is hard to find rainier beer on the north plains. i always bring rainier for pat, old boys in an old pickup down an old road with old beer. so we drink rainier and drive.

these are my dad's friends, i have known two of them for almost two decades now. but i never let my guard down. pat told me something one time that stuck. i had just moved to town and was in love with the local cute blonde hottie. we had a good time for a while and then it all went to hell. i had no idea this sweet as honey waitress was the town pump, for years, i thought we had something good. but then she went on about her ways and i was devastated. anyways pat and i are sitting around drinking beer and talking and he says she always did like to "*screw* like a gorilla" and i asked well why didn't nobody tell me? and you know what pat said? "somebody's got to take point". simple as that. somebody has to take point.

he is a pretty smart guy, they all are.

alevin
06-18-2016, 09:14 PM
Sorry to hear about the guys who tried and couldn't handle it, -roulette. Each of you who has served overseas has to deal with the demons, some more some less.

My dad served in Korea, he's never spoken of it in my hearing. I only learned some of what his service entailed last fall from my uncle, who is even older than my dad, and who also served, over Korea, a different branch. My dad deals by not speaking of it to anyone other than his own generation who also served in that war, and perhaps only to my uncle, tho he has started going down to the local VFW, now that he's in his 80s.

My disabled 'Nam neighbor still has sealed records from his time over there. I still don't know exactly what special service branch he was actually a part of, but his service was apparently very very not-routine. And he pays close attention to his surroundings even now, lets me know what's going on in the neighborhood when I'm not around. He's never expressed interest in ever revisiting geographic locations he served, but was appreciative when Quilts of Valor acknowledged his service with handmade quilt delivered to his doorstep a number of years ago.

TSP-roulette
06-18-2016, 10:41 PM
well i don't know about all that. but i do know 3 vietnam vets, and ain't one of them right in the head, so whatever they saw or did over there must've been really bad because these men were born and bred for the hard unpleasant work.

rueben got dropped out on discipline charges but he tells the story different. he has no sense of propriety, none, not how he looks or how he acts or what he says. the whole town still lines the main street on veteran's day and salutes them all and puts on a big dinner just the same. sometimes we just go for drives.

tom he can't hardly talk, he stutters, he is smart though, but he got slowed down somehow. i gave him a rifle that was too big for my kid at the time we didn't need it and he had a raccoon problem. well i didn't give it to him we arranged a price but he has not yet paid, neither of us talk about that. i also sold him an old pickup when his was messed up and we will settle up on that later too sometime. he runs the landfill and folks mostly leave him alone. but they look down on him, i don't.

pat. pat is a different story. we go hunting once in a while. he is a crazy mofo. he can shoot a mile. maybe not a mile but a long fuckin ways. he has a hair trigger. he has a sixth sense, he hears things but when you poke your head up over the draw it is just like he said and then he knocks it down. if he gets mad he wants to kill you and eat you. he was a tunnel man, he crawled into some awful places and it was dirty work as i hear it. when pat is in the house i always know where i am in relation to the two doors and my weapons and his mood. we have not had a problem yet. pat is cool and we get along because he only drinks rainier beer. when i worked in alaska we used to buy rainier by the pallet load and stuff it in the hold whenever we were in seattle. it is hard to find rainier beer on the north plains. i always bring rainier for pat, old boys in an old pickup down an old road with old beer. so we drink rainier and drive.

these are my dad's friends, i have known two of them for almost two decades now. but i never let my guard down. pat told me something one time that stuck. i had just moved to town and was in love with the local cute blonde hottie. we had a good time for a while and then it all went to hell. i had no idea this sweet as honey waitress was the town pump, for years, i thought we had something good. but then she went on about her ways and i was devastated. anyways pat and i are sitting around drinking beer and talking and he says she always did like to "*screw* like a gorilla" and i asked well why didn't nobody tell me? and you know what pat said? "somebody's got to take point". simple as that. somebody has to take point.

he is a pretty smart guy, they all are.

Burro, I couldn't invite you and take you to my Vet reunions, things get wild and a little out of hand, the grunts would roast you and have you for dinner. Or after a few brewskies and some of that white lightning is consumed the hardware comes out and you'd be target practice for the bros. Things do get a bit rowdy. No worries, you'd still have fun.