Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Experience in Vietnam

Thinking back to your high school days and how you didn’t know what you wanted to be when you grew up changed quickly. Your school mates, some in college, some in the armed forces, somewhere in the world fighting communism or terrorism and others just jerking themselves around town doing nothing but hiding from the draft, are not in your plans right now. Those care free days of post high school were quickly dwindling into the thin air as your need to be self sufficient and survival outweighs the need to lay back and take it easy. Graduating and not having a steady job can be detrimental to your comfort and personal finances as you suffer each time you ask your parents for money. You and your high school sweetheart manage to get through by working odd jobs and unexpectedly, your whole live changes when you add another member to the family. A baby, although a precious addition to any family causes undue stress and more worries as your time has come to be drafted by your country and fight a war oversees where nobody cares about anybody who goes over there except immediate family.

Drafted into service, the trip to the reserve center where they did the physicals was a hard drawn out process for this young man. Already contemplating to run away, his morals and values force him to stay with the schedule, as well as his mind, already racing at the speed of light, which envisioned the worse case scenario as the doctor in authority of the exam process, pronounced everybody there to be fit to serve in the United States Army. A new born American citizen sworn to protect his nation form foreign enemies and domestic, I was drafted, inducted and kidnapped at the end of the day without the opportunity to call his family and notify them of the disaster which had just occurred within the last 8 hours the war was horrific and as a nineteen year old looking at the way people lived and died made no sense. The first eight weeks tear you apart both physically and mentally. They put into your body and spirit through such a rigorous routine, it literally changes your ability to think for yourself as subconsciously, you are taught you how to kill a man and take care of your buddy. Using the tools of intimidation and sleep deprivation to alter your mind, the army focused on the team concept from day one. The team concept was strong and it appeared to work when all odds were stacked against you in a firefight or significant battle. Wounds were multiple and blood was shared between races. No color lines were drawn on these battlefields as they all wore green and they all ate and shared the same food, shelter and mud. With every mission, your survival skills become sharper and your instinct to survive become better.

Your judgment and your eyes match the thoughts of your enemy and where you are now, enables your spirit to be prone to view and how to survive just because you can calculate your way out of this mess. The rain, endless and merciless, pounds your body day after day with no relief at night. A strange language, once strange and occasionally only seen on television during one of those Vietnam War news casts, has now become your second language for survival. Each word means something you need to know as you suspect the enemy is closer to you than you think. Nights are filled with intense neon flashes echoing along with a rolling thunder. This break in the stillness of darkness revealed distant detonation of bombs contained with a lethal custom designed effectiveness to rain from the sky to the ground miles away, dropping tons of destruction on unsuspected targets, killing everyone not fortunate enough to seek shelter underground where the tunnels and the hideaways are for the enemy. As you sit there, gazing in the sky in the direction of the thunder, you realize one thing you know for sure, those not killed tonight will live to fight another day and that day may be just around the corner as you spend your time away in a self-imposed psychological prison in the mind to keep from going crazy or losing your wits about the terrible things you are doing and the terrible things you have seen. The heat is unbearable as you stink in your rice paddies soiled uniform. Thinking back, it’s been a week or two since they dropped off any clean clothing or your mail. Free from leeches today, you enjoy a smoke as the long walk has a temporary stall to rest the weary bodies. Instead of taking a break with the rest of the group, you take this opportunity to check out everybody in your group, you rush from person to person to treat the wounded and to see if they are in need of any further medical attention as you job to keep them alive. Never volunteering to be a medic, it was destiny and bad luck this was the job and this job required alertness on two4/7 status a week required by both tradition and need. The pay is enough to send home and keep a small bill for personal items you can buy at the base PX when back in camp Never needing money to get through the day; it was something best sent home for the family who needed it more . . . The cigarettes are free and the drinks are on the house. A small bar on the beach provides you the social relief you are looking for after a couple of months away from the camp and the laughter turns into a drunk stupor as you drink your misery and sorrow, slowly drowning your mind with alcohol. Hot beer during the day and cold drinks during the evenings, the days passed systematically while your mind is changing to adapt for the moment.

Monsoon rains drench the day and covers the night fall. A little preplanning and digging ditches during the daylight hours, a proficiently dug water shed channel steers the torrential pouring rain the into pre-designed ditches to avoid flooding of key areas and the inside of the bunkers so the wetness stays away from your body as you experience another chilly night covered in wet clothing but a dry blanket.
The endless rains grounded all aircraft, and as the enemy uses this strategic advantage to provide them cover to re-position themselves for the upcoming fight, you find them in a totally new arrangement when the sun finally burned off the low lying fog as it busted through the clouds and within almost minutes, the heated clash was back on as fierce as ever before.

Friends come and go and never enough time is spent to get to know their names. Knowing where they came from gave them colorful nicknames of hometowns as long term relationship are discouraged and private matters are kept locked away where they can’t do any harm. A soldier can’t show fear, especially when it came to the loss or the misery of being away from home and his loved ones. This moment of weakness can only be done in a private moment when nobody else is looking your way. Solitaire while on bunker duty or sitting on the john gave an individual such a moment. Sadly enough, there weren’t enough moments to dwell on such feelings as the war was unforgiving and relentless in nature.

Christmas night 1967 inside the bunker was the loneliest feeling ever. Staring at the sky and realizing you are millions of miles away from home, a depression sets in that is as deep as the Grand Canyon. Rats as big as domestic kitty cats scurry as humans approach their nesting grounds. The helicopter rotor makes a noise nobody ever forgets. The engine winding up the blades tells you its time to go. Loading up and strapping in, the pilot tells you where you’re going and what you will be doing. A replacement soldier or medic, it was never said before the departure where your mission would be or who you would be fighting with. Not exactly a secret, these words were seldom shared as time was always precious and never enough. The sounds of fire and pain fill the air as the helicopter nears its destination. The pilot, a dedicated warrant officer is well seasoned and well skilled in flying this hover craft, yells out the landing zone is too hot to land and we’ll have to jump to make ends meet. The grass is at least seven feet tall and the ground is about ten feet down as we gaze down the grassy field and see the flames of orange blue and black dark smoke coming from the trees within a fifty yard distance. The green smoke delivered prematurely, was a signal allowing us to come in and land safely but as we came close, we saw the enemy with their eyes upon us, glaring us down with hate and disgust as they prepare to kill us when we land.

Holding their AK 47 at port arms and ready to fire at will as we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere, not knowing which side was more secured than the other, a mere group of ten men armed with small arms and one M60 machine gun, we were at the mercy of those who surrounded us in that grassy field remotely located near one of the main battles fought in the I Corps near the DMZ. The tall grass, a cover for some but not bullet proof, gave us an opportunity to escape the wrath that laid waiting for us if we chose the wrong side. We can’t say we hated everyone we saw that didn’t have round eyes but the emotion kept us on our high mental alert and suspicious of all.

Coming home from the war was not like anything you saw in the movies. Still dressed in your summer uniform from your last deportation point in Southeast Asia, you are now arriving in the winter months and the snow surrounding the Fort Lewis area of Washington State, the same point of departure a little over a year ago. Duffle bag with your equipment and focused on catching your next plane, you scuttle through O’Hare airport when you’re interrupted in your haste by a group of anti-war groupies who are covered with peace signs and flowers in their hair. Avoiding conflict and hurrying for the connection, they follow you and spit on your uniform as if to desecrate your presence right there right now. Spending time oversees does not improve your character. It destroys it. You’ve learned to escape structure from society’ rules and functioned on an adrenalin high from the kill and the loneliness as well as the misery seen by these young eyes when life was less valued as it was before you went to war. The reaction to return the assault with a hard fist was detained by the presence of a massive built but kind looking military policeman who simply asked this weary soldier if he wanted to fight or go home. The choice was obvious and the steps quickened as he feared in losing his connection to him hometown flight to freedom.

In a total of two year’s time of hate and hell, you found the adjustment too much to accept and to distrusting to deal with. Soldiers, coming home after being trained to be capable to work on killing the enemy whether alert or asleep, taught by the best of the best, without any forethought. The irony, these soldiers are at the top of their game, when they are suddenly released into a new environment where the rules of engagement have changed and their conduct and behaviors are now altered to meet society’s needs and regulations. All of a sudden, there was no need for those who were trained so well to fight in combat and who asked only a pad on the back for gratitude of serving their country and no more. Being left alone with no group or team to support you and your way of thinking, you react the way you were trained as you distrust everything and everyone. It’s going to be a hard long road to recovery and some will never attain success at returning back to normal as their minds have been altered to the point of no return. Many failed to become productive citizens and went to live on the streets, a mental health clinic or jail. Some died from the alcohol while others survived a miserable way of living out of a shopping cart and begging for food and water. Others, recognizing their immediate impairment, took steps to preserve their sanity and function, even partially, in a capsule of hope and promise things would get getter. Socially, those returning from the war were truly misfits trained by the government to kill foreigners and seek out the enemy of our state. They served well and many wore ribbons and medal to show their glory. Some walked away as others lost their eyes, their limbs or otherwise crippled in a wheelchair or prosthetic devices, and tried to function normally as normal could be. Some attended self-help groups while others flew solo and both had stories of success and failures. Myself, drowning in my self pity and untrustworthy to be near, I medicated myself with prescription drugs i.e. uppers, to sustain my habit acquired many years ago as a medic serving our unforgiving country.

Maintaining a twenty four seven stamina curve can’t be done without artificial stimulation and prescription amphetamines did it for those who wanted to stay up and deal with a distorted reality to them. The world had changed. The mind can only accept certain facts and when the mind is confused, it becomes a terrible machine that drives you crazy. Emotions run deep and values change. What was important ten years ago has been abandoned or thrown to the side for something new? Society, not very supportive of all those veterans who returned from oversees, calls out for reforms and better treatment. Laws are enacted giving veterans better educational benefits and opportunities to purchase a home through the GI bill. Following the rules was not simple nor was it common for a veteran to be anti-social in nature or behavior as their trust in our government has deteriorated to the point of hate. Still young in body and mind, you begin to search for an alternative to you way of living.

Obviously, your way has not worked for quiet some time now and changing your job every six months or so makes you a bad risk to the employer who hired you with a risk you will quit anyway. After completing your war related military service, you, a person with strong individual ethics and good family morals and values are pondering your thoughts in seeking a job change or a career plan where you feel it would best satisfy your craving to do something good and fulfill those societal needs you belief are lacking in this world.

Your uncontaminated thoughts of doing something first-class and promoting those same clean thoughts your parents tried to instill into you as their own is refreshing and as a rule turns into a fever. A fever to do something self-serving yet serving society’s needs as well. This behavior, often contagious as your exuberance rubs off the very people who are close to you in your personal life and who are substantial parts of your social support system. All of these years of growing up, struggling through adolescence and dreaming to be a breadwinner i.e. nurse, policeman, fireman or doctor come to reality when you begin to search your mind as to what you can do to attain the most personal satisfaction and reward in your life. Your batteries are charged and your mind. Realizing half your family is either a cop, fireman or another type of public servant, your goals are set to pursue a career in the ever expanding criminal justice system with endless possibilities of becoming a police or probation officer, a judge, parole officer or even, a jailer or correctional officer.

Coming out of your make believe blanket of in-security and lacking trust in anyone, you long for structure in your life as you have experienced it to be necessary to survive. Knowing in your mind, the only way you will change your ways it to move out of this state of self-pity and move into constructive scenery where family supports your efforts and the past is left behind. Never thinking seriously about becoming an officer of the law before, except when you were young and played cops and robbers, the thought becomes intriguing as there is so little insight on what a correctional officer does for a living. Not much glory in working inside a jail or prison where the culture is both secretive and murky. Heaven’s forbid, being a lawyer, judge or prosecuting attorney is so much more glamorous and even being a cop does not really attract the star status one attains when holding the office with a nameplate on your desk. But then, reality settles in and you realize working for a degree as an attorney is time consuming and expensive.

No comments:

Post a Comment