But I do know that I won’t go through the pain I experienced in 1972 and 1973, when those boys came home broken and damaged. I will not allow anyone the chance to call them baby killers, murderers and the like, not again. Yes they chose to serve, yes they were forced to go into a war that is illegal and immoral. I am sure there will be those who enjoy killing as in all wars, whether American soldiers or any other soldiers in the world. But to place the derisive term killer on every soldier, marine, airmen or sailor is wrong in my humble estimation.
Brenda was there, as were some others who post on this site, working on those broken men and boys, so was I and it profoundly changed me as a human being. Yes Brinn I am over the top and this is the reason why I have gone over the top. Until such time as you have seen a man physically mutilated from a war that was not of his choice to participate in and to watch him slowly die before your eyes, none of you will know the horrors these men have faced and will continue to face when they return.
I harbor no ill will to those who choose to demonize those who serve. I will not be a part of that demonizing, nor will I allow it to go without me saying something about it. Everyone of us has the right to express our views, yet when people use broad generalizations that indict a whole class of people that is wrong and I will have no part in it.
I was stationed at the old Balboa Naval Hospital for my corpsman training and so many of those men and boys came back destroyed as human beings. I knew then that I would fight against any government that would attempt to repeat that insanity in my lifetime. I watched in horror as men who could have had some kind of life, even without an arm, leg or eyesight, just give up and die because they gave up on wanting to live. Many returning vets were called horrendous names, that little to do with the reality of who they were as human beings.
I was discharged from the US Navy because I was unable to cope with the death and destruction that surrounded me every day, so I found solace in drugs and it brought me many years of grief. I was discharged not only for possession of illegal substances, I struck an officer in a fit of rage because he was chastising a young marine who was sobbing uncontrollably because he would never run again, climb his favorite mountain or be able to have children. I struck that officer so hard in the face that I broke four of his teeth and his jaw in three places. I would do it again for what he did to that Marine.
So if I am over the top then so be it. I have no idea what I will be do with these memories. I thought I had dealt with them and they would no longer haunt me. Yet here they are again. Here comes the rushing in of horrors so incomprehensible to most of you that I would never wish anything like this upon any one of you.
I know there are several members who suffer from PTSD, my own started many years before I was a corpsman, yet it was exacerbated by what I experienced in working with so many of these wounded men.
I lost several family members during that war, three of my cousins were wounded there and my step brother god bless him was a Marine’s Marine, he was wounded three times in three different tours. We all have shared together what happened to each of us. Even though I was the only one who did not serve in country. They knew and understood that too was a part of the horrors of war.
I have set up my prayer wheel, my sweat lodge and will do what I need to do to cleanse myself of this insidious monster that has resurfaced within me. I will love my children and my wife, I will seek to feed the good wolf for the joys that my family brings into me as a man and human being.
For whatever reason those of you who choose to demonize those that serve, I wish you peace and I hope that you never will have to experience the horrors these men and women have had to experience.
Wado
