Tuesday, October 2, 2007

PTSD -103 part 2

Almost 3 million Americans came to South Vietnam during it's decades of war. Some were active combatants, others were rear echelon or support forces. (more on that later.) Not everyone fired their weapons or engaged the enemy. However the enemy made his / her presence known whenever they felt like it.


There were things that some of us saw that would sicken even the most moral upright citizen, not to mention that we participated in or witnessed things, or at least had knowledge of-that which would be a violation of criminal laws of any civilized community. After all we were at WAR. We were young, we were trained to be skilled professional assassins, killers, and mentally motivated to; Adapt, improvise, and overcome. We were trained to do whatever it took to get the job done.


Unfortunately, when we came home, we came "Home" to an anti-war minded, unsympathetic, unsupportive public who openly expressed their contempt for us, as if We had started the WAR. The people, here stateside, whose freedoms we believed we were defending, expected these killers of men, women, and children to "act normal" once we returned. After all,"you are not in the jungle or rice paddies now, boy." Define NORMAL.


Those painful memories, flashbacks, nightmares of the carnage-human life lost and the brutality against humanity, far exceeded the normal threshold of Sanity. "Oh, He's just having a little trouble adjusting to being back here in the real world.'' Sarcastically we were told, it's just a little "Shell Shock, it will go away in time."



***News Flash!!! Every Sound, Action, Thought, Visual Stimuli, Feeling, and Smell is permanently recorded-stored in our mind... Killing is not Normal. Watching your friends die, is not Normal. Smelling decayed, rotting human flesh is not Normal. Inhaling charcoal black skin and bones from bodies burnt beyond recognition certainly anit Normal either.

It has a name; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. ---Google it for some interesting reading.