Why me and not them? Why did I have to suffer what I went through, spend a lifetime thinking about it, and labeling a huge group of people as cowards in the meantime? It seemed, as though, I felt guilty for the mayhem I was involved in, yet, at the same time, proud of the fact that I was there in the first place. One of those feelings had to be inappropriate.
I didn't realize until many years that the idea of betrayal by our government had set me off on a deep mental journey that caused me much self flagellation. Couple that with the fact that the returning Vietnam Vets were not honored. The public treated us with much indifference or derision, further denying the unanchored dead that was in all of us a final resting place.
All of us have one event, or trigger, that we can't shake. When I figured this out, I started talking about mine; something that we saw or participated in that will not leave. The answer is in talking about that one incident. C'mon, tell it here. Spit it out. You could be helping a brother come to terms with something huge. Let's bury it all right here. You tell me yours and I will tell you mine. Don't worry about how ugly it is. As we know, war is hell. Eli
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