It's almost 4:00 a.m., and I'm having one of those nights when the brain just won't shut down. I took the stuff my shrink prescribed, but, even with a martini chaser, I can't seem to find the "off" switch for my psyche. Stuff just seems to circle round and round, like a dog chasing its tail; lots of effort expended to no avail. I just can't seem to process all the little things running around in my head like cockroaches scurrying about in a suddenly lit room.
At least the change in my antidepressants seems to be working. I no longer feel so hopeless. I am still constantly surprised that I've managed to live as long as I have. I have lived for a very long time now thinking that my death was imminent. My counseler tells me that typical of PTSD, but I can't seem to internalize that. First of all, I feel guilty being diagnosed with what I've always considered to be a combat-related condition. I didn't go out in the bush looking for trouble. I wasn't ambushed, shot at, or attacked by Viet Cong.
For God's sake, I spent the majority of my service in Vietnam safely ensconced behind layers of barbed wire, sentries, and sand bags. Yeah, we got shelled a bunch of times, but all I had to to was run and hide in a bunker. That wasn't a very good feeling, I'll admit. But, to me, that wasn't combat. That was just hiding in a hole while other young men put their lives on the line going outside the wire to deal with the problem.
I remember when I was TDY at Cam Rahn Bay watching the medvac buses bringing the wounded to the evac aircraft that were taking them home. How could I compare what I did with what they suffered?
I remember sitting one night in the all-ranks club with my radio shop NCOIC. We were sucking down flat Miller High Life beer and complaining about how tough we had it when a grunt, fresh in from the bush, laughed at us and called our base a "fucking in-country R&R.". My NCOIC, a TSgt famous for his enormous capacity for booze, and lack of sensitivity, took offense and told him he just didn't understand how miserable our lives were. For instance, the showers ran out of hot water to soon, the beer was always flat, the chow hall food,while it might have been hot, was bland and not very tasty. Even the steaks were tough.
This kind of whining to someone just out of the bundu with a beard, an attitude, and a thousand-yard stare was not something that would endear the Air Force to an Army Ranger. The grunt replied with a right hook that levled my shop chief and then started after me. I beat a very hasty retreat. I definitely didn't want to be part of that mess, especially with the Air Police on their way.
I KNEW I was well off, and I had enough common sense stay way from situations that might rearrange my rather plain face into something uglier. My shop chief showed up for duty two days later sporting a remarkable set of bruises, two black eyes, and a broken nose. Call me a coward for not defending the honor of the USAF, but even in my cups, I had sense enough not to prod a tiger with a short stick.
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