PTSD
I missed being in the bush. Not so much in the bush as being in the bush with my friends. Other than Chavez and Stokes, I didn’t know anyone, and I had no desire to get to know anyone. When I was at Great Lakes for boot camp and Corpsman school, I got to know a lot of people. Now I avoided them as much as I could: go away, you’re going to die or leave, so just fuck off and leave me alone.
I was tired of knowing people only to have them die or leave for whatever reason. I wasn’t conscious at the time that I was purposefully avoiding people or pushing them away since PTSD and all those symptoms that go with it weren’t really on anyone’s radar.
Stokes, Smith, and House pretty much had the same attitude so we just ended up hanging together, being standoffish pricks to some and selfish assholes to others. As long as I didn’t dream, I didn’t notice or if I did, I didn’t care. Somewhere in this time frame I ran into a guy from St. Albans, Jimmy Heiners (sp), another good drinking buddy from my time there. And there was another guy who joined the Battalion, Satch Armstrong (I think that was his name, although after one drunken night I called him “Snatch” and, unfortunately for him, that stuck). Turned out, he grew up in the same small town in New Hampshire as Keller did. Keller was that Corpsman who woke up every morning and yelled, “Good morning, Vietnam!”[1] He was killed after giving cover fire for a few Marines who’d been pinned down in some Ville. Keller received a posthumous Silver Star for this.[2]
Satch attended Keller’s funeral and looked on as Keller’s young widow, who was crying and holding their baby, threw the flag and medals she was given into his grave, and said, “You wanted these so fucking badly, here they are.”
Life’s not easy on the people left behind, although it wasn’t something we dwelled on too much. When you’re focused on your own pain, or avoiding it for that matter, you don’t spend any time thinking about how other’s feel. It gets in the way of your own pity party. Satch died a few months into his tour as well as Heiners. Vietnam was tough on corpsmen.
A couple of weeks into my new routine, I came down with malaria. After lunch one day, I started not feeling well, so I went to our hooch to rest for a few moments. The next thing I knew I woke up with bone jarring chills, muscle aches, and a headache from hell. Doctor Bounds sent me over to the 1st Med Battalion for blood work to confirm the diagnosis. I was given a hospital bed and spent one or two nights in an ice blanket and was then sent out to the USS Sanctuary, a Navy hospital ship off the coast, since malaria takes a while to treat and for someone to rebuild their strength.
I went from 160 pounds at admission to 135 pounds at discharge. The ward I was on was being tended to by the Corpsman from St. Albans that had left with us. He was the one who was able to catch me up on what happened to most of the others who had left with us. Fike was killed one hour after getting off the helicopter around Khe Sanh (he was the only one of us who had orders to the infamous 3rd Marine Division.) I was also able to fill in a couple of names for him, like when I was wounded and medivac’d, Stein, from ward B-3 upstairs from my ward, was on the same helicopter with a bullet in his ankle. We ran through as many names as we could, plus he got me a couple of extra Jello cups.
He was a good guy. He hated being on the Sanctuary, but I let him know how cozy he had it. Then again, being on that ship, 12 hours on 12 off, seven days a week made him see things differently.
This is where I began to realize life is all relative to your position in the food chain. To me, my life was pathetic and he had a cherry life, 3 “hots” (hot meals) and a cot. To him, my life was good, not on the ship stuck in a sterile atmosphere, being commanded by doctors and nurses who played favorites with their cliques of boyfriends and girlfriends. I could see where that would feel like a prison, but again, those 3 hots and a cot seemed pretty good at the time. But I had completed the difficult part of my one-year tour and was looking at the downhill slide until I got back to the land of the big PX (Post Exchanges.)
At first, this was a good ride. I was finally on a ship. I was in the Navy, remember? I was finally where I was supposed to be. As I started regaining my strength, I was able to walk around on the weather decks, meaning a deck outside. I could do brief stints outside during the night before tiring too much, looking towards the coast, tracer fire, and illumination rounds going off. It was almost like a private cruise.
Every once in a while we would go alongside a resupply ship for fuel or provisions. We hit one storm and did the up and down with a bit of side-to-side motions. I noticed I didn’t get seasick, but a few other patients on my ward became queasy. There were a lot of patients on board. Seemed like the whole 3rd Marine Division had come down with malaria. Doctor Ludwig, my admitting physician, told me that I had both Vivax and Falciprium malaria and that he should court-martial me for not taking my malaria pills. I informed him I took my pills and issued them to my Marines. In my head it was a great big, go the fuck ahead and see if you can find me caring about some stupid reduction in rank. I didn’t wind up getting that court-martial or any other reprimand; I guess someone discovered there was something wrong with some of the pills.
I even ran into a buddy of mine from the 1st platoon, Fox Company, Sgt Toupin. He was on his second tour and joined us prior to Pegasus[3] or some time shortly after it ended. I’ve forgotten why he was on the Sanctuary, but after about a week of us reconnecting, we found out that the ship was going to dump all of the walking wounded, sick, ill or injured off in Danang as the ship was heading to Subic Bay, Philippines for an upkeep period. Hmm, thoughts of staying on were tempting, but Toupin and I were dropped off in Danang with orders to return to our unit.
We both wondered what life was like in the rear of rears. Danang was a big city to us, with bases out the wazzoo. We decided to get lost for a couple of days, which was too easy. Ignoring the warnings to lay off booze for six months to a year since parasites would often hide in the liver, we pooled our money and went to an Air Force exchange. It was a huge building that looked the way you would imagine an exchange stateside would look, with clothing, refrigerators and booze, lots and lots of booze. We each had our ration cards, but they were marked as belonging to the Marines and the Marines had restrictions on what could be bought. We could buy cigarettes but not booze even though it was on the ration card. However, my military ID card identified me as a Navy person, whereas Toupin’s ID informed the world he was a Marine, so off to the cash register I went with my ration card, money and Navy ID card. One thing standing in my way of a bottle of Jack Daniels and eternal bliss was this local woman who looked at my ration card and politely tried to inform me that my ration card was no good as it was issued by the Marines, “No can sell alcohol to the Marines”.
“I’m not in the Marine Corps, I am in the Navy,” I argued.
“Don’t care, no can sell to the Marines.”
“Once again I am not a Marine, I’m in the Navy.”
“You can’t buy alcohol.”
As I was considering jumping over the counter, a hand touches my shoulder and the person attached to it calmly tells me it’s not worth the trouble I would get into. By then, anything could easily trigger me, and mind you, this person was standing between me and a dreamless night, so I was one livid asshole at this time, but smart enough to at least see what’s going on.
I turned around and in front of me was an enlisted Air Force guy. He told me to go outside and calm down.
Toupin and I headed for a bench to watch life go by. The Air Force dude finally came out and handed me the bottle of Jack Daniels I’d left on the counter. He refused our money, but he told us to either adjust to life in the big city or head back from where ever we came from because the next time I try pulling something like that, the Army MPs wouldn’t care for Marines messing around with the local girls. They belonged to them and the others that lived in this part of the war zone. “Go home,” he said.
Easy for him to say. Home was Dong Ha. The largest PX we had was a converted hooch where we could buy toothpaste, razors, and stale M&M’s. Toupin and I shared our booze and passed out in some transient camp close to the airport, and so went day one. The next morning we headed out to find a chow hall for food. I’m not sure if it was Air Force or Army. We just grabbed a quick breakfast and then headed back to the Air Force Exchange. We found some Army guy who purchased us another bottle of Jack and accepted a $5 tip for his trouble. A bit steep, but we got our bottle.
Another day of drinking on an empty stomach and then the next day we headed off to the airport to see what it would take to get back to Dong Ha. In less than an hour we were on an aircraft heading back to the Battalion. When we arrived, I was asked about the missing two days, as our orders from the ship should have been endorsed at the airfield the day we got off the Sanctuary. “I don’t know,” was the best answer I could come up with.
“That the best you can do huh, Doc? Ok, you’re here, get to work.”
Toupin, on the other hand was asked and, dead fucking drunk, he told them the truth. They said to him, “Be on the helicopter tomorrow.”
I don’t know what happened to him after that, as in I don’t remember seeing him again. I once again settled into the routine of eating, working, drinking, and passing out, in between bouts of I wish I was in the bush with my guys and I’m glad I’m here.
One day, Stokes and I received our orders out of there. Stokes was going to the Naval Air Station North Island located in San Diego, California, and my orders were for the Naval Support Activity New Orleans, Louisiana. I couldn’t believe my luck. New Orleans, Mardi Gras, The French Quarter, drinking age 18, how fucking lucky can one alcoholic be.
[1]Happy F*@#%ing New Yearhttps://medium.com/war-cigarettes-and-san-miguel/happy-f-ing-new-year-1a97880bfa86
[2]Happy F*@#%ing New Year
[3]Can’t Take the Heat https://medium.com/war-cigarettes-and-san-miguel/cant-take-the-heat-cfb4eed2b87e
