Helping Combat Veterans Adjust to Civilian Life

This essay is dedicated to my beloved Sarah who has been an unfailing inspiration in the creation of it...

By now, it is almost taken for granted that we probably never will learn to live
in peace with each other. And there are too many examples, throughout the
world, that war and terrorism are an inevitable consequence of our dealings
with each other. And isn't it worse for those who directly participate in it?
Whether you are pro or con a confict your nation is involved in, there is no
escaping from the fact that maybe even one of your very own family members
will succumb to the vagaries of war and what might be lasting physical and
mental harm done to them.

One of the big misconceptions about combat, is that one is constantly under
fre and fghting to save his or her life from an attacking enemy. Instead, war is
a great deal of time looking for the enemyor trying to escape from him. For
instance, in Vietnam we would climb a mountain (800-1000 meters) one day,
descend from it the next day, and then again climb up still another mountain.
This took time and depleted our energies. I read 72 books in Vietnam during
the time we were given to recharge our batteries. SOP (Standard Operating
Procedures) provided that we march for 50 minutes and break for ten. Yet,
what is most important to realize is that not all soldiers in Vietnam served on
the battlefeld. In fact, only 15% of them did! The remaining 85% functioned
in base camps (little cities) where they performed duties that supported the
troops in the feld: medical facilities, maintenance, food preparation,
administration, et cetera. Soldiers in base camp (Bravo Charlie), base camp
warriors, dreaded being called upon to serve in the feld. Many, who were
particularly recalcitrant, were threatened with a punishment that would assign
them to the Vietnam jungles or other outlying regions populated by the
enemy. Naturally, Afro-Americans bore the brunt of these re-assignments.
Frequently, infantry companies were overpopulated with Black soldiers. In
base camp, base camp warriors, had time to have their pictures taken in
freshly ironed fatigues, could call home at government expense, and enjoyed a
relatively safe life without even having to carry a weapon. War was not hell for
them! Supply sergeants re-upped to serve another year or two in Vietnam
because they were stealing so prodigiously and making money on the black
market or sending arms home to National Guard armories where the weapons
would later be sold to para-military groups. Therefore, if one was so unlucky
to be sent to the feldthat meant one could be killed or maimedone's idea
of war was totally different from the one most other soldiers, the 85%, had
had of it.

There is no doubt that combat soldiers coming back home from a war will
bear a resentment, perplexity at being classifed with the 85%. In Vietnam,
infantrymen (grunts) were awarded the Combat Infantryman's Badge that
attested to the fact that they participated in combat maneuvers. Forward
observers, lieutenants and their FO party (recon sergeant and RTO
[radio/telephone operator]) who supported the infantry company commanders
with Artillery frepower or consultation about it, were not distinguished with
the CIB. So, if you ever meet a veteran from one of the DisUnited States'
many wars, ask him or her if they were a base camp warrior or were awarded
the CIB! So much for this background information.

One has to explain the feelings of veterans coming back to their normal lives.
I'll begin with my own. (How could I pretend to help combat veterans adjust
to civilian life without having experienced it myself!) I dreamed, for almost the
whole time I spent in Vietnam, of taking a hot bath in an elegant New York
hotel. When my taxi pulled up in front of the Essex House, the doorman
welcomed me home, and then directed me to my room where I found a bottle
of champagne and a large bowl flled with fresh fruit. But before that, in Fort
Lewis, Washington, where I separated (DEROS) from the U S Army, I was
invited to a home-coming dinner in the Fort Lewis's offcers' mess. When I
sat down at the table, I was astonished to see everything so clean and orderly
unlike the greasy, often dirty, plates and plastic utensils I had been served
food on in the boonies in Vietnam. The glasses sparkled and had not one
water spot on them. The trays were shiny. And, for the frst time in a year, I
was able to eat with silverware and not plastic knives, forks and spoons! I was
served grilled steak, fresh vegetables and all the fries I wished to eat. It was
fabulous. Towards the end of my feast, an enlisted man who served as my
waiter, asked me if I wanted chocolate cake or maybe some ice cream. Ice
cream! I had totally forgotten that word! What favor would I like? Flavor! I
hazarded a vanilla fudge? You've got it, sir! Wow!

I had to walk around New York on my own in order to feel what it was like to
be among normal people and not jungle animals and vegetation or grunts
who stank to high heaven. I went about in civilian clothes, desiring to forget
the U S Army and Vietnam as fast as I could, but knowing that it was not
going to be easy to do that. I stopped at a delicatessen and asked for a
pastrami on rye or a roast beef with cole slaw. I sat on a park bench and
reminisced to when I was in the feld straddling the borders of Laos and
Cambodia in the mosquito-infested Central Highlands. I thought of the
mountain climbing. I remembered how our uniforms smelt so horribly. I
hated to sit next to other troops in helicopters next to whom I had been seated
waiting for the chopper to take off and air out the cabin. All of us had
white patches, at our armpits, of salt residue from salt tablets we had taken in
the mornings and afternoons. When we changed our fatigues in the feld, the
uniforms were all put on a pile and burnedthey were so flthy; the green
olive drab color of the originals had been recolored a black-grayish hue.

With the point of my right index fnger, I touched the right side of my right
thumb to feel if there still remained the callous that had formed during the
year my thumb had ficked on and off my M-16's safety. When I thought back
to sleeping on an air mattress in my hootch, I recalled being so scared
thinking a cobra or pit viper or poisonous spider might enter and sting me.
One night, we were marching in the moonlight at 3am, in a rice paddy's
irrigation ditch, with our rifes and bandoliers high above our heads to keep
them dry, and hoping we would not be ambushed. When the dawn's light
enabled us to see better, we could observe that we were all drenched in blood
from the leeches that had attached themselves to our backs, legs and
scrotums. We took turns removing the blood suckers from each other with
our anti-mosquito repellent lotions, and some grunts used cigarette butts to
release the parasites' hold on our skins.

I passed a NYC handball court, and retrieved from my memory the hours I
had spent bicycle riding and playing handball to get myself in shape and
relieve the stress thinking about going to Vietnam. I wondered if I would fnd
handball courts in Florida to where I had planned to go to recuperate from
the Vietnam War. New York was too fast for my body yet too slow for my
mind. I could sense that the tension my body had been put through for a year
was so severe, it would have to take even months for me to return to normal. I
had to give myself a super vacation with fun and sun letting my body return
to its natural state of homeostasis. Florida was perfect for this. No rush. No
stress. Or, at least, less of it than in New YorkI assumed.

I walked up and down the streets of New York which I had so often before in
my life taken for granted. I perceived The Big Apple at an entirely different
angle. I studied the faces of the New Yorkers, and was especially pleased to
see kids who had smiles on their faces and possessed those carefree
expressions only youth can offer. Most other people appeared to be indifferent
to everything in this world except that which concerned themas they should
have, I presumed.

I stopped at a newsstand and purchased a copy of The New York Times and
William F Buckley, Jr's National Review for which I had toiled as a
correspondence/subscription clerk before entering university. My sister had
sent me a subscription to the NYT via my APO address in Vietnam, and it
always arrived about ten days, or so, late. Once, my unit was mentioned on the
front page of the NYT in an article that had reported on the goings-on about
the battle of Dak To. I remember visiting gruntswith whom I had servedin
a feld hospital in the environs of Dak To and Kontum. Some had lost limbs.
Others had had thoracic surgery. They were all drugged with medicines, and
their white bandages and dressings were patched with blood stains. I could
not discern whether or not they had been content to have a visitor. Journalists
tried to interview me but I brushed them off with disdain not speaking one
word to them. The Vietnam War had become a media event for Americans,
and no journalist could have predicted, at that time, that Vietnam veterans
would fall prey to drugs, alcoholism and crime so much so that theirs would
become an enormous social burden that stillas homeless veterans will attest
haunts the consciences of many of us.

Before offering suggestions to combat veterans on how they might adjust more
easily to civilian life, it is important to understand that we, in Vietnam, were
required to sign the tenets of the Geneva Conference stipulating the ethical
treatment of opposing enemy soldiers, and even ratify in writing that we
understood the rules and regulations related to specifc Vietnam regions
where also indigenous tribes might have inhabited. There is no doubt that not
all American soldiers, and the enemy, abided by these conventions. (My unit
once worked in tandem with the South Korean's Tiger Division, and we
learned that after capturing North Vietnam nurses, they would rape them and
then set off fares in their vaginas to kill them.) Nor do they very frequently
consider them today with all the wars going on around the world. Many
American soldiers in Vietnam participated in war crimes and crimes against
humanity, and so must be given the special attention that I have no intention
of doing in this essay.

Most of those of us who went to Vietnam, served as conscientiously and

admirably as was expected of us, and returned home with HONORABLE
DISCHARGEs, are, in addition, those who suffered another tragedy when
they felt the snub of their own fellow citizens. Other soldiers, in other wars,
have had the depressing experience of not being welcomed, or welcomed in
an insincere manner. It is to these, and those of the future, I wish now to
address my comments.

I was out of Vietnam and the U S Army, except for reserve service, in August
1968. I was received with three diverse generalized reactions, although I must
admit most Americans could have cared less about my military service in
Vietnam. The frst type was that one who would acknowledge my sacrifce
wishing that he, too, could have participated himself in Vietnam. (I am
immediately reminded of William F Buckley, Jr's son, Christopher Buckley,
who once lamented he had not served in Vietnam!) These are liars and they
should not be considered except for the fact that countless numbers of
Americans avoided the draft for one phony reason or another thus
contributing to the growth of the insane void between the upper classes and
lower classes that exists today in the DUS.

The second type were those who genuinely regretted that the Vietnam War
ever even had occurred. They insisted that Vietnam was a cataclysm for the
entire nation, even though all Americans were not up to halting that war,
and would, thereafter, see other American wars devastate more American
soldiers and their families. A sort of national hypocrisy eats at the spirit of
the citizens of the DisUnited States today devoid of an ethical core. If they did
not want to send more American soldiers to all parts of the world to defend
American interests, why did they not just come out and say so? These are
ethical considerations that have been gutted away into the sewers of disregard
and guilt.

The third type were the veterans themselves. Many of these were gung-ho and
content with their serviceespecially because they were not wounded. They
continued, continue, to wear their uniforms, or parts of them, on
commemorative occasions, and they fnd satisfaction in telling their war
stories to others feeding their vainglory. They think that killing others from
30,000 feet and spraying their lands with dioxin, for their country, is some
sort of marvelous contribution that they have made. Others, listening to them,
justify the repetitions of their exploits. Ask them how much are their monthly
Veterans Administration checks! Thankfully, more and more youthinstead
of offering themselves up for cannon fodderare choosing to avoid military
service altogether. In 1973, shocked by the number of offcers and non-
commissioned offcers murdered in fragging incidents, the armed forces got
the hint and tendered volunteer military service as the only option.
Nevertheless, this program has caused the Pentagon to continue investing in
a more mechanized, electronic way of waging war by furnishing itself with
robot-like elements, thus avoiding to have to depend on drunk and/or
drugged human soldiers. Where there is a will, there is a way.

I am proud I served in the Vietnam War, but I am not proud of my country

for sending me to fght this unjust means of exploiting other people in
another land thousands of miles from my New York home. I am proud of
myself. No one went in my place! Besides, my Vietnam experience opened my
eyes to many things I had once taken for granted or even thought about. In
addition, because others tried to take my life from me, I have ever since lived
with the satisfaction, the joy!, of being alive! I respect my life the more. Still
more, in Vietnam I learned a great deal about my own self.

In Italy, where I have lived since 1 May 1983, I am often asked by visiting
Americans: What are you doing in Italy? When I reply, I'm a Vietnam
veteran, their responses are inevitably a I don't blame you!

SUGGESTIONS

1
Do not clam up and keep your feelings to yourself.
Tell everyone about your experiences,
including all the gory details.
Let them know the reality of what has happened to you.
Maybe they will lose their lust for war.
 2
It is hard to not think of those who perished
and with whom you served.
I knew about forty comrades who were killed or seriously wounded.
Cherish their memories and respect the ultimate sacrifce they made.
Not many others do.

3
Tolerate your fellow citizens and their ignorance.
Remember they gave you a chance to be true to yourself.
You will never be able to call yourself a fake patriot for putting
yourself at the line of fre.

4
Do not go crazy over it.
Don't become a drunk or drug addict.
Don't enter into the pits of self-pity.
Don't commit suicide because your fellow citizens
could care less about your sacrifce.
If they actually cared about you,
they wouldn't have even sent you to war in the frst place!
Be strong.
You are a soldier.
Act like one.

5
Do not get caught in a double bind emotional vise.
Don't let them say to you that in doing Evilif you did!it was for the good
of your country.
Your country has been ripped into two for all the Evil
that it has caused throughout the world.

Authored by Anthony St. John

20 December MMXVII
Calenzano, Italy
www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior
Twitter: @thewordwarrior
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