I wanted to update everybody on the details of what I now know of my Uncle’s suicide on June 8, 2005. He was a Vietnam Vet who did two tours as a Marine doing recon. First I would like to begin the diary by putting up here a few things that people had written as comments to ‘The War that was Lost’ diary. I find these comments and voices more than just a little bit healing as I head out from here into a world without my Uncle in it. I miss everything wonderful about him. The next thing I am about to type though is extremely painful. Because I watched him my whole life make a decent life for himself after Vietnam I had a false belief that damaged soldiers could have a good life if only they could work hard enough at it. I’m glad that my false beliefs about that found their final death throes even if the insurgency in Iraq didn’t. These people need healing and we are woefully inadequate and unsure how to fix what was broken inside of them.
Legacy for Michael
the silence is deafening
and I can’t imagine
how much it must hurt your soul
to see it happening
all again
when the horrors of that place
must all be contained
inside
to make your life
you kept them at bay
looking for peace in the spirit
you grew in your family
not wanting to take
the ones you love
to that horrible place
you lived
your strength lives on
in those you left behind
finding it happening
all again
the silence is deafening
but
they will speak
and hear
both
the silence and the screams
ccw 6/10/05
by brinnaine
from A River Runs Through It
…And so, only after Paul’s death could his father tell a hesitant Norman that he knew more about his brother than the fact that Paul had been a fine fisherman: “He was beautiful” – and mourn in a sermon, even later, that all too frequently, when looking at a loved one in need, “either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love completely, without complete understanding.”
Contributed by JLFinch
It’s Like Deja Vu (all over again)
by John Fogerty
Did you hear ’em talkin’ ’bout it on the radio
Did you try to read the writing on the wall
Did that voice inside you say I’ve heard it all before
It’s like Deja Vu all over again
Day by day I hear the voices rising
Started with a whisper like it did before
Day by day we count the dead and dying
Ship the bodies home while the networks all keep score
Did you hear ’em talkin’ ’bout it on the radio
Could your eyes believe the writing on the wall
Did that voice inside you say I’ve heard it all before
It’s like Deja Vu all over again
One by one I see the old ghosts rising
Stumblin’ ‘cross Big Muddy
Where the light gets dim
Day after day another Momma’s crying
She’s lost her precious child
To a war that has no end
Did you hear ’em talkin’ ’bout it on the radio
Did you stop to read the writing at The Wall
Did that voice inside you say
I’ve seen this all before
It’s like Deja Vu all over again
It’s like Deja Vu all over again
contributed by Boston Boomer
The last contribution is one that I just read today when I was able to check back on ‘The War that was Lost’ diary. It feels completely appropriate to me today, and is a reminder to me TO LIVE and LIVE WELL and LIVE ON!
Iowa
’cause the aunts live in places named Keokuk and Grinnell and Kellogg and Attumwa.
’cause sweet corn tastes like sunshine
and tomatoes are a fruit.
’cause jello is both a food group and an art form.
’cause they play serious pinochle and cutthroat dominoes.
’cause your favorite uncle will tell you what war is really like and he doesn’t sugar coat or hold back.
’cause he’ll tell you that he lived 50 years with a devil of guilt, that he reveled in unspeakable cruelty delivered to another human being.
’cause he left his soul on the battlefield and he knows that there is no glory or honor in the drug death leaves in your veins.
’cause he told you things he could never tell his own children.
’cause he finally sleeps next to his parents, next to your father who carried the same drug in his veins but would never speak, only rage and self destruct.
’cause the debt can never be paid, but there is still a chance to shine light in the world.
’cause the life I have began there.
contributed by SME in Seattle
SME in Seattle has no idea how appropriate this contribution was as the letter that my Uncle left next to him in the vehicle said that he had lost his honor, and sadly my mother’s family long ago decided to never speak of anything too ugly or too horrible. I made a vow to myself about 15 years ago that I love them unconditionally but that is one teaching that I had to slay within myself and I will not make a gift of it to my children.
My Uncle had another pretty serious struggle with PTSD in 1998. At that time he did some EMDR therapy, but sleep had always been elusive most of the time since then for him. My Aunt had a photo from Vietnam enlarged to a picture that was about 2 feet by 3 feet at that time. It was a photo taken of him in a Vietnam village with children surrounding him lovingly. It had hung in their bedroom since then until the morning of June 8, 2005.
The evening before they had planted flowers and garden plants. They went to bed as usual. The next morning my Aunt left for work and he pretended to do the same. He had had an appointment the day before at the V.A. Medical Center in Colorado Springs but he had missed that appointment unknown by my Aunt.
As my Aunt drove to work he backtracked to their home. He took his wedding ring off and placed it on their bed with his wallet. He removed the large photo of himself in Vietnam with the children and drove to the V.A. Medical Center. He placed the vehicle registration on the dash so that he could be easily identified and with the photograph and a note that he wrote about the nightmares that wouldn’t go away and the sleepless life of pain he led and his inability to go on with it, he shot himself in the heart and died in the parking lot in his vehicle.
Some in my family say that he shot himself in the chest to avoid mutilating his face in a way that would cause us all further trauma. He was a very intelligent successful man though and had long ago taught me that the best decisions are based on looking at ALL the issues and deciding from there. Not only did shooting himself in the chest not destroy the face of our beloved but I believe it also silenced the offensive organ that was broken and refused to heal. I don’t believe that it was my Uncle’s mind that hampered him living on happily. It understood all of the hows and whys of everything that happened. I believe that it was his heart that was never able to reconcile Vietnam. It continued to ache and weep and now it is silent and at peace.
Not only did shooting himself in the chest not destroy the face of our beloved but I believe it also silenced the offensive organ that was broken and refused to heal.
You are a poet, my dear.
You said: At that time he did some EMDR therapy, but sleep had always been elusive most of the time since then for him.
And I remembered:
And I remembered also:
Tracy, my heart goes out to you and yours.
all weekend…
Stay strong lady, stay strong. You are my hero.
Staying strong, we are going to spread some of his ashes on Wednesday. Then I just want to go home and hug my children and the dogs and love my husband. This incident has cleared up a foggy space in my life. I would rather still be foggy and have my Uncle but that isn’t my choice, so I will take what has been gifted to me along with what was lost.
I Am Not There
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.
– Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1932
I posted a long quotation from Tim O’Brien that I always think about when someone brings up the subject of war. It was probably your original diary about your Uncle that made me go get the book off my shelf and re-read the ending passages about the ghosts we carry inside ourselves. But I’ve been thinking a lot about this the past couple of days, and I can’t keep it out of my head. Our thoughts are all with you.
——- excerpt from The Things They Carried
When she was nine, my daughter Kathleen asked me if I’d ever killed anyone. She knew about the war, she knew I’d been a soldier. “You keep writing war stories,” she said, “so I guess you must’ve killed somebody.” It was a difficult moment but I did what I thought was right, which was to say, “Of course not,” and then to take her onto my lap and hold her for a while. Someday, I hope, she’ll ask again But here, now I want to pretend she’s a grown-up. I want to tell her exactly what happened, or what I remember happening, and then I want to say to he that as a little girl she was absolutely right. This is why I keep telling war stories:
He was a short slender young man of about twenty. I was afraid of him-afraid of something-and as he passed me on the trail I threw a grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him.
Or to go back:
Shortly after midnight we moved into the ambush site outside My Khe. The whole platoon was there, spread out in the dense brush along the trail, and for five hours nothing at all happened. We were working in two-man teams-one man on guard while the other slept, switching off every two hours-and I remember it was still dark when Kiowa shook me awake for the final watch. The night was foggy and hot. For the first few moments I felt lost, not sure about directions, groping for my helmet and weapon. I reached out and found three grenades and lined them up in front of me; the pins had already been straightened for quick throwing. And then for maybe half an hour I kneeled there and waited. Very gradually, in tiny slivers, dawn began to break through the fog, and from my position in the brush I could see ten or fifteen meters up the trail. The mosquitoes were fierce. I remember slapping at them, wondering if I should wake up Kiowa and go get some repellent, then thinking it was a bad idea, then looking up and seeing the young man come out of the morning fog. He wore black clothing and rubber sandals and a gray ammunition belt. His shoulders were slightly stooped, his head cocked to the side as if listening for something. He seemed at ease. He carried his weapon in one hand, muzzle down, moving without any hurry up the center of the trail. There was no sound at all – none that I can remember. In a way, it seemed, he was part of the morning fog, or my own imagination, but there was also the reality of what was happening in my stomach. I had already pulled the pin on a grenade. I had come up to a crouch. It was entirely automatic. I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy; I did not ponder issues of morality or politics or justice. I crouched and kept my head low. I tried to swallow whatever was rising from my stomach, which tasted like lemonade, something fruity and sour. I was terrified. There were no thoughts about killing. The grenade was to make him go away-just evaporate-and leaned back and felt my head go empty and then felt it fill up again. I had already thrown the grenade before telling myself to throw it. It was gone. The brush was thick and I had to lob it high, not aiming, and I remember the grenade seeming to freeze above me for an instant, as if a camera had clicked, and I remember ducking down and holding my breath and seeing little wisps of fog rise from the earth. The grenade bounced once and rolled across the trail. I did not hear it, but there must’ve been a sound, because the young man dropped his weapon and began to run, just two or three quick steps. Then he looked down at the grenade, turned to his right, and tried to cover his head but never did. It occurred to me then that he was about to die. I wanted to warn him. The grenade made a popping noise – not loud, not what you’d expect. Just a pop, and there was a puff of dust and smoke and the young man seemed to jerk upward as if pulled by invisible wires. He fell on his back. His rubber sandals had been blown off. He lay at the center of the trail, his right leg bent beneath him, his one eye shut, his other eye a huge star-shaped hole.
For me, it was not a matter of live or die. There was no real peril. Almost certainly the young man would have passed me by. And it will always be that way.
Later, I remember, Kiowa tried to tell me that the man would’ve died anyway. He told me that it was a good kill, that I was a soldier and this was a war, that I should shape up and stop staring, that I should ask myself what the dead man would’ve done if things were reversed.
But you see, none of it mattered. The words, or language, far too complicated. All I could do was gape at the fact of the young man’s body.
Even now, three decades later, I haven’t finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t. In the ordinary hours of life I try not to think about it, but now and then, when I’m reading a newspaper or just sitting alone in a room, I’ll look up and see the young man coming out of the morning fog. I’ll watch him walk toward me, his shoulders slightly stooped, his head cocked to the side, and he’ll pass within a few yards of me and suddenly smile at some secret thought and then continue up the trail to where it bends back into the fog.
— Tim O’Brien’s comments —
Well, The Things They Carried was written a long time after the war was over, so it was written from the perspective of someone looking back on the war. The theme of the book, The Things They Carried -ultimately has to do with the things we all carry through our lives. I carried Vietnam with me for a long time, the physical wounds and the spiritual burdens and so on, but so do you. If your parents have been divorced or your boyfriend has just dumped you, um, you know a little bit of what it’s like to be in a war. Uh, maybe even a lot. You know what it is to have time just stopped – those late hours on guard when you’re just staring into the dark, and you look at your watch and it’s 2 am, and you wait an hour and you look again, and it’s 2:01, and you wait an hour and you-you know what that is like, and it’s a little bit like Vietnam, where the time just went by in little droplets of now-now-now-just forever.
Um, the book was meant to be a bridge between the experiences of all of you, the things you carry through your lives, that I carry through my own – physical burdens but also spiritual, the things we’ll all carry to our graves. It was also meant to be an act of honor for the dead, those ghosts in my life, from my past, not just guys in Vietnam, uh, but, you know the little girl who dies at the end of the book, uh, based on a real person. And all of us again, I think, war aside, do carry with us the ghosts of our own history, um, even the ghosts of ourselves as we were, as you guys were, say, eighteen years ago, that little girl, that little boy, if you were to look into a photograph from way back then and see a little gleam of yourself in that little girl, little boy’s eyes, the you is still present, and that person is a ghost inside all of us.
My father had a brilliant war, the Second World War. In our chaotic age, filled with grays, how I envied him the certainties of those times. His stories were wonderfully told, around fabulous meals and delicious wines, usually. Sometimes, especially the darker stories, it was just him and me and a bottle. Which is also how they are going to come out from me to you.
Near the end of the war, various armed groups that had previously been fighting the Germans in relative harmony began looking to the future and their position in it. Possession being 9/10ths of the law, fighting broke out among groups that had been allied just the month before.
Alexi, my father, was part of a group of Greek and British commandoes tasked with keeping the strategic and historic Yacht Club, near Athens’s port of Piraeus, against all comers. They found themselves under siege from the communist section of the resistance. They fought valiantly, which means they killed and were killed, they maimed and were maimed, and did not give ground. Still, it was clear that they were outgunned and too few, despite the support from the British Navy offshore. They were thinking of Spartan outcomes (100% casualties) when they were ordered by radio to cease fire. The Navy ceased fire, the flares stopped, even the enemy out in the darkness stopped shooting.
Silence spread in the moonless night. On the stroke of twelve shrieks began rending the silence. The screams were all too comprehensible to Alexi. “Brothers, they are slaying me!” punctured the night as the Gurkas and their kukris did their efficient and quiet work. Foreigners from the Himalayas were killing his countrymen!
That incident bothered him more, perhaps. than anything else, including being sentenced to death, the killing of prisoners (not by him!), or being ordered to walk over a probably booby-trapped bridge.
As I said, my father had a righteous war (as the slang would have it today) but even he was haunted by some of the things he had to see or do.
The war was the highlight of his life. Nothing since ever meant as much. Not that he did not remain engaged. Actually it is probably my missing his conversation that has shoved me into the blogs. But the War was larger than life.
Your uncle’s War was also larger than life. Unfortunately his was a war not of ordinary men becoming heroes, though that happened, but of extraordinary men becoming villains, because the premise was flawed.
WWII elevated men, Vietnam and Iraq brought and brings them down.
“We must not fight unless truly necessary but if necessary we will fight like werewolves, menstruating she devils, Saurdakar and Fremen all wrapped into one” Me.
[The above was zapped but remained in my browser along with MT’s response, which follows:]
My husband and I had a similiar conversation about the various wars. WWII seems to have also left behind hurt, underlying that though is all of the things that were right and righted and the killing and genocide that was stopped. Wars for profit and greed and power always scar the soldiers who fight for the greedy, profitting, and power brokering side of things. I am so ashamed of the sociopaths standing next to me in the United States of America right now shouting and screaming for blood in their war on terror…..whose terror? It isn’t my terror but I can buy that it is their terror. It is an unfounded insane terror as it is being played out. It is like watching a paranoid meth addict as they run about pulling the blinds and hiding in the shadows picking nervous little holes in their arms. All that I can hypothesize is that it is their own Mr. Hyde they fear and they don’t even realize it, so cut off from their own darksides!
Tracy,
I too lost a loved one to that war many years after it was “over” and as I read your post, it brought back many memories of that loss. Your uncle must have been a truly amazing human being and I am saddened by your loss of this man. I hope this short poem will help both of us heal the wounds that war inflicts on every human being. Your courage to bring forth your thoughts and feelings, demonstrates to me what a truly remarkable and wonderful human being you are and your family is indeed blessed.
Go now my gentle soul
To that place where you yearn
Know the peace of being whole
Where we all go to learn
Too long has your heart been grieved
Too short in this life you honored us
Falling from our tree like the leaves
Oh gentle soul, you gave us your trust
We shall miss you, for you touched our lives
You brought to us many great gifts
Your glory in this life was to strive
We shall forever feel this rift
You are gone now from our sight
Yet you will never really be gone
Your loss will be like the night
Yet your spirit will be like the dawn
Tracy this poem is a gift to you, do with it what you will, but know that it is yours to keep.
I will think of you today, and tomorrow, and beyond. . .I also lost a dear, dear family member to suicide, so I know something of how you feel. Words simply fail, but they will have to do.
I can see through my window, a tiny shooting star, in my husband’s bog garden. Delicate, beautiful, as life is, and so brief in flower. Yesterday two huge, misshapen feral dogs jumped the fence, hunting the one stray kitten they had not yet destroyed. They crushed the shooting star before I could chase them away. The blossoms were no less beautiful for having been destroyed out of time than if they had faded away.
Your uncle did have a good life. From what you say, he worked hard at it, had many good times, and did many fine things with your aunt and the rest of his family. This death, this terrible loss, is the war, still going on. It is not him. Try not to define him by this war, or by how he left this life, but by his love, and your love for him, and how he lived.
And look out for yourself, please. We care about you, and hurt with you.
I’ve been keeping you and yours in my thoughts since I first read your burn it down diary….
There’s something in your post that struck me and I’ve been thinking on it a bit.
That we sometimes feel that our soldiers have gotten’ past it – were able to deal with it and move on. Or that somehow they were stronger/luckier/whatever to not grapple with the effects of war/PTSD.
I think war only brings death. Immediately or sometimes Ultimately.
I think some of us have learned that, witnessed it. I am so angry that war touches EVERYTHING. Except those who call for war. It is usually left up to the mothers, the daughters to clean up after the bloodshed. In so many ways.
Right now those who are supporting the war are the ones who have never had to face it, fight it, or clean up after it. I hate them. So much.
War brings nothing but death. It destroys all that it touches. Eventually.
I am so sorry for the loss of your Uncle. We can never know his pain. Which is why I don’t judge. Your Uncle was able to touch your life with love and strength. That says so much about him to me.
Viet Nam is still killing my dad. Viet Nam and the drugs to forget Viet Nam. Viet Nam and the whispers of how somehow our soldiers had failed… the “bad” war.
My dad said only ONE thing to me about the war. He said that you were damned if you went, and you were damned if you came back.
I remember men would come over to our house and they’d talk so quietly – or not talk at all… Viet Nam was somehow this big, dirty secret. Something to forget. Something to whisper about.
It was something that destroyed our childhood, our father.
I can’t fathom what destruction this war will create for decades to come. There is no winning a war. It just continues on in some other form.
Please know that I’m thinking of you.
My heart aches for you and your family.
Tracy, you honor your uncle and his service with your love and sharing here.
You also honor my friends that died in the war I still do not understand. You honor the others that died in that war and and the veterans that still struggle with the impact of their service in that war.
I do not understand, and my Vietnam veteran friends, do not understand that war.
Blessings and healing to you and your family…and to all the vets still struggling.
My 20-year-old son, who is usually not such a deep thinker, surprised me the other day with this comment: “You know how they say that most people only use 10% of their brain? I think it’s also true that most people only use 10% of their heart.” At the time I thought, “Wow, that’s surprisingly insightful,” but now, reading about your uncle, I wonder if maybe we don’t shut down our hearts because listening to them can be so very painful.
Tracy, I’m so very sorry for your loss.
I hope you realize what a remarkable woman you are, and that you have a real gift for understanding the most profound parts of human emotion.
Your uncle was a great man. Anybody who means that much to someone is a great person in my book.
Ah Tracy, I feel for you.
You see, I also am a Vietnam Vet, I spent 13 months in country with the Australian Regular military.
Worse, I even volunteered, like many young people have after 911 in the U.S. these days.
If only I had know what I was getting into.
I can see you miss your uncle tremendously and have fond memories of him. That’s good, keep them wrapped up and bring them out when your down, it’ll help.
I was 18 years of age when I went to Vietnam, still very wet behind the ears, therefore very good cannon fodder for the military.
Most of our time was taken up setting ambushes along tracks leading to and from villages, ambushes that we spent the whole night sitting thru, taking turns at sleeping for an houror two, then staying awake for another two hours and rotating amongst ourselves.
Our amush sites usually consisted of a dozen or more claymore mines, that is a shaped high expolsive containing ball bearings that wouls pray out in a fan pattern over the killing field, we’d set flares with trip wires, and grenades as well, siting our machine guns to the best advantage doing as much damage as we can, then sit back and wait.
Many times unsuspecting Vietnamese walked into our ambushes, none that I know of, ever walked away from one, the one that haunts me to this very day, is the one where we inititiated the firing, imagine if you will, the noise of all the above at 0200 in the morning, it’s horrendous, then the quiet sets in if your lucky, if you’re not, there are wounded still alive, screaming and moaning in the killing ground.
Policy was to NEVER leave the ambush site until morning light, then examine the killing ground, so we sat tight and endured the noise of the wounded and dying until they died before the sun set.
We then went down to survey the results of our actions, in this particular case, there were 6 people, only three of them armed, and all of them under the ages of 18, kids really, two were women, every piece of their skin was removed by the claymores features were indisinguishable bodies broken and torn to pieces, intestines and brain matter spread all over, blood everywhere, one of the girsl and one male were not killed outright and suffered a slow death.
That’s one ambush I’ll never forget amongst many simply because the victims were so young.
On returning to Australia I decided to put all that behind me, had responsabilities of husband and father, build a life for my family, could not allow my experiences in Vietnam to intervene.
Despite this, many things plagued me, such as back firing of cars/trucks used to send me into uncontolable shakes, couldn’t go to shopping centres, visiting the cinema, always sat at the rear nearest the door, could’t go where ever there were large crowds gathered, and on and on.
Most of all, couldn’t talk to anyone about my experiences simply because no one would ever believe them. That is the killer.
People have this predetermined view of what such events are like, yet your imagination can never conjour up the reality, thus it continualy eascapes you, however the people who have experienced these things, know that if they ever try to tell you of them, you will reject them as to mcu to deal with, and refuse to see them in the light they are being told.
This results in a very lonely experience indeed for the person who has experienced these things.
WAR is without a doubt, the most evil thing I can imagine a human being ever experiencing.
No One should ever have to experience it in their lifetimes, however occasionally in the past, such wars were forced upon people .
This CANNOT BE SAID for events after WW 2. Every engagement since then, has been a war of choice and usually disguised as fighting evil communists, economic in aim, the peopel fighting these wars are NEVER privy to the Real reasons they are there, have been brainwashed to believe the lies they’ve been told, and some simply refuse to accept anything other then what they’ve been told by their leaders.
The end result, is what you have just experienced, whilst your uncle came back safe and sound (relatives thought) inside he was fighting his own war all the time, and eventually lost the fight. Whatever, rest assured, he’s now at peace with himself.
The thing that bothers me th most, is that the citizens of Vietnam were NEVER a threat to anyone, and had been fighting for self determination for over 100 years, first the Chinese, then the French, who were the worst, then the Japanese, then again the French, who were even worse then before.
After rescuing thousands of U.S. flyers who were downed returning from missions against the Japanese, the Vietminh thought the U.S. would look favourably upon them in the League of Nations as the U.N. was called then, and would assist them to regain autonomy of their country after WW 2.
Instead the U.S. stabbed them in the back, and handed them back to the French, worse they even assisted the French in murdering them by the thousands by supplying the war material to do the job.
Is it any wonder, the Vietnamese were against Americans ?
In effect we were fighting to PREVENT people regaining control of their own country, and I feel as guilty as hell about that to this very day.
Worse, I see exactly the same thing being done to the citizens of Iraq, EXACTLY THE SAME, setting them against each other deliberately.
Ah, maybe I should stop right here, my PSTD is getting all worked up and I won’t be able to sleep a wink tonight.
Rest assured, your uncle was a good man, jsutnever had the opportunity to develope his real potential, may he rest in peace.
Wish I could say the same.