Damn, I'm 63, soon to be 64 in October. I am a quite functional alcoholic. I am financially stable, some would consider me wealthy and I guess that I am. My wife and I have reared two successful children, one with a phd and another with two master's degrees. Both are financially independent although mom and dad will always be in the background to help them should they fall. I have a beautiful...love of my life beautiful... grand daughter who just started kindergarten and who I believe with all of my heart will grow to be a successful and happy adult. The image that is always in my mind of my beautiful wife is how she was waiting on her Sgt. E-5 man on a train platform in January wearing a fur collared coat that I still remember well. She was the only one who greeted my early morning return approximately 24 hours post Vietnam.
If you will stay with me, there is a point to my narcisistic intro. You see, I suffer from PTSD. I have done many things to deal with my PTSD. I take a PTSD dose of an SSRI. I have participated in cognitive behavioral therapy thanks to the VA. I work in a helping profession, which more than anything else has allowed me to keep on keeping on. As I help others today, it helps me to feel atonement for the role that I played as a soldier in Vietnam. It also helps me to salute my brothers and sisters who have not been as successful as I have been, though in saluting them, I feel guilt for my relative prosperity. It is all very complicated to me.
Gads, forgive me if the preceding seemed maudlin. I can assure you that I am one tough MF survivor. It is just that after 4 glasses of wine and after listening to Jimi Hendrix and watching the requisite video of Vietnam on youtube that accompanies Jimi, I feel a need to speak about the reality of war and of being a veteran.
I served exactly...almost, I was dusted back...one tour in Vietnam. I know what one tour in Vietnam has done to my psyche. This diary is wont to explore what the consequences that multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan must do to the psyches of our current brave soldiers.
Allons!!! I rode with the Blackhorse in 1969 and 1970. May God bless my brothers and sisters who served. May God damn the chickenshit politicians who manufactured the war in Vietnam that never needed to be fought. I will not go into details, but if you are one who believes that our purposes were pure in Vietnam, then I fervently invite you to objectively research the politics that led up to our involvement in Vietnam.
The more things change, the more that they stay the same. If you feel that our intentions are pure in Afghanistan and Iraq, then I invite you similarly to objectively research the politics that led up to our involvement in these two wars.
I have nothing but admiration for the men and women who currently and who have recently served our country first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq.
I should at least mention that I am a primary healthcare provider...a nurse practitioner if you must know...who understands the ramifications of stress and duress. I understand particularly well the ramifications of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Everyone reading this post first needs to understand that everyone of the soldiers currently serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are given as needed whatever anti-depressants, anti-anxiolytics, etc. that they need to walk patrol or whatever everyday.
In the past, we would never have sent soldiers into the field who were over burdened with mental/emotional debility. Currently, in our new army, soldiers are given whatever is necessary to keep them in the field. Anxiety...a little benzodiazepine (eg., Xanax or Ativan)...will be given to any trooper in need. Depression, PTSD gained from a previous tour? Have a little SSRI..think Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro, etc. My point is that we now are using our stressed soldiers unmercifully by offering chemical solutions to their understandable and predictable mental maladies.
We need to remove our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq now. Many may disagree with me, but my research and observation indicates to me that no matter how long we waste our brave young soldiers in these two wars that when we ultimately withdraw our troops...and withdraw we eventually will...these two nations will work out their own respective government/social order. We may not like what they ultimately evolve, but evolve they will.
For that reason, I emphatically cry out...bring all of our troops home...NOW.