War

[Andy]

In Feb. of 1968 my Armored Personal Carrier (APC) was hit my a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG). Two weeks ago I saw a video of a Marine APC that was hit by an old RPG. Five Marines were killed. In my case only three of us were killed the other three of us were wounded.
When I saw those images a bunch of old friends came to visit me. Have any of you been visited by dead friends? Bad juju but things like that happen.
Have any of you seen images of war that have brought back memories that are a little too much to deal with? Has anyone else been visited by ghosts of Christmas past? I know DMZLT would comment if not for his current injuries, but I?d guess that some of you have seen things that touched a cord, that burned a nerve. What do you say?

Stay healthy, God bless you,
Andy

[SuperScout]

Seeing some of the Iraqi soldiers, right before their surrender was accepted by the coalition forces, reminded me of a scene back at Tet '68. We had captured a bunch of NVA, some wounded, some not, and I told my medic to start treating the wounded. As he approached the group, and opened his medic's aid bag, they saw all the shiny, ominous medical instruments, and knew that the lies their leaders had told them were about to come true: if captured, the Americans will torture you. The look in their eyes of stark terror and foreboding was an image that was burned into my psyche. As Doc Keener began to treat them with the skill, professionalism and compassion of a real warrior, their fears were quickly dissipated. I saw the same terror in the eyes of some of the Iraqi soldiers as they surrendered. We are blessed to have had real men like Doc Keener, and also the thousands of real warriors of today. I love them all!
Scouts Out!!

[39mto39g]

For the last couple of weeks I have been getting up about 4 or 5 times in the middle of the night because some VN dream has woken me. The guys I work with ask what was wrong and I told them just some old VN shit coming out in dreams.
Have you ever yeld as loud as you could at the guy next to you and he couldn't hear you, only to find out the reason he couldn't hear you was because he had no face.

Glade to see Im not alone in this VN recuring crap.

Ron

[1CAVCCO15MED]

War is with me

Day and night every day. I did get worse when the war first started. I got nauseated if I watched the news. I thought I was getting the flu at first. LOL Now I watch all I want to. War is so evil that the only justification is to remove an even greater evil. We still could lose this war. If we do not replace the evil of Saddam with peace and freedom it will be for nothing. What happens immediately after any war sets up either peace or another war. That period is more important than all the battles and victorys.

[blues clues]

first time for a while ron wish I could sleep staying awake is'nt any fun eather who need to watch the war like the doc do that every day here lately.
razz
back into my hole it's still not safe out here.

[phuloi]

I began to get symptomatic (worse than usual) Sept.11,2001,with a noted escalation at the onset of Iraqi Freedom.Suddenly there came an image,or dream of a little Vietnamese girl lying dead before me.It`s been very difficult cause I have no positive memory of what led up to,or anything that happened after the death.Had to limit myself to the headlines only on the news.Back to bad night sweats..more meds.Called Packo and he helped me deal

[ArtySgt]

Andy, been the same for me, ghosts come when I least expect them. I avoid the war news like the plague but no matter how hard I try some still gets though to me. Images from the past form and I go though hell trying to deal with them. The war has made things so much worse. I have decided to look for my RTO's grave located some where in Ohio, been looking on and off for twenty years. I am going to find it.

[splummer]

Some of the first KIA being in a convoy really brought back memories to me and at the same time after 34 years I found 3 guys from my squad on the internet. Two of them were in a volunteer convoy that I posted about back in the old HC web site. I can't beleive I found them. We are trying to help one of them get his purple heart as he was wounded on that convoy. In this gulf war they named the supply line Ambush alley. Our streach of road was named ambush alley in the Mang Yang Pass. I've been kind of worked up lately.

[MORTARDUDE]

there are many views from the TC hatch in the APC behind the .50 cal....brings back lots of memories...folks think you can just put it away...it never goes away.....it never goes away...

Larry

[catman]

Have not slept, ate, worked, talked or had a clear thought in three weeks. Be glad when all this stuff is over.

Trav