me and mac and victor go to Mare Island

[exlrrp]

" is this a dagger whaich I see before me now?
The handle toward my hand? Come let me clutch thee--
I have thee not and yet I see thee still....
Hear not my steps which way theywalk for fear
The very stones prate of my whereabouts

(Macbeth)

I went up to the C&P exam in Mare Island yesterday, this to evaluate how nutty as a fruitcake I am, no doubt by the VA. This to extort money from them.
I love Mare Island, its the first time I been there in 30 something years, the last time to get paid while on leave. Its a big huge old shipyard--old, since the 19th century that used to be the biggest submarine repair facility. I love old military bases, I went down to Ft Ord last year and wanderd around there for hours.(did basic and AIT there) They have some grreat old Victorian buildings at MI a lot there just waiting to be restored--some of the buildings are being leased--be a great place for an art studio--anybody have the inside here?
You know, there's always times in life where the ol lrrpster wonders "Would a little dramatics help the situation here?" Like yelling "Incoming!!!!!!" and diving under the table or maybe lowcrawling into the office with sticks in my hat. Nothing as fun as a little political theater as I learned in Recondo School.
I figured if I told them all about the Corps of Retired Military Officers who were trying to silence me on the internet because I know the shocking true facts of the Vietnam war and the Savings & Loan Scandal, it'd help my case but I remembered in time about rigorous honesty. So I went with my teeth in. I did wear my red, white and Blue baseball hat with the jumpwings on em, but I'd wear that to a ballgame.
It went quick-by now, I have a regional head of the VA looking into this and a Congressman who said he'd do all he could if I ask. THAT aint too shabby. Pays to have a winning smile (store bought!)
So I sat there with this shink ( an Arab) and he ran through this check list of questions--was I anxiousnervousdysphoricsleepproblemsalcoholicdepre ssed/flashbackshperarousalirritiblityhypervigilanceunco ncentrationinsomnia??
Well, sorta, sometimes, on my bad days. I said All The Above.
Then he asked me about a circumstance that happened to me in the war that I think about that may have caused the PTSD. and so I told him about Victor, the 3 sentence version.
I talked about this over on vets.com and was accused of bragging so if thats what youre going to say about it this time too, I say in advance: Fck You! Sometimes a lrrp is telling and it sounds like bragging but that just goes with the territory.
I walked up and stabbed a sleeping man in the war, stabbed him 3 times in the heart. My 2 friends, Samuelson and Stuart, beat his friend , also sleeping, into insensiblity, then we called for evac and
dragged him back to an LZ and got the hell on out of there.
It was the only prisoner we took in that team, others got 2 or 3--one was enough for me. This was not the only sleeping man I killed, tho the only one with a knife--if that sounds like bragging to you then youre a pervert.
We'd plotted it out beforehand and watched them for about a half an hour. I stabbed him because if I'd used the silenced weapon I would have got them both. Did I say there were other NVA not that far away?
This is one of the things Ive wondered all my life--was that real?--did I really do that--was I really like that?
I see this now as the most unreal thing I ever did and when I read Macbeth I knew that Shakespeare really had it. Macbeth is standing in front of Duncans door, knife in hand, trying to work up the nerve to kill a sleeping man--he's a brave soldier, if nothing else but its not about bravery, its about thinking, Oh, Jesus, how did I get into this one?? And the realisation that the only way out of this is straight ahead.

" But screw your courage to the sticking place and we'll not fail!!"
(Lady Macbeth)

What Macbeth is going through is the PTSD from Hell
" Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow
Raze out the written troubles of the brain?
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
cleanse the stuft bosom of that perilous stuff
which weighs upon the heart"
MAcbeth sees the ghost of Banquo and the ol lrp still sees the ghost of Victor--its not like "I see dead people" but I'll see that face in a crowd sometimes and then I just have to get away, I can't look at it. I quit a job once because some one there looked just like him. Does the military owe me money for this? I don't know and I don't care. The question is will they pay me for this. This I intend to find out. The shrink said he was diagnosing me with PTSD, his exact words.

I came home sat down and read the whole play again yesterday. Shakespeare could have written my life:
"James, Prince of Berkeley"