Wife & I saw VN Memorial at Rest Area in Alabama

[PHO127]

Doc do not dispare over what was not. You and Doc Fred are our heros. If it wasn't for you guys there are a lot of us who wouldn't be here now. This summer after 30+ years I found out that Doc Fred was the guy who saved my life. People like you are special to this world. You are healers and saviors. I could have never done your job.

[Keith_Hixson]

Our mind plays games with the what ifs in our life. Right after I got out of the Army I married my wife. Several weeks after we were married we met an old friend of ours that had been married to a Marine. I never met her husband because I was in the Army when they married and he didn't make it home from Vietnam. My wife and I offered our sympathy to our friend. Yet when we parted both my wife and I were filled with guilt. Why did I finish my time in the service and come home to civilian life and our friend's husband was a KIA. Why him and not me? Even today I remember that chance meeting and the guilt associated with it.

There are a lot of "What Ifs" in life. We can't change the past its gone. And the why's and ifs that make up life filter into the past and that is something we can't change. We live in the present and prepare for the future. So I learned: 1. I can't change the past, leave it be. 2. I have no comprehension of why some live and others die, some are happy and others are sad, etc. 3. So I must live life to the best of my ability and not allow the what ifs to place me on guilt trips to ruin the present even though I had no real control of the past.

We must live in the present and prepare for the future. Let the past be the past. What happened to my friend's husband was something I had no control over. There is no reason I should feel guilty about what happened. And For the Most part Guilt is a robber of happiness. Guys don't let that happen to you.

As a civilian medic I have had people die on me more than a few times. The doubts and what ifs can be staggering. If only I had done this or did I put out my best effort, etc. There comes a time when we must let it go and get on with living.

Don't let the what if guilt trips rob you of the happiness you deserve.

Keith

[1CAVCCO15MED]

I used to tell the new nurses that there was something which was never taught in nursing school. I said in the long term of their careers there would inevitably be a time when what they did caused great harm and even death to a patient. I am not talking about doing something negligent, though that may happen. Nurses are only human and it is possible to forget or to misinterpret and in their negligence cause great harm to someone that put their life in your hands. However, there is another aspect of this and that is what I am mainly addressing. It is when you do what is perfectly expected under the circumstances and inadvertantly trigger a bad outcome. It could be getting a patient up in a chair, turning them while cleaning them up. It is very common for patients to have a cardiac arrest under these circumstances. There are quite a few other things that could happen similar to this. I told them this is the price you pay to be a nurse and trying to do some good in the world It is up to them to accept this risk and to realize that this will not be the sole measure of their worth. It is merely the price they pay to help others. If they can accept this beforehand in all humility then they will survive.

[39mto39g]

Went to the wall one time in DC. I live in Texas and was on my way to a 5 day trip down Snake river in Idaho and I decided to go to the wall. It was about 05:30 in the morning and I was the only one there. The men we lost , Oct 67-Kontum, nov 67- Dak To, Dec 67 Duc Pho, Feb 68 Lang Vei, Feb 68 Hue, LZ Baldy, Lz Marry lu, Chu Lai, Da Nang, Pleiku, and all those mountan tops with no name,
Panel 22E

Ron

[frisco-kid]

DC isn't exactly on the way to ID from TX. Bit of a side trip, I'd say. Glad you got to go, and I hope you found some comfort from it. I haven't been yet, but plan to. Maybe on my way to Hawaii .


Where you been, Bud? Did you go shoot Bambi's family? Hope things are good with ya.

Thanks guys for the kind words and good advice.I'm sorry that I haven't been able to get back to the thread sooner but on the weekends my time that I can spend on the computer is very limited.I don't really know of any logical reason that I should feel guilty about what I did/didn't do in the Nam.Unfortuneately it doesn't appear that emotions respond especially well to logic.I have for the most part put that year behind me but I find that I am left with something of an emotional mine-field.There are some things that I had best steer clear of or risk releaseing a flood of memories and emotions that are hard for me to handle and are better left alone.These mine-fields are pretty well mapped out at this point and I just don't go there.It is unfortunate that memorials are one of these.Again,it makes me very glad that you guys are able to go to the memorials-both for your sakes and for the memory of our fallen.Neither they nor you will ever be forgotten by me even though I can't be there.
PHO127-As I'm sure you are well aware,medics are far from being the only healers and saviors on any battlefield.Some of the very best "medics" it has ever been my honor to know were really 11B's.I spent a lot of time feeling pretty much redundent.
Fred and Keth-There is no doubt in my mind that you guys are 100% correct on all points.The problem is that KNOWING and FEELING are two different things.
I truly did not intend to make an "Oh poor me!" post but please know that I appriciate your kind words and advice more than you can know.

[DMZ-LT]

Doc, a lot of us are in that mine field. The memories and emotions are less painful when shared with others who have been there , done that. There are many places I still don't go but the brothers and sisters here have helped me understand a lot . We know. Welcome home and thanks for your service - from me and my daughters !

[xgrunt]

I'll tell ya what I've said before- Everyone has to hump down the trail by themselves but we help each other by lightening the ruck you hump. You'll find that the poor pitiful me posts don't get much attention but a post written in pain is taken seriously. Grunts are the only people I know that can tell ya Fuck that stinking thinking, it don't mean nothing and say it with love. The best terapy I ever had was the first time I was in the psych ward for a PTSD diagnosis and it came sitting outside at a picnic table where there a constant comin and goingof grunts,medics, morter grunts, etc. We didn't say much about Nam just what we did who we were with and when and where. Mostly we talked about our lives since we had come home and listening to the other guys talk about having the problems I was having[nightmares etc etc] it hit me I WAS NOT CRAZY! there was a problem out there and we all had it .From that moment on I could start to deal w/PTSD because I could put a "face" to it. just my thoughts, keep posting and welcome home Bro. :cl:

[1CAVCCO15MED]

I think it takes a medic to understand why someone whose job it was to come to the aid of others can feel so much guilt about it. It took me a lot of tears and effort to come to the point where I could feel proud of what I did over there. A major part of the support I had along this journey was from people that come here. I tell you one thing, there is a world of gratitude and respect given to medics from the grunts on this site. To tell you the truth, it was a little hard to accept at first. I certainly didn't feel in any way good or noble. One thing I have always had was a great love for the grunt. It was a great help to have that love reciprocated by the grunts. These grunts have you on a pedestal and they aint' nothing you can do about it.

[phuloi]

It`s difficult to add to the execellant and heart-felt words already written here by cavdoc,x-grunt,Lt,etal,but having probed that minefield a bit myself,I`ll contribute this:You are not alone.I was for sure the only person in the entire universe to have these feelings of guilt and shame for almost my entire adult life.That is,until I stepped into a large meeting room at American Lake VAMC PTSD recovery program,and about 50 guys all our age-all brothers-welcomed me.WOW!YOU feel that stuff too?Unbelievable at first,but it was true and very enlightening for me to realize that I was NOT alone.Thank you for your service and welcome home.