Uncle Sam
Ain’t Released Me Yet
Memoirs of a REMF
Copyright© 2016 by
Robert B. Martin, IV
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission
from the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book
review or scholarly journal. I have attempted to recreate events, locales, and
conversations from my memories of them.
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Chapter
3
The Shock
“There
are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything
that bleeds.”...........Laurell K. Hamilton
After my
extremely emotional experience at the Wall, I was eventually able to close my
little black box and move on with my life. It was three years after my pilgrimage
to the Wall when I found myself sitting in the PTSD seminar in Denton, Texas. I
was not expecting to get anything from it. I was even becoming somewhat bored
as the speakers droned on and on in psychobabble. I don’t remember who any of
the speakers were, except for Laura Palmer. I didn't pay much attention until
she came to the podium and began to read
excerpts from her book. All were very sad because they were from actual interviews
with families and friends of men killed in action (KIA) during the Vietnam War.
It was hard not to cry while listening to those sad stories. I was beginning to
empathize with the families and friends by imagining how they must have felt
when they first learned that their loved one had been taken away from them so
suddenly and horribly.
I was
doing a good job of keeping the lid on my little black box when all of a sudden
I felt as though a bolt of lightning had suddenly struck me, sending a giant
charge of electricity surging through my body and shooting out through every
pore in my skin. I was vibrating and all of the hairs on my body were standing
erect. Goose bumps popped out all over me. My ears began to ring loudly. My
pulse was pounding and my heart racing. My extremities tingled and I began to
feel numb all over. I began to hyperventilate and was becoming dizzy. The room
began to spin and all of sudden my little black box exploded inside of me and tears
began to fall from my eyes, run down my cheeks, and drip from my chin. I was
unable to control my body’s response to the state of shock in which I found
myself.
This was
probably as close to an “out of body” experience that I will ever know. Although
seated near the back of the room, I began to fear that I would be noticed. I
was embarrassed, ashamed, and frightened. I wanted to get up and leave but was
unable to stand. Besides, it would only have drawn more attention to me.
I was
immobilized by emotional distress all because of twenty-six words that Laura
Palmer had just read from her book. They are found on page 152, beginning on
the third line. These words were the reason for the emotional state in which I
found myself. She read, “Bob Kalsu was
running to meet a chopper that had just landed at Fire Support Base Ripcord, on
a desolate jungle mountaintop, when he was killed.” That one sentence
caused an emotional dam to burst inside of me, virtually destroying my little
black box and allowing twenty years of bottled-up grief, guilt, and shame to
gush out of me like a tidal wave, washing away any emotional lines of defense I
might have employed.
Two other Vietnam
vets sitting near the rear of the room noticed my distress and quietly moved
over and sat next to me; one on each side in
silent support, until Laura Palmer finished reading. No words were exchanged
between the three of us in that room, yet they seemed to understand exactly
what was happening to me. When Laura Palmer finished reading, they each took an
arm, stood with me, and literally steered me from the room. We sat down in a
corner of the lobby and they told me about their therapy group. They each gave
me their card and told me to call them anytime I needed help. Then they waited
with me until satisfied that I was okay to drive home.
I attended
a few of their group sessions over the next few weeks but I eventually stopped
because the problems of each person in the group seemed to be much worse than
mine and hearing their stories only served to deepen my feeling of guilt. Most
of them had been through horrible combat experiences and had been exposed to
many terrible and frightening things of which “normal” people could never even
imagine.
Before
Vietnam I had been very outgoing. After Vietnam I found it difficult to
continue this effusiveness. I became quieter and seemingly uninterested in life
around me. I eventually managed to put the pieces of my little black box back
together and began honing my acting skills, which constituted my defense
against unwanted emotions by allowing me to act out the emotions expected from
me. I was able to cope in this manner for another five years until I sought
professional psychiatric help and was diagnosed with “moderate to severe
depression.” I was prescribed an antidepressant but it took a couple of years
of trying different antidepressants and dosage regimens before I began to feel “alive”
again. I can’t say that I felt “normal” as I don’t really know what “normal”
is. As of this writing I am still taking antidepressants and although I am still
quite reserved and “distant” to most people, I feel and cope much better know
that I am medicated.
To be continued in Chapter 4, "Greetings" From Uncle Sam....
2 comments :
My brother is a Vietnam vet who suffers from the effects of Agent Orange and PTSD. He found writing poetry as a way to recover. You might find some of his reading useful. Here is a link http://billbauerpoetry.com/published-works/last-lambs/
He also has readings on YouTube. I hope you continue to heal.
Thanks for the tip, and for reading my blog. I think that writing my memoir was good therapy for me. I'm not much a poet!
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