More Indian Voices From Vietnam [a machine-readable transcription]

By Harold Barse

My name is Harold Barse. I’m a member of the Kiowa/Wichita Sioux tribe; currently counseling with the Vet Center. I’ve been with the Vet Center program since its inception. By working through the program has allowed me to go ahead and develop this organization that puts on this powwow annually. That’s how we got started.

I was trying to deliver the Vet Center services with the Cheyenne/Arapaho in Oklahoma. I was taking the traditional vet center approach, so I started rapping with these guys; helping to take care of their problems, cuz I know they got problems. I spent some time and energy out there trying to get something started. Finally, they asked me what I was trying to do. I said I’m trying to help you all with your problems. They let me know that they were Cheyennes, that they went over there to that war for a purpose. They had a reason to go. The reason was they were Cheyenne. And that’s all the reason they ever needed, and that they take care of their problems in a different way. That they don’t go to these types of things, they don’t go to counseling, and they don’t seek out the VA psychological services. At that point, I said I’m going to have to find something that I can help the American Indian vets. I put my head together with a few other guys and we decided to organize locally in Oklahoma; a warrior society for Vietnam vets. Something that Indians can identify with. It didn’t take long before the organization spilled out beyond the boundaries of Oklahoma because we were the only organization specifically for American Indian Vietnam vets. From that point it just began to grow. In February of ’81, I organized a powwow in the Wichita Tribal Park. It was the first time any powwow had been organized specifically to honor Vietnam vets. We had a very good reception. From that point we used that date as a starting day of organization. Within a year, in ’82, we talked about putting on a powwow in Oklahoma again to honor Vietnam vets, and this powwow grew in magnitude. We ended up calling it the National Vietnam Vets’ Powwow and we held it in December of ’82. What happened at this powwow was so moving, so healing that we knew we had to do it again. It’s a unique powwow; it’s not a stationary powwow. It’s in South Dakota this year; moves to Arizona next year, and it’s back up in Wisconsin the following year. It was such a powerful thing and so many vets found relief from some of the symptoms that Vietnam vets are known to suffer, that we felt like we needed to keep on trying to do this. And, it’s grown every year. This will be the largest we ever attempted to do here with the Sioux nations, cuz we’re talking about an entire Sioux nation, not just one tribe or local. The Chippewas from Minnesota are coming in, and the Menominee and carloads from Oklahoma are coming up. It’s really grown. Obviously, there is a need for it or else we would have never had a second, third or fourth one.

Being that they don’t take advantage of the other services the vet centers provide, you find a lot of the Vietnam vets are returning to their traditional ways to get relief from what they describe as the problems so many Vietnam vets suffer. In turning back to these ways, this is one way they can highlight it. Indian people have always respected their vets. It’s never made any difference with the politics of the war. They recognize these people who have done a sacrifice for them. You can’t confuse Indian patriotism with your regular American-type patriotism (mom, apple pie, and things like this); the American Indian doesn’t view it that way. When they serve, they are serving for their people. And that [service to the community is what] they do it for. And Indians recognize this. So when they come home, they come home with honor and dignity. Not like many of the non-Indians who came home to the outright hostility. Yet that does not keep you from having the problems; Indians are human beings, too. Traumatic events are traumatic for us as well as for a non-Indian. The only thing Indian people do [is that] they recognize this. Indian people have recognized that war changes people; for centuries, and centuries, and centuries they have know this. So when you send a person to war, something happens to him out there. They’ve got generally two perspectives. The Sioux people and the people you’ll see here are warrior tribes. Warfare is a natural outlet for them. But when we go to Arizona, you’ll see a group of tribes where war is an aberration. It’s a disruption of the law. It’s something to be avoided at all costs. So when you do have to send people to war, these people have been tainted; they have been changed. And they need a cleansing of some kind to be brought back into the tribal community. And the Navajo and some of these other tribes have these things.

They recognize some of these people have been changed, too, and to bring them back into harmony with the community, there are special ceremonies that cleanse them of this taint. To be a person that has been exposed to warfare and killing and spilled the blood of strange people, back into that community would be disruptive for that community. So they’re cleansed. They are not held in low esteem; they are recognized that the people did something that is completely against the law of the universe. They stepped into total turmoil; disruption. And they did this for their people. They gave up something for their community. And when they bring them back in, they need to be taken care of and they are also honored.

Even with those vastly different contradicting views of warfare, one is natural extension: the Sioux people have always been kind of warlike; it’s a place to demonstrate bravery and count coup and you get honor, yet the people recognize that something happens to them. So the Sioux have a healing ceremony--the sweat lodges--to help take care of their people when they come back, cuz they know there is going to be those associated problems when you expose an individual to a traumatic event. The warrior tribes help take care of them by giving them much honor and respect. The Winnebago people say that we honor these vets because by seeing death on the battlefield, they truly know the greatness of life. They’ve sacrificed something. So these people are taken care of. Those Vietnam vets that are available can take advantage of these things. Approximately half the Indian population lives in urban areas. The Vietnam generation is the first generation that was born and reared in the metropolitan areas. Our fathers and mothers left the reservation and went to these areas, and then they raised their families up there. So many of us, myself included; I’m an urban Indian. I’m not anymore at home out in the woods than anyone else brought up in an urban environment. There’s a lot of Indians out there, like myself, who don’t have access to the traditional concepts of their own tribes and stuff. And these guys may be more susceptible to the problems that Vietnam vets are suffering. Indian people know they are going to have these problems; they have a way of helping them make the readjustment back into their society.

Different tribes have different beliefs. You can have a prayer meeting; being thankful that your son is back. A lot of families will do that through a regular Indian chant of some kind. You can have a peyote meeting, either to send the young man off to war or to bring him home. Some tribes still have the bulletproofing ceremony to send their people off. All societies recognize this, if you are going to send some off to war, there is an unwritten contract that you are going to bring these people home with honor and respect. And it always happens, even with this country, except with the Vietnam. In World War One, World War Two, and even the Korean War, these people were honored. But the Vietnam War was so much different. The frustration; the country was being torn apart by the divisiveness of the war. Its frustration fell upon the Vietnam vet himself. They turned out to be the bad guys. They broke that sacred unwritten contract that they have when they send people away. This country broke that contract; that’s why there is the magnitude of problems among the Vietnam vets and why the problems have persisted so long. Cuz these people have never been allowed to make the readjustment. They have been made to feel ashamed of being a Vietnam vet. And the Indian people go 180 degrees different; they emphasize the fact that these are very special people. And that’s what we do here. Instead of having a dance for all vets, we have opted to have it for the Vietnam vets. Hopefully, the people we are having here in Sisseton will be in a healing process. Some of those wounds that are still open will be taken care of, that the circle will once again become closed. That’s what we saw at the first powwow. That’s what we strive for at everyone that we do now. We’re very glad that the Sioux nation has opted to host this one. This is the first time; I guess it’s only the second time that all the warriors of the Sioux nation will gather. I think the only time it’s ever happened before is Little Big Horn. And this is the only time since then that it’s ever happened again. Myron Williams has even said that that’s been prophesized. I don’t know if this is fulfilling that prophecy, but the warriors of the Sioux nation are going to gather here this weekend. But that’s what we’ve been trying to do; it has started out very small and has really snowballed on us.

The vet center program has been very receptive to our idea. They don’t quite understand it. This is the first time they have actually sent counselors here to take part in the ceremony itself and to be on hand to provide counseling if that’s the need. We’re going to disturb a lot of old memories. And somebody might need someone to talk to. Sometimes it’s safer to talk to someone that’s paid to listen to those things. We have found at the past gatherings we have had that everything has been very upbeat. The guys don’t spend very much time talking about things that hurt them. Talking about units served with, acts of bravery, you’ll see a lot of camaraderie, guys getting together and swapping stories. It’s generally very, very upbeat, very positive.

There is a power, a medicine, and that drum will make you feel better. If you’re not feeling good and you go to the powwow and you get close to that drum it makes you feel better; it radiates something. Down in Oklahoma, we do the gourd dance; warriors kind of circle the drum. We have gourds and shakers in our hands and stuff. Everything kind of moves in a circle, and the dancers move towards the drum; they are drawing power from this. I’ve never seen it so much as when I saw it at that first powwow. That’s the first time I ever felt the power of that drum. There were so many people you couldn’t go around the drum. There was an ocean of people there. So everybody had to just turn and face the drum and they wouldn’t let us stop. They were singing the Vietnam vet’s song. And then you could hear the word Vietnam. There was a power there that kind of made your hair tingle. People were crying and carrying on because of the emotion of that thing. People realized that people were being healed, that all these bad things were being taken away. And these people were being appreciated for what they did. That’s what we try to do. It’s a monumental effort every year, but it always seems to be worth it. You can talk to the guys here that are hosting it; they won’t be anxious to do it again, not right away. It takes a lot out of people.

I related our rap groups to traditional warrior societies where the returning warrior is inducted into these honor societies. And within these, there is a kind of like a rap group where these guys can talk about things only they can understand. If you haven’t been to Vietnam and saw what was going on, only they have that experience, that knowledge. And when they talk, it’s a healing process. They are the ones that understand what happened over there; they have to work it out among themselves. The parallel to that is of the warrior societies. The Cheyenne people of Oklahoma have a Sundance, too. At some point in the Sundance they’ll stop drum, and they’ll call forth a vet to come and tell a war story, and it’s got to be a real one. You have to find a combat vet; they don’t pull any punches. If they pour guts out, that’s what they’ll tell you. They tell of a hard time, a personal encounter, a one-to-one encounter with an enemy, or something that was difficult for them. In being able to tell that to a gathering of people is therapeutic, Cuz you’ve got the attention of all these people and he’s relating something that was very difficult for him. He was facing death. Then he is honored. They give him a rifle or blanket or something. Many of the tribes have lost what they had for their vets. We’re lucky here in Sioux country that most of that remains intact. One of the first things that the government did when putting the Sioux on the reservation was to ban their warrior societies. It’s extremely difficult for the Sioux; there’s a portion of that is gone now. But it’s going back.

You’ll find that the Sioux, the guys that have tried the vet center approach, have found that it wasn’t as helpful for them as returning to their traditional ways; going to the sweat lodge and taking care of those things. They had to pay a price for being a Vietnam vet, and they’re always going to carry this; that price is always a steep price to pay. And they are always going to have some of these things; the nightmares, etc., may be with them periodically from now on. But the sweat lodge and healing ceremonies help reduce and take care of those things. They help ease the spirits of the person.

Kiowa people take care of their vets. They are very special people. If a Kiowa boy was to die in combat and the Kiowa lost 3 boys over there, those individuals are remembered in tribal history as warrior chiefs. They’ll always be remembered that way. The Kiowa Tribe will never forget who they are. It’s a very moving type of ceremony that they have. I’m very honored to be asked to belong to that. Cuz at one time you had to be a combat vet to dance with the black leggings. They asked me to become a part of their group, so I belong to the Black Leggings Society of the Kiowa Tribe, too. As well as being very active in this organization, I try to limit them. I don’t belong to anything else; I don’t belong to the legion or any other type of vet activities, just my own tribe and what we’ve organized.

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According to the U.S. census, approximately 81,000 served during the era, for ’64 to ’75. Of that, 42,000 or so served in Vietnam; of that, the amount killed is 800 that they can document. Now the armed forces didn’t ask you what you were when they drafted you. Most of the Sioux didn’t get drafted; most of the Kiowa and Indians did not get drafted; they enlisted and they went in voluntarily. I was drafted. The service didn’t ask what race I was. I never knew until I began working the vet center program and asked them to send for my records that I was not listed as an Indian; I was listed as Caucasian. So if I were to die in Vietnam, I would not have been listed on the Indian list; and we find a whole lot of guys that happened to. They just didn’t bother to ask them, what race are you? They took a look at us, took a guess, and put it down and sent you on your way. So there is a fudge factor there. Obviously, maybe a few more Indians have been killed in combat and were not listed that way.

[The VA still does not recognize these cultural differences]. Although, I have heard talk that out West the VA was recognizing the importance of the Navajo ceremonies. They recognized that their stuff is legitimate and that they do what they are supposed to do; that they have an impact, that they get as much relief from what they have in the way of ceremony as anybody going to the VA hospital to see a psychiatrist for any type of combat-related mental disorder. There is a slow recognition; hopefully, this will become a part of some of the recognition. The VA is doing a video for us now. They were at the last year’s powwow interviewing vets and things and we’ll use it as a training film when it’s completed to show the VA staffs around the country. The Indian ceremony and stuff is legitimate treatment for them. And probably more applicable to the American Indian than anything they can prescribe.

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Possibly, among American Indians, there may not have been the vagueness as to why they are going over there. You know, what are we doing here? You went over cuz we’re stopping communism. When they got over there, it wasn’t so much stopping communism as it was killing Vietnamese. And with all the tremendous firepower we had, there was a question as to why we are sacrificing ourselves; especially in a political war that won’t allow you to win but only go so far. With all the restrictions on the troops in Vietnam, where the Indians may not have had that, like the Cheyennes told me, they went because they are Cheyenne and they’re doing it for their people. There may be a more concrete reason sometimes why they had for going over, as opposed to a vague reason the non-Indian went over to this far away place and fight the jungle war. Another one is his coming home or preparing to leave. Sometimes, many of the Indian tribes had warrior dances, soldier dances, Peyote meetings, prayer meetings, feasts or something along the lines to prepare the individuals to go; the bullet proofing ceremony for some tribes. And, he’s given recognition and honor when he leaves. We ran a survey and it looks like 40% of the Indians had some type of tribal recognition or feast or something going or coming home. That’s 40% so there’s 60% that didn’t have anything for themselves. Maybe the family didn’t have the money to provide something like this or maybe the family was not a traditional family. If you spend too much time in the metro area, you have a tendency to lose if you don’t try hard to keep your traditional ways, you get involved in the urban, that city rush. If you’re born and reared in it, pretty soon you become that. I’m a lot more comfortable with concrete under my feet that I am in the woods. And a lot of the brothers up here are traditional people. They find freedom out in the woods. They find release; they feel good when they are with nature. But a lot of us aren’t that way.

The coming home will probably be the biggest difference for the Indian vet as opposed to the hostile homecoming that some of the other vets got when they got home. We found that even those non-Indian vets that came home to a good support system seemed to have fewer problems than those that came home and didn’t find the support system. And the Indians, we just emphasize it a little more; it’s not like a pat on the head, good job, you did great; the Indian people, the families assume some of the burden of the individual; they are there to support him. They assume some of the problems. These people out there dancing show their support; they show their love for the individual and shoulder some of the problems that he is dealing with. And in also reinforcing that contract, cuz you see a lot of our children out there with us; they see ­­­what’s going on. The Indian people are reinforcing that special contract that if you should have to do this, go fight a war, should have to sacrifice, that we are going to be here for you when you get back. What we are giving to these people, we will give to you. Families are very important for what we are going to be doing here. And, hopefully, we’ll get a lot of the families here to see what happens to vets cuz there’s been a lot of vets out there; trauma is trauma; human beings are human beings. If you are exposed to it you are going to suffer from it--whether you are Indian, non-Indian, Black or whatever. This is just our way of trying to bring him back and help take care of some of these problems that they are going to have.

A lot of the Indian people are institutionalized; they’ve been taken from their homes and put into boarding schools. [Boarding schools] are run kind of on military time, you live in the dorm, and it's not hard to make that transition from Flandreau Indian School to Ft. Polk Louisiana. So it wasn’t quite as hard on some of these guys. It seems like Indians adapt well in the military (for training and going into war); where Indians have their problems is when they come back from the war--well, their job is done. The job is done; you go home. But the Army doesn’t see it that way. You will have to complete your tour of duty stateside. But a lot of Indians were not able to adjust to Garrison-type duty. We find that there is a lot of “bad paper” or dishonorable discharges for the simple fact that when they were through fighting, the war was over; it’s time to go home. And they did.

You can still have a dishonorable discharge and still belong to this organization. We don’t recognize what the military gave you in the way of a piece of paper. If you served, you served. You served your people. Those that served in the military are veterans and warriors. I’ve gotten some of the same reinforcement from my people, too. I try to play as low a profile as possible.
Automatically built into this organization we’ve got, the vet center provides services for the vets and families. Whatever problem that they are dealing with, the vet center provides counseling for families, too. A lot of the vet centers have a combination of wives’ and husbands’ groups. I’ve worked with children of Vietnam vets. Mothers of Vietnam vets wonder how come their boy is not right. In the organization we have auxiliaries [for the families of vets]. The insignia is put on a shawl and our wives, children, daughters, aunts, grandmothers wear these shawls. If it wasn’t for our wives and families, we wouldn’t have an organization; they are the backbone of the organization; and that’s automatically built in. We take care of the families as well as we take care of the vet. It gives them a chance to show the pride they have in their vet; their warrior. Anytime we have a powwow down there that involves vets, our wives will wear these shawls, especially when they call for the Vietnam vet songs. When they call for those special Vietnam vet songs, the vets come out and will dance around the drum and behind us will be our wives and daughters, grandmothers, aunts wearing these shawls with our name on the back. We’ve got a captured Vietcong flag. We’ll give it to one of the kids and they’ll drag it in the dirt, you don’t show the enemy’s flag. We’ve got a captured Vietcong flag that will be brought out in the arena and these warriors, these vets will be allowed to count coup on that flag. Then we’ll burn it.

Some of these rap groups are negative in nature through the vet center program, talking about bad feelings, bad memories, a lot of Indian guys won’t participate in those, because it’s kind of degrading what they felt has been honorable. They are warriors; they fought and sacrificed; and sometimes the vet center approach is kind of negative. By calling attention to the problems; that may be why Indians don’t want to come into the program for service.

Hopefully, [if an Indian vet is having problems], that’s something that can be taken care of here. For “Urban Indians,” we’re trying to encourage the vet programs to put their posters up in Indian centers in the cities. Because it’s hard for Indian vets to ask for help if they don’t know it’s available. At every training session we go to, one of the Indian counselors on the program will always do a presentation to the counselors about some “dos and don’ts” with Indian people in general and specifically Indian vets.
Some of the dos and don’ts are: no direct eye contact; provide concrete services first; and try to build a good, true relationship. It took a lot for him to come into that office and ask for help; and if you do things that make him uncomfortable, he won’t come back again. And, he’s closed the door on that source of help for himself. Those are some of the things that we talk about at the training sessions.

We found that the Vietnam experience cuts deeper than tribal lines. This is one of the first intertribal vet organizations that’s ever been successful. They’ve tried having intertribal vet’s organizations. But, because there is still a lot of tribal identity and antagonism among certain tribes, they don’t like to associate with certain tribes. But we found that the Vietnam experience cuts deeper than tribal lines. That’s what’s allowed this program--our organization--to be successful. What we’ve also found out is that it cuts deeper than racial lines, too. Back in the 60s, everything was a race problem. Blacks were on one side; whites were on the other side, and you didn’t get between them. Except in the bush in Vietnam, and then it didn’t matter what color you were; if he was Black, you had to depend on him; if he was a southern cracker, you had to depend on him. And that took away the racial stuff out in the bush. They had problems in the base camps and stuff, but when you are out in the jungle, it doesn’t make any difference what color that guy is next to you. And that’s why these people have opened up the sweat lodge and some of the healing ceremonies to all Vietnam vets. That something we’ve learned as we went along.

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Because of the stereotype of the American Indian, even the Army views the Indians as a martial race--“They like doing that stuff.” You are supposed to be a scout and that holds true in Vietnam; when you get ready to move out into the bush.

Indians want to be the best they can be; that’s why a lot of them end up in combat arms. That’s also probably one of the reasons why the Indian casualty rate is so high; because they found their way into combat situations. The first survey we did said that 37% had been wounded; that’s a pretty high percentage rate. The reason for that was that they were in the front lines in the combat unit. If you are an Indian, you are supposed to be good. We had one Navajo boy, who was born and reared in the city, and he had no conception of his way around the woods and anything, yet he was put on the point because he was an Indian. There is that stereotype; that mystique of the Indian being good. But a lot of the guys ask for it, too. Marines, Airborne, rank all those types of things; they wanted to come home with the Airborne wings or in that snappy lookin’ Marine Corps uniform. They wanted those things and they got ‘em. Most Indians enlisted; they didn’t wait to be drafted. We find it unique that the White man didn’t want to fight in that war and went to Canada to get away from it. The Canadian Indians came south across the line and enlisted to fight in that war; there is a contrast, too. We’ve got several Canadians that are members of the organization.

Back in World War One well over 10,000 Indians served in the military and citizenship wasn’t granted to all American Indians until 1924, five or six years after the war was over. Yet these Indians volunteered; they went and served; they couldn’t have been drafted. They volunteered to serve in that war. If you ask some of them why they served, many felt it was treaty obligation on their part. They signed a treaty with this country and by treaty they are obligated to fight for this country. So they used the treaty obligation just the opposite, instead of trying to get out of a war, they used the treaty to go ahead and participate in the war.
At some point in some of the Indians realized when they got over there, this is really reminiscent of what the Calvary did to us. Because here’s the little village, and here’s the combat assault, choppers coming in and rockets going off target; they are shooting and they are blowing up houses, huts and people. It doesn’t take too long before you realize hey, I’ve seen this before on the movies. It’s what the Calvary did; we’re the Calvary; they are the Indians. As a matter of fact, Vietcong country was called “Indian country;” when you are going out, you are going into Indian country. And some of the Indians did realize that—that I’m doing that same thing the Calvary did to these people—but the Calvary is now comprised of Indians as well non-Indians. And, it has caused a problem for some. For others, it was combat and it didn’t make any difference; it was surviving from one day to the next. And these people are trying to kill you. I talked to a Cheyenne man the other day and when it first dawned on him that these people are trying to kill him, he said a prayer at that time. He said, “Well, I’m going to go. If you take me, that’s fine, but I’m going to do every thing I can to survive.” And the second portion of his prayer was for those people shooting at him, he said, cuz I’m going to take their lives. So he said a prayer for his enemies.

The non-Indians, some of the White guys, Black guys, they hate the Vietnamese. They hate them for being here in this country. It’s kind of a natural reaction. They remind them of something very bad, so they did like their country did to them, they placed the blame on them. So a lot of the people we work with really have a lot of resentment towards Vietnamese people, as a people, kind of a racist type attitude towards them. But I don’t see that in the Indians, except very seldom. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen Indians get up and leave a group when the group will be talking about Vietnamese; talking about them badly, cussing them, saying how worthless they are and stuff. The Indian guy just got up and left; he said I don’t want to hear about it. Cuz as far as I’m concerned they are just people, a whole lot closer to me than those guys are. So you don’t find that resentment towards the Vietnamese themselves. As a matter of fact, we wanted to invite the Vietnamese to this doing; we felt it might facilitate the healing process; their enemies are here. Some of these guys aren’t enemies; they served with the Vietnamese over there; fought alongside them. That’s one phenomenon I do not see among Indians, is the hostility toward the Vietnamese community in this country. I like that; it’s refreshing that war was fought in their country; they are the ones who suffered the most.

 

 

Jim's Narrative

I enlisted. [I was] 18, I went right from ricing to the military. I was in an infantry company. I first worked as a supply sergeant. My MOS was a basic rifleman. I met a couple of [Indian boys in Vietnam].

[When I visited the wall;] Well, when I first saw it and first started seeing names I recognized I kind of had a crying jag. I wasn’t stoned, drunk, or anything, I was straight. But I started seeing names that I recognized and it all came back; what the weather was like, what we were doing that day. It was a real intense time.

I went over as a corporal; then I went down to PFC. I made sergeant; went down to lance corporal and back up to corporal again. In that last year I was a lot of ranks. I was in the 1st platoon of India Company. Initially, we were around the airstrip at Da-Nang and then we started moving farther and farther out. So when we were south of Da-Nang--I think it was June of ’66; I remember one month we ran operation Georgia—we ran south of Da-Nang to Ai Ngnia. Then we set up camp there and ran patrols, ambushes, and sweeps; walk all day, walk all night kinds of stuff. There were lots of “bouncing betties,” snipers, mines, foot traps, mosquitoes, and biting ants.

We didn’t have anything like whole squads wiped out; not like it was later on. Ours was more like you knew every guy that got killed. It was a standard Marine like company; three rifle squads. I lost a few partners; I guess one is a lot. I guess one is too much.
One of the officers said, “Oh, good, we’ve got an Indian, he can walk point.” And just to kind of jive him I said, “Hey man, T grew up in Minneapolis. Let’s cut through some alleys over here then I can talk to you.” [The say is that everybody knew “Chief” but they didn’t know his name], except, I think, outside of your circle of people, your small circle of people. They’re with you night and day and they knew you by name; your life history, the woman that you lied about, the cars that you never had. So these are the guys you got to know. But outside of that circle it was “Chief.” Outside of five, six or eight people, it was “Chief.” [Indians have] like a sixth sense or something.

Actually, I think it was easier over there being an Indian because I was recognized as an Indian. Like [they say] that sense of “Indian warriors.” I think it was an old stereotype, too. Like in the movies--from World War Two movies; every squad had an Indian in it named Chief. It didn’t really bother me. I guess my reaction to it was, “I’m not in the Navy. I’m not a Chief Petty Officer. I’m me. I’ve got a persona.” You get it nowadays at National Veterans’ things. But I guess there was a little hint of respect in it also. It wasn’t totally derogatory.

[The] question about light or heavy combat; I can say I shot at people and they shot at me. I knew how to survive the war but not how to survive the peace.

I was inducted right here in Minneapolis. I was out ricing, I was five days late for the Marine Corps. I signed up on that delayed entry program. Hell, I couldn’t leave, it was right in the middle of ricing. My dad scarfed me up and told me I had an obligation there.

I knew my uncles’ histories, what wars they fought in. I had one uncle who had his hand blown off by a grenade. So I knew the family history; even the town history. I was in the Marine Corps for four years before I went over there. They came out with an involuntary extension. I think it was because of the landing at Da-Nang; Operation Starlight. So all of a sudden they need a lot more grunts. So, for four years before I had been a peace time grunt; I was in the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. For those four years we did nothing but constantly train for war; until the Cuban Missile Crisis got close, a comical situation there. So by the time Vietnam came about, I was ready; I was primed. I was lean and mean and young and could run all day; running up and down those hills at Camp Pendleton. Carry a pack and a rifle, you know, the usual stuff; I used to feel proud because I could beat everybody to the top of that hill.

* * * * *

We got some 122 rockets the first night [in country]. That’s those big mothers. Well, they were hitting kind of far off. It wasn’t a close explosion where there is mass confusion. They were far off where you could hear them. I think I sais something like, “Mrs. Northrup what did your baby boy do now?” You’re the one that wanted to come over here. So when they came out with that extension I said, “Well if I add eight more months to my enlistment, I’ll have enough time to fight this war I’ve been preparing for. So the attitude in country was, “It’s not a very good war, but it’s the only one we have”; you know, the Marine Corps gung ho spirit.

When you first get shot at, it’s disbelief; they’re not really shooting at me are they? Wait a minute; I didn’t do anything to piss you off! Then after you’re in country for a while you can tell the difference between the ones that are ten feet over your head –they kind of buzz. But when they are talking to you “SNAP,” it’s like that. I still do it today; I just automatically turn my head to gunfire. You think like a grunt; like fields of fire, covering, concealment. You check it out from a combat perspective; what are you in danger from, there is an open field on the right… I [still] do that walking in the woods. Even on a lake; I don’t like to go in the middle of the lake, I like to hang around the shore.

It doesn’t take much [to trigger a flashback]—a smell, a sound. Like I was over at the factory, and they had some sheet steel; they dropped it on the concrete floor and it sounded like an 81-mm mortar going off when those two base plates hit together, that clanging sound. Just riding behind a bus; that diesel sometimes smells like an Amtrak or a tank. And sounds; choppers… I was out working on a job and we were building a basement. It was my job to build the post pits for the jack posts that support the house. And I was out there digging one afternoon and some choppers come over. Before I realized it, I had made that post pit into a fighting position… I kept going down. I started thinking about a grenade or something then I said, “Wait a minute, it’s going to take a yard of concrete to fill that thing, so I kind of come back to the real world. It was a hot day and I heard some choppers. I could tell they were Hueys; I heard them go over and here I was in a very familiar environment digging a hole. So a guy on the crew laughed about that and teased me about it; “He thinks he’s back in Vietnam, look at that fighting hole.”

I don’t find [it] hard at all [to get close to people since I’ve been back]. I’ve been close to a lot of women, but none of them stick for very long. And I think that’s got to do with my emotional coldness. I think since the war I’ve just been cruising along; no highs, no lows. I know the right time to feel the emotions; go to a funeral—you feel sad, you watched your son being born—you feel happy. I know that’s the right time to feel those things, but I don’t really feel them. I just cruise through. I wake up in the morning, I’m home—good; wake up in the morning, I’m in jail—no big thing.

The thousand yard stare… I guess it’s when you take a mind trip; you don’t focus thousand yards away, but you’re actually trying to see thousand yards within your head. You’re thinking about, oh, what was the weather like the day that guy got shot off the tank? Or, what was it like coming back to the world? Or, what was it like going back to Nam after R and R? Just take that little mind trip, mental trip; that’s what that thousand yard stare means. I know there are some vets that have that thousand yard stare all the time.

I don’t know where the term comes from… Nightmares, I don’t have nightmares as much as I use to. I think writing about it helps. Flashbacks, the way I understand the term flashbacks is when you are back into a combat situation and it lasts for a long time, like five minutes or so; or even longer. I don’t know if watching a coke can jump off the floor and instantly reminding me of riding in a helicopter qualifies as a flashback or not. I was hunting with my cousin and he shot at a duck from behind me, and I didn’t know he was going to shoot. But when that round went off I did a dive and rolled and I came up pointing at him. So I don’t like to hunt too much anymore.

[When I came back from Vietnam] I jumped right into the working world; I didn’t come back to the rez. When I came back to the rez, I became a deputy sheriff. I used my gun once as a cop; I shot out this guy’s tire. I felt happy about it because I only shot his tire; I didn’t draw down and shoot anymore. The sheriff asked me, he was driving the squad car, “Did you take out that rear tire?”
I said, “Ya.”

“Did you ever use a shotgun like that before?”

“Ya, I carried one like this in Nam not too long ago.”

The reason I like that kind of work is because of the adrenalin rush. I’ve heard someone use the term “adrenalin junkie.” After that rush of combat or contact firefights, it’s pretty exciting. There’s not too much that compares with it.

Being a policeman is kind of like making those judge, jury, and executioner decisions right here. But I was glad to see that I could handle that gun in a tense situation and not go completely bananas; like you say, “Rock ‘n’ roll.” So I think that was part of the individual adjustment that every veteran has to make; you know, you all have your separate journeys back. I think it’s important not to stuff those memories and keep them locked up in your head with that thousand yard stare. I think you should go out and talk with people that would understand, that were in similar situations. Whether they are white, whether they are Indian; find someone that you can talk to and just spread them out on the table. It does a lot for making the nightmares go away.

My grandma use to send me maple sugar cakes made from sap she boiled down, and I’d make one sugar cake last a month. Every other day or so I’d take a little pinch, and that taste would brig me back to the reservation. It was the taste of cold mornings, big wood fires, and slipping up and down the trails carrying sap. Even though I was where it was 100 degrees and 100 percent humidity, just a little taste… But it was dangerous over there because of the situation; it was easy to get into that frame of mind, “Well, I came here to die, so I don’t care what happens.” I think it’s called fatalistic; I feel I can do anything I want. It doesn’t matter, you expect yourself to die. So it doesn’t matter what you do. You take chances; you do things you wouldn’t normally do. Then I think later they call it bravery or something. But then, it’s dangerous because a guy can get hurt when you’re in that frame of mind. And there are a lot of people that did get hurt when they did get in that frame of mind.

One time we were being mortared and I was in that attitude, “I don’t give a shit, let them drop a round on my back.” I wasn’t going to get down in that hole with the other guys. I was laying on my rubber mattress; it was the only rubber mattress in the whole company. Then one of those guys told me, “Hey, that shrapnel is going to cut a hole in that mattress.” I said, “Holy cripes!” I pulled the pin and jumped in the hole; I dragged my rubber lady with me. So when you get into that frame of mind, you know, “I don’t care if they drop it on my back, just don’t knock a hole in my mattress.”

[I didn’t do drugs,] I was too scared of that stuff. I use to trade my beer away. Like once a week, everyone was issued two cans of beer, but I never got into that. There was marijuana use there; you could buy a pack of marijuana cigarettes. I don’t think it was as wild as it was in the later years from what I’ve heard. It was available. We use to laugh about guys standing in the smoke when we were burning the villages; “Get out of that smoke!” Drinking and drugs weren’t a problem when I was there. It was later on.

* * * * *

There’s this World War Two guy here. I used to work with him, and he’s a quartermaster over at the vets club down here and he talked to me about joining. He said I was eligible. I said it’s mostly World War Two guy, and so I was kind of ambivalent about it. One day he showed up and said it’s only twelve dollars. He said, “I paid your membership; here’s your card.” So I never renew it, I just go down there and drink. I got kind of a welcome home feeling as a vet last November in D.C., then again in Chicago in July; couldn’t buy a beer in Washington D.C., couldn’t pay for a meal. You know that guy that made that sculpture of the three guys (An Anglo, a Chicano, and a Black), he bought us a round or two. I think there should be a skin up there.

It seems like in the service there was always Indians you would find right away whether they were guys in another company or something like that. Or, you’d see them in the mess hall. Right away you’d spot another Indian, and you’d go over. And regardless if they were from Arizona, South Dakota, or New York, or whatever, there was always that kinship. You’re always on the look for one. So, I use to hang out with a Comanche and a Navajo. We use to drink wine down at San Clemente where Nixon later built his house.

I think that the longer I’m out, the more fonder my memories of my five years and nine days when I was in the Marine Corps. But I’ve run into a stone wall with my dealings with the Veterans Administration.

It was back in September of ’66 and I thought I had control of things, for about six months. Then I look back and think there was something wrong. I couldn’t sleep; the least little noise would wake me up. I stay drunk all the time, or stoned, or something; I didn’t want to be there anyway. So I knew there was something wrong. So I went to the VA in Chicago, Illinois, and I told them I wanted to talk to somebody. And they said they couldn’t really help me because Vietnam wasn’t a war at the time or some reason like that. They were sympathetic and gave me a photocopy of the yellow pages of shrinks in the community and said take your pick. So I picked a name off there that was kind of close to my house and I went to see this guy and we gained a rapport talking back and forth for about four sessions. He told me all about his life, his problems about when he was in the military, and his relationship with his mother; just on and on. I was really learning a lot about the dude, but we weren’t talking about me; and he was charging me fifty dollars and hour. I went there four times. I was making $125 a week then. So I was giving this guy a lot of bread to listen to his life story. Finally, I said, “We’re not talking anything about me.” I said, “I can’t afford this anymore.” So I quit. And he said come back if you need me and all that.

Then I was reading the paper about six weeks later and I read where he shot himself in his office. Then I felt bad about that. I left all those guys in Vietnam to die, watched a lot of people die over there, and I come back to the real world and I felt bad about my shrink shooting himself. Damn, if I only had a better job I could have helped the guy. So, I kind of stayed away from the VA after that little incident.

* * * * *

I think when they start talking that much money, it loses its humanness or the people part of it and it just becomes a big political football. A couple of years ago they did a screening in Fort Snelling for Agent Orange. I was going down there to see if I had any because I’ve done a lot of reading about it, and I understand that it lodges in the fatty tissue of your body and just stays there. Your body can’t excrete whatever that poison is. So I was curious about whether I had it or not. My kids have all been okay; no genetic problems. I was curious because I know that sometimes they spray herbicides around here, and there might be a chemical similar to this dioxin that they talk about. So I was wondering if you have a certain amount in your body, and you’ve been okay with that level. If you’re exposed to some of the spray around here that’s similar, is that enough to tip you over to a critical level and poison you, cause cancer and all that stuff? But I found out that the VA was doing the study down there without actually telling you whether you were exposed or not. They just wanted to get a pile of computer numbers.

I could have been in a sprayed area over there; I don’t know. I was in a lot of areas. I was around airstrips, I was around roads, I was in the bush, the rice paddies.

My experience with the VA is the lower level people that you deal with initially, are friendly, are warm, are human, are caring. But the somewhere along the line, a layer of bureaucracy, it becomes policies instead of people. But the people that you initially run into are the grunts of the outfit, doing their job.

* * * * *

I grew up in boarding schools and on the rez, and I guess in those days you didn’t have entertainment like we have today. The big entertainment was to stand around and telling stories whether it was a drinking party or out ricing. It’s real common to slip into storytelling and I can name guys going back to World War One; the warriors, the vets from all the wars all the way through. And I listened to these stories, and I said I’m from here, I’m a warrior; I come from a long line of warriors going back to when the Chippewa were fighting the Sioux and before. So I feel like I’m part of that line, but here is where it gets kind of crazy; I don’t want my son to do that. I want him to break that line.

To fight a political war like Vietnam gave me an exposure to combat line of warriors have had, but it was a purposeless war. So you've got the combat experience, but I don't want my son going to get his combat experience in Nicaragua or wherever the policy makers want to send these young guys. If it’s to be a fight, it’s got to be worth a fight. Take care of business at home before you go and export your warriors. I have a son that's fifteen, and he wants to go and I keep telling him; you know he's come under the influence of Rambo and things and I see this; it's real common among the age group that idealizes the military and that way of life.
They don't know what it's like to throw a body-bag on a helicopter, or a stretcher on a helicopter. I wish there was some way I could explain that to him. It's not all fun and games, it’s deadly serious business; making decisions that you are going to be feeling twenty years later. I told my kids that I would break their kneecaps first [before sending them to fight in Nicaragua]. There’s enough things to take care of here without exploiting your youngest, strongest, and finest to support some kind of political idea out of Washington.

It was freaky enough in Vietnam to shoot at those people and then to look at them because they had almost the same color skin, same color hair, and eyes. And the spirit they had of making do with what they had; kind of like Indian people—really primitive at times, but making do. They would come up to me and speak Vietnamese to me. In the other countries I was in people would speak their language to me in Panama, Taiwan—Japan, Okinawa, Hong Kong—people would come up and start speaking to me like I was one of the natives. The Indians just kind of blended in with the rest of the world. So I’d answer in Ojibwa, and we’d look at each other—confusion.

I never carried any ears. I've seen guys that would do it, and after awhile they'd smell. No matter how much salt you put on them, they’d smell. We’d tell them go on, get out of here. Get that smell out of here, like you holler at a dog; that was the kind of attitude. But there were people like that. This guy was a second squad leader; he was a Chinook from, well, I don’t remember, but he looked like a kind of a surfer guy; Blond hair, blue eyes, all American, clean cut kid. We were supposed to go into a landing zone. We were getting ready to get on to choppers, and everybody is cleaning their rifles, sharpening knives, and this clean cut surfer guy was over there pounding on a rock. And they’d say, “What’s wrong with you? Everyone else is getting ready; this shit is going to hit!” he looked at me kind of funny and he says, “It takes longer to go through” (referring to his knife); clean cut all American lad. I heard they made him a gate sentry when he came back to the world. Somebody blew through his gate, they shot through without stopping. He pulled his .45—boom, boom, boom. I guess they took him away like that! (in a straight jacket).

I ran into' this guy from San Diego. He's from a rez so small you can throw a rock across it. We spotted each other from across a crowded room; there was something familiar about his eyes. He comes up to me and says, “Aren’t you Northrup?”
I said, “Ya.”

“Don’t you remember me, Rosalez, India Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines?”

I started thinking back, “Ya, I remember you.”

He says, “I'm still kind of mad that you gave me a flack jacket with a bullet hole in it.”

I started thinking, damn “It must have worked; you’re here.” It was kind or funny, the memory he carried of the war. To me it was just something that happened, you know. I don’t even remember it, but for the last twenty years he carried around that memory of the other Indian guy that gave him a flack jacket with a bullet hole in it. So I sent him all my slides; he kept a bunch of them and made copies of them. It’s one thing to sit around and talk with vets that were in your same level of combat or same time period, but it's a little more personal when you can sit around and say, “Remember the day O’Connor got it?”

I think one thing I forgot to say about, 1924 the U.S. Congress passed an act making all Indian people citizens of this country. But it wasn't until sometime later, and I can relate to this very well. In 1952, the state of Minnesota made it legal for Indians to buy alcohol. I wish they would have never made it legal. Because alcohol has been on the rez here an area where our people totally misuse it and as a result have damaged our people.

I know there is a statue now in D.C. Throughout the country when I travel I find that most tribes had a great deal of involvement in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, and not much recognition at all; Recognition to the respect that they served from a state or something like that--Our news reporter Jim Northrup, a veteran from Vietnam… I can think right off the top of my head of twenty people around this rez that have no recognition.

Well I’ve heard it said this way that most Indian people by virtue of their culture and their religion, believe that’s a must and that it’s something that you don’t really expect to get recognized for. You serve because you believe this is your land and that you fight for it. And I think that it’s a carryover from when the Indian tribes were fighting for their homeland after the coming of the Pilgrims. They even fought other tribes for it because they were being bottlenecked. As I was saying that the Ojibwa people believe that this is their country and homeland, when it’s being invaded or jeopardized there is no thought given; we will serve to protect our homeland. There’s not much recognition for Indian involvement in any of those wars. It’s just kind of you to serve cuz you know that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Every time there is an honor song at a ceremony, I’m proud to dance that honor song for vets because I’m one of the fortunate ones who returned safely, and I always think about those who did not return as I dance the vet song. And no matter where I am I get up and proudly make at least one round of the drum for the Veteran Song.

There are a lot of Vietnam vets that are dead now. They survived the war but didn’t survive the peace. I heard National stats that say that more Vietnam vets have killed themselves than are inscribed on that wall in Washington. I’ve heard of vets killing themselves at the wall; joining their buddies, I guess, except their names will never be on that wall. I think [POWs and MIAs are] a continuation of the same problem. In all wars; WWI, WWII, and Korea, there were prisoners that weren’t returned. It’s a continuation of the same problem. I don’t like the official government policy that says there aren’t any more. It’s like the official government policy not to recognize Red China; there’s billions of people just saying they don’t exist, they’re not recognizing them. So I think the government is not recognizing that there are POWs over there; I believe there are.

[As for healing oneself,] I’ve talked to medicine men about it. I’ve talked to other vets about it. And like I said earlier, whatever trail you take coming back from the war, you have to decide for yourself. I’m sure for some people a spiritual ceremony alone is enough. And other people need rap sessions with other vets; some people might need hospitalization…whatever trail… kind of brings me back to my early childhood as I listened to my grandmother talk about the involvement of Ojibwa people with the other tribes people in this area as they were forced into the same homeland which happened to be the Sioux. There was a conflict as a result of that between the Ojibwa and the Sioux right at the Minneapolis-St. Paul area; what we now call Minnetonka. The clash caused the Ojibwa to run the Sioux out of the area. And it seems like in some cases, I believe the reason that happened was that the Ojibwa people were exposed to fur trade long before the Sioux were. And the Ojibwa being victorious in that battle talk about what happened there. It’s common in the circles of Indian talk where a person sort of brags about his adventures, and it was told in Ojibwa that after the battle this gentleman expended so many arrows and so many bullets, and his tracks are all over the hill. So you might say the guy was telling a war story about how involved he was in that battle. I remember that quite clearly as told to my mother from her grandmother. But I think if we talk about the wars there, after the involvement and conflict, the Ojibwa people were first of all a peaceful people. But when the country was being threatened by outside influences, as I can remember WWII told to me by my parents, my uncles, my father, my father’s friends all served in those encounters. And the people, as they returned to the Rez, didn’t get much of a welcome even as far back as WWI, WWII. I remember as a child at home seeing three stars in the window of my home indicating three brothers and many of their friends, uh, there hasn’t been much of an acknowledgement of that involvement of Indian people in wars.

Pat Northrup's Father
(Jim's Father-in-law)

I personally served in the Korean conflict and was in U.S. Navy for six years and was honorably discharged at that time. I don’t know if anyone recognized that fact other than giving me a piece of paper saying I was discharged from the Navy. I do recall the situation in Vietnam because I was very close to beginning when I was discharged. I was discharged in ’57 and the Vietnam conflict began shortly thereafter. Those young men and women that returned to the Rez, they went unrecognized, except in probably some events; meaning traditional ceremonies. But as far as being recognized by the community or communities; they were totally unrecognized. I think it’s unfortunate because Ojibwa people are very patriotic. We are in the near future going to get pictures of the people who served in different campaigns, in different battles, and put those individuals’ names, whether they are living or deceased, in the tribal headquarters, so that we can here (from a reservation standpoint) recognize those individuals. I don’t know what more can be said how the Rez recognizes these men who served “spiritually;” I don’t know that I have a right to say that.

Pat Northrup
(Jim’s Wife)

I just come to realize how much my father was effected, how much he carried, how much responsibility he carried with him, and not wanting his family to be burdened with it. My dad was real gentle. He played with us kids, went sliding with, and all this. And when I think about my father now and as we grew up, and the respect he always had at powwows; he was always the first one there when they had flag raisings ceremonies. He was just so proud to be a veteran. I know I’ve seen him with tears in his eyes, and I think now the tears that he had in his eyes were from the responsibilities from what he experienced. And I think those responsibilities if he could have, like teachings, if he could have passed those on, it would have helped; not just himself, but it would have helped the whole family understand what he was going through. We could have helped, but we didn’t know. We didn’t know because he was real quiet; he chose to carry that himself.

Having known Jim before, as compared to now, it was like he was, like how my dad was before, when he didn’t share that much. And now, through the years of dealing with the different areas in his life and how the Vietnam War affected him and how he is able to be proud, be proud to have had those experiences, having teachings that he can help others and help families to understand really what’s happening inside. And I think that’s what I meant by saying, by looking at ourselves, our own weaknesses, and facing them right on, and that being a strength; I guess it’s kind of like an open wound. Just to be going through the healing process and knowing the scar is still there, but yet it doesn’t hurt as much; it’s kind of like that.

On Being an Indian Marine

I’m not Crazy Horse
I’m not Sitting Bull
I’m not Ira Hayes
I’m me.
Being called Chief
is not an honor
like you think.
“Hey, do you know this guy
we called him Chief
he was Choctaw, Cherokee
Cheyenne or something.”
I’m not a code talker
your schools robbed
me of the language
I used to have.
I’m no braver nor
more of a coward
than you.
When I took the
green uniform off
I could be Indian again.

 

Walking Point

With his asshole puckered up tight,
the Marine was walking light,
He was hunting men,
who were hunting him.

His rifle was in perfect order,
he wasn't - fear, fear of not feeling fear,
the heat, mud, and mosquitoes
all addled his brain housing group
as he walked and thought along.

Thou shalt not kill,
that stuff didn't work here,
God must have stayed back
in the real world.

Is any of this real?
Is this a green nightmare
I'm going to wake up from?

He sang to himself as
his senses gathered evidence
of continued existence

His eyes saw, his ears heard,
his heart felt a numb nothing,
his mind analyzed it all
as he studied the trail

He amused himself as he walked along
the old story about bullets, Ha.
Don't sweat the one that's got your
name on it, worry about the one addressed:
To Whom It May Concern.

On another level his mind churned with
Rifle, M-14, Caliber 7.62 mm, a gas operated,
magazine fed, air cooled, semi-automatic,
shoulder weapon.
Weight-12 pounds with 20 rounds
Sustained Rate of Fire-30 rounds per minute
Effective range-460 meters
or, Hand Grenade, M-26,
and so on and on and on.

Movement!, something is moving up there!
Drop to the mud, rifle pointing at the unknown,
Looks like two of them, hunting him.
They have rifles but he saw them first.
The Marine Corps takes over,
Breathe, Relax, Aim, Slack, Squeeze.

The shooting is over in five seconds,
the shakes are over in a half hour,
the memories are over, never.

 

The Duke

"Hold up on that patrol,
we got a chopper coming in."
Good, no reason to stand
so we all sat down.
The slapping sound of the rotor
blades told us a landing was near.
Two gunships went over
looking for danger to the
chopper they were escorting
It landed, they walked in our direction.
Starched jungle utilities, spitshined boots, shiny
rank insignia
told us these were rear echelon Marines.
They surrounded a large green clad man,
"It's John Fucking Wayne," one grunt said.
The Duke centered himself in the circle of men,
Smiling, posing for pictures and signing autographs.
He was enjoying himself until the Indian patrol leader
invited him for a walk with the grunts.
The Duke patted his ample belly and said, "Heh, heh, heh,
I'll leave that to you professionals."
John Fucking Wayne, who killed Indians by the dozens
with his movie sixshooter, refused.
The ranking officers looked at the disrespectful Marines
Court martials and other punishments filtered through
their rear echelon brains.
The grunts looked back with:
"What cha gonna do? Cut my hair and send me to Vietnam?
I'm already here, maybe for the rest of my life."
The Duke looked troubled when he saw the killing
etched in the eyes of the grunts.
More killing than he had seen in a quarter century
of movie killing
The Duke gave some excuse about lung cancer
and was excused from the rest of the war.
Derisive laughter lifted the chopper away
from the young
grunts
"What a pussy, wouldn't even go on a little walk with us."

 

Shrinking Away

Survived the war, but was
having trouble surviving
the peace, couldn't sleep
more than two hours
was scared to be
without a gun.
Nightmares, daymares
guilt and remorse
wanted to stay drunk
all the time.
1966 and the V.A. said
Vietnam wasn't a war.
They couldn't help, but
did give me a copy of
the yellow pages.
Picked a shrink off
the list. 50 bucks an
hour, I was making 125
a week. Spent six
sessions establishing
rapport, heard about his
military life,
his homosexuality,
his fights with his mother
and anything else he wanted
to talk about.
At this rate, we would have
got to me in 1999.
Gave up on that shrink
couldn't afford him and he
wasn't doing me any good.
Six weeks later my shrink
killed himself. Great.
Not only guilt about the
war but new guilt about
my dead shrink.
If only I had a better job,
I could have kept on
seeing him.
I thought we were making
real progress, maybe in another
six sessions, I could have
helped him.
I realized then that surviving
the peace was up to me.

 

Wall Thoughts

I don't like loud music
someone can sneak up on you

I don't like my back exposed
someone can sneak up on you

I don't like physical touch
Is it a hug or knife attack?

I don't like crowds
the one-grenade-will-get-you-all thought

I don't like rain
someone can sneak up on you

I don't like night time
that's when they sneak up on you

I don't like to kill
when it becomes boring, you are not human

I don't like emotional closeness
that's when they die and leave you

I don't like choppers
they remind me of death

I don't like gooks
Once an enemy, always an enemy

I do like loud music
it crowds the memories out

I do like my back exposed
I'm aching to trust again

I do like physical touch
I'm craving it

I do like crowds
to prove I'm just one of them

I do like rain
It's almost back to being a good thing again

I do like night time
that's when I can sneak up on you

I do like to kill
it means I'm still alive

I do like emotional closeness
see, I'm almost normal

I do like choppers
they remind me of life

I don't like gooks
I'm still working on that

 

Quarter Century Ago

What's it like to be an aging warrior,
a graying grunt
the body catching up to your old man eyes
it means feeling pain that started
with a bang 25 years ago
the pain of watching a foxhole friend
get blown to shit right in front of you
The explosion drills into your memory
we didn't know it then but
we were making fuel for flashbacks
Haven't killed anyone in almost 25 years,
more importantly, I've wanted to but didn't
Look around, how many know what it
feels like to stand up and say fuck it
in the middle of a fucking firefight
How many know the crack....boom sound
of someone shooting at you?
How many realize that someone missed
There is pride in knowing you could
do it again, if you really had too
But, let's not do that war thing again