Letters to the Editor

• I almost did not read the article. Why? Pain.

  [Read the article: The killing of Jamie Dean]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I live in western Maryland. For seven years I roamed post-Nam as If I was walking off the planet. My parents, most of the time, did not know if I was alive or dead, or where to send flowers to their walking "dead" son.

  Of course they understood the best they could. I believe in some respects my parents suffered worst than me. I had no idea I had a severe dose of PTSD and didn't know what the killer-monster was...supposed to act like?

  ...the day my Mother died she said many wonderful things to me that are deeply personal. What I love her the most were these precious words of deep Understanding. "I realized (me) you always loved your Father and me. Please forgive yourself. The war was so painful for all of us." She took away some irrational guilt. Thanks mom and dad.

  P.S. Those words were spoken to me on her death-day after I delivered letters of grievances to former Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes office about crooked lawyers and predator real estate coverups. O, what a story I'd not tell today. The Congress doesn't give a hoot. Thieves murder.

  __

  Upon arrival in Vietnam there was a fenced area...some soldiers were departing for the USA. Some drafted recruits, such as me, were arriving at the airport terminal tarmac comming to the filthy war. I walked over to the fence to ask those soldiers going stateside after their tour of duty, "What's it like here?"

  Instantly, my gut shrivled and I began to feel like a old grey head witherd man. Something the soldiers had eyewitnessed had warped, twisted, marred, and in some words beyond a language I Understood Then...was HORRIBLE beyond language. I felt it in the gut. After seven months in jungle warfare (We were not barbaric as in some circumstance/situations...we just wanted to survive) a grenade blast severed my right lower calf. My left leg was shattered and the flesh hung down upon my boot like a red bannana peel skin.

  I feel the sting of the blast today like the blast-smack concussion happened a few minutes ago (hyperbole to convey my point).

  But you know what was the most horrible thing? Not that hot metal severed limbs and bodies bloated and decayed. You want to know the greatest HURT? The greatest PAIN was that a government would betray young and naive recruits who lacked discretion. What was the most terrible sense...FEAR!

  That a government would put other's into such FEARFUL atmosphere and wave, meet and greet you at a parade, and go give medals to recruit more fodder victims. FEAR the LIE. FEAR is the most HORRIBLE emotion.

  I traveled off one day after a eve at a innocent gathering of peers post-war. The questions were awkward. One eve, a few days later, in a meeting parking lot were youth gather to mutually decide, "What we gonna-all do tonight?" Who's house?

  Then: A loud noise of metal banging a brick-wall trigered my hyper-vigilant startle-survival-respone...I was down on the ground yelling to others, "Get down!" Get Down!" They thought I was 'flipped' and weird. "Vietnam f'ed Art James's head up real bad," I was begining to hear that via the proverbial grape vines. Pain. They could not know or understand. How could they?

  Go to war. Know!

  No. No go to war.

  Permalink Wednesday, September 5, 2007 09:30 AM