“I hate to see kids coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with post traumatic stress disorder, just as I came back from my second tour in Vietnam in 1969. One of my pals described the military’s prejudice toward men and women with PTSD as ‘lepers without lesions.’ Harsh, but apt.”
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“Looking back, we were a bunch of kids flown half way around the globe to kill or be killed and taught to hate an enemy whose nation we had invaded. Now that sounds damn familiar today, doesn’t it? Hate came easy under fire. We killed because we wanted to survive.”
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“When I returned for my second tour nothing had changed. Same body bags and body counts - dead bodies swelling grotesquely in that brutal heat waiting to be picked up – wounded screaming in pain – same mass killing – same fear of being killed – same madness.”
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“A veteran returning from battle wants to go home – not to some damned hospital – so when the doc asks, ‘How are you feeling, soldier?’ the answer is, ‘just fine, sir, just fine.’ But too often he isn’t fine. He’s damned angry, sleeping fitfully – haunted by nightmares – unable to concentrate – maybe doing drugs and drinking too much.”
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