Beyond the Battlefield: A Soldier’s Hidden War
From Homefront Struggles to the Vietnam Warfront
When I volunteered to serve in South Vietnam in my early twenties, I thought I knew what I was signing up for. I wanted to fight communism, which my generation had been taught was a threat to the world. Black-and-white cowboy films had also taught me that the good guys always won in the end.
There was another attraction: the pay. We were offered roughly three times our normal salary. As a newly married man, I saw a chance to help my wife and me buy a house and a piece of land.
Patriotism, adventure, and money all played a part. What I didn’t understand then was that I was carrying something else into that war: anger from my childhood that I had never learned to deal with.
The Boy Standing by the Road
My father was a problem drinker at the time, and I witnessed him accusing my mother of things I believed she had not done.
One day, my mother could no longer bear it. She began packing her belongings into cardboard boxes and placing them along the road in front of our house.
I can still picture the scene. Each time she put a box outside, my father hurried out and brought it back in. She continued packing, and he continued returning the boxes.
Both my parents cared for me and my brother, but that didn’t make their arguments any easier to witness. I was too young to understand their marriage. I only knew that my mother was hurting, and I felt angry about the way she was being treated.
The argument eventually ended, but the memory stayed with me. I wonder now whether I carried that anger into adulthood without realising it.
Expecting a War, Finding Another Mission
I had trained for special forces service and expected to see combat in Vietnam. Instead, my unit was assigned to civic action, helping local communities. Our orders were to fight back only if fired upon first.
I was disappointed. I had imagined something more adventurous, perhaps influenced by those cowboy films and years of lessons about communism.
Looking back, I can see how little I understood about myself at that age. I was eager to fight an enemy overseas, yet I hadn’t dealt with the feelings I had carried since childhood.
Thirteen Minutes Outside the Base Camp
I married at twenty and was still learning how to manage the responsibilities of adult life.
During military training, I sometimes found myself questioning orders that demanded considerable physical or mental effort. I knew they were legitimate, but something inside me resisted.
Get Ino’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Then I did something that went beyond questioning orders.
One night, I left my bunker during curfew to visit my local girlfriend, who lived thirteen minutes away by “xeloi” (motorised tricycle).
I was caught, and my rank was stripped to the lowest level.
I accepted the punishment because I knew I had broken the rules. Still, I privately felt it was harsh.
I don’t tell this story to excuse myself. I was a soldier, and discipline mattered. But at eighty, I find myself asking why I took that risk.
Was it youthful foolishness? Was I rebelling against authority? Did my childhood have anything to do with it?
I can’t say for certain. Perhaps I simply wanted my own way. That possibility deserves consideration, too.
Why I Still Write
The years passed, but the memories didn’t always stay where I had left them.
Last year, my GP told me I was suffering from severe depression. After six sessions with a psychologist, I’m still trying to understand myself better.
There is also the question of my health. Over the years, I’ve come to believe that chemical exposure during my patrols in the forests of South Vietnam may have contributed to some of my physical ailments and difficulties. I cannot say how much it explains, but knowing about that exposure has added another layer to my memories of the war.
Eventually, I began writing my memoir, Other Side of the Turning Door. I wasn’t trying to portray myself as a hero or pretend that I’d always made the right decisions. I wanted to put my experiences into words, including the ones that still hurt.
Finishing the book didn’t end the process. More memories came back, and I found myself writing personal essays about them. Some people might wonder why I bother. My memoir isn’t selling well, and my stories in Medium earn me nothing.
But I’m not writing for the money.
I’ve carried feelings for decades, including heartaches and disappointments over things I hoped to achieve but never quite did. Writing gives me a chance to bring those feelings into the open and examine them. Sometimes I understand a little more. Sometimes I end up with more questions.
That’s all right. I don’t expect every story to solve a problem.
At my age, I can’t change the young man I was or go back and make different choices. I can only try to understand him.
Perhaps that’s why I keep writing. Not to win an argument with the past, but to stop carrying everything in silence.
If someone reads my stories and finds something familiar in them, that’s a bonus. If nobody does, I’ll still have a reason to write.
Sometimes, putting a painful memory into words is enough to make it a little easier to carry.
