Humanities & Classics 3270
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Sixties Forum
Humanities & Classics 3270 |
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At first I didn't think that I wanted to share my father's story and experience of vietnam on the board because, everyone has heard stories about vietnam, then I realized his experience has a lot to do with who I am today.
Here goes. My father graduated high school in 1966, although he didn't pick up his diploma because, high school just wasn't his "thing". After high school he figured he would end up in jail so he volunteered to go to vietnam and enlisted in the marines. In 1968 he went to vietnam at the beginning of an escalating war, the tet offense. he didn't really know why he was actually there but, it seemed at first to be better than jail. Then began the fighting and grim realities of what war was going to be like. After many weeks of fighting and being in the bush he began to ask himself just what exactly he had gotten himself into. (I am trying to be very short and blunt) Then the unimaginable happened. It was a typical night in the bush, heavy fighting. Then sometime during the night, which isn't easily remembered, the ambush happened. In a blizzard of bullets,land mines and bombs my father was shot,not once but around 15 times. The worst was not being shot it was what to follow that would wound him for the rest of his god-given life. His platoon had left and fallen back. He was left for dead at the age of 20. Through the next few hours he laid in his own blood, sweat and tears. It was a routine operation for the enemy to sweep an area after an ambush to check for survivors. My father was checked to see if he was alive. he was poked with guns to see if he was alive because, if you are they would shoot you a few more times to make sure you were dead. My father played dead pretty well. Then a twist of fate came. One of the members of his platoon was sent back into the area to look for any survivors and stumbbled onto my father. As my father was being taken back to camp the man who had saved him and risked his own life to come and get my father was shot and killed. He doesn't remember to much more after that. He arrived in okanawa where he was to have his leg amputated and rehabilitate, his body anyway. This is where the horrors of war really began to sink in. He was one of the five left alive out of his platoon and, why him? From okanawa he was transfered back to Washington D.C. to finsh rehabilitation at the V.A. hospital. Although, by the time he was through the front gates of the V.A. hospital he was covered in spit by protestors of the war, the same war that had taken his leg, soul and spirt. After being discharged from the marines he finally went home. Going home was only going to be the beginning of another war. The only way that my father could begin to cope with the war was turn to the easiest thing that he thought would heal him, drugs and alcohol. The real downward spiral began. he remained a drug addict and alcoholic for close to ten years before he entered A.A. After a few years of sobreity he met my mother and her seven month old daughter,me. They were married four years later and I was adopted. Two years later my brother was born. My parents are still happily married to this day.
Growing up with a father who is a disabled vietnam vet and recovering alcoholic is an experience all in its self. It is hard for me to explain what a father I have since you don't live with him but, they say that god creates miracles and who better should know then me because, he is my father.