THAT WHICH REMAIN IN MEMORY

We obliterated the words forgiveness, redemption, and salvation from our language. We would never find deliverance from the things we did and witnessed. The events were irredeemable and ours to carry for all time.

The incidents occurring in the war would forever bring regret, remorse, and depression. It became an incurable illness that could not be out-run, out-trained, out-medicated, or outlived. The name was PTSD, but it did not adequately describe the mental and physical pain it caused.

We came to see the images in our dreams as night terrors. It brought anger at a moment’s notice. And it made us intolerant of others and of those we cared. We turned to alcohol and drugs to lessen the effects without success.

Some took their lives; others became homeless. For those of us who survived, we deserved better. And yet our fellow citizens condemned us for answering America’s call to duty. We did not understand and would never understand. And that, too, was Vietnam.

Jerry Glazer — Vietnam Uncensored

Click here and don’t forget to read the first chapter at vietnamjerry.com and listen to the NPR broadcast of Cpl. Cummings’s ghost story.