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VIETNAM SURVIVAL GUILT
Submitted by: Douglas R. Haney
September 7th marked the 40th
anniversary of my one-year tour in South Vietnam as a U.S. Army combat
Medic. I don't know if anyone can identify with this, or if it is just
me, but I've been plagued by the intrusive replaying of this
life-changing event all year long. Arriving "in Country," I was
just short of my 20th birthday. In fact, I remember silently
celebrating it on October 1st, 1968, by sitting at a table by myself in a
dark corner of the room; beer in hand, waiting to go back into emergency
surgery should the need arise, and thereafter back to my official morgue
detail assignment. My first birthday ever away from home was spent
in the 1st Infantry Division's "Dr. Delta" field hospital NCO Club in
Ben Cat, northwest of Saigon.
While sitting there starring down at my beer and
pondering my wearily anticipated "short-time" future, I couldn't help
but think of my best friends from Advanced Individual Training (AIT),
both of which also graduated out of the Medical Training Center (MTC) at
Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio a short month earlier. I wondered
where they were assigned and how well they were adjusting. Two
months later in reading a copy of the military's Stars and Stripes
newspaper I was horrified to learn the fate of one of them. The
paper listed PFC John Edwin Lutze, 20, of Flint, Michigan as "Killed in
Action." He was assigned to D-Co., 2nd BN, 22nd Infantry, 25th
Infantry Division. Years after the war I discovered that John,
along with three other members of his unit were killed in a firefight on
November 8, 1968, 17 kilometers southeast of Tay Ninh City.
Posthumously, he was awarded a Silver Star medal, the third highest
offered by our nation for bravery above and beyond the call of duty.
Of the three of us, John was the one who was most "worldly." By his
own admission, he had lived a fast paced life for a single young man
prior to entering the service, and he was at times both careless, and
carefree. It did not surprise me then, that he was heroic in the
field. Somehow, I had premonitions that if stationed in the field,
John would never make it out of Vietnam alive. Though word of his
death was a shock none-the-less. It was a tragic moment in my life
that has to this very day, affected me deeply. John was a
remarkable soldier, and to me, it was a if I had lost a blood brother.
The day before we left our temporary transport quarters
at the Oakland Naval Base on September 6, 1968, the three of us, John
Lutze, myself, and my very best friend, with the same birth date as
mine, Michel Harold Flood of Toledo, had pledged to meet post-Vietnam at
this same base in reunion. Of course, with John's death, that
would never be. However, one day in late August, I received a
letter from Michel's mother. This came as a complete surprise as I
was totally unaware that she even knew who I was. Her letter
began... "Dear Douglas: I know that you were a great friend of
my son Michel as he often spoke very highly of you. I hope this
letter finds its way to you as I had to contact our local Army
recruiting office in order to have it channeled somehow to you in
Vietnam. I hope you are safe and well. I wanted you to know
that our son Michael, serving with the 101st Airborne was killed..."
Cont. in the next column►►►
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Vietnam Survival Guilt, cont.
I was not able to read
the rest of her letter before breaking down into a sobbing mass
of despair. I don't remember every finishing it as out of
everything I had endured in Vietnam, now a seasoned combat Medic
having braved several firefights against both Viet Cong and
North Vietnamese Regular Army enemy insurgents with A Co.,
1/61st 5th Mechanized Infantry Division, this perhaps was the
ultimate blow to my greatly traumatized mental state.
Michael H. Flood was extremely intelligent; a born leader.
Out of the three of us, I expected that I would die once in the
field, but never, ever, did I consider that I would be the sole
survivor. My return from Vietnam was not a pleasurable
one, and for years thereafter I needed to know how and why Michael
had died, and I didn't. It was extremely distracting in my
life, and left me with a feeling of total remorse. For
years I felt as if I had cheated death; that, I should have been
the one to die not Michael, due to all the foolish things I did,
and unnecessary chances I took, during my tour of duty.
Thereafter, never felt heroic. Nor did I feel that I was
worthy of having survived. Stateside, this translated into
years of feeling inferior and guilty. It has only been in
the past two years, since 2006 that I ever have pursued in any
manner a Bronze Star with Valor medal that had been officially
promised by my former Company Commander after a major battle
fought in Khe Sanh one long night in April of 1969.
It wasn't until nearly 37 years later by sheer
coincidence, that a great friend a post-military soul brother
Don Harper, a former Marine in Vietnam, and at the time serving
as Executive Director of the South Sacramento California Vietnam
Veteran's Resource Center, called me out of the blue to invite
me our to the Center to meet a former Army Captain Phil
Robinson. In 1969, then Lt. Robinson was also on Hamburger
Hill (or otherwise classified as Hill 937) at or about the time
our small contingent group was there. As we spoke, the
subject of my quest to find information about Sp-4, combat Medic
Michael Flood surfaced, and had he ever perhaps come across him
while serving with the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry.
Somewhat bewildered, Mr. Robinson asked me if I believed in
"de'jevau"? I asked, "Why? Do you believe you have seen me
before in a dream or something"? "Or, perhaps you somehow
remember me from some reason up on Hamburger Hill"? His
response to this literally floored me. "Yes, your face is
familiar. However, Michael Flood was my medic; I was his
commanding officer in the field the day he was killed."
Then, without further response, he produced a file from his
briefcase with information he had been carrying around with him
for years as if longing for the opportunity and dedicated to
this moment in time. This chance meeting suddenly became
so surreal that my friend Don Harper remarked."...that the hair
on his arms and neck were standing straight up as if a ghost had
suddenly entered the room!" I was totally both shocked and
elated to the degree, that for the moment, time practically
stood still and immediately my mind, body, and spirit drifted
back to a time long ago as tears filled my eyes. In this
file were Michael's last known letter to his mother, pictures,
field reports, and many other items pertaining to his service on
the field. Cont. on Page 8►►►
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