Guilt

Guilt was easy growing up a good Catholic boy as it came with the territory. Now that I am older I realize a lot of the guilt I carried was not justified. I am better able to identify those things I really should feel guilty about and wish I could change the things driving that guilt. Some I can change to a positive where “It’s not too late”, like my family and kids.

However, nothing can ever compare to the guilt I continue to carry from my service in Vietnam. I have continually beaten myself up for things that happened or didn’t happen and I always want to take full responsibility for them. Some of those are:

Why wasn’t I a grunt? Seeing the wounded day after day made me feel so ashamed that I was there working in a hospital and not out in the bush. Why should they be the ones?

Why couldn’t I understand the wounded GI I was getting ready to put onto a chopper who was going to be on an air-evac to Japan. It didn’t matter that he could barely speak or get words our or that the chopper noise was deafening, it was my fault. Why couldn’t I have done better at listening and caring for him? Even today I see him lying on the litter trying to get me to understand and becoming more and more frustrated. My telling him he was going to be ok only made matters worse. Why didn’t I do better?

Why didn’t I fight with the doctors when severely wounded GI’s were only being made as comfortable as possible? Why didn’t I speak up? They talked with me about it, that he was dying and they could do nothing for him. But why didn’t I push harder, why didn’t I make them do something, take him to surgery, heal him and make him well?

Why didn’t I get them into the hospital sooner from the chopper? If I had maybe the GI would have lived. Why didn’t I work harder and longer? Why did I let myself fail?

And most of all, why wasn’t I killed? Why did so many of my brothers die and go home in a box? Any yet, I came back to the world on a plane, uninjured?

There are so many more things I feel guilty and ashamed about. The Vet Center has helped but I know in my heart that this and my experience in Vietnam is burned into my being and will always be with me my whole life. I know in my heart that I did my very best for them, but the guilt remains. Never a day goes by that I don’t remember my brothers and they are always in my prayers. You will never be forgotten.