since 7/31/98
In the summer of 1966, right after graduating from Alhambra High School, in Alhambra, CA, I turned 18 and joined the United States Marine Corps. I enlisted for four years on an Aviation guarantee, because I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t want to be a grunt in the Corps. In August of 1968, three days before my twentieth birthday, my Squadron, VMFA-334, shipped out for Vietnam. I was one of the lucky ones in that I went to Vietnam as part of a unit.
My first night in country, 30 August 1968, we were greeted by a massive rocket attack, and for the first time in my life I was scared to death; afraid of what I’d gotten myself into and afraid of dying. I soon learned that fear would become part of the territory and if I were going to keep myself out of a straightjacket, I would have to figure out some way of dealing with it. As the days wore on and the unexplainable became the ‘normal’, I learned that the easiest way to ‘deal’ with it was to ‘numb out’. At first the numbing was done with alcohol, then with drugs, then you learned to shut your emotions down and not ‘feel’ anything. After only 17 days in country, I learned to shut my emotions down and I did it so well that it took 25 years to turn them back on again.
We had just lost our first aircraft in the South China Sea off the end of the runway in Da Nang. I watched it go in and when I went to report it, I was told to grab my gear because I was going out to guard it. I tried to explain to the OD that I was a Jet Engine Mechanic and he reminded me that in the Corps, I was a Rifleman first and everything else second. When we arrived at the crash sight, we discovered that the aircraft’s radar had been ejected and ended up on the beach after hitting and killing a 12 and 14 year old girl. We were told to pick up the pieces and stuff them in bags. Well, the body parts and aircraft parts were not all that I stuffed that day. I adopted the well known phrase of many Vets, “It don’t mean nothin’!”
During the remaining 13 months of my Vietnam tour, I experienced many things, which helped to continue the downward spiral into emotional numbness and depression. I was more fortunate than the 58,213 whose names are on the ‘Wall’, or was I? They paid the ultimate price for doing what their country had asked, but those of us who survived had to come home and try to deal with the anger of a nation, and the anger inside. Many of us had so successfully shut our emotions down that we continued on, almost like robots, doing what was needed to survive and not caring what anyone thought or said. We learned how to survive in Vietnam. We learned how to read the land and to detect ‘the enemy’. We became adept at reading the situation, figuring out what was needed and then accomplishing the objective. For the most part we came home and blended back into society, not necessarily because we wanted to, but because we had to. We learned quickly that it wasn’t popular to be know as a Vietnam Veteran, so we didn’t let others know that we were. We got so good at hiding out that soon not even other Vietnam Veterans knew who we were.
One thing I have learned over the years, is that if you’ve experienced a trauma and have not dealt with it completely, you can only keep the emotions in check for a period of time. It may take 25, 30 or 50 years, but sooner or later you’re going to have to face those demons and deal with the pain, or you aren’t going to ever be whole again.
For me dealing with the pain started in November of 1990, as things began heating up for the Gulf War. As it became more and more apparent that we would be sending troops into that conflict, I started seeing the war protesters coming out and I vowed to do whatever I could to make sure that the GI’s who went to the Gulf wouldn’t get treated the way we were. At the same time, two days before Thanksgiving, I was on my way home from work when I passed the Vietnam Veterans ½-Scale Memorial Wall on display at the Federal Building in Redondo Beach. I learned that it is also known as the ‘Traveling Wall’ and the ‘Moving Wall’, I was soon to learn how ‘Moving’ it truly was. As I passed it I thought it was time I stop and see what all this ‘Vietnam Stuff’ was about. The next day, I drove to the ‘Wall’ and as I approached it I felt as if I were being drawn into it. As if I fit more into the ‘Wall’ than I did in the life I was ‘living’ since I left Vietnam. I searched for the names of my friend on the ‘Wall’ and interestingly, I couldn’t remember any of their names except for one, Capt. Richard A. Deleidi. He was my OIC and was lost when his aircraft went down after being hit by enemy fire on 7 February 1969. We had a memorial service for him in Vietnam and yet I never felt at peace with his loss, as we were never able to recover the wreckage or his body. At the ‘Wall’ that day were some guys from a POW/MIA Group known as Task Force Omega, they had a listing of the 2300+ men who were still missing and when I saw Capt. Deleidi’s name on that list, something inside me snapped. I didn’t know at the time, but it was a good snap. A snap that has put me back on the right path, a path to healing and forgiveness.
Since that day I have joined with a group known as Point Man International Ministries (PMIM), a Christian outreach for Vets by Vets. Through PMIM I have been helped to see that God did not go AWOL in Vietnam, He was there with each of us each day through each horror. I realized that I survived Vietnam so that I could be used by God, to help other veterans work through the pain and loss that they are suffering with. The VA will tell you that Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) is incurable and can only be ‘handled’ with drugs. PMIM showed me how through the blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ, Vets can be cleansed and healed from PTS. In the years since I first faced my demons at the ‘Wall’, God has brought me through many things. He has allowed me to be used to minister to hurting vets I come in contact with. I wish I could say that everyone is a success story, but I have learned that you can only help those who want to be helped. I have spent many nights in tears and prayer, with other brothers, trying to show vets there is another way beside suicide. Some have listened.
Since 1991 I have been an outpost leader with Point Man Antelope Valley (PMAV), an Outpost of PMIM, helping Vets in whatever way possible. I am also a life member of the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) Chapter 355, ‘The Lost Patrol’, in Santa Clarita, CA, and am serving as their Chaplain. I am also a member of the Marine Corps League, Detachment 930, in Lancaster, CA. I know God has other things He wants to use me for to help other vets.
The most exciting thing God has done is something I know only He could have done. On August 30, 1998, thirty years to the day after I first set foot in Vietnam, God took me back there! It wasn’t in a flashback, a trip I had made on other occasions. It was with a PMIM Tactical Team, Open Hands & Hearts. We went to minister to our former enemies and to provide whatever support we could to the hurting people of Vietnam, especially in the leper colonies and orphanages. I know it was God who did that because when I left Vietnam in September of 1969, I swore that I would never set foot in that country again. Through this and many other experiences I have been able to find peace with my past and put Vietnam behind me. Thank you, Jesus!
I would echo the words of “Chris” as he is being med-evac’d out of the firebase at the end of the movie “Platoon,” by Oliver Stone, and to me they sum up my thoughts on war, especially Vietnam:
“THE WAR IS OVER FOR ME NOW, BUT, IT WILL ALWAYS BE THERE, FOR THE REST OF MY DAYS…”
“THOSE OF US WHO DID MAKE IT HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO BUILD AGAIN. TO TEACH TO OTHERS WHAT WE KNOW, AND TO TRY WITH WHAT IS LEFT OF OUR LIVES, TO FIND A GOODNESS AND MEANING TO THIS LIFE.”
I would but add that, that “goodness and meaning” comes only through Jesus Christ and I pray that God will continue to use PMIM & PMAV to show my Brothers-in-Arms the way to become my brothers-in-Christ.
So yes, the ‘Moving Wall’ has a strange ability to help vets find healing, but whether they believe it or not, the true ability comes only from the Creator of all things. I look forward to spending time at the ‘Wall’ when it comes to Lancaster. I now find peace there and I find myself looking for vets who are like what I used to be, who feel more at home at the ‘Wall’ than they do in America. My prayer is that when the ‘Wall’ comes to Lancaster that many veterans, as well as friends and family of vets and of those whose names are on the ‘Wall’, will come and make peace with their past too.
EMAIL George
Point Man International Ministries
since 7/31/98