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Vietnam Flashbacks and Saga's
“My task, which I am trying to achieve, is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel- it is before all, to make you see.” Joseph Conrad
My first duty station was at the Oakland Naval Hospital, in Oakland, California, which was also called “Oak Knoll”. This was my first exposure to trauma. This facility treated veterans who had lost their arms and legs in the Vietnam War. They also fitted prostheses for these veterans. Many who were my age; their lives were changed forever. We also treated burns, blindness, loss of hearing, disfigurement, paraplegics and quadriplegics – you get the idea. I saw firsthand how these soldiers experienced the psychological, physical, and emotional trauma of combat.
Seeing these wounded soldiers made me realize the seriousness of this war. I knew that within a few months I would be leaving for Vietnam; Corpsmen were in high demand. (The naval recruiter didn’t tell me all the pitfalls of my enlistment). For several months at the hospital, I pondered the situation I was about to encounter. I did not want to be one of the casualties! I felt fear, apprehension, and loneliness; my whole life seemed out of control. It is weird, the thought of dying did not bother me as much as losing a limb or becoming disfigured. After leaving the hospital at Oakland after a year, I attended a five-week field Medical School Training at Camp Pendleton, CA. After graduation, we were bused to LAX in Los Angeles. We boarded a 707 Pan Am, Boeing aircraft. Our first hop was Okinawa, Japan. We were there for a couple of days, receiving our weapons, jungle fatigues, canteens, medical supplies etc. It was a 1500-mile flight to Vietnam. The C-130 was very noisy, due to the turboprop engines and cold from the high altitude. You could hardly hear a person next to you talk. If you did you had to yell. However, it really did not matter, because no one wants to talk anyway. Looking around at many of these young boys, I wondered what would become of them. How many of them will meet the Grim Reaper carrying his scythe? How many others would return to the world (USA) with empty sleeves or empty pant legs? And how many would return as empty shells? I spent a lot of time reminiscing about many things, as I am sure most of the other marines did. Who was I leaving behind, would I ever see my family again, would I lose a limb or become disfigured? I had seen so much of this at Oakland Naval Hospital, and I did not want to go home like that. I was also thinking about what we were headed for. What is war really like? What trauma am I going to face? How will I react when the “Corpsman-up” call is made? My nerves were already a wreck, and I was not even there yet. My life was upside down. I was a wreck and fighting depression. The 13-month tour was unimaginable. I was thinking, that is a lifetime. God, please help me.
Arriving at Vietnam I was an immature nineteen-year-old country boy who was naïve about the ways of the world. Coming into a war zone, I was so innocent and naïve. It was a culture shock beyond description. Everything I held sacred was shattered; life was turned upside down and my innocence was violently ripped away. In Vietnam, we saw and experienced things that we could never conceive of and could never truly communicate to someone who was not there. In the process, it created scares that never healed, you might say, “scars are the tattoos of the brave.” I relive these experiences through triggers, nightmares, daymares and flashbacks. Having a flashback or nightmare can end up complicating matters and even causing us more harm.
Dealing with PTSD has caused many problems in my life, one of those symptoms I suffer from is nightmares, and anxiety dreams. I have dealt with several different nightmares of my time in Vietnam, but a few of those nightmares replicates itself ninety percent of the time. Some of these nightmares are triggered by certain sounds, i.e. Helicopter flying over or automatic fire from certain weapons, a car backfiring, or Seeing battlefield trauma on TV. Talking about certain subjects. I have no doubt that subconsciously, I see or hear a trigger and do not realize that my mind picked it up, otherwise, why else would these thoughts come to mind, which brings on my nightmares?The strange thing about my nightmares is that they are always the exact same dream, with feelings, fright, and sensations to those experienced during the trauma. It reminds me of the movie, “Groundhog Days,” with Bill Murry, who becomes trapped in a time loop, forcing him to relive February 2nd repeatedly?
Sometimes my nightmares are weeks or months apart, depending on my outside activities or thoughts of the past. Even during the daytime hours If I go into one of my thousand-yard stares episodes and my mind focuses on a certain time in Vietnam, instantly I am back in Vietnam, as I was transported back in time, I can hear the sounds, smell the orders, and see what is happening as if I am a hologram. I can literally feel the pain. Time is irrelevant, it is as if I am in another dimension.
Each company was allotted six corpsmen, but most companies never had more than three at one time. Because corpsmen were running so many patrols there was a shortage. In Vietnam, 2,012 corpsmen were killed, and 4,565 received Purple Hearts, an honor that only 7/10 of one percent of those who served in Vietnam were awarded. Here is another interesting statistic. During the Vietnam War, there were 13,067 marines killed and 88,633 wounded; this was the reason corpsman kept so busy.
My baptism by fire happened on the first day I reported to our company. I no sooner got settled when a marine told me to report to a 12-man squad going on a search and destroy mission. Within two hours, we made contact with the Vietcong. Before the night was over, three times I heard the frightful words, "Corpsman Up". I treated two WIA's (Wounded-in-Action) and one KIA (Killed-In-Action). The root of war is fear, and I was in fear for my life. The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. I did not sleep well for the first few nights; I was anxious, scared, and confused. It was hard to imagine that life was going to be like this for the rest of my life, so it seemed. I have never told anyone this, but I cried the first few nights, I wanted to wake up from this dreadful nightmare. The thought of being 12,000 miles from home and 13 time zones away was frightening and unimaginable. I was in another world, a time of its own. And I think, only 391 more days before the magic carpet takes me home.
In the days that followed, I endured countless ambushes, search and destroy missions and operations that at times became petrifying. I went from boy to man overnight. At age 19, I witnessed atrocities that no one should witness at any age; it was a gruesome and horrifying experience! Emotionally, I was wounded for life. We walked daily in the rice paddy mud, and we stood in the rain to wash off the blood.
I supported the war when I first arrived in Vietnam but seeing grisly deaths seared my soul. So many Americans were dying and losing limbs. There was so little support for us at home. If only some of our politicians could look into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield. They would think hard before starting another war. "The truth is older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die." Herbert Hoover
The word “Vietnam” is a tragic icon that represents one of America's greatest failures. Was war worth the cost? Of course, I knew the answer. A big fat NO! Our war was not easy for us to fight. Each conflict brought its own challenges. We endured many hardships and faced many problems, many of them seemingly insurmountable. It was a war with few conventional military objectives. There was no war front to advance, very few regions to defend, not even a well-defined theatre in which to operate. The Vietnam conflict was a 360-degree war which encountered attacks, ambushes, and booby traps at any place or time.It is strange how a memory can be lost for sixty-years and suddenly out of nowhere a flashback can appear and you are back in Vietnam! I have written four books on the trauma I experienced in Vietnam, I thought there was nothing else I could write that would add to those stories. After all, one battle or one patrol in Vietnam was not much different than another, there was always killing, maiming and destroying. More than anything I did not want to be redundant in my writing. I think, however, that flashbacks are topic worth covering. Even though I have not written many stories for the past three years. However, only recently I have written three new stories.
I have always had flashbacks and nightmares from my time in Vietnam. These ghosts of the past are never far from my thoughts, even subconsciously. Most of my flashbacks are repeats or recurrences from prior nightmares. But this recent flashback was from an entirely different trauma. It is strange that I have not thought about it since 1967!
This flashback was spontaneous and probably only lasted a few seconds. I was involuntarily transported back in time. Even though it only lasted for a short time, however, a lot happened during that period. I was not only remembering the event, but I was also living it!! I was there surrounded by images, smells, sounds, feelings, and facts. The sad story is, “I don’t live in Vietnam, but Vietnam will always live in me.”
I asked myself, why did this event pop into my mind now? What triggered this memory? What bought it on? It was not something I had contemplated or considered; it just happened. I was sitting in my chair in the living room, resting from my morning walk, and nothing had distracted or bothered me. It was just a normal, typical day, but, from out of nowhere, it was there. Unpleasant thoughts are traumatic and very upsetting. There are no triggers that bring this on, it just happens.
Before I recount this flashback, let me give you some of my background. I suffer from Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder, or PTSD, which is a mental health condition characterized by witnessing and experiencing traumatic events from the Vietnam War. Common symptoms include nightmares, severe anxiety, flashbacks, depression, and uncontrollable thoughts. My PTSD was caused by combat exposure, but many of my symptoms occurred later in life.
The first rule of thumb when entering a war zone, “Do not make close friends!” for self-preservation. Chances of him being killed or wounded are highly likely. You already have enough to worry about. That is not to say, do not talk to anyone, you can be friends, just do not get close to them. Sometimes you cannot help it but knowing the outcome can be disastrous.
One example of what I am talking about happened to a couple of marines attached to our unit. The marine corps offered a recruiting program called the Buddy System. When a marine signed up for the corps, he had an option to join with a buddy. They were sworn into the corps together; for the rest of the tour, they stayed together. I am talking about boot camp, corps schools, corps stateside, and oversea duty were done together. We had two of these guys with our unit. They went to grade school, high school, ball teams together; they were remarkably close buddies.
As we were approaching a village, one of the two buddies was shot in the head; he died instantly! when I got to the dead marine his buddy was going ballistic! He was yelling, screaming, cursing; he was very much out of control, as you can guess. Instantly, he started running toward the village shooting his M-16 rifle. The rest of the marines followed suit, shooting at anything that moved. The carnage began! They all had their rifles on “rock’n’roll” firing, as we called it. In other words, weapons were on full-automatic.
I continued writing the casualty card and attached it to his fatigue shirt. All this time I heard a lot of guns firing. When I entered the village, I was in shock, I could not believe the carnage happening before my eyes. I will never forget what happened next. One of the marines shot an old man, he fell on the ground, he then tried to get up. The marine shot him a second time in the gut. He just looked at the marine, not saying a word. Then the marine said to the old man, “What does it take to kill you old man?” His face and eyes showed sorrow and shock; he was in disbelief. The marine then shot him a third time, and he finally died.
I turned the man over and he had a hole in his back that a fist could fit in. The sad part of all this is that I felt no remorse for these people. The marine buddy being killed was the straw that finalized the outcome of this situation. So many times, we go into or out of a village where VC shoots at us. Whether they are Viet Cong or Viet Cong sympathizer made no difference; they were all Vietcong, so we told ourselves.I got caught up in the melee and set fire to many of the grass huts. A while later, bullets started exploding due to the heat. The bullets were hidden in the grass walls of the village. It sounded like the Fourth of July, but we were not celebrating! When we left that village, there was nothing left. It ceased to exist. One thing I learned early on my tour was that the marines were trained to kill, and they were good at it.
For this event to be played out as it did, was not planned. It was just something that happened. War is war and you act accordingly. No grunt had an agenda for this situation. It got out of control as the marines acted independently. So many times, the Viet-Cong laid traps for us but were reluctant to engage in conventional warfare. The marines felt deprived of the opportunity for retaliation or payback. I have no doubt this was at the back of their minds. Or was Satan and his co-workers controlling the trauma? After all, we played in his playground.
After the trauma ended, we scanned the village and saw dead bodies, water buffalo’s, chickens, etc. the village grass huts were all burned, in other words, it was completely obliterated!
After a while, we heard the whoop-whoop-whoop of the Huey arriving for the medevac. Green smoke was thrown indicating where the medevac was to take place. The body that was killed was lying on the ground awaiting transport. Some of us stood together overlooking the body in grief, acknowledging our human loss. However, our faces told the story, they were saddened but glad it wasn’t them under the poncho. My time in Vietnam I saw many dead bodies and wounded warriors after a while it became a common scene.
Maybe the Marine we just lost today was the lucky one, he didn’t have to live in the hell we were living in. Doubt was already creeping in; the thought of dying seemed perhaps an option. Satan was already planting a seed of doubt and despair.
I will never forget what happened next. As we were filing out, no one was saying a word; the silence was eerie. The only noise I remember was the suction sound of our combat boots stepping out of the mud as we walked. Squish, squish, squish, that sound seemed to magnify. I do not believe a word was spoken all the way back to our CP. Each of the soldiers was exceptionally quiet, remembering all the ugliness they tried to hide; Satan won another victory! I do not remember a marine speaking of that operation for the rest of my tour. The marine who lost his buddy was never the same; he stayed to himself most of the time. As I stated before, we never had a chaplain assigned to our company. In counseling this marine, he asked me why God wound allow this tragedy, I tried to witness him, but he would have none of it. “Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.” Carl Sandburg.
Many patrols have haunted me all these years. I have had countless nightmares and flashbacks of the carnage that day. The words that have haunted me the most were, “What does it take to kill you old man?” Seeing the trauma on his face and his glazed eyes are forever embedded in my mind.
To watch a Warrior die while treating him on the battlefield was horrific. The look in their eyes and the words that were spoken, the ashen color of their skin speaks volumes to the scene. Their state of shock was undesirable. It was his final moment on this earth, now, the torment from his family back in the world.
My tour in Vietnam was filled with diverse stories, some of which were incredible and hard to believe. I conducted over 300 patrols during my thirteen months in-country: many were traumatic and unimaginable. After our first battle, I witnessed and felt the horrors of war. I knew we were as close to hell without being there. Many Marines died in my arms, many knew they were going to die, many wanted to die!
The images are forever ingrained in my memory bank. I live with it every day. I get so overwhelmed with sadness; my tears confirm my state of mind. The final moment has forever created an invisible wound. A wound that does not leak blood, but flows tears and fears.
After many years, I still question “why” bad things happen, but I know we live in a world of uncertainties. At least now, I believe I am much wiser than I was in my early years. We witnessed the trauma back then but overlooked the grace. Adversity is difficult, but in time, it is common to find that the more we come to know, the more we seem not to know.
We must remember that when bad things happen, Satan and his minions also want to keep us from knowing why they happen. It is Satan who can spur us to shake our fist at God and to blame Him for tragedy. Often it is not that God does not provide answers, it is that we do not understand what He is telling us.
I had come to Vietnam as a young, an experienced Navy corpsman, and I was leaving with mental scars far worse than my physical wounds. They cleared my mind and made me see how quickly life could be extinguished.
During my 13-month tour in Vietnam I have always felt survivals guilt, why did I live, and others died?
I would like to close out my story with these words. I have kept a copy of these words since my tour in Vietnam...
Psalm 91 Prayer
Heavenly Father, Thank You for Your continued presence with us. Thank You for Your Almighty wings which cast an impenetrable shadow of protection. Thank You for going before us; and for covering us from behind. Thank You for choosing to be in our midst, for lifting our burdens, and for securing the Heavenly place You have prepared for us. Your divine Words bring so much hope and comfort to our hearts. Remind us daily of Your strength, and may we always see glimpses of Your infallible glory and blessing as we seek Your face throughout our days. Victory and salvation are found in You alone, Lord. It is in the Mighty Name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
HMCM Ronald Mosbaugh
Retired 31 years
