How Vietnam Changed My Father

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First, reflect on the lyrics to this Johnny Cash song, "Drive On:" I got a friend named Whiskey Sam He was my boonierat buddy for a year in Nam He said is my country just a little off track Took 'em twenty-five years to welcome me back But, it's better than not coming back at all Many a good man I saw fall And even now, every time I dream I hear the men and the monkeys in the jungle scream Drive on, don't mean nothin' My children love me , but they don't understand And I got a woman who knows her man Drive on, don't mean nothin', drive on I remember one night, Tex and me Rappelled in on a hot L.Z. We had our 16's on rock and roll But, with all that fire, was scared and cold We were crazy, we were wild And I have seen the tiger smile I spit in a bamboo viper's face And I'd be dead , but by God's grace Drive on, don't mean nothin' My children love me, but they don't understand And I got a woman who knows her man Drive on, don't mean nothin', drive on It was a real slow walk in a real sad rain And nobody tried to be John Wayne I came home, but Tex did not And I can't talk about the hit he got I got a little limp now when I walk Got a little tremolo when I talk But my letter read from Whiskey Sam You're a walkin' talkin' miracle from Vietnam Drive on, don't mean nothin' My children love me, but they don't understand And I got a woman who knows her man Drive on, don't mean nothin', drive on This song reminds me of my father, who made 2 tours in Vietnam, each by choice, the first when he needed a form signed by his mother because he was too young to be drafted ... Why? Like the children of which Cash spoke, I don't understand. What makes a man want to die, and in a place far from home, and in such brilliantly violent ways - to develop friendships, to have soldiers become your second family, to watch them die, some as they fly weightless through the air, some lying heavy in your arms ... and to go back to that, to embrace this horror. I will never understand, but I do have respect - for the dedication, the loyalty, his attempt to better this world, to make his place in the grander scheme. So much pain as the nation turns its back, as the government did as well (just ask those who rely on the VA hospitals for care). And yet this does not apply to my father because he refuses to admit the pain - mental, emotional, physical. He could apply for government aid, but won't. He barely survives with the odd jobs he's found, no money saved away for later in life, living with family because he can't afford his own rent. The reason? As far as I can tell, since he has never said why even when asked, is because to him admitting that he is suffering in any way as a result of his service to his country would be saying that he was less than a good soldier. It breaks my heart to see a man risk so much for a belief and then to allow that belief to destroy him - those awful flashbacks, calling to friends long dead, the bits of Vietnamese he will use when reliving all that death. Why? Pain and shame, for his country he'll accept it. I guess he drives on. A country full of empty shells and ghosts of men who will never get back what they lost in Vietnam - innocence, true joy ... Now joy comes in a bottle. Is this what Camus means when he speaks of the absurd? My relationship with my father has never developed. We are pleasant on the rare occasions that we do see each other, but he exudes embarassment and uneasiness. It has been like this all of my life. It doesn't make sense - the war itself, war in general, wanting to die, self-destructive pride, a callous nation. The consequences begin as a pebble, but then it is thrown into a stream and the circles reverberate further and firther, growing larger and encompassing more and more until the boundaries blur and the circles seem to disappear. A living ghost for a father, watching a daily suicide - I will never understand.