Courage.  It is hard for me to imagine the courage it took for my husband to spend 13 months in a war zone.  Unlike other wars, there was no going back to the rear to rest and recuperate.  They didn't alternate sending people to the front.  There was no rear.   The jungle was the front ...day and night.  There was no rest for his mind as everyone everywhere was the enemy.  There were no uniformed soldiers in a line.  There were children with grenades, grandmothers setting tripwires, and old men ...nobody could be trusted.  So now the bishop cannot be trusted or the neighbors... or coworkers  or family...sometimes....

It is hard for me to imagine his courage but I have in many ways been in a war zone for 45 years.  I never knew when he would explode.  Our family lived on constant high alert.  This morning I read all of the scriptures in the Bible and Book of Mormon about courage.  As I listened to beautiful sabbath music and read in the scriptures a sweet peace came over me.  So many of these courage scriptures had to to do with battle.  The Lord said, " Have courage, I am with you " so many times and in so many words with so many battles.

I know the only way our family made it with living with an exMarine with PTSD and an explosive temper was with the help of the Lord.

I have anxiety and I am sure secondary PTSD.  The spouses of Vietnam Veterans have higher blood pressure than a control group of non PTSD wives. But the Lord has been with me all along.  My courage comes from Him.  There is one who tells me I have no courage that I am worn and beaten.  No!  I do have courage.  The Lord helps me remember all of the courageous things I have had to do in my life.

I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Phillippians 4:13

On the night before our son's wedding, we were in a hotel room in Atlanta.  We got a text from someone named Mike.  He had gone to school with Warnie and had been looking for him also.  He had the advantage of knowing his first name.  The frustrating part for me helping Richard find his buddies is that they were called Red or Low Dog, Ski or Jonesy.  No first or last names. Even with modern technology it was hard to find people by a nickname.  Richard was called Nick or Biggun.
But that night with Mike's email,we were able to contact Warnie.  We were both so excited.
Richard had always wondered if Warnie made it out of Vietnam alive.  He was in very bad shape when he last saw him.  He was hit and he couldn't breathe due to his own blood choking him.  He had his artery on the side of his neck bleeding so badly it was shooting out .  A black solder was putting pressure on his neck.
Richard got instructions from the corpsman who left him with the tube and Richard did a tracheotomy  on him.  There were so  many people dying, the corpsman could not get to everyone.  Warnie married a nurse who worked at the hospital where he recovered and they have 5 kids

For the first ten years or so after Vietnam, Richard woke up every morning and he saw a black man sitting in the corner.  He never told me about it until a few years ago.  We talked about who this man might have been.  He worked along side many black men in  the jungle.  One was Jonesy.  Jonesy's job was to carry the ammunition for Richard who was carrying the big gun.  Jonesy told Richard that he would never leave him hanging.  He would always be there with the ammo.  On May 5, 1969, their company was attacked.  Almost everyone was killed or wounded.  Jonesy died right in front of Richard.   This was the same night Richard performed a tracheotomy on a soldier he called Warnie.  After Richard retired and was medicated for PTSD, he spent a few months going over in his mind that night.  We looked for Warnie to find out if he made it back to the US.  With some of our research, we found an article that listed people on the Vietnam Memorial wall. It was website that showed pictures of the soldiers KIA.  We did not find Warnie and have not to this day, but a picture of Private Jones came up on the screen.  Richard, my strong, brave husband looked at the picture and broke down in tears.  They were not the kind that roll down cheeks and can be muffled.  He sobbed and his shoulder shook.  He told me later that he felt like the night it happened all over again.  They did not have time to grieve.  They just went back to fighting the very next day..  He said that Jonsey promised never to leave him hanging.  I wonder if Jonesy was the black man in the corner of our bedroom in the wee hours of the morning for all of those years.....??

PTSD

  I have been thinking about that lately: the contrast between actually being in a war and what people want to do to honor you for that.  When Richard came home, people spit on uniformed solders.  There were protesters and people shouting "baby killers" as they arrived home after their grueling months in the jungle..

On Veteran's Day our sweet grand girls invited Richard to come to an assembly at their school honoring veterans.  A church member called and offered us two tickets to the city choir performance the same night.  Because he actually is a veteran and has severe PTSD, he is very uncomfortable in crowds. Assemblies, performances, etc make him very nervous.  He did go to the school because he loves our grandgirls but it was hard for him and he was very nervous all morning. There were about 30 men of all ages on the stage.  Richard was one of two Marines and most of the vets fixed radios or worked in offices. He was the only one with an MOS of Rifleman.  I am not discounting their service.  We need everyone to support our troops.  But not all service affects the brain the same.  My dad was a baker in WW11.  He saw no action except officers eating his maple bars.  Richard relives Vietnam most nights.  I lay by him and watch him shake and sometimes hear him call out...MORTARS !!!!
 That afternoon I had to call and cancel an appointment for a doctor for him.  Because of the VA in Phoenix who let people die before they were seen by a doctor, the Choice Program was developed.  Richard was sent a card about a year ago and qualifies for the program because he lives more than 40 miles from a Veterans Hospital.   We hadn't tried to use the card all year, but decided to use it for his eye infection.  First I called the phone number on the card.  I got a man with a thick Indian accent.  He was so hard to understand so the call was very frustrating.  We picked an instacare right by our house.  We gave the phone number to the Indian man.  He said he would call them and set up the appointment.  We called the instacare several hours later and they did not hear from him. This program only works by the the Choice Program making the appointment for you.
 No appointment was made.  Three weeks later we got a letter in the mail that an appointment was made for Richard in a doctor's office in Providence.  It is about a half hour from our house.  His eye infection was gone by then.  So I was calling that afternoon to cancel that appointment.  I asked what to do next time when we have something that needs seen right away but is not an emergency. I will spare you the details.  Just know that after my many calls and the run around I told Richard that I understood why Veterans might take their own lives. (28 a day) Richard cannot make those calls.  I make them for him.  I imagine a vet on the streets with no support and the endless red tape.  I was ready to give up. How would it be with a TBI or PTSD and pain with all of that too.

On September 11th 2001, our neighbor put a note on everyone's door who did not have a flag flying.  I understand her patriotism but the reason we did not fly a flag was because the scouts put them in the ground with rebar.  It stuck up a little and Richard was so afraid someone would get hurt on it that he did not pay to have the scouts put the flag in our lawn.  PTSD causes him to be fearful of anyone getting hurt.
The irony of Veteran's Day.  He gets free breakfast or lunch or dinner in restaurants.  His PTSD keeps him from those places.  If he must go due to a family situation he sits with his back to the wall and faces the exits. He is on high alert.  He would never go to a restaurant for pleasure.

When he was classified 100% disabled he was given a card that gave him free entrance to all of the National Parks.  He has cancer ....from agent orange...  He could not drive to national parks much less have the energy to walk around enjoying the scenery.  He can't feel his feet, his digestive system is ruined. Hook worms..... tropical sprue.... agent orange.... yet he watches the news each night and would go again if he were called up to protect us all.  He loves America.  He is a real patriot.  He is not anyone's hero, he does not want any recognition.  I am the only one who knows what he really did for our country and how it affects him still.

agent orange

First of all, Richard never talked about Vietnam.  We were married for decades before he started to speak at all about it.  We did not know much about Agent Orange.  I dropped my High School chemistry class during week two.  After my A on the Periodic Table test, things went downhill fast.  I am not a chemist, but I have read everything I can get my hands on about Agent Orange.

When Richard slept in Vietnam, he usually found a little dry creek bed. He looked for place where it was lower,so he could sleep sitting up and kind of recline his back onto the side of the dirt.  His M-14 was always within reach. It was jungle and it rained. When he woke up in the morning, he would be sitting in 4 inches of water.  He slept where there was no vegetation. Why would there be a spot that had no vegetation in a jungle??  It had been sprayed with Agent Orange.

So where were we?   Oh! the rain.  So as we waited at a stop light on 5th south I watch a homeless man make a shelter out of three large city trash cans and a tarp.  He sat under the tarp and was prepared for the rain.  He didn't know it would come in 4 minutes because he didn't have a phone.  I worried about the lightning for him more than the rain.

Richard slept outside in lots of rain in Vietnam.  He told me the thunder would wake him up and he thought it was artillery being fired.  Sometimes he had shelter but most times he was just sleeping on the dirt.  So what to be afraid of there?  rain, lightening, poisonous centipedes, mortars, Vietcong soldiers, grandmothers, children ( with grenades).

Agent Orange.

Starts and stops and wealth

My starts and stops are part of our problem.  When my husband is bad, I am bad.  It is hard to explain.  I needed to take something back to Comcast.  It sat on my fireplace for months.  I was being charged for it every day.  I could not put the steps to do it in my mind.  I was a former busy woman. A productive woman.  Now I am a woman of starts and stops.  Permanent writers block.  But yesterday a story formed in my brain.  I love when I get my brain back.  I was never a beauty.  It took loads of make up and lots of time to make me look just ok. So I was not too sad to grow old and have my face wrinkle.  but my brain.  I really did love my brain..  I miss it.

 This is my blog and punctuation have my rules.....  I am not going to do a rough draft....this is it.  life does not get a rough draft and then a nice copy.

Ok so here is is.

One of the Lord's tender mercies to me is my water aerobics class every morning.  It gets me up and out and my body feels good and I speak with wise older women. It helps me feel young as I am 20 years younger than most of them. They all have a story and someday I will tell you about each one.  maybe when my brain comes back totally, I will write a book about them. 

Yesterday our instructor, who is 73, mentioned when she was a girl she lived next door to John Wayne.   She and her siblings used to climb over his fence and take his pomegranates.   He told them to come over and he would give them some but they liked climbing the fence.  He once ran into her mom's Cadillac. Her mom never fixed it because she liked telling people John Wayne ran into her car.  I asked what her dad did to live in such an affluent neighborhood. My brain was having an off moment but I think she said some kind of nuclear engineer. She said when she got married she thought she was poor because she had to clean her own swimming pool.  

So that was in my brain at 9 am yesterday and then Richard and I went to the VA for his appointment.  On the way home we saw brilliant lightning strikes and Richard' s smart phone told him it would rain in 4 minutes. We drove past the drug park across from the county building.  Lawyers in suits were stepping up their pace to get inside the building. A woman walking her dog was quickly heading for home.