This excerpt comes from a Vietnam veteran’s memoir I ghostwrote. The client brought me a rough draft with about ¾ of the content written but without structure or cohesion. I reorganized the material, expanded sections, and gave it a clear, compelling narrative arc. The client has said he continues to receive compliments on the unique structure and storytelling voice throughout the book.

To say Vietnam was a life changing experience would be a pretty big understatement. Truth is my time “in the shit” changed the course of my life in more ways that I could have ever imagined and can even remember.

So, it seems fitting to start my story here…in the shit.

The Jungles of Vietnam – who in their right mind would volunteer for Vietnam, knowing they will be going to fight in a war that was already a losing proposition? If your life depended on doing the most counterintuitive thing, the seemingly worst choice available would that change your answer? Well that was my situation. Choice one: stay entrenched in gang life in the inner city, a situation I was positive would kill me, or number two: take my chances in the military, fighting an unpopular war in a faraway country against people I not only didn’t have anything against, truth be told I didn’t even know much, if anything about.

Strangely enough, I figured at least in Vietnam I’d have a fighting chance of surviving. I knew going in that the war I was about to sign up to go fight would not be like any of the other wars our nation had ever fought before or since. In most if not of all of America’s wars and especially in our World Wars, people at home joined together, they were a vital part of the team. Even though they weren’t the “boots on the ground,” they were still there, fighting right beside their soldiers. The country shared a common goal and fought collectively. I can’t speak from that perspective because the experience I had fighting in Vietnam and then coming home from Vietnam couldn’t have been more the opposite.

My experience, knowing that my friends and the majority of my fellow Americans were either rooting for the other side to win or were indifferent to what I and my fellow soldiers were going through, was almost debilitating to me and to most of the people I served with.

No parades, no heroes’ welcome even though technically, by military combat standards I was one. I’ve got the medals with the little “V” on them to prove it. Medals for valor in battle to be specific. Just to be clear, I don’t now and have never considered myself a hero. Heroes are other people. I’m just making the point that a little less anger and hatred toward us guys out there fighting a war most of us either didn’t agree with or probably fully understand, would have gone a long way. I didn’t care about parades or medals, but I sure wouldn’t have minded someone saying thanks.

Like I said, I didn’t sign up to be a hero, to kill people, to run around playing soldier. I went to save my life. Mission accomplished. I just wish it could have ended with less mental damage and psychological baggage.

I never asked for a lifetime of nightmares. I never asked to see my friends blown to pieces in front of me. I never asked to carry those same friends out of a rice paddy in either a body bag, if I was lucky, or in pieces, if I wasn’t.

I didn’t go to Vietnam to kill anyone.

I did my job.

I’m proud of this country and proud of my service to it.

I went to Vietnam to save my life.

I know it sounds crazy, but it is entirely true.

“One Day out of 365”

• I wrote this piece as therapy.*

I’ll tell this story as best as I can, just remember that it happened more than fifty years ago. As an interesting side note, most, if not all of the images I’ll describe are still as vivid and as real in my mind as they were when it happened. They, for whatever reason refuse to go away, no matter how much I insist. Persistent bastards. I’ve even resorted to locking them away in the recesses of my brain but they seem to have their own key and, like uninvited house guests who parade around in their underwear, these images come out whenever they feel the need to bum rush down the dark passageways of my subconscious mind. Like thick black smoke in a heavy wind, they drift around inside my skull, filling even the briefest of spaces, intentionally looking, not satisfied until they find and fill the main area of my conscious mind where my thoughts and memories are housed. Once there, they parade past, like proud cadets graduating from ROTC.

Usually it’s late at night, the witching time. When sleep won’t come. Sometimes the images come to life, leaving me to react accordingly. You haven’t lived until you’ve caught yourself tensed up, waiting for the sound of a grenade to land and stop rolling so you can scramble to safety a beat before it explodes, only to snap out of it and realize you’re actually standing in a Walmart parking lot. I never fully grasped what it might be like to suffer from hallucinations until I returned home and started experiencing the unmistakable sound of gunfire echoing through the jungle. The screams of “Incoming!!!” I get chills just thinking about them. My lifelong parting gift I suppose.

Anyway, the day started like most days in the jungle. The muddy dark night was losing its battle with the breaking dawn. The first rays of sunlight that announce a new day had just begun penetrating the darkness. That special time when the night surrenders its grasp, and the land is light, but the sun hasn’t fully shown its face yet.

I had finished my shift on guard duty and was packing my gear. I distinctly remember thinking what a difference a few hours can make.