Thank you veterans

[Brittany Chukarman]

Forever grateful for all these guys and gals

 

[lpcoutdoors]

Vietnam vet story. Years ago I guided with a crusty old feller, he was a character, talked like Boomhauer on King of the Hill but was much harder to understand, seriously, you mostly had to guess at what he was telling you and since he was the head guide that led to lots of missed guesses and conflict. One day he and I were doing some ranch work and all of the sudden he starts telling a story. I knew he'd been in Vietnam. He was in the back of a transport truck and they were in a major ambush. The enemy was targeting the heavy machine gun on his truck, killing one soldier after another, heroes who stepped up to the gun to try to save their buddies. After four or five guys were shot down from it, he and all the other privates just looked at each other, Vance shrugged his shoulders and stepped up for his turn, to fight and based on what he'd just seen happening, die. He didn't, served his tour and another he volunteered for, and came home to small town Texas. He shrugged his shoulders, ended the story abruptly and we went back to work.

I didn't think more about the story, just one old solider telling a younger former soldier a story, but a few days later his wife came into the lodge and in her emotion said "I have my husband finally back from the war." He was a hard, hard man all those years. Turns out, he had never told another person that story, held on to the emotions of that horror he'd experienced so many years before. Once it was out he told her, and his daughters, and others. I've used his telling that story to elicit those kinds of stories of trauma from others, in my personal and professional life.

Tell your painful stories folks, to someone, you need it and they need it. Thank you to the poster for bringing them out.

 

[Straight Arrow]

Thank-you from deep down, Chukarman! After posting the photo and story on the thread "old military" photos, finally after many decades I was able to respond to my daughter's questions about my time(s) in Vietnam by showing her that thread and telling her some other stories as well. It was a relief and something held-in, stirring internally for way too long. Now she and my granddaughter are wanting a full account of my entire life! I think they merely wish to understand some justification for how strange old Papa seems.

 

[rtraverdavis]

Vietnam vet story. Years ago I guided with a crusty old feller, he was a character, talked like Boomhauer on King of the Hill but was much harder to understand, seriously, you mostly had to guess at what he was telling you and since he was the head guide that led to lots of missed guesses and conflict. One day he and I were doing some ranch work and all of the sudden he starts telling a story. I knew he'd been in Vietnam. He was in the back of a transport truck and they were in a major ambush. The enemy was targeting the heavy machine gun on his truck, killing one soldier after another, heroes who stepped up to the gun to try to save their buddies. After four or five guys were shot down from it, he and all the other privates just looked at each other, Vance shrugged his shoulders and stepped up for his turn, to fight and based on what he'd just seen happening, die. He didn't, served his tour and another he volunteered for, and came home to small town Texas. He shrugged his shoulders, ended the story abruptly and we went back to work.

I didn't think more about the story, just one old solider telling a younger former soldier a story, but a few days later his wife came into the lodge and in her emotion said "I have my husband finally back from the war." He was a hard, hard man all those years. Turns out, he had never told another person that story, held on to the emotions of that horror he'd experienced so many years before. Once it was out he told her, and his daughters, and others. I've used his telling that story to elicit those kinds of stories of trauma from others, in my personal and professional life.

Tell your painful stories folks, to someone, you need it and they need it. Thank you to the poster for bringing them out.

Thanks for sharing that. I’m still waiting for my dad, who also served two tours in Vietnam, to let those stories go. There’s a lot of pain buried in there.