SPUD 19: A Vietnam Army Aviator's Battles with PTSD by Davis III George & Davis III George

Author:Davis III, George & Davis III, George [Davis III, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: KDP
Published: 2020-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7 – BACK IN THE USA

After 12-14 hours of playing cribbage with a Warrant Officer seated next to me, we arrived in Travis AFB, CA. What should have been a joyous occasion, to be back home on American soil, turned into the worst day of my life and it still haunts me today. We had been hearing all of the anti-American rhetoric in the press during our entire tour in Vietnam. The name calling and deriding us as murderers as well as those consorting with the enemy and visiting North Vietnam (yes you, Jane Fonda) had a terrible effect on our morale and our psyche.

We all hated her as well as all of the anti-war demonstrators that were constantly in the news and on TV convincing the American public of how wrong the war was and how were should be considered war criminals as a result of our participation. I still honestly believe that she should have been tried for treason. The torture of our POWs increased dramatically after her visit.

Since that was my greatest fear, being captured, I held our POWs in high regard. I was, however, devastated when we pulled into on the aircraft parking ramp at Travis AFB in California and saw row upon row of newly built reviewing platforms covered with red, white and blue bunting. They were not for us, the common soldier. They were in preparation for receiving the returning POWs who were the only ones treated with any respect upon their return. Instead, we were herded into a hangar to fill out our paperwork so we could finally go home. Some of the guys were discharged on the spot if they had a short time remaining on their enlistments. They were given a ticket and told to just go home. No thanks or counseling. The rest of us were given airline tickets based on whether we were going home or to our next duty station. There was no one to talk to you about any kind of adjustment problems nor was there anyway to screen people for PTSD.

The common feeling amongst those returning with me, and I’m sure the ones that came home before me, was that we had been betrayed by our country and that there was no gratitude whatsoever for our sacrifices. The government had bent under the pressure of the anti-war protestors to end the war regardless of the impact on us who had fought and died there. There was no honor in being told that we had lost the war, just quit and walked away. We all knew better though. We knew that we had heeded our country’s call, we had sacrificed a part of our lives which we would never regain and that it would haunt us for the rest of our lives. We knew that we had done an honorable job to the best of our ability. There is honor in what we did. We did not lose the war. The politicians gave the war away.

General

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