I was born and raised in Colorado growing up on my father’s dairy farm near Fort Lupton. After high school, I attended Colorado State University and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1965. I met and married my dear wife Karen while in college. In early 1966, I received my draft notice and in April I entered the U.S. Army. In April of 1967 during the massive troop buildup, I was sent to South Vietnam. In Vietnam I served as a rifleman in the Recon Platoon, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division.

The trauma of the Vietnam War left me with both physical and emotional wounds. The army treated my physical wounds, but ignored the wounds to my soul. My return to the United States was greeted with disrespect and scorn from those opposed to this unpopular war. I left the army in April 1968 feeling my country had turned its back on me. I mistakenly felt that as soon as I left the army, life would return to normal, that the emotional pain would disappear. Little did I know then the profound impact the chaos and insanity of the Vietnam War would have on the rest of my life. I was able to distract myself from my pain by focusing on my work and my family and with an obsessive regimen of exercise, but I knew I was not the same person I’d been before the war....and Karen knew it too. There were periods of deep depression and sadness, and my constant companion was a deep sense of aloneness and isolation. I knew my emotional pain was festering inside me, but I had no idea how to fix it.

Then in 2003 when American soldiers started dying in Iraq, my emotional pain exploded and took control of my life. Day after day, I would obsessively replay events that happened in Vietnam over and over and over in my mind thinking maybe the outcomes would change. But of course, they never did. The death and suffering wouldn’t go away.

I decided to take a drastic step and return to Vietnam to face my demons, hoping I could find some emotional peace and closure. I discovered an organization in Tucson, Arizona called “Tours of Peace Vietnam Veterans” that took small groups of veterans back to Vietnam. I applied to return to Vietnam with “Tours of Peace”. Part of the application process involved an interview with a professional psychiatrist, who also happened to be a Vietnam vet. At the completion of that 1-1/2 hour interview, I was approved for a trip with the group, and I was also told I was suffering from “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” (PTSD). This was a complete surprise to me. I was certainly aware of PTSD, but even though I am a Vietnam veteran, up until that moment whenever I heard the term PTSD, I immediately pictured the stereotypical “wacko” Vietnam vet living a reclusive existence in some remote cabin. But suddenly, I was now the face of PTSD. I was that “wacko” Vietnam vet.

I returned to Vietnam in March of 2006 with a “Tours of Peace” group of veterans for a 2 week tour of Vietnam. Visits to old combat sites were extremely emotional, and even though it had been decades since the war, these places were still fresh in my mind. We also conducted humanitarian projects in orphanages, elderly homes, a leprosy village, and other remote rural villages. We found the Vietnamese people to be the most gracious, forgiving, and generous people we had ever met. Each evening on the trip, our tour group would take part in counseling sessions. It was in these sessions that for the first time since the war, I was finally able to talk about my emotional pain because I was with others that understood my pain, other veterans who were feeling much the same. It was very difficult emotionally to get started, but once I began telling my story, I didn’t want to stop. The pain had been bottled inside me for so long, it needed to be let out. Once some of the pain was released, there was finally some room in my soul for healing and peace. The other veterans on the trip experienced much the same thing.

The path to healing is a long one. Since returning from the 2006 trip to Vietnam, I’ve worked hard to continue to find ways to further the healing process. Although I know PTSD will always be part of me, I finally feel that I now control it rather than it controlling me.

I met Debbie Quackenbush in August of 2006 at the Hoe-down for Heroes, and was inspired by her passion for helping soldiers and military families. I have become part of American Military Family to try to find ways to detour today’s soldiers from traveling the same long trail of emotional pain that I walked for so many years. I also hope to find ways to educate the public about the PTSD crisis that our country faces.