PTSD II

     OUT of the 300 or so people in my AIT class for Combat Medical training, 3 of us were not selected to go to Vietnam.. The top 3 in scores were sent elsewhere. one was assigned to Thailand. one to Hawaii, and I was sent to Okinawa. What a relief.

To this day I still figure that there was  higher level plan to eliminate the 1AO population. Since the Government couldn't send us all to prison, they sent us to Combat medic school, because medics are a high priority target in aa firefight. A way to get rid of us while not appearing toget rid of us.

Any way after a 30 day leave,, off I went.

When I got off the plane on Okinawa , standing on yhe tarmac of Kadena Air Field, I heard this whirwhirwhir noise in the air. I turned to look as a SR-71 came in for a landing. I had  never seen or heard of the Blackbird spy plane. As my jaw dropped, I thought "Holy shit batman, you aren't in Kansas anymore".

I went to Personnel to be processed and given an assignment. After examining my scores, they sent me to the Psychiatric department for an interview. I was interviewed by Col. Scott Peck, who was to becme my mentr fr the next two years. Although I had no real experience, they thought  would fit in nicely with their organization.

So I was assigned to the front desk, to handle the office. Sounded like an OK job. They were going to teach me to administer standard tests (MMPI etc) .   

Shortly after I was assigned, I was in my bunk sleeping when I woke op mid-air. Had no idea what was going on. The ground was jumping up and down and had thrown me out of bed. I turned and looked out the baracks window, and there was a huge black red amd yellow cloud to the north of us. My immediate thought was that sone idiot had pushed the big red button, and I was watching the end of civilization as we knew it. I hunkered down and waited for the shock wave to hit, It never did. I found out later that  B52 had gone den with a full load of bombs. The scary part was that it had gone down a short distance feom Ichibana which was at that time the largest storage facility for chemical and biological warefare stores outside of the US, A little change in flight path,, and there would probably would be nothing left alive on Okinawa.

The next thing that happened was to affect me for the rest of my life.

I was in my normal place at the reception desk, when Capt. Rod Carman told me to be on the alert. There was a special prisoner being brought in to be interviewed for a legal sanity exam.

Earl Pleasant was a Marine. He had done six tours in Vietnam and wanted to go back for a seventh, Rumors had been going around that he enjoyed killing people. I mean he REALLY enjoyed it. And he wasn't real discerning about who he killed. He was sent to Okinawa while the Marines tried to figure out if he was fit to return. He got tired of waiting for the Brass to make up their minds, so he went to push thjngs along. He went into the Company Commanders office and demanded to be sent back. When his demand was refused, he emptied an M-16 into the CO.

We ran a Multi-service treatment facility in the Hospital at Camp Kue. We were tasked with examining him to asses his sanity for legal purposes. Capt. Carman was going to do the interview.

They brought him into the reception area, Three fully armed Marines. Loaded weapons, He was in chains, shackles, handcuffs. He was about average height, slender and seemed  pretty chill for a dude undergoing a psychiatric exam 

Capt. Carman told the guards to remove the restraints. Said "I will not interview a man in restraints". The head guard said "Sir, we were specifically ordered to not remove his restraints under any circumstances". Captain Carman pointed to the Captain's bars and then at the guards stripes, and told the guard "These bars outrank your stripes, and I am giving yo a direct order to remove the restraints. If you want to keep those stripes, I strongly suggest you do not refuse a direct order from  superior officer,"

The guard replies he would remove the restraints under protest. So the restraints were removed and the prisoner and the doctor went into a conference room to the right of the desk.

I was siting at my desk a few minutes later when u heard a commotion in the conference and a very faint "help    help" so I jumped up and ran over to the door.

When I went in, the prisoner had Dr. Carman bent over backwards over his desk and was being choked out. Capt. Carman appeared to be unresponsive, and his lips were blue.

Since the prisoner's back was to me. He was positioned such that I could come up behind him and put him in a full nelson wrestling hold. The next few seconds were not real clear. I remember being smashed up against the office furniture. I do remember being smashed into a file cabinet, The more he fought the tighter i held either he was going to submit or I was going to break his neck, I was terrified that he would get loose.

He was a trained to kill people, and enjoyed doing it. he would have no problem disposing of me, As I tightened down on him, after some time he ceased to struggle. He said " You can let go. I'm OK mow" I replies "Well I am NOT" and tightened down a little more.

Eventually the head guard peeked around the corner and asked "Is everything OK in here?" I am not sure what I said, but I am pretty sure it turned the air blue and contained several words that should not be used in polite company.

The guards put him back in his restraints and I checked on Dr Carman.

I didn't sleep for a couple of days.

I had to testify at his cour martial a couple of months later, He stared at me with such total malevolence the whole time that it freaked me out, His look said that somewhere, some time we would meet again, and he would end me. His eyes were not those ofa sane person. There was noting human in them. Whatever traits of humanity had ever inhabited that body had long since departed.I know that pure evil exists in this world. Not as an abstract idea, but as a real perceptible force, because I have looked it in the eye and triumphed over it. But it still scared the shit out of me.

I have seen that look other times in my life. Charlie Manson had that same look. My wife was watching  a true crime show a couple of months ago, and one of the scenarios was about a dude in Tennessee who went on this senseless crime spree. They showed a shot of him being interviewed, and he had that same batshit crazy smile that Earl  pleasant did during his trial. Nothing human lived behind those eyes. Gave me nightmares for weeks.

I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night in the clutches of a dream, convinced that something evil is in the room. It takes a quite a while for my conscious mind to convince me that it isn't real.

PTSD

    Not a subject I really enjoy getting into, but one I have been puting off for a long time.

    When I moved out here to the sticks, I really wanted to get away from what I considered a toxic sociiety that looked to me like it was spinning out of control. This was right before Covid hit, which reinforced my opinion. Nothing since has happened that would cause me to reconsider my opinion.

    My lillte brother came out to deliver a couple of things from my mothers estate, ans when he was here, he asked me why I wanted to move way out in the stick. I really didn't have an answer for him. I hadn't considered it seriously before.

    About that time I went into a serious depressive tail spin, which ended with me sreiously considering whether my life was worth continuing. Sreious enough that I called the  veterans hotline. Going through my regular primary care PhysiciannI was interviewed by by a head shrinker. His first question was "Have you experienced any trauma".

    Boy howdy. I spent the next hour telling him tales of my experiences in the Psychiatric Depr, in the Army.

His diagnosis was that I had PTSD. I hadn't ever thought about my state of mind from that particular perspective. When I thought about it, it made total sense. I had constantly battled with depression m entire adult life, but I had never thought about PTSD.

    So they started me on a new anti-depressant. I had tried about every one known to man with varying results, but none of them seemed to be of much help, or the side effects were too severe to use them for any length of time. The new stuff worked better than anything I had used before.

    

    So let me go back and start from the beginning.

    I was a consciencious objector. I had studied Far Eastern History in College, so I was one of the few people that understood the political history of Southest Asiaa. We had no business being involved in a struggle that had been going on fot thousands of years. There was no threat to the U.S., not any of our allies. I refused to be dragged into a position where I was legally required to follow orders I considered unethical. My status was put on hold while my case, along with a bunch of others was bumper up as far as the Supreme Court. 

    At that time the only people allowed 1AO status were people belonging to certain religious faiths. The Supreme Court decided that people with strong moral pronciples could also be  1AO. 

I suppose i should explain what 1AO status means in the Army. It means that you agree to serve in the millitary, but refused to cary a weapon or egauge in battle. All 1AO servicemen in the Army went though a special Basic training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, where when they completed basic training, they wnet on to Combat Medic training.

    From the minute I was drafted, I was treated like crap by the Army. They didn't like anyone who was ddifferent that your standard mudsucker. Their standard perjorative was "maggot".

    After basic training I got sent to Okinawa, with an MOS of Combat Medic. THere wasn't a lot of combat on Okinawa,but the Psychiatric Service was looking for an office flunky, so I got interviewed for office duty for he head shrinkers. All of my scores on the Army aptitude tests were off the scale, so they decided to take a chance on me.