You Asked: Were you in Vietnam?

You Asked: Were you in Vietnam? ©

Dear Friend;

Lots of stories swarm around the topic of Vietnam, but not all are real positive….suffice it to say, controversy is not new to us.

Yes, thank you for your thanks, you are welcome, we who enlisted and many others that were drafted, did what we could do. And it is heart wrenching, even yet, perhaps even more today, for personal reconciliation with the many souls listed on “The Wall”.

Now to address your question, “Were you in Vietnam?”I served in the Vietnam Era, but never was in-country, instead doing my service in US Navy Hospitals mostly in San Diego & Guam…………

Back home in Pennsylvania, I got my Draft card November of 1962, when things were ramping up and enlisted in late 1963, with a deferment to 1964, after completing my freshman year at college. I thought it would be a good thing to "do my duty", as my friends were either being drafted or enlisting. I chose Navy and Hospital Corps as specialty.

I finished boot camp and completed my Hospital Corps training, and then was stationed for a short time at San Diego Naval Hospital before getting orders for Guam. By the time I got to the Naval Hospital in Guam, daily plane loads of battle injured casualties were arriving at military hospitals in Japan, Philippines, Guam and Hawaii.

I saw the results of war up-close and personal. Recipients of napalm, mortar shells, land mines, strafing, sniper fire and lots more. Since we rotated within the hospital services, not only did I get to work in all aspects of physical medicine, but also pulled about 6 months working in neuro-psychiatric services, where I got to see the results of war not seen in prosthetic limbs nor colostomy bags.

Following a motorcycle accident on Guam, I spent 6 months hospitalized, 3 months each in Guam and Philadelphia Navy Hospitals, upon which determined my discharge from military service.

I served 2 years and went home, to marry, to raise a family and to follow fame and fortune. Fame and fortune did not make an appearance, but I managed to acquire a wife and 5 children and to have survivor's guilt for years. During the years between ‘66 and ‘82, I pretended to know nothing about military service or Vietnam.

I met an old Navy Corpsman buddy in ’82; we met again and went to the Viet Nam Wall the following year and counted at least a hundred of dead friend’s names on the pouring down rain and tear soaked wall.

By the late ‘80s, my 3 sons had donned uniforms, 2 Air Force and 1 Navy, and served honorably in a new time and new kinds of wars. My Navy son, also a Corpsman, served proudly with the Marines in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, during the Gulf War. He returned with physical health difficulties and is now a 100% disabled Vet. My other 2 sons served in other deployments and returned home without any physical ailments or injuries.

Richard G. Shuster (from Rick’s Random Ramblings, You Asked: Were you in Vietnam? ©)