War Torn Man

In my thirties I wrote a song about my father and the impact the Vietnam War had on him. But it wasn’t just about him. It was about me too. And I think it might be about a lot of people. My father had PTSD and he unintentionally passed it down to us when he came home from Vietnam. He returned to us a silent and often terrifyingly violent young man and my mother had to leave him to keep us safe.

I’ve been in treatment for Complex PTSD for many years now. I too became an angry, alcoholic and violent man. I’m not that guy now, but unfortunately my father never received the help he needed. Many people told me that my father was a funny, gentle guy that everyone liked in high school. The war changed him and the war changed us too. My family has never recovered from the physical, emotional and spiritual carnage that stole the lives of millions of Vietnamese people and many thousands of poor and working class Americans like my father who were lied to and used to fight an unjust war.

After graduating high school in the mid 1960s my father enlisted in the USMC. He went to the makeshift recruiting station in the local high school gymnasium with his cousin Jeff who was also his neighbor and best friend since early childhood. Their plan was to join the USMC and serve in the Vietnam War together.

When they arrived at the recruiting station the line to join the Marines snaked across the gym and out the door. My father joined the queue and two hours later officially joined up. But Jeff was in a hurry. He was helping his father repaint their garage that afternoon. He looked around the room. There were only a couple of young men standing by the Airforce table. He joined the Air Force instead.

A few nights before my father left for boot camp at Parris Island they went out for drinks at a local tavern. Their plan was to keep in touch during the war and to meet at the same tavern for drinks when they returned home. They never heard from each other again.

Both my father and his cousin survived the war. By the time Jeff returned home my father had transferred to a military base in Beaufort, South Carolina. Neither tried to contact the other until Jeff messaged me on Facebook a couple years ago to ask about my father. I told him my father died the year before in Austin, Texas from cancer. When trying to explain why they never spoke again Jeff said “I’ve been two different people in my life. You know, this mostly carefree kid with his whole life in front of him and guy who came back from Vietnam. I couldn’t return to the life I had before because that life was a lie. I didn’t want to look in your dad’s eyes. It was bad enough knowing what I’d become, I didn’t want to see it in him too.”

I never mention the Vietnam War in the song War Torn Man because it’s about the intergenerational trauma all wars create.