Bob G. served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam for sixteen months and for many years has been treated for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) stemming from his combat service during the late sixties.
During the thirty-two years after his service, overcome by his fears, anger, and addictions, he lost his family and went to prison three times—once for murder. He also attempted suicide ten times. At one point, he was given a year to live because of his numerous afflictions.
When you hear his story in the following paragraphs, you will understand the nightmarish reality of what his life was like in the war and its aftermath, and you will rejoice in his recovery.
I come from a middle-class, Protestant family, Bob begins. My father and the majority of my uncles served in WWII and Korea. When I graduated from high school in 1966, I felt a calling to serve.
I was introduced to alcohol at the age of thirteen and drank on and off until Vietnam, when it became daily. My father and all of my uncles and most of the aunts were alcoholics or well on their way to it. They never talked about their war experiences.
After eight months of basic training at boot camp in San Diego, where I also received infantry and truck driver training, I volunteered to go to Vietnam.
Soon, I found myself on a C-130 loaded with officers and NCOs [non-commissioned officers], and Da Nang [Vietnam’s major port city on the South China Sea] was our destination. I was a private first class and the lowest-ranking passenger on the plane.
As we approached Da Nang, the senior officer told me that the planes had been taking sniper fire, and my job would be to jump off upon landing and test the waters. I didn’t even have a gun at that point, and I realized how insignificant I was. I was nothing more than a decoy.
When I jumped out into the 130-degree heat that day, there were, as it happened, no snipers. Still, I was now convinced I would never make it home alive, and I disavowed God. I also began drinking whatever I could find to kill the fear and pain.
After about six weeks, I was assigned to a truck driving detail to pick up body bags brought in by helicopters for shipment to the states in closed caskets. I would haul the remains of these young men, some grossly distorted by their wounds and the heat, to the morgue for transfer to the caskets.
I lasted about two months before being sent for R & R [rest and relaxation] in Hong Kong. I couldn’t sleep, and all I could think of were the families who would never know of the devastation inflicted upon their loved ones by their wounds and the searing heat. I spent five days in Hong Kong bars and brothels. I was at the most northern marine base in Da Nang called “Red Beach” Force Logistic Command 7th Motor Transportation Battalion. We took convoys all over hauling troops, ammunition, and supplies throughout 1967 and the Tet offensive of 1968.
Certain that I wouldn’t be coming home, I volunteered for any dangerous mission, like driving trucks loaded with hair-trigger explosives. I also realized that I felt exhilarated, more alive, afterward.
With my constant drinking and reckless behavior, I got into trouble and was demoted to private. My sergeant, realizing what was happening, sent me for three more days of R & R, and then for the rest of my tour I stayed around the base camp.
I returned to the United States nine days before my twentieth birthday, got married five days after returning, and stayed more or less drunk the whole leave. I spent another year completing my three years of service requirement.
The woman I had been dating and married went to my duty station with me. One night, I came out of a blackout/nightmare choking her and thinking she was a Viet Cong. She put up with drinking and subsequent drug addiction for about thirteen years.
Within five months after discharge, I wrecked and totaled our car and got my first DWI. As time passed, I totaled another eight or nine vehicles (I was the only passenger), and nine DWIs followed. I was forced to go to driving classes and lost my license.
I lived each day like it was a good day to die. I hung out at the most dangerous bars and clubs fully armed. I slept with nineteen guns in and around my bed.
When I did make it home, I would get up all through the night and go in and make sure my children were breathing and would check every door and window. And I would go out into my back and front yards checking my perimeter.
After my second trip to prison, I knew I was insane and full of anger and began to look for help. When my mother picked me up at the prison gates, I knew I had a choice. I could keep living like I had been or I could commit myself to the Veteran’s Administration [VA] hospital’s mental ward.
At first, I didn’t want to admit I was powerless over my mental problems or my disease of addiction. Fortunately, after a trip to a hospital emergency room and talking to the doctors and nurses about my abuse of drugs, I ended up going to my first drug/alcohol program and got a taste of recovery.
I learned I didn’t have a moral failing or lack of self-control, but a disease. I also found over the next seven weeks that I had PTSD, and would have to go into the hospital for treatment.
I spent the next two years in and out of the program and psych wards. I learned that my alcoholism and drug addiction (which by this time was called poly substance abuse) was secondary to my PTSD, and I began going to outpatient PTSD and drug/alcohol groups at the VA and the Vet Center for treatment.
I was doing everything I had been told to do except get a sponsor and go to meetings outside the VA. At the time, I used the excuse I couldn’t trust anyone. Deep inside, as psychiatrists had told me through suicide attempts (one-car crashes) and the deadly lifestyle I had led, I felt I didn’t deserve to live. After all I had seen, I had survival guilt.
Not using drugs was vital to my recovery, but it was not enough. I was miserable. I wasn’t doing anything to change.
I wish I could say I turned my life around then, but I didn’t. It took over eight more years, another stint in prison, a heart attack and two congestive heart failures.
After one more drug bust after being told I had only six months to two years to live, I finally went to my first meetings. At first, I went to meetings to get a paper signed attesting to my attendance to keep from being held in jail.
I didn’t realize at the first meetings I would hear other stories like mine, and I started to feel hope. Also, I had found out that I could possibly get a heart transplant if I tested clean for a year.
Today, I know my higher power had a plan I couldn’t fathom. I was put on a new drug that caused my heart to improve, and that has allowed me to continue my recovery and to develop a life worth living.
The most important lessons I’ve learned and try to pass on to other combat veterans is that I have to treat my PTSD through psychiatric care, medication, and talking to and working with other combat veterans from all the wars.
Working on my alcoholism and addictions is something I do with guidance from my sponsor, who helps me work and live the 12 Steps and traditions in my life and to pray to a God of my understanding.
I had twelve years clean July 19, 2012, forty-three years after returning from Vietnam. Today, I’m a husband, father, son, brother, and friend. Today, when I see a man or woman in uniform I tell them, “Thank you for serving.”
A key to Bob’s recovery was his decision to confront his addictions by going to Alcoholics Anonymous and shortly after that, Narcotics Anonymous. These 12-Step meetings, which are available free to all who seek recovery worldwide, gave him a recipe for success and a host of new friends to share it with. Bob also makes better use of Veterans Administration treatment options
Today, Bob is a happy man with a family and a mission. Because of his service to others, he is loved by many who know him. And he loves them back. He is the unofficial face of Recovery Central, a new Little Rock facility for 12-Step meetings, mainly Narcotics Anonymous. He sponsors more people than he can count, and he does it by the book (See The Narcotics Anonymous Step Working Guides and Working Step Four in Narcotics Anonymous available online).
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