Anniversary Date

"Thirty-eight years ago, on Jan. 20, 1968, I was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in Vietnam. It is a date that I can never forget, a day that was to change my life forever.

Each year as the anniversary of my wounding in the war approached I would become extremely restless, experiencing terrible bouts of insomnia, depression, anxiety attacks and horrifying nightmares. I dreaded that day and what it represented, always fearing that the terrible trauma of my wounding might repeat itself all over again. It was a difficult day for me for decades and it remained that way until the anxieties and nightmares finally began to subside."

Ron Kovic, The Forgotten Wounded of Iraq

Thirty-nine years ago, on Jan.8, 1967, a VC handgrenade exploded next to my right leg resulting in it's amputation during my tour in Vietnam. It is a date that I can never forget, a day that was to change my life forever.

Samey-same.

Age seems not to tempered the emotions, as the pain and rage runs quicker now than ever. This was the first year I said I wouldn't do it over. It's not worth the pain. My country didn't learn a thing from Nam. Count me with Col. Murtha, don't enlist it's not worth it.

The price for me has been 39 Christmas where I am looking over my shoulder. 39 xmases overseas. 39 nativities where fear is born anew. I wait each xmas for what I know will come. The two drowned guys hung under the bridge. Hicks getting wasted. The relief of the grenade.

This stuff doesn't go away. It can be tempered but it never leaves.