| north1 - 4/3/2024 08:31
Those Billings Gazette interviews are amazing. Have watched many of them. What you state is spot on. Then imagine coming back to the world and being called “Baby Killer” and spit on the same day you arrive. Then rushing to the nearest bathroom to strip off your uniform to get in civilian clothes as quickly as possible so as to try to erase any indication you were/are in the military. Then in some instances enter your home community where people know who you are and where you have been. Then those same people who would greet you on the street with a smile, handshake and conversation now avoid you and turn away.
So you were not able to decompress and work through your experience with those who went through it with you. Then you were essentially forced to internalize and hide it. It’s going to come out in deleterious ways and/or you are going to try to numb yourself to it by using drugs/alcohol. Some at the local VFW who went through WWII tell you to buck up and get on getting on. We went through war came back and got on with our lives. Not fully realizing they were in two completely different wars with respect to how the home front viewed them.
Talk about a rough hard ride. No wonder most have problems few can identify with or fully understand.
I'm not trying to change the subject or muddy the discussion but I couldn't help drawing a partial parallel from your comment about trying to erase identification. This would be in reference to Indian Role Numbers. My ancestry includes Tribal relatives AKA Native American Indians or whatever is the current accepted terminology. . It has been mentioned to me many times in person that if I could find out the Role Numbers of my Tribal, family members, I could take advantage of some great benefits.
From what we have gleaned over the years, some of the family were ashamed and embarrassed to declare their Tribal or Native American heritage. They either destroyed and/or wanted to erase completely the fact they were part Tribal or Native American Indians and even went as far as calling it something else. I questioned this "something else" upon long ago hearing this for the first time when having to do an oral classroom presentation for a school assignment. It wasn't until many years later we learned the truth that Role Numbers were assigned to some of our distant, Tribal family members. |
Better Run Through the Jungle
