Police Action

A returning Viet Nam vet has trouble adjusting.

The Police Action

Derick Dixon returned from Viet Nam with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD for those who want to sanitize s**t. Give it an acronym to hide the ugliness. The government has a whole department dedicated to this.

Derick was sure that somewhere in Washington people toiled away in a basement somewhere, thinking up clever titles for things so they could create a snappy acronym.

He returned with the hollow, vacant eyes of the truly wounded. Someone was once asked why he chose Psych-Ops as an occupation.

“Because physical wounds heal,” was his reply.

For Derick, there was no healing. He had written to the VA. They sent him a letter four months later stating that his case was under review. How could they review a case that hadn't even been opened yet? It's hard to treat a case that you don't acknowledge. Like Obama refusing to say, Radical Islam, what bullshit.

Derick's wife bore the brunt of his injuries. Sleepless nights, reliving the horrors of Viet Nam. Horrors compounded by the hallucinogenic drugs he became addicted to while there. When he did fall asleep, chances are he would wake up jumping out of bed. To his sleep addled brain, the overhead fan in their bedroom sounded just like a Huey coming in for a landing.

Derick and Jerry Brown had been best friends since grade school. Upon graduation, they joined the Marines together. The Service had a policy then of letting you enlist under the buddy system.

Something Derick would live to regret.

Half way through their first tour, Jerry was captured by the Viet Cong. The Vietnamese were sadists. They set up a loud speaker, so Jerry's screams could be broadcast as they tortured him all night long. Derick's fellow Marines held him down to prevent him from trying to rescue his best friend. The Viet Cong got two for one that night. Two men tortured at the same time.

Derick watched television coverage as the POWs and MIAs were returned, some of them anyway. At the end of the war, 3,500 Americans remained in Vietnam. The news reports led us to believe that the Vietnamese were holding young Americans, but what they released were old men. Derick watched in anger, as one by one, old, crippled men disembarked from a plane in Germany. 

Skinny, emaciated, old men. There was no such thing as an overweight POW. The Vietnamese saw to that.

America's nightmare, was over, or just beginning depending on who you listened to. What did we win? “Peace with honor,” Nixon promised. Derick didn't see any honor in the crippled, old men we got back, or the 3,500 that remained. 

At the war's end 3,500 Americans remained behind. No man left behind, is a clever slogan, but it's a lie. 3,500 Americans would spend the rest of their lives, being tortured, in a Vietnamese POW camp. 

A part of Derick remained there as well.

There were no parades, for the returning heroes. No hometown welcoming parties. America didn't want to be reminded of her humiliating defeat at the hands of an under-equipped, poorly trained, but a determined enemy.

Derick bounced from job to job. Finally, after eight years, his Disability Insurance was granted. Seven hundred dollars a month. That's what the government valued his service at. Beggars on the street made more money.

Vietnam was never a declared war. To this day it's known as a Police Action. At its peak, 50,000 young men were killed, in a single year, in a Police Action. Derick sometimes wished he had been one of them, but then who would support his wife and children, in the manner they had become accustomed to, on seven hundred dollars a month.

At least, the country paid for Derick's funeral, when he died.

pad

Reviews

[Valentine]

I remember when a relative returned from war and seemed to be reliving it every single day from then on. It was so sad to see and listen to. More of their stories need to be told. Valentine

[Tom Wade]

Thanks for reviewing this.

[KurtWilder]

Sorry, but this story reads like a synopsis or an outline. For it to be a dramatic whole story, each paragraph needs to be expanded into a full page. More or less.

[Tom Wade]

To each his own.

[KurtWilder]

In matters of taste, yes. In matters of craft, not so much. Your intent may be superb, but that is not enough. Here's an interesting item:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/education/edlife/veterans-learn-to-write-and-heal.html

[Tom Wade]

You're an idiot.

[KurtWilder]

I've been called much worse... Oh well.

Clearly, you don't want to hear *constructive criticism*, butonly happy yaps... I hope this works out well for you if you have any intent to be published.

Ciao!

[Tom Wade]

I would if you were a writer, but I looked and you haven't posted anything. Write something, and then critic.

[Lorry]

Sadly, Derick wasn't alone in being left alone on his "lucky" return. What price a hero?" springs to mind. Forgotten men, who will be remembered tomorrow, on remembrance day, give or take your time zone, then mostly forgotten about until we are told to remember once more.
Superb writing.