The picture is me at age 20 as a Marine on the deck of the helicopter carrier USS Okinawa off the coast of Vietnam sometime in October 1967. I don't remember being so young or what was in my mind at the time. I didn't plan for a future because I expected to die before age 21. The night before I left home I got a drag racing ticket about two in the morning. The cop told me I would have to be in court in July. I told him I would be in Vietnam. "We'll be waiting at your door when you get back," he said. "If I make it back, I'll be glad to see you." I had a real world fatalistic attitude. I tore the ticket up before he drove away and never heard anymore about it. Maybe the judge figured I was in enough trouble. This morning I saw an article about a 25 year old veteran who killed himself after the VA turned him away when he sought help for PTSD. I usually never tell anyone except other veterans that I'm 100% service-connected for PTSD. I have been fo
My fiction, life in general, and war, with some pics from my Marine days in Vietnam.