Why?

Two friends of mine, one I’ve known since Jr. High and the other of two years or so have asked me questions about this blog. After considerable thought I have provided the reasons below which are not necessarily in order of importance.

The first question from my photography mentor, an American living in Dublin was: Why? That question has many answers, some more important than others. Most of my friends are my age and lived during the Vietnam War. Some as observers and a few as participants who also observed. All of the history that I’m aware of was framed around big events like battles, movies and stories about individual bravery and scandals, or political commentary and analysis. All of which formed the positions we hold today on the legitimacy of the War. There are quite a few interesting  autobiographies out there, but once again not widely read except by the families friends, or veterans from their unit. This blog is my autobiography without the fuss of writing a book. Also it is living document in that it is a two way street addressing comments and questions. My blog is about my individual experience during 365 days of relative monotony punctuated by minutes of terror and my growth from a carefree teen to a responsible hardened combat flying soldier. It is not political, nor is it about the morality of our culture. It will contain some immoral aspects and events of war that I participated in, which the negative still walks with me most days of my life.

One of the interesting things about my children and grandchildren is that when the Vietnam War comes up in school they don’t hesitate to ask me questions about my participation as soon as they find out I was there. As soon as they write their assignment their interest wanes as they go back to their lives. I was the same about my uncles and fathers in laws who participated in WWII. All are dead now and I’ve lost the window to ask and they left no memories. No photos, no war stories, no letters home, nothing. This blog may answer questions about what Dad or Papa did in the war.

Among my friends are many I served with driven to inform people about our unit or their lives on the line through a web-site they manage or in other ways like Facebook. I’m guilty, at least in the social activities available through Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. I wrote my first “War Story” by request of the owner of the website for my first tour unit. I wrote the story and in spite of not caring so much about writing in general, I felt good about it. It even provided a little closure. Apparently many others did as well. I even got a call from one of the Crew Chiefs of the lethal Cobra crash that was part of the story. I get some relief about telling and writing some of the more interesting events in my life.

The last reason for “why” I’ll write about is my path to God. In a way my tours in Vietnam were a list of coincidences and events which should have ended my life, but didn’t. So this blog will be the long version of what Christians call my testimony. Vietnam wasn’t the whole path but certainly was the rockiest. Our spiritual lives are very important and if this helps someone else find God then I’m in.

The second question came from someone I’ve known since Jr. High. She was someone I’d admired then and now. Her question was, - Are your memories of so long ago as vivid as they read? I told her yes. The stories are about events in my life that involve minutes or a very few hours that really were about fear, or other feelings. However, there are other things in the stories that are not about vividness. Standard procedures, organizations, knowledge of physics, aerodynamics, radio procedures and other things that stitch the stories together are definitely not vivid. For example in one of my unpublished stories I had to do research within my unit to find the names of the crew members participating. My vividness was the story and I had to fill in some of the details from research.

The next episode after this will cram a couple of months into a paragraph which will be anything but vivid but important in my development as a pilot and soldier from a teenager setting foot into a combat zone.

PS: I’ve updated the blog to include a Follow  button. This gives you a notification when I post. If you want to continue with the real war stories please Follow.