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A Veteran with Home Movies of Vietnam?
by James P. Szakmary, Lance Corporal, USMC
24 August 2004

A Vietnam veteran questions how Kerry can cavalierly parade his Vietnam experience, considering service in Vietnam was a nightmarish experience that still brings back unpleasant flashbacks.

I am still a proud former Marine, proud of my 13 months of service “in country.” I know what it’s like to be in the boonies, to smell death, and to draw enemy fire. That was done on a regular basis. It’s how we fought the Viet Cong in a guerrilla war. As a forward observer and radio operator, I called in artillery, when they were drawn out in the open. Our mission was to kill people and break things and we did it well!

It was very hot there, with insects, snakes or leaches on us at all times. Always wearing our helmets and flack jackets but still getting wounded and dying in a jungle. Waiting for that med-evac chopper to show up. Waiting for the fire missions to be approved or for close air support to assist us. And what did we read about when we returned to the firebase? The people back home, protesting against us. Calling us baby killers. The Prince of Boston was now one of their heroes; again he was part of the problem. Now he is among the traitors and turncoats such as the Tom Haydens and Jane Fondas of that time. I contracted malaria in Viet Nam, and returned to fight. I was wounded by friendly fire and still returned to fight. I’m a Marine dammit!

Upon my return to the states in the summer of ’69, someone spit on my ribbons on the uniform I was wearing. I was walking through a terminal at JFK Airport with my sea bag, which weighed almost as much as I did. (I returned to the U.S. weighing 145 lbs., a loss of about 30 lbs.) Why would someone spit on me? It wasn’t my idea to go to Viet Nam; I believe LBJ sent me there. The cab driver also didn’t like the fact that someone in uniform got in his cab. (We had to wear our uniforms in order to fly with military orders.) Welcome Home! I don’t consider myself a war hero or even a highly decorated Marine, with 3 rows of ribbons. I’m just a typical Viet Nam veteran. So why is the Prince of Boston considered a hero? Just saying it doesn’t make it so.

I was watching the Democrats after their convention, in front of the Boston Pops. I was amazed at how the Prince of Boston was able to handle the fireworks display. I cannot listen to fire crackers; they remind me of a firefight and give me flashbacks. I can’t listen to the mortar tubes that send these displays into the air; too many mortars hit us in Viet Nam. The smell of gunpowder sends me back in time to a place I don’t want to be. The Fourth of July, unfortunately, places me in a mental combat zone. I have had to spend that week, for years, in my hideaway in the Adirondack Mountains to keep my sanity. It’s that or the VA psych ward again. My neighbors have no idea or regard for the pain they put me through when they set off their fireworks, having a good time at my expense. Do they really understand what the Fourth represents?

As I returned to civilian life in ‘70, I put Viet Nam away and started out to pursue the American dream, getting married, buying a home, and raising children. I became an Air Traffic Controller at New York Center (NYARTCC). That went well until the upcoming PATCO strike in ’81. I quit. I couldn’t get on the picket line nor could I cross the picket line. Maybe I just couldn’t take a stand at that time, but in any event I went into my own business for the next few years. I returned to the FAA in ’86, due in part to partnership problems. I now worked in a tower environment at Republic Airport (FRG), instead of the radar environment that I was formally used to working in. But guess what? A police helicopter crash that I witnessed from the tower was all it took to send me back into a flashback mode. I didn’t know it at the time, but that day started me on a long journey, 180 degrees from where I was at that time. What some may have even considered “normal.” After being placed on Valium I was medically disqualified and unable to continue my life’s profession, ATC. I was now assigned to a job at JFK doing accident investigations. Since it was the FAA Regional Office, we handled 6 states. I wrote up hundreds of accidents and incidents over the years, including Senator Heinz’ crash in PA, involving a helicopter.

Increasing nightmares, sweats and flashbacks from being involved with accidents continued to wake up my buried past from Viet Nam. (Hence the title of this article) These are my “home movies” that play daily in my head. Talk about movies on demand! Burnt bodies, partial bodies, missing heads and blood. No sleep, rotating shifts and rotating days off almost destroyed my family and me. (I still have my wife and 2 daughters.) In ’92 I went to my first Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) unit at the VA Hospital in Northport, NY. I was given 90 days to learn how to cope with this disorder of the highest order, as I’ve come to find out. I was already an outpatient for a few years and still taking my prescribed Valium, but now I would be taken off all medications so I could deal with my true self and was immersed in the program.

In early ’93 I returned to the FAA Regional Office and was given a 9 to 5 day job. No more accidents to work with, I was now an educator. I was the Aviation Education Program Manager for the region. I traveled, I taught and developed aviation programs in high schools and colleges, and I was good at it. But after a few years I found I could no longer outrun my PTSD. By July of ’96 I was retired on Federal Disability Retirement, burnt out and no longer able to work, or sometimes, even function. I now had plenty of meds and was very disoriented. I would like to note at this point that it’s a good thing I realized back in ’81 that I was an alcoholic and put down the drink, because if I were still self medicating, I’d be dead by now. The VA had placed me on 100% disability and Social Security also added me to their rolls. I was only 49 years old, and I was a retired grandfather. I proceeded to “take off” for the next 7 years, staying in touch with my family, but not able to return until 2 years ago. I then went to a third PTSD unit in ’03 in a continuing effort to control my “home movies”.

I spend most of my time either at 12 step meetings or talking to other veterans, mostly Viet Nam veterans, since they seem to make the most sense to me and understand where I am. I also go to a lot of their funerals too. I don’t know why since we’re only in our fifties. I spend Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day weekends at The Wall. That’s where my childhood friends are.

Why am I telling you all of this sensitive information about myself? Because I am hoping that someone will listen. I want to be a part of the solution, even though Viet Nam is not yet over for me. I am a fighter and still go to the VA Hospital every week and still have to take my medications, although I am happy to say it’s been 12 years since I’ve had to take Valium. I can’t afford to be so cavalier about my time in Viet Nam as the Prince of Boston appears to be.

He voted to cut the defense and intelligence budgets and voted to raise my taxes. He spent 18 years in the Senate without one substantial bill bearing his name. Some still accuse the President of stealing the last election, with the help of the Supreme Court, although the facts prove just the opposite. Just because the liberal media says it’s so, doesn’t mean that it is. Al Gore also can’t seem to let it go, but at least he doesn’t wear Viet Nam on his sleeve. Senator McCain didn’t either, and he’s my hero. Would I, or did I vote for him? No! Maybe it was too many years in solitary or too much torture at the hands of his captors, but he is definitely not all there. I can easily see that, but he is still my hero and it’s not necessary at all to explain why.

The Prince of Boston’s sidekick has also been responsible for helping to raise the insurance rates of doctors, thereby helping toraise our health insurance premiums. Again, he is part of the problem, not the solution. Give him a little senate intelligence sub-committee work and he’s an expert too, but why didn’t any of them see 9/11 coming? Clinton gave Bin Laden back to the enemies of these United States, but that was left out of Fahrenheit 9/11. The 9/11 commission, biased as it was, also debunked the movie and other left wing liberals, like Dick Clarke, but the left wing media just continues to hand them a free pass. They really don’t care how many die, as long as their “Prince” gets elected.

Again, why am I writing and disseminating my dissatisfaction? I’m sick and tired of our flag and our country being bombarded by a constant barrage of left wing ideology. We’re leaning too far to the left as it is, embracing socialism, and leaning toward communism. My Hungarian born grandparents were deathly afraid of the communists and would have rather been “dead than red.”

I am sensing a deeper and deeper chasm in the U.S. It’s split us in the past with the War Between the States, and it split us again during the Viet Nam conflict, for which I and many other veterans are still paying the price. I fear we are splitting once again, toward civil war or insurrection. I don’t know how long conservatives will sit still and watch the liberals tear down the standards of a once great nation. I am beginning to look at the diehard liberals as my enemy. Are we strong enough to withstand this challenge without a fight? It is the veterans of this country that back up the words of the constitution that grant the Ed Asners, Whoopie Goldbergs, and Linda Ronstats, the freedom to make their ridiculous statements against our country’s standards. How much longer will we stand by and just watch? America must wake up before it’s too late. I am probably writing what most Americans are feeling. We’re a silent majority and if we fail to make our voices heard at the ballot box this year, we’re handing over control of the country to the liberal minority, and their ideals.

I’ve been voting as a registered Republican, and/or Conservative, since I was old enough to vote. I turned 21 in Viet Nam and voted on an absentee ballot for President Nixon, who I might add, subsequently returned me to the safety of the U.S. I made it through the big lie of the draft dodging Clinton administrations, but I don’t know if I can withstand another big lie of a Prince of Boston administration. I am already thinking of Iceland, Greenland, New Zealand, or even Australia. Does this type of thinking make me an Alec Baldwin type?

This country is far from being out of danger, not just from terrorists, but also from their willful cohorts, the liberals. God help us, and God; please help me to make a difference. I’ve been struck down long enough by Viet Nam and my subsequent battle with PTSD. Help me and others to rise up and defeat our old adversaries and our new found enemies. I want to be a part of the solution, a solution for a better and stronger America, where all are created equal. What we do with that equality is up to the individual, not the government. God bless the U.S.