One former soldier summarizes his year in combat in Vietnam in a few paragraphs. Check this out.

Too many months in the bush could eat a man alive.

In Vietnam, time didn’t move the way it did anywhere else.

The jungle had its own clock — a clock wound by fear, exhaustion, and the constant hum of death nearby. After enough patrols, enough firefights, enough nights without sleep, you could almost feel something inside you start to break loose, like a bolt working itself free in a machine that’s been running too hot for too long.

The stress never really left. It seeped into your bones, your thoughts, your dreams. The heat, the endless rain, the stench of rot and sweat — it wore you down. Some guys got mean. Others just got quiet. You’d look at them and know they were somewhere else, lost inside themselves. Bad attitudes, frustration, and anger became part of the uniform. If you survived the war the bad attitude could come home with you.

Vietnam wasn’t World War II. There were no islands to capture, no flags to plant, no clear victories to celebrate, no sense of accomplishment. There were no front lines, no solid ground to stand on — just endless operations through the same valleys and hills, fighting the same enemy that melted into the jungle before you could reach him. You’d fight for a hill, take it, leave it — and the next month, you’d fight for it again. Nothing changed. Nothing stayed won. The war just kept breathing.

It didn’t take long for you to feel like a stranger in your own skin. That’s why we called the United States “the world.” Because Vietnam felt like another planet — a hot, green, godforsaken place where logic didn’t apply and survival was the only mission that mattered.

Then one day, it was over. A flight home. A handshake. A few hugs with family. You were supposed to be back in the world — but your mind wasn’t. After over a year in combat, home felt too quiet, too clean, too detached from everything you’d just lived through. Your body missed the adrenaline rush. You’d survived, yes, but at a cost you couldn’t explain to any one who hadn’t been there. The guilt, the ghosts, the faces you still saw when you closed your eyes — they all came home with you.

Many of us left Vietnam.

But Vietnam never left us.

Marine Sgt. Rich Thurmond
I/3/9 3rd Marine Division
Vietnam 4/12/68 – 4/28/69

(Source: https://www.facebook.com/) / https://www.veteransgrapevine.com/

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