Axar.az presents an article, "Getting Over It” by John Samuel Tieman.

I've just been asked, “When are you going to get over that war, Vietnam?” Did people ask survivors of the Titanic, “When are you going to get over all those folks drowning?”

Not long ago, I listened as another war vet, a World War II vet, spoke of memories he never shares. I thought smugly, “Thank God that, with all my therapy, I'm so open ...”. When it occurred to me that there are stories I never tell. So now I'll tell you.

Only once did I see anything akin to a classical battle. Mine was a guerrilla war. I was in over a hundred rocket and ground assaults, but I can count on one hand the number of times I saw my enemy. But once, just once when I was there, the 4th Infantry Division, my unit, caught a North Vietnamese regiment on a mountain top near An Khe. The battle went on all day.

There are many images from that day, many I still remember, wounded Americans being medevaced, a dead American. Many things I've simply forgotten, like the name of the North Vietnamese Regiment, for example. But one image, this one that I still carry, is the image of a helicopter gunship, a Cobra, rocketing North Vietnamese soldiers. It was the first thing I dreamt of when I got home, my first war nightmare, that rocket. I mourn for all the dead and wounded, but that rocket, that rocket ... .

As I write, that was fifty-five years ago. When am I going to get over Vietnam? When you can put that rocket back into its launcher. That and the day you can make me undream that nightmare. Then I'll get over that war.

There are times when I'd like to unlearn things about myself. When am I going to get over the war? When I can unlearn that I can kill.

Late summer, early evening, 1970. I was twenty years old. I remember (curious that I’d remember this) it was cloudy. I was walking up a dirt road that ran in front of our hooch. I passed these three fellows. Two were trying to calm the guy in the middle. The guy in the middle said nothing. He was seething. Even at that moment, his rage was remarkable, the subsequent events notwithstanding. It is worth noting this because being angry in The Nam normally didn’t merit notice.

I learned decades later from a war buddy, Dick Bittner, that this guy had been to see the chaplain. The chaplain had refused to see him. Dick Bittner thinks that subsequent events could have been avoided if the chaplain had shown more compassion. Who knows? When I saw him, he was indeed coming from the direction of the chaplain’s quarters. He was heading for Charlie Company, an infantry unit catty-corner across this field, an old rice paddy, from the band, my unit. When Charlie Company was in from the bush, I used to smoke dope with those guys in that dried-up paddy.

Perhaps an hour later, after sunset anyway, I was talking with Parsons and Novak. They were the chaplain’s assistants, “The God Squad”. Nice guys. I sometimes bunked with Parsons. They did mention some angry guy who had visited the chaplain. I didn't make the connection until some time later. But mostly we just sat around chatting about this and that. I was sitting on the ground.

Then there was a quick burst of M-16. Maybe three or four rounds. Close. Real close. Meters from here. We froze, stared at each other. Then a lot of shots.

I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t brave. I didn’t feel anything. I switched that part of me off. I didn’t go into action so much as I switched on the automatic part of me. I leapt to my feet. The others remained in the hooch, more stunned than anything else. Perhaps they were still having the feelings I had turned off. I got my helmet, locked and loaded my M-16. I took a position behind a sandbag wall slightly above and to the east of a nearby field. That’s where I saw him.

I heard later two stories. In The Nam, I heard that the guy, the angry guy, killed four people, including the two I saw with him. Years later, Dick Bittner told me that he murdered his 1st sergeant. These two versions are not mutually exclusive. In any case, murder. Then he retreated to the field, the old rice paddy. Right in front of me.

I could see exactly where he was, despite the blackness, the moonless, cloudy night. I saw his muzzle flashes. I was slightly less than ninety degrees to his right, and slightly above him. I was behind a sandbag wall. Perhaps a hundred or so meters away. I doubt if he even knew I was there. I was an Expert Rifleman. This was an easy shot.

I wanted to shoot. I was ready to shoot. I withheld my fire. The angry guy was firing into the night, and it was clear that other grunts, very close by, were hunting him. But I wasn’t sure where they were. No sooner did I have this thought than I saw a grunt in the dark, not five meters in front of the angry guy, open up. Full automatic. Virtually point blank. The whole incident, from first shot to last, took a few minutes.

I learned something about myself that night. A lot of folks wonder if they could kill someone. I’m not one of those folks. I've spent five and a half decades wanting to not know that about myself. I'll get over my war on the day I unlearn that about myself.