 |
Suicide is a selfish act, and Ben was not a selfish person. What finally
put him over the edge twenty-six years after he came home from Vietnam, I
will never know. He probably didn't even know himself. Ben was my best friend.
We had an almost psychic connection. We always seemed to know what the other
one was thinking. But this time it failed me. Sometimes I'm afraid he thought
I knew what he was planning and that I was condoning it because of my silence.
If I have any guilt, it is that I should have known. We both knew what his
problem was and that suicide was a possibility. But he was under the care
of professionals, and he had a good marriage and a well-paying job. We were
doing everything right. So I let my guard down. You can never let your guard
down.
Ben enlisted in the Army after he graduated from high school. He wanted to
serve his country. He arrived in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne in December
1967. His letters home contained descriptions of the countryside and the
conditions, but very seldom his experiences. The one exception was a letter
dated February 18, 1968:
Good-bye,
Ben
Ben was shot in the arm and sent home in April 1968. He avoided the V.A.
and threw his Air Medal and his Purple Heart in the trash. He started classes
at Whittier College, dropped out, went through two brief marriages, and had
a problem with alcohol and drugs.
He had never heard of Posttraumatic Stress; he just thought he was going
crazy. In the early 80s, he got involved with the Vet Center in Sacramento,
a volunteer organization staffed by combat veterans. When he found out there
were so many others who shared his symptoms, he told me that knowledge literally
saved his life. He had a C & P exam [Compensation and Pension Examination]
for his PTSD, and was granted a 10 percent disability in March 1983.
Everything was pretty good for a while after we married in 1985, but about
a year later, Ben began to feel depressed, sad, and tearful for no apparent
reason. In his room, he had to orient the desk so that he was facing the
door, and in public places, he always had to have his back to the wall. He
stockpiled food and survival gear and guns. He was having combat nightmares
and told his doctor he felt quite certain that he would have killed himself
if it had not been for my support.
Ben was put on medication for the first time, and his PTSD rating was increased
to 30 percent. We learned everything we could about the condition, and discovered
that his symptoms were pretty typical. He began to talk a little about his
survivor's guilt. He told his doctor that of the 350 men who underwent jungle
training with him and went to Vietnam together as a unit, only 18 of them
came back alive.
4.11.07