I am a Viet Nam Vet with PTSD, but atypical. Nam was fun times for me. What happened was the treatment after I returned home. I got my PTSD watching a man burn alive at a rocket factory and witness to an aircraft crash where I was first on site. I mention atypical PTSD in that I have never used an illegal drug in my life, not even marijuana. A little too much alcohol in the Army and till I was about 25, but it never involved work or legal problems.

The dividing line in Nam was TET. I was pre TET when we still thought we were going to win the war. After TET, the men were demoralized. The real factor is we should have learned from Nam that as with the current war it is not PTSD from events in Iraq that are as much a problem as the realization of events after. Wars are simply a waste of lives and the effects last a lifetime or generations after.

I mention I am also 61 years old. I was in Viet Nam from October 1966 to November 1967 in USASTRATCOM, 1st Signal Brigade, Long Lines Battalion, HQ Company,. I was in and around Saigon, Pleiku and Hue on a two man ground survelliance radar team. While the Army didn't have snipers, this was very similar. But the equipment was such as to save me from being put in too much danger. They would blow me and the radar up rather than risk it being captured. I was 19 years old on entry to Viet Nam. But the way I split the name, Viet means South. Nam was the actual country. The enemy was the Viet Mihn or Patriot Namese. Sometime after TET the two words got intermingled into Vietnam. Others cringe when I refer to Viet Nam as being the happiest time in my life. I enjoyed it, though there were a few moments of terror. Most of it was like a tropical vacation in an overly hot and humid country with lots of activity in depopulating and destroying some beautiful rain forest and other flora and fauna.

Any Nam Vets want, e-mail or PM me. I got to witness two rescues of troopers from double click land mines. It ain't like in the movies. They use an entirely different technique. Then there were a few stories about the snakes and the poor security in obtaining some of the house girls. All of which these stories have some humor in them.

(Oh that radar. They rather have it intact than destroy it. It was worth a couple million. So, I got fantastic air support if I so much as saw three rice farmers toting their AK47 or RPGs through the jungle. Only if I were about to be overrun did I fear the consequences. And the closest it came there was 14 T38 tanks at 1-3/4 miles. They never knew I was out there and had called in an air strike. Three waves of F4 or A4's took care of that. I never was informed which of the planes did the attacks. But assume it was F4 as they took off from two land bases and A4's were never seen except for carriers.