Doctors, Lawyers, Warriors and Thieves

My first book is an effort to tell what made men volunteer to serve in Vietnam during an unpopular war and some of the events they experienced there. On returning home afterward they found that their ideas were not shared by everyone. At a time of antiwar sentiment and trying to adapt to a life they left behind they found they were not the same as when they left. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder overwhelmed them and caused many to seclude themselves from society, express violent tendencies, commit suicide and be imprisioned for violent crimes. The system let them down when they returned from a warzone without psycological screening or help to deal with their problems. Something they would deal with for the rest of their lives.

Warriors who gave their all and many their lives and physical health, returned battered amputees, physical wrecks and emotional misfits. Many winding up in prison, intitutions and homeless. No parades or even thanks for what they did, made them drop out from society. Many wanted to go back to the war as soon as they returned home, since that was what they learned as a significant impact they could make and where they were appreciated for what they did. The commarderie of warriors pitted against death, where true honor and brotherhood is what gave them respect. Many not accepting why they lived and their brothers had died or were maimed, were left alone to fend for themselves the best they could. More had committed suicide in the first several years after the war then died in the war. A statistic that was not publiscized much, as that would look like their government didn't care. It wasn't until the truth came out about how lies and deceptions were the norm for gathering support for the war and justifiying our involvement, did the American people see how they were deceived into supportting a war effort that was destined to fail. But the warriors didn't fail in their commitment to duty, it was after returning home that they began to fail to reclaim their american dream, failed to adapt and failed to overcome the many problems that beset men when they return from a war.

Growing up in the most violent city in the nation during the sixties race riots, driving an ambulance there and being a pre-med student taught me objectivity and disconecting of emotions to violent events. That is what helped me to deal with my experiences more than most who were thrown into the cauldron unready for what they were about to experience, the most inhumane action man has ever devised....war.