Veterans

I have literally spent years dealing with the demons from Viet Nam, including some time spent as an in-patient at a VA psych ward.

A year or so after I got out of the army, I was visiting my grandfather in England, where I slept in the room next to him. The first night I was there, I dreamt about a particular firefight, in which I repeatedly relived shooting and killing a man. My grandfather, who had served in France in 1914-15 (and spent the rest of WWI in Egypt and Palestine -- he knew T. E. Lawrence and didn't think much of him) said to me the next morning that I had had a rough night. I said that I dreamt I was back in combat, and asked him. "Do the nightmares ever go away?" He replied, "They will subside, but never go away completely." My cousin came in and asked what we were talking about. My grandfather said, "I hope you never find out." I agreed enthusiastically. My grandfather was right, the nightmares have subsided, but are not gone.