COMRADERY OF BROTHERS-IN-ARMS, AND A SUPPORTIVE FAMILY HELPS

BY DOMINIC CERTO

In Vietnam, I was a combat corpsman assigned to the battlefield with the 7th Marines. I recall leaping out of a helicopter to rejoin my platoon and feeling the ground rise to meet me like a brick wall, gravity pulling me down into brutal bloody fighting.

At 18, I experienced fear as unbridled anxiety, confusion, and inner conflict, repeatedly having to make the same choice – "fight or flight." I was motivated reflexively to fight and aid, almost like a body on automatic pilot, due to my training. But the enemy was hidden by the jungle and attacking with frenzy from every direction. In the blinding swirling chaos, I could clearly hear the screams of warriors engaging each other and deadly weaponry.

In that moment of raw truth, I was suddenly aware that all the glamour, of pretended valor from celluloid heroes like John Wayne – was the farthest thing from reality. What kind of shattered glory remained to the Marine right in front of me, riddled with bullets, covered in blood, crying like a child, his eyes focused on my own, his lips begging me not to let him die? It was a cruel revelation for a young idealistic man -- forced to face the real-world seconds before death or life with his limbs blown off.

At the time, coming home from active duty on the battlefield was like readjusting to a culture that bore no resemblance to the one I'd just departed. Scornful, self-righteous, spoiled people, so smug and so certain of their own politically correct vision of the world, began a process of "redefining" who – and what -- I had become. Lucky to be alive, I was a vet home from an unpopular war – an inglorious tainted "anti-hero," shamed and shunned like I had some form of deadly plague. I found myself fighting a new war on two fronts, inside and outside myself, protecting and defending my own core identity. My strategy was to join a group of positive-thinking vets and to rely upon the resources that surrounded me, even if I was resistant.

In the days during the Vietnam war the VA was of little support. After being discharged from the hospital I had an interview with a psychologist officer assigned to do a discharge review. The meeting was brief, and his closing analysis was a question he presented to me with a little smirk: "…so you're not going to kill or hurt anyone right? And your good to go?" to which I responded sure, I'm fine. But was I really?

I learned that my greatest support system was my family, especially my kids, my sisters and brothers, my parents, my friends a

THE BATTLE BEYOND: "The important thing is not to fight the battle alone, to understand that outside influence and compassion provides a new perspective, and a renewed interest in life and good things that lie ahead."