To Frag, Vietnam, NH

To Frag Vietnam was a long time ago. The memories of such a time in one’s life must fade as time grows. Does anyone today even know what to Frag is? My mind works in a different way for most to understand. Personally I cannot even see how this society accepts me to be even present. The catalyst to make these memories come must be to attend meetings with other US Military Veterans. I am like a third wheel on the out side looking as all these events keep repeating themselves over and over trying to tell me something. My time in Vietnam is limited to a few TAD’s from my base camp in Thailand and Japan. If my time on eight convoys as American Advisor did not exist my engagement with the enemy would only be mortars and sniper fire coming over the perimeter wire during one offensive I inadvertently lived through. I feel in my head more intently the waiting. No matter what there is going on in memory of there I always feel the waiting as if that is the entire process. Vietnam is sometimes present on this very day. Vietnam is no different than any other war even the present today’s wars. Men and women then as well as today come home and most fit back into society covering up the atrocities that we lived in. Some returning Veterans slip through the cracks and are dropped into a civilized society that cannot see life in the Veterans way. The Veterans Administration has the Red Flag to label those in the need of medical care for combat related disabilities for the safety of those programmed to care for these returning men and women. The Red Flag is a weapon seen by the Veteran of enemy actions to hinder our freedom. The Red Flag is just like the US Military Veterans homeless shelters with all their rules and regulations that elaborate on the prison or enemy containment. VA doctors question in a way to place events we lived through as not humanly possible. Facts and reality get turned around to not fit criteria where people that never attended combat can accept. A veteran of any war mentally unable to separate just will not accept putting the ones we did it for through our ill ways. Homelessness is in a world where we can live alone. Where the safety of life is no longer our responsibility. The Vietnam bush was far worse than the streets of the USA. We lived through Vietnam but now our short calendar no longer depletes in days. Single person Cabins in the Woods for homeless US Military Veterans is just what my wife and I will build. Any homeless US Military Veteran that there is a single person cabin available for will be allowed with out rules and regulation of danger or laziness. Accepting these men and women and giving them a place to come home mentally and physically at their own speed if ever will be the only rule. Even my wife and children see me as different. I am the lucky one because they tolerate me with love and give me a great life. I was dropped into a world with no care or help then and the same happens now. The Veterans Resort-Chapel will be the start of the long road home for the forgotten ones on the streets of NH. To Frag is something you that were never in the situation could ever conceive. Peter Macdonald Sgt USMC Simper Fi 465 Packers falls rd Lee NH 03824 603-781-3839