The Vietnam War Goes On, Stories From The New Front Line

© 2014 ‎(COVVHA) Children Of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance INC
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The Vietnam War Goes On, Stories From The New Front Line
My dad was and will always be my hero.

He was a kind and generous man, who helped anyone in need. He sacrificed so much of himself so that his children could have a better life than he had growing up. He grew up very poor, with ten siblings total. I have heard some of his remaining siblings speak of my dad as the “gentle and kind” one. My favorite story I learned later in life about my dad as a boy was even though they had very little food, he would always keep some back so that he could go outside an feed a little alley cat whose ribs were sticking out but had a gorgeous purr when he saw my dad, the boy. Being an animal rescuer myself and knowing how my pets reacted towards him when he came to visit me as an adult, it was evident that my pets had a sixth sense about him loving them, too.

My dad growing up:

My dad played board games with me in the back of his rusty old pick up truck that had a cab on top when it was a rainy day and I begged to go outside. He found a way to make “playing outside” happen. He took me regularly to the local school playground (which we called the park) and we always stopped for whippy-dip ice cream. Dad would make up pretend stories about meeting the “Duke Boys” from the Dukes of Hazard and always do all the “voices” for each character as he spoke. We sang together; “How much is that doggie in the window,” and “Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” and most importantly we laughed a lot. He interacted with my brother in the same way. And when there were absent fathers of other boys in the neighborhood, he became the neighborhood “dad” that would play baseball in our backyard with all of them.

Dad’s Work Life:

He worked 37 years as a mechanic doing hard labor work, but I never heard him complain. He did it to make sure my brother and I never wanted for anything. He came home sometimes with gashes on his hands and smelling of oil and gasoline; oddly enough a smell I love to this very day. His hands were always black and until he stopped working, I had never seen his hands any other way.

Illness Begins in the Family:

It devastated my dad that my brother got leukemia in the spring of 1994. He blamed himself and his agent orange exposure. Everyone told him that a link between the leukemia and Agent Orange could not be proven, (at that time) but he was never the same after my brother’s illness. The guilt and worry took its toll on dad. In September 1994 I was my brother’s bone marrow donor (even though the hospital board said I wasn’t a ‘good enough’ match.) The oncologist went through with the procedure anyway, secretly, lost his license and risked everything– and thank God he did. My brother has been in remission now for 20 years this upcoming September.

Both my brother and I have experienced a myriad of medical issues that I am just now connecting to dad’s agent orange exposure. I am thankful that he is not here to know the extent to which AO has impacted us, and will impact the next 6 generations after my brother and I, medically.

When my dad was unable to work any longer due to severe disintegrating disks in his back, he was deeply saddened. He had been loyal to his company all these years and felt they just “let him go” without a second thought. My dad was loyal, when he said something, he meant it. He always kept his word.

Sometimes things in life happen the way they are supposed to (despite the ailments that come along with AO exposure.) I am a school teacher, and when my dad was no longer working he would come over and “hang out” with me all day long in the summer months. I love to garden, and he would help me plant flowers, spread mulch, cut back tree limbs, among other things. The best part about this was not the help I got with gardening, it was that I finally got to know my dad as an adult; as a person– not just as my dad. This was before his dementia had progressed. Dad and I would sit on the glider on my back porch after working in the hot sun and drink lemonade. He would admire my yard and smile. And he would unexpectedly open up to me about his childhood, his time in Vietnam and the nightmares that still plagued him, and he would tell me stories from later in life when he was working as a mechanic. I didn’t know it at the time, but I got the privileged to really KNOW my dad, the man. He trusted me, he opened up to me, and I will carry his memories, both the happy and sad, the joyous and the horrifying, forever.

His health declined slowly at first, beginning with back pain and bulging and disintegrating disk. Surgery only made him going into a state of delirium, of which the first time he did overcome with time. But the doctors could help him no further with the pain (they refused further surgeries) except for prescribing unbelievable
amounts of pain killers, that did not put a dent into the pain he felt on a daily basis.

In January 2014, we had a joint birthday party. Dad turned 65 on the 16th and I 36 on the 12th. It was a regular family gathering with food and laughter. Little did I know my dad was hiding a medical secret that was worsening by the day.

My dad was urinating blood. And, he had a bulging tumor in his abdominal region. Over the next few months it was determined that he had bladder cancer, and there was little they could do to stop its quick progression. His ureter and and his urethra were both blocked by the cancer. The doctor came out of surgery (surgery they had no other choice but to perform) looking like he had seen a ghost. The doctor had put in 1 stint to his “good” kidney, directly through the tumor. The doctor also said the stint would need to be changed surgically every three months. And like I said before, surgeries threw dad into a state of dementia. I’m sure the surgeon knew when he had my dad opened up on the table that this was terminal and dad would not make it three months to worry about changing his stint.) Dad’s other kidney was found to simply not be functioning at all. The cancer was spreading fast.

By March 2014, my dad was hallucinating. He would see birds flying in his hospital room, among other silly things that we would just agree and tell him, yes, we saw it too. This calmed him. On one occasion towards the end of his life, he was lying in his VA hospital bed, and the nurses had just given him some sedating medication. He did not want to get into bed and was fighting the sleepiness. Instead he got down on the floor and started talking about fixing this “car” which was actually his hospital bed, and he kept asking me to pass him tools, so I pretended to do so. We eventually got him into bed to rest, and with tears of fear in his eyes he whispered to me, “Laura, there is a monster in the window.” I can’t count the number of times he chased “monsters” out of my closet and from underneath of my bed, or carrying me soothingly up and down the hallway to ease my fears of monsters in the middle of the night when I was a child. That day I looked my dad straight in the eyes and said, “Don’t worry dad. The monster is on the outside of the window, OK? And you left me your weapon, so I will go outside and kill that monster for you. OK dad? You just rest. I will make sure that the monster will not get in. You trust me dad, right?” He finally closed his eyes and whispered “yes…”

Soon after this incident, he was released to go home under the care of hospice. I stayed at my mom’s almost nonstop during this period of time. I didn’t want to leave dad. I knew it was nearing the end. On April 1st, 2014, he was laying in his hospital bed in his own family room, and had been asleep for a while (a week maybe?) My mom and I both told him we were going to be ok. He didn’t have to stay on Earth to take care of us anymore. We were ok, and it was ok for him to let go. A half and hour later, he took his last breath and was gone. I laid in his hospital bed with him after he had passed for a long while, crying and holding his lifeless body. The hospice nurse came and declared time of death, and then the funeral directors came to take his body away to “prepare.” Even though my dad’s essence was gone, and I knew it, I didn’t want to let him go or get out of that hospital bed were his dead body laid still and quiet. But I had to.

I made sure that he had the most beautiful military funeral, with a 21 gun salute, the folding of the flag and so forth. It was not easy to get organized, but I was determined to pull it together for my dad. Although the day of his funeral was foggy to me, I remember many people whose lives he had touched over the years showed up to pay respects, including at least one of those little boys without a father growing up, that my dad played baseball with in the backyard. Another young man who worked with my dad told us my dad had trained him and equipped him with all the mechanic knowledge he needed to make a living. He spoke of my dad’s humor as well as his patience. I wish my dad knew how much those people respected and loved him.

My dad left a mark in this world, but has left a giant hole in my heart. That is the man I want to honor. My dad, and the Marine.

Military:

In Vietnam my dad worked on helicopters and flew with the active soldiers on occasions. He remembered everything being drenched in AO, although they didn’t know what it was at the time. He was a First Marine Aircraft Wing- the wing is the air arm of the third marine amphibious force in the I CORPS Tactical Zone of Vietnam. This was the first section by the DMZ.

My dad served as an active Marine in Vietnam for 4 years, and spent 2 years in reserves. The medals he earned that we are aware of are:
-National Defense Service Medal
-Vietnam Service Medal
-Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm
-At least two Good Conduct Medals

Dad spent a little time in Okinawa, but was mostly in Vietnam. At one point he was actually left unknowingly behind by his troop while they were trying to escape an attack by the Viet-Cong, and so dad hid in a fox hole with rats the size of a small dachshund hound biting him repeatedly. His troop did return for him, but dad was left with some mental scars that haunted him the remainder of his life.

I am attaching a picture of my dad. Thank you for honoring my dad, and the other fathers of the children of Vietnam veterans. This has been therapeutic to write out, and feel free to share this story with anyone you feel it would help to know they are not alone. I am sure others have similar stories to tell. This is just about one man; one of the many brave men that served our country during Vietnam, only to return home to face bitterness and disrespect by some protesting Americans. I hope we have learned from my dad’s war and now treat our troops with respect as they return home. I hope that even though we may hate war, we can still simultaneously love, appreciate, and respect the soldier who serves and fights for his country.

Laura Kaminski Barlage © 2014 Children Of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance All Rights Reserved

The post The Vietnam War Goes On, Stories From The New Front Line appeared first on Children Of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance.

© 2014 ‎(COVVHA) Children Of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance INC
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