Ghost Stories

Greetings,

In today's New York Times I found my comments included in a section called "Ghost Stories." I would like to thank the editors for selecting my piece.

On October 22, I posted an entry called BEDLAM AND HEALING. It was about the NYT and their "Home Fires," opinion section where Brian Turner, a Vietnam veteran posted his essay and poem. I'd read this and entered a comment and later read all of the postings, numbering 163 at that point.

Here is the entire piece and a link to the site. Read more...

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Hello Brian and Travelers,

I am a Vietnam veteran, author, English teacher and photographer living in Ha Noi after completing a teaching job in Indonesia. I felt it was time to “return” to a place where, as a green 19 year old, I was really on the ground.

I served with the 101st at Camp Eagle near Hue. I needed to get a sense of place and perspective. Nature has reclaimed all the land. Only the spirits and ghosts and memories remain.

I went to the Phu Bai airport. The yellow and green small simple cement building sits next to an “International” box. On the ground I found a discarded paper baggage handling tag. On one side in all caps it said, "EMPTY." I put it in my pocket.

‘Yes, ‘ I realized, ‘this completes the picture of my returning.’

As I wrote in my novel, “A Century Is Nothing” when I returned to San Francisco from Saigon heading to Denver they gave us a new green uniform.

It was a strange flight to Colorado. I grasped the significance of being a ghost. No one spoke to me. They averted their eyes. Maybe I smelled like death, evil incarnate, a green silent demon. Maybe all the passengers were afraid because I represented their worst nightmare. I was invisible, just like now.

Fortunately my “homecoming” was brief, then I continued to Germany where I finished my military time. Two years later while attending the University of Northern Colorado insensitive students, knowing my history, called me a “baby killer.” They had no idea. I didn’t absorb their sense of anger, frustration and illusionary ignorance.

Brian’s poem is a truthful insight how it feels to be invisible after a war. How leaves and rain and medicine birds are all. A cleansing and healing ceremony indeed.