These thoughts came to me in the night and awoke me, demanding release. I have shared them with my vet buddies and have been shocked at the universal impact they had. I worry that our soldiers today are aimed in the same direction due to the criticism that is pouring out now, and the approach to this war. I wrote more about that somewhere. Michael D. "Moon" Mullins, author of "Vietnam in Verse, poetry for beer drinkers." "ViV" won the Gold Medal for poetry, 2007, from the Military Writers Society of America. The book is available on line from amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, books-a-million.com and iUniverse.com.It is available as an audio-book from the author. Please contact me at this e-mail address; mullins.m.1@comcast.net or via land mail at POB 456 Windfall, In. 46076.Vietnam Veteran, Delta 3/7, 199th Light Infantry, '68-'69. Vice President of the Military Writers Society of America

I had a hard time going to sleep. I knew I would. I stayed awake longer than I planned... by a little. Not a lot. I knew my night would be checkered by memories jumping around. A book I'm reading has brought back the old pain. Every day I get a morsal of the old animosity as our government is pulled away from the ghosts of those who died to make our country great. I feel the anger I've buried inside as our troops are disrespected by not letting them do what they can do. They are not being allowed to win. Ambitious officers are more concerned about their own promotions and how the politicians see them. When that happens wrong decisions are made and wrong deeds are done; morale is destroyed, "Why are we even here?" echoes as the will to serve and fight is eroded.

I was awakened early by visions that were created by those ideologies. They had taken the form of people I know attacking my credibility, doubting my participation in the 10 years long ordeal that was Vietnam. They said I was not there. That I did not act like so many they knew. That I did not strike out or suffer as they do. It made me killing mad. I turned over the table where we were in my anger. The vision had transformed into someone I knew, sitting across from me with face skewed in derision of my response. He stomped on my self-doubt, my belief that I had not done enough, had not bled enough, had not wept enough...had not won as my heroes had. I did not suffer enough then and here I am surrounded by people who do not know how many times those thoughts got out of their cages to belittle and torture me. They do not know my bottled up shame that is so like the proverbial genie escaping its glass cell then granting wishes for its savior. My genie sneers at me for not having given enough. It leers at me for not having been heroic enough.

Am I supposed to suffer more now to excise my evil genie? Am I to get angry and give a killing nose-bridge strike to my acquaintence to prove that I have been there, done a little of what my more involved comrades have done? Do I have to rip off the vision's ear to show my training? To convince them or myself? Do I have to kill one of them to prove I have PTSD to the VA, that I am angry, that I feel what others feel? I didn't do as much. I offered to go get a gun and shoot at them. I have been shot at so I want them to feel what I felt then. It will do no good. Bullets can't kill dreams. Bullets can't riddle doubt, regardless of where it resides. I am too much in control they think. I am too jovial. I am too cynical about the politicians and that is something shared by my brothers. I write about others because I did not do enough to write only about myself.

Am I angry at all the forces from which my night visions are comprised? I sit here on my toilet typing with tears in my eyes as I invoke the heroic ghosts of the past to forgive me. Am I angrier at myself for all that has been released?

I want to strike out and feel the vindication of inflicting pain on someone else other than me. I did serve. I did my job. I felt the anguish and pain of war. But I did not do enough. And I lived.

I may be surrounded by those who quietly whisper that they cannot believe that I did anything at all. I have had the wrong demeanor. I can show the scar on the back of my leg, painted there by flying concertina. I can show them the fading scar on my hip, pressed there by the rubbing of a loaded, wet web belt. I can show them the almost invisible tiny scars on the backs of my hands, burned into my flesh by tiny shards of shrapnel. I cannot show them the scars on my heart. They are the only ones which remain unchanged. No. They are larger. Maybe they have caused my blockages. My by-pass can never avoid them. More by-passes will not.

I survived. I did not do enough. I did not pay a high enough price. I am not a hero. Really I am not much. My guilt and self-doubt are alive and well. They have joined forces perhaps, to become paranoia.

But ask the psycholigist at the VA. He will tell you I don't suffer. I've tried too hard to serve since the war and I have done it well. I am in control and well adjusted. I am until the visions that destroy my sleep escape and attack the cages where I've kept them. And then I give them real faces so I can hurt them as much as they hurt me.

Control is tenuous and everyone has a button. Shall we pray, for them and me, that it never gets pushed? My demons won tonight They attacked at the start of sleep and roused me far too early. The scabs have been scraped off successfully and I am bleeding freely from my emotional jugular. Even though I have nearly killed myself with tobacco--my weapon of choice--i am going to go smoke a cigar and try to re-load. I have to speak about Memorial Day to some little old ladies tonight.
Who the hell am I to be speaking to anyone?Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry