I left the US Marine Corps 44 years ago today

                 I left the US Marine Corps 44 years ago today

                         May 11th, 1970 was a Monday. 

I had made it through 22 months without being thrown
in the brig or facing a court martial. By the time I was
discharged...not getting caught and being court martialed
was an achievement.

I had been in so many fights, and hurt so many people...
broken jaws, bones, knocked unconscious and more
things that I wouldn't say that I was lucky. The Irish
say 'God is Good'.

Much of what I did was because in the military, and
especially the Marine Corps, violence was and is equated
with masculinity. But, most of it may also have been
'combat rage' from undiagnosed (until 1986) Post-Taumatic
Stress.

When I got into fights I picked on the big fellas and more
often a group. I had intensive training in karate, judo and
jiu jitsu for two years before I went into Marine Corps boot
camp.

The worst thing I saw in Vietnam was over 240 bodies in
body bags stacked up like cordwood. I stopped counting
at about 240, and wept silently. I was alone on a medevac
copter that had set down at a fire base outside of the A Shau
valley from where I had been.

At the Chelsea Naval Hospital outside of Boston I was given
a rehab job of working in the intensive care unit IDU. My job
was to talk to Marines coming out of surgery. The first one had
all his limbs taken off. He was a year or so older than me. I
couldn't drink enough to put away what I felt. Hell, I didn't
even know what I felt...just a lot of deep emotional and spiritual
pain. And, no amount of alcohol seemed enough to sedate it,
unless I was near unconscious.

I got my final screwing by the 'Big Green Dick' as we called it,
i.e. the Marine Corps on my last day. I went to draw my separation
pay and was given $35.00 I thought it was a joke because the
bus fare from Jacksonville, NC to Boston was $35. Friends helped.
Two years later and after writing to Senators and representatives
the Marine Corps coughed up another $82.00

When I got home I was drunk, but nowhere as bad as I was about
to get. My neighbours were in for a shock 'What happened to
Paulie Meuse? If I saw someone looking at me I asked them what
their F**king problem was?

I went back to sharing a room with my brother, Michael, who was
just 14, and in high school. What a prick for a brother he had;-
I'd come in drunk anywhere from 2-5am flop onto my bed, and
I pinched his nostrils closed so he couldn't breath through them.
When he awoke I made a loud snoring sound.

Somehow, I made it through a very dark period alive. One of the
worst things about getting out of the military was that us 'grunts'
were carrying lots of pain, imagery, the screams of friends, and not
being able to help them...carrying the dead, and seeing people in the
hospitals with all manner of injuries.

Most injuries and deaths in Vietnam were caused by booby traps -
explosions. Instant death and maiming, limbs blown off, blindness,
deafness...

When I was home alone like all others out government didn't offer
any help, and fought recognition of Post-Taumatic Stress until 1980.
Many Vietnam vets took their own lives. Over 58,000 Americans
died in Vietnam - a drop in the bucket compared to how many
Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians died...close to 2 million.
But, every death leaves a massive vacuum in a family's life.


Over 100,000 US Vietnam veterans have taken their lives by their
own hand since returning from the war zone, and Vietnam veterans
have the highest suicide rate of veterans of all US wars. Hey
'We're No. 1:-

Late at night from 1970-1973  I often sat downstairs and listened to
my brother's 8-track cassettes and wept. I was afraid anyone would
hear me and know. I would have denied it.

I wept and wept and wept in those private times, and since on certain
occasions. Things happen in war - I was just past my 18th birthday
by two months- that you have to live with. For me it was with my
team leader putting knives to the throats of Marines in panic during
a sapper attack and sending them back to their bunkers...

then having to listen to them in the dark of night being knifed
to death and them exploded to bits. I had to wipe up their remains
the next morning.

Through it all three things have helped me.
One is a belief in God.
Secondly, is the mental toughness that I had as a boy and in
Vietnam, and
Third, a strong will to survive.

The last thing that is as important as the above is a wicked
sense of humour. It kept me sane in Vietnam and after.
I'm a survivor and will keep on pushing on as long as God
let's me.  no proof reading:-)