'Spose I could backtrack and fill in some of the deleted days and weeks from Basic Training and AIT but I don't think I will. I didn't know what the hell I was doing back then. A feather on the wind of the times, hoping I wouldn't be blown out to sea. Or something like that. Can't say my grasp on things has gotten any better over the years. Life's always in flux. What's around the corner is an educated guess at best. Usually it turns out to have been a new take on an old mistake.
I'm not even sure about what I've just written. But I'll sleep on it for a day or two, see how it feels then.
Next day: So where does that leave me? I'm as old as the WWI vets were when I was a kid. Actually older than most of those Doughboys were. That's scary. But Jesus, I'm a Vietnam vet, how can I be that old? Don't want to ever admit that the times have passed me by but there I am, that's me up near the back of the bleachers watching the parade of buffoonery on their smart phones. Or the 'look at me' crowd of vets on their Harleys as they rumble by following the color guard on the 4th of July.
And I carry a ruck sack of guilt wherever I go. Went to war for no better reason than I couldn't think of a way out of a dead end. Didn't go for the freedom of the South Vietnamese. Didn't go to keep someone else from going. Wasn't for the war, wasn't against it, till I was in it. Never finished my tour in Vietnam while others were still needlessly dying. And in the days since, even though I walked in a few marches and wore my hair long, I haven't changed the world for the better as far as I can see.
More tomorrow.
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