In 1967 my brother, Gary, was drafted into the U.S. Army during the American war in Vietnam. Because our parents were ill and Gary was our caretaker, I was sent to live with relatives. On November 4th, my brother arrived in Qui Nhon, Vietnam. I rarely saw him again until I was grown.
Gary wrote many letters home while he was stationed in Vietnam. Pictures arrived. Although in his letters he spoke of his living quarters and described the helicopters he piloted into the front lines, he rarely discussed the dangers. Discharged from the army in December of 1969 with a “service-connected nervous disorder,” he came to know his problem as “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” My pre-war brother, a normal and well-adjusted person, had become, according to the U.S. Veteran’s Administration, fifty per cent disabled. He took his own life ten years later.