In My Dreams

Almost every night I awaken from a dream at about 3:00 – 3:30 AM.  It usually takes me about an hour to get back to sleep.  It is now 4:30 AM and I’m wide awake.  Louise is in Charlotte with our great granddaughter, Lynleigh, so what the hell, I may as well write.   I don’t always dream the same thing – I’ve mentioned a couple of times lately the dream of fighting off Mexicans who are coming at me with knives as I’m leaving an ATM machine in some back alley in some strange town in Mexico.  But I have other recurring dreams also; some good, some bad.  An old friend, who’s probably a little smarter than I, suggested, or asked, if I thought maybe I was suffering a mild case of PTSD.  I kinda scoffed at that notion initially, but maybe he’s onto something there.

I certainly don’t think I’m the classic PTSD sufferer you read about or see on TV and in the movies.  I don’t have flashbacks or mental anguish over anything I saw or did in Vietnam.  I do have a couple of minor lingering quirks that are annoying but not dangerous.  One quirk is that I like to face the door whenever I’m in a restaurant or strange place.  I’ve gotten much better with this one over the past couple of years.  Ten or twenty years ago I would not, could not, sit with my back to the door anywhere outside my house.  But at our Thursday morning breakfast group, we have our own private room at the Pendleton Bakery and Cafe shop.  The first day we used that room, I was a little late and I had to sit on the near side of the table, with my back to the door.  I survived that experience and ever since I have just adopted that as my seat.  But that does have consequences, which are directly related to my second quirk.  I jump at loud or unexpected noises.  As my breakfast mates know, I jump every time the waitress sneaks up behind me or when someone drops a tray or cup out in the main dining room or in the kitchen.  I can easily relate those two quirks to Vietnam.  On my first tour, 1964, at an outpost with a split Special Forces A Team, I was sitting with some of my teammates at the table.  We heard a couple of shots fired – sounded like in or at the building next door.  I was nearest the door and sitting where I had a view outside the door.  As I started to get up to see what the shots were  about, a Vietnamese man came into view in the yard out front.  He had a Thompson Sub-machine gun in his left hand, but what really got my attention was his cocked right hand.  He had already pulled the pin and released the handle on the grenade in that hand.  Intending to play catch with me he tossed the grenade as I sprinted and dove for the door.  I managed to slam the door shut just as the grenade went off less than five feet from me.  While the door saved me from serious injury, I caught  a few splinters and small fragments.  The main damage, I’m convinced, was that this was the first and most significant contributor to my profound hearing loss in my left ear.

But back to my dreams.  I can relate most of my recurring dreams to something from my past.  There’s the dream that I’m in college and can’t remember my schedule because I’ve cut so many classes.    I know I have a class to go to but can’t remember where it is or at what hour.  So I say “to hell with it” and go kick a football.  Now, this is an exaggeration, but not too far off from the truth.  Another dream, a better one, is that I’m called back into the Army and go back to an A Team or to OCS as a Lieutenant Colonel with all the knowledge and experience that I have.  Kinda like John Wayne in “The Green Berets” when, as a full Colonel, he went on a mission with an A Team.  This dream, too, is an exaggeration, but based in reality, as I went back in in 1967 after graduating from Clemson and after serving three years in the Army and a year in combat.  I had the advantage of being one of only a handful of men in my OCS class who had any prior service.  I even had more experience, to include combat experience, than all of our TAC Officers except one.  That advantage led to my being selected as President of our class, an honor I still reap benefits from, as I ultimately was anointed as President-for-Life.

Another good  dream I frequently have is that I can fly.  Maybe this one goes back to jumping out of airplanes.  It’s a bit of a struggle to get going, especially if from a standstill.  But once I get off the ground, it’s glorious.  I can soar, I can swoop, I can glide.  I sleep well with that dream.

Actually, every time I go to bed, I’m hoping to dream.  I’ll take my chances on the bad dreams if I can every now and then have the dream I’m always looking for.  That’s any dream that brings back Leigh; just to see her face, to hear her voice.  Maybe that’s what my old friend was alluding to when he asked about PTSD.  Post traunatic stress doesn’t necessarily have to be related to combat, and I have certainly suffered stress, still do, from the loss of Leigh.  I think I do a pretty good job of concealing it when I’m with friends or occupied with something, but I can’t imagine anything more traumatic and stressful than losing a child.  When we lost Leigh, Louise and I lost a significant part of our lives.  It’s a loss that can never be regained and a pain that can never be assuaged.

I did not intend to get emotional with this post, but one of the main purposes of this blog is to keep Leigh’s spirit and legacy alive.  And while I do my best to conceal my feelings in public, I think I need to occasionally share the fact that I’m still a little torn up inside.  It could be worse, and Louise and I are so thankful for the friends we have here and elsewhere who understand what we’ve gone through and who give us so much support and love.

Now, if I can just get a little sleep.