There are a lot of people mad at me, and some filled with disdain, because I write on here from the heart about what I believe, and it is not what they believe, and others who are simply afraid that I will complicate my life with needless enemies and those seeking my misfortune. There are those who are reading the series I am writing about what happened to me in Vietnam and to these and all the rest of you I have a few things to say…as usual.
I do care. I do read. I do think. I do reflect on my own risk and fears and times I’m simply wrong and regret being wrong. But, to those of you reading the Vietnam saga, know that I am still that frightened lieutenant, still that kid with the shoe button eyes, still the converted savage unwillingly given over to anthropoid rage against dying, and I still am in search of just the least shred of justice in a universe that only gives that commodity out in well hidden and well disguised micro pockets distributed among a divided humanity. Everyone I left behind as I closed the door….burning bridges lost forevermore.
I cannot go back and remake this shredded and reformed mass of vertical humanity I have become, and I can no more stop crying up into an unjust night anymore than you can willingly stop breathing. Yes, I write stories that reach people’s hearts and I seem to do it with a casual ease that often promotes resentment more than adoration, but right now it is my own heart that is torn, and I am seeking to get by because I know that I can’t heal it. I write of the long bitter and killing approach I made to the dreadfully deadly A Shau Valley during my 30 Days in September of the Vietnam War and now I am back on that trail every morning and night, knowing full well my country has selected to go on up to that A Shau ridge and gaze out over purple mountain’s majesty before descending down into the killing fields of that valley.
Nothing I can write will assuage this feeling of preceding doom that has overcome me but I will be writing on into the night anyway.
I am glad you are doing well . After what you have gone threw in Nam and now , I say shove it to those that don’t like what you write . I know my one brother in-law bought your book . You tell the real way things were and how men felt and acted . I know when I first read your first chapters I thought yes , you hit everything that we felt . Thank you and keep writing your heart . It can be healing .
Not everyone has the ability to paint word pictures of the sights, sounds, smells and feelings we experience yesterday much less 50 odd years ago.
Thank you for being willing to go back to the A Shau and relive that time in your life
Glad the surgery went well and you are healing from surgery and the A Shau
May God bless you and your family
I am just getting fully ambulatory after the bypass surgery. Sitting at the computer fully erect is still demanding but I am getting stronger day by day. Wednesday of this week (Feb 5) will make it two weeks.
Thanks for the comment and I’ll be fully answering all my comments again soon and also finishing the Third Ten Days. My heart surgery was a success but the recovery will be a bit longer than I
anticipated.
If you want to help you can buy my books (there are now seven available) either online or if you want autographed and signed/inscribed from my website here. If you can and want to help with the coming
jamboree this year and tour then you can contribute at https://www.gofundme.com/f/thirty-days-has-september. I will much appreciate whatever attention you pay to me and my work.
Semper fi, and I cannot thank you enough.
Jim
It would be a sad boring world if we all had the same wants and needs. If one can’t accept another’s view of life they will son find themselves all alone. I have never yet in my 67 years of wandering through my life that totally agree on everything. I have yet to block anyone over differences of opinion. Sometimes one needs thicker hide.
I am just getting fully ambulatory after the bypass surgery. Sitting at the computer fully erect is still demanding but I am getting stronger day by day. Wednesday of this week (Feb 5) will make it two weeks.
Thanks for the comment and I’ll be fully answering all my comments again soon and also finishing the Third Ten Days. My heart surgery was a success but the recovery will be a bit longer than I
anticipated.
If you want to help you can buy my books (there are now seven available) either online or if you want autographed and signed/inscribed from my website here. If you can and want to help with the coming
jamboree this year and tour then you can contribute at https://www.gofundme.com/f/thirty-days-has-september. I will much appreciate whatever attention you pay to me and my work.
Semper fi, and I cannot thank you enough.
Jim
Got the healing part right. I had Brain surgery on Nov. 6th and still feeling it.
Having Patience is ingrained after 42 years of playing Army. It’s been Hurry up and wait or waiting to hurry up! Like I said on the other page, You have a big heart and it shows when you write about the ones who fell in that valley Heres a link to my lat Vietnam tour and the greeting I received when I came home >https://www.wafb.com/2019/11/11/trip-vietnam-helps-ul-lafayette-student-veteran-find-healing-years-after-service/
I am just getting fully ambulatory after the bypass surgery. Sitting at the computer fully erect is still demanding but I am getting stronger day by day. Wednesday of this week (Feb 5) will make it two weeks.
Thanks for the comment and I’ll be fully answering all my comments again soon and also finishing the Third Ten Days. My heart surgery was a success but the recovery will be a bit longer than I
anticipated.
If you want to help you can buy my books (there are now seven available) either online or if you want autographed and signed/inscribed from my website here. If you can and want to help with the coming
jamboree this year and tour then you can contribute at https://www.gofundme.com/f/thirty-days-has-september. I will much appreciate whatever attention you pay to me and my work.
Semper fi, and I cannot thank you enough.
Jim
Keep writing James. There are a lot of us with you that don’t know how to express ourselves. Sometimes I just want to burst out in tome.
Thanks Ed, there’s no quit in me, as you might have picked up from the work.
I am writing the next segment now. Getting the book out in good shape was a huge work
and Chuck Bartok did so very much of that, I don’t know what to say…
Thanks for the support and the kind words.
Semper fi,
Jim