An Account of the Experiences of Albert Bertrand Whitcombe in the US Air Force in

1966-67 (AF16855971) that resulted in a Person Inflicted with Post Traumatic Stress

Disorder (PTSD) Due to Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and Other Traumatic Events.  Compiled in August 2008

Note:  This account is to the best of my recollection, some of it is reconstructed, especially as it pertains to the order of the events, through the counseling I have been doing since April of 2007, with the aid of the photo record that has miraculously survived and by revisiting the few threads of my past life that still survive today.  I started to follow them in May of 07, at first with a frantic hope to remain alive and as my therapy has evolved, with hope and wonder that I could find out who I was, and still am after all this 42 years of trauma and congestion.

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I came from a time and a set of family values that enforced a belief of honor and patriotism for our country.

My father, Edward George Whitcombe, a conscious objector, was given an honorable option in WW2 as a Chaplin.  Most of his generation knew as a matter of reality the process of serving our country.  My sole uncle, Phillip Ellis Phillips, served during the Korean War.

I was born on October 21, 1946 in Madison Wisconsin.  My parents were students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison at the time; my father was on the GI Bill.  We lived with my Moms parents on Randall St, across from Vilas Park for the first year of my life.  For the next 6 years I would alternately be in the Madison area or the Chicago – Evanston area, as my father went to Chicago Northwestern University.  Both my parents became teachers.

My family life was rich in academic exposure, rich in ethnic and cultural issues and rich in the ideas and actions that brought America into the late 50’s and early 60’s, widely considered to be the peak of American culture, know how, and success.  I am a product of that life, proud of my country, proud of my family.

I spent my teen years is a working class suburb of Chicago, Rolling Meadows, and there were many 1^st generation  people my age, most of my friends  had parents born in another country  and the honor in serving our country ran very strong with them. 

In my youthful perspective there was no other way, and as the conflict in Viet Nam became more evident, the talk of serving the cause was a constant topic of discussion with my buddies.

High school ended for us in 1964 and some went off to college, several of us joined some branch of the service during that summer, some sought a laboring career.

My most intense conversations were with Charley Meyer and Greg Buczynski, the other guys over 6’ in my social circle.  By mid of 65 the draft was ramping up and Charlie was afraid to go and so he got married and he and Suzy got pregnant and Greg and I, and many others, held our breath and waited to see what would happen.

I went to the USAF recruiter and they tested me to see if I met their requirements.  Yep I did, in fact I aced their requirements so much that they promised me a job and duty station of my choice.  Further I could do delayed enlistment, take the time I wanted to do some things before basic.

Greg joined the Army Special Forces about the same time as I joined the USAF.

I went off to basic in mid January of 66 with the commitment from the USAF of working on aircraft electronics and stationed in California.

I went off to Lackland AFB for basic and found myself with a whole lot of guys like myself, smart guys able to pontificate on a wide variety of issues.  It was a rich, fun environment between the guys.  It’s an accurate statement that most of us came from an enriched middle class upbringing, we had much in common.

Basic was very different from anything most of us had encountered, specifically in the lack of respect shown to us, here are a couple of recollections;

It was a couple of weeks into basic, it is in the afternoon and we are on the field doing PT, physical training, one of our instructors comes up to me as we are doing some exercise and starts screaming into my face about that we are men now and we need to shave every day.  I did and said so, I’d been shaving now for 5 years, my beard grows fast, its been hours since I shaved, He gets on me big time, drop and do 100 (pushups).  It’s the next morning in the latrine and a blond haired guy I am hanging with is next to me at the sink and is terrified about my incident yesterday and wants to make sure that doesn’t happen to him, could I show him how to change the blade on his Schick injector razor the Red Cross gave us.  I did.  He lathers up, places the razor at the base of a sideburn and proceeds to peel off 2 inches of his cheek, blood everywhere.  He’d been shaving for 2 weeks with the blank that was in the razor since it was given to him, he had no beard to be shaving off, as is the case with many young men.  They rushed him off to medical. It was the last I saw of him!

It was a rainy day and we would watch “first aid” movies.  After breakfast chow we all piled into a room and the films began.  GI’s in the Korean War on the battle field with legs and arms blown off or with their intestines blown out and piled on their chest or … and screaming and a guy across from me couldn’t handle it, he started in screaming and puking and then choking and turning purple.  Somebody came in and grabbed him up and the films continued, uninterrupted - for hours.  I never saw that person again, either!

I made it through basic, I suppose I was adaptable and my sense of patriotism and call to service was strong.  At ‘graduation’ we marched in our “Formal Blues” – on parade – many ‘Squadrons’ of new Airmen.  I was so proud!  As my squadron passed the stage where the commanders stood and the US Flag waved, we marched saluting, my eyes filled with tears of honor and pride.  That was forty two years ago - it as if it happened yesterday!!!

I went from basic to tech school at Lawry AFB in Denver to learn aircraft armaments systems and the next chapter.

The environment was much to my liking, all about learning new things and right up my ally, electronics, mechanics and aircraft, I excelled!  Somewhere in the first few weeks I was called in and informed that I was being considered for a “Top Secret” job classification because of my talents and mastery to date.  That happened and I became a Nuclear Weapons Systems specialist, a 46330.  I aced my classes and there was an offer to become an instructor, I consider it a while and decided I wanted to be involved in the ‘real stuff’.

I was so pumped about the whole thing, succeeding at becoming an asset to my country and looking forward to the adventure.

Here I am on June 1, 1966 on the top of Pikes Peak, I know this date, we went on the first day the road would be open according to the Park Service.  This is the guy that the USAF hired on, 190 pounds, positive, joyful and committed!

After the tech school graduation I went on leave for a couple of weeks back to my family in the Chicago area.  I visited my friends, social, from Church, the Boy Scout gang ( I was a member of ‘The Order of the Arrow”) my former bosses at the grocery store and United Airlines and heard many times of them being interviewed about my character and everybody was proud of my USAF clearance and job and all was OK!

I went to my duty station at Travis AFB in the North SFO Bay area.  I was assigned to the SAC 5^th Bomb wing, a group of B52’s that carried AGM missiles and Bombs with nuclear warheads – The First Line of Defense for the Free World.  My duty wing was the 25th MMS (Munitions Maintenance Squadron).

I was so proud, so full of a sense of doing the good thing for my country.  Here is a photo of me shortly after getting into the swing of the process; I believe it is October of 1966.

Here is a photo of my sister Amy and brother Carl.  Carl is wearing a set of fatigues I sent him for his 13^th birthday 12/27 – Christmas.  He was so proud of me, as were all my family.  He was killed in an auto accident in 1971 on his way to visit me in Monterey CA.

The very thing that had been so positive to date in my military life (and all my life to date for that matter), my intelligence, inquisitive nature and a willingness to engage started - slowly at first - to become a big problem.

I always wanted to know more, to understand, to engage and discuss and that was what I was called to service for, because I could do the job, I was competent and capable, or so I thought!

I did my job, and well.  I was a part of a crew of 5, 4 Airmen and 1 NCO and there were many such crews in our squadron. 

On several occasions I was called into the ‘First Shirt’s office, reprimanded for my gregarious attitude, my desire to engage and learn, it was OK though because I was enjoying others and myself.

There were other Airmen that came and went regularly in our Wing and some had been in Viet Nam and the stories they carried were not exactly what we were hearing on the news etc.  I always listened!

In November the crew I was a part of was assigned to the Alert Pad where a portion of our

Wings aircraft were loaded with live and triggered Nuclear Weapons, always ready to fly. 

The Alert Pad was away from the rest of the base by miles and was a “Top Secret” area, requiring a complex access process and surrounded by an AP (Air Police) K9 (dog) Squadron.

On our off (weekend pass) time I had gotten into the practice of going to San Francisco with a guy named Jim(?) McCoy.  He played guitar and knew all the hootenanny songs that were so popular and all the stuff by a young “poet of our time” Bob Dylan.  It was not long before we gravitated to the Marina in the Fisherman’s Warf part of town.  Here are a couple of pictures….

I engaged in conversations with these folks on weekends, and they also had a different take on what was happening in Viet Nam etc.  There were several ‘underground papers’ in the Bay Area, the one I recall was the “Berkley Barb” and they were full of questioning and accusations about what ‘we’ were doing there.  The folks that we went and sang with were also marching in demonstrations in the Bay Area.  Contrary to the media and government twist I saw people, citizens like me, asking questions, concerned about the integrity of our country, our constitution.  Over time, our whole country has come to understand these past times with a more open heart and with an understanding for those questions.

In December it started happening, C141’s, with red crosses on their tail began showing up in the middle of the night on the Alert Pad and blue busses, also with the red cross would park at the rear ramp of the plane and they would offload these bags, body bags.

We talked - those that saw this.  On the evening news with “Huntley and Brinkley” there was a “report form Viet Nam” and they would report the number of ‘advisors’ that had been killed that day, it may have been 3 or 5 or 7 and then at night on the Alert Pad in the cool dry air of the desert and away from the world they would offload 12 or 20 or 35 – or 50 body bags, night after night.

Although this a recent understanding (June, 2008) and a deep healing one, it is very appropriate to mention at this time in my story.  The military, the Air Force in particular had sought out the best and smartest young man available to them for this very job we were doing, namely to work with very expensive weapons and aircraft with a particular sensitivity to process and procedure.  That we were and that we did!  And it goes with the territory, in order to perform at this level, all aspects of our live would be the same, we were, are deeply discerning, thoughtful, intelligent people. 

What we saw was VERY troubling!  We had all made a commitment with the USAF and our Government to maintain secrecy and it bothered us, Me, what we were seeing!

I was often beside myself, “What was going on”?  I had no place to find out it seemed, the stuff that other Airmen brought back with them and discussed and the stuff I heard and read on my visits to the Bay Area said the same thing and directly conflicted with the information ‘We the People’ were hearing from OUR Government and the media.

I suffered greatly and turned to smoking 2 to 3 packs of cigarettes a day and getting drunk whenever the opportunity presented itself.  Here I am during the New Year 1967, in the Day Room of our barracks, to my right is where the CQ (charge of quarters) desk is and the TV is where I saw/heard all the lies about the number killed, involvement and purpose. Very not fun to see at this juncture of my life.  I started to get fat at this time, 1.5 gallons of beer many nights, this and smoking among the destructive habits I began developing and that I have been pummeled with ever since.  

In early January, after a night when there were many, 40 or more, body bags offloaded at the Alert Pad I had called home and received devastating information from my Mom, There had been a memorial for Greg in Rolling Meadows, he had been killed in Viet Nam some months ago, stepping on a land mine.  This haunted every moment of my life, Greg had the biggest feet I had ever seen and those feet could kick a football so high up that it was hard to see it.  He was the oldest kid of many and his folks just got by.  The football coaches at Forest View High School so much wanted him to be on the team that they pooled their money and jointly purchased the equipment and insurance so that he could be on the team.  He was many peoples local hero and now he was dead and in the middle of what was for me was becoming a lie!  He is on “The Wall” Panel 08E- Line 30

I NEEDED to know what was the truth and I decided to take a tour in Viet Nam, I put in the paperwork.

I went to my commanding officer, I do not remember his name, he was a Bird Colonel, he had curly white hair that was always shiny, and he was soft a pudgy looking, roundy, and rumor was, he was retiring.

I asked him permission to speak; I started to tell him about what I, we were seeing on the alert pad.  He got red in the face, jumped up at me, spittle flying in my face – Do You have a Need to Know Airman?! – No Sir! – Dismissed Airman!!

The only people that I discussed this body bag thing with were the guys I worked with on my crew.   They were, as I recall, Jim McCoy, Jerry Kay-ono, ? Quant, I don’t remember, and our Staff Sergeant John (?) Johnson.

Sgt. Johnson had wavy hair and a family and liked to drink beer and be stupid, even when he wasn’t drinking.  I have mentioned before I hung with McCoy, Jerry was also a guy I spent time with, he was Hawaiian, also liked beer and got violent crazy when he got drunk, he wanted to fight.  Quant was from Alameda and was either working with us or home with his family, I visited them a couple of times.  I do not remember much about the other crew member.  Maybe it was Tedford? 

There was this guy that was an admin person.  He was very quiet.  He often got heavy harassment from the crowd; he was a TW, a titless WAF!  Over a few day period; a VERY foul odor over took our barracks. It became intolerable!  We figured out it was this guys feet – sox.  Huge harassment and he says he hasn’t changed his sox – or taken them off for 2 weeks and he would not – EVER!  Someone told somebody and in a day he was gone, rumor was he got the discharge he wanted.

I got orders for Viet Nam, I was to report to someplace for briefing.  I went there on the prescribed time and was surprised to find that it required ‘Top Secret’ protocol.  Over several briefing sessions the few of us that were attending learned we would be going to a ‘secret base’ in a country other than Viet Nam, which I don’t remember the name of and which I will discuss more, later in my monolog.  During subsequent meetings we learned about the munitions we would be working with.  I remember a little of this training.  Pods carried by tactical fighters that could distribute mini land mines or canisters of chemicals or ??

I continued to go to SFO weekends with McCoy and hang with the folks at the Marina.  There were demonstrations happening in Berkley and at the U and one of the Saturdays we went there and marched with the protestors and talked a whole lot.  I seem to remember that McCoy had friends that were involved that he had known before he was in the service.  Someone suggested that I go to a demonstration in uniform, and I did so in my Kakis.  I think that the timeline for these things and actions were from February into March 1967.

On a weekday evening Jerry Kay-ono got way drunk and his craziness expressed itself in him wanting to fight with someone.  He was a big guy and had some sort of fairness thing in his head and wanted the fight he was looking to have too ‘Be Fair!!!’.  Well I am a big guy also and this night he wanted to fight me.  I had seen him in action before, on an occasion he had wanted to fight this guy; the guy went to his room and locked the door.  Jerry went after him and pulled, kicked and pounded a heavy wood door in a metal frame until it splintered, and he passed out.  He charges at me, I must get out of the overstuffed chair where I was sitting in the ‘day room’ so he could pound me to a pulp!  I did not get up, in fact I hung on for dear life as he proceeded to push the chair, and me, one shove at a time, completely down the hall and back again to the day room and down the hall the other way, and pass out.

On a work day my Sergeant sent me to a B52 to check the ‘baro’ switches, they were showing a fail light and this bird was soon to go to the Alert Pad to be loaded and armed.  Unusual to be sent alone, I asked – he said GO, I did.  I followed procedure, the plane was having no other work done on it, I placed a placard on the engine throttle handles, and there are 8, that many engines.  Anyone planning on doing work on a plane, checks here to see what may also be going on – nothing when I carded.  I went to the Bombay, front bulkhead, and started my check.  An engine starting APU fires up - - and then an engine, and another, all the engines are firing up, what’s up!  It was unbelievably loud, I had no ear protection, should not have needed it.  I couldn’t think straight, I did manage to crawl down the catwalk to my ladder and down, louder and unbearably louder, I ran backwards out of the bomb bay and into the exhaust, I thought blood was running from my ears.

I couldn’t hear at all for hours and it was days before there was any normality.  I went to my Sergeant to tell / ask him and he ripped me a new one accusing me of the problem, I didn’t follow procedure - I Did! – He did not let me go to sick call; I was a trouble maker and got what I deserved!  I felt that I was ‘set up’!

My ‘First Shirt’ whose name I do not remember, us enlisted guys referred to him as stuttering Jesus because that’s the way he talked, and the more he became excited the worse it got.  He called me in one day and as the door closed he laid into me that I had a Beatle haircut and who did I think I was and why was I making trouble all the time.

During all this I am continuing the briefing / training process in preparation for my Viet Nam duty ‘somewhere else’, going once to several times a week and always within a ‘Top Secret’ structure.  What hope I feel during all this crazy stuff is that I will see for myself what’s up?

An ORI, “Organizational Readiness Inspection” happens.  I remember it to be in early March, I am not sure.  We go to war, that is the game.  72 hours of game and its push, Push, PUSH!  All the Alert Planes take off and we load the others, and…………

The game is coming to an end and our crew is downloading a B52 that was on a “Chrome

Dome” mission.  From each B52 Wing 1 or more birds were always flying.  They would be at 90k ft. and drop down in altitude several times during their flight of 48 hours for refueling and return to 90k, hovering on the edge of Russia and China. 

This bird had been up over 72 hours and it was COLD!  When they landed, the procedure was to let them warm up.  That had not happened this time and the planes skin and airframe temperature was maybe -100 f. 

I was offloading a Nuc Warhead from an AGM (air to ground) missile.  Step one is to remove an access plate from the missile which I was in the process of doing, standing on a platform that can be raised and lowered to accommodate the widely varied attitude (height) of the wing.  The wing was very low and the whole plane was covered with very heavy frost, even in the dry environment we were in, the extreme coldness of the plane wrung moisture from the air.  I was about half done removing the bolts, which is done with a speed wrench and hex bit, when the wing became warm enough to flex.  As it turned out there was no fuel in the wing tanks and the wing position is very high in this condition.  I was suddenly jerked up about five feet above the platform and it ripped my right shoulder apart.  I completed my task and reported the incident to my Sarg and he sent me to sick call.

And so began an even more painful chapter of the nightmare I was in!

Indeed I had been injured a lot and the first response was to repair it.  I was put on light duty and for the first days just laid around, returning to the infirmary daily for observation. 

My position in my squadron and team became untenable.  I had fucked up the whole process, one of the teams could not perform their duties, and the whole squad could not keep up their work load.  All the Officers, commissioned and non-com were on my case and many of the enlisted guys as well, harassment at every turn.

After several days of repair discussion I showed up for an appointment and was in a different room and with two people I had not seen before.  I was on the defensive from the start, what was I doing goofing up like that, it was my fault, they wouldn’t fix my shoulder, they would retrain me as an admin - pummeling me verbally, unendingly.  In this process I told them of an accident I had had on my bike in 1959 and had hurt the same shoulder.  The next day they had something for me to sign, the shoulder injury was not their responsibility, it was a preexistent condition and I would sign the document and they were going to discharge me, Medical Honorable! 

It is true that I had an injury in 1959.  It is also a fact that it had healed in several weeks time and I had 8 years of ‘normal’ experience after the event.  I worked in several physically demanding jobs, recalling that I regularly offloaded a semi trailer full of groceries, 50k lbs. worth, among other tasks.  Further I had a complete physical first from the Selective Service Board (draft) and then the USAF and was accepted, welcomed!

Meanwhile I was continuing the training for the deployment.

I was assigned to be permanent CQ (Charge of Quarters) of the barracks I lived in.  From 1700 hours thru 0800 hours I would control who left and came into the building, six days a week.  I do not remember how long this went on exactly, I believe about 5 weeks prior to discharge. 

I think I had been going to the deployment briefing and CQ’ing for about a week when I ‘failed’ the ‘Top Secret’ access to the training, my clearance pass had been removed from the checkpoint, and I was taken to another area.  Of all the trauma incidents I endured, this one is the most fractured in my memory.

They have found out that I have decided (?) to take a discharge and I have ‘Top Secret’ information and they must make sure that I “understand” the sensitivity of this information and I must “forget” what I know, it is a matter of “National Security”.

I remember being in a large room, I was in a chair, I remember that the chair moved or folded like a lounge or fancy office chair.  There were people, one at a time, above me, as though they were on a stage and I was the audience.  They hollered, yelled at me, telling me over and over that I must “forget” what I had learned about this mission, deployment.  The debriefing went on for several days, I don’t remember for how long.  I have lingering visual, auditory and physical memories that I have struggled for all my life since this event to put to words.  I remember my body being numb, I felt unable to move as though I was tied down and there is a sense of intense light and heat.

Some time in April, I believe the 3^rd week at about 1AM, while at my duty station as CQ in our barracks, S Sgt Robillard and T Sgt Blount entered.  It was my responsibility to challenge their entry.  They challenged back, who the hell did I think I was - challenging them!!, I was just a F-up, screwed up the whole F-ing Squadron….  They started pushing me around, punching at me, they stank of alcohol and cigarettes and sweat! 

This is what I wrote about the experience early into the CPT (Clinical Processing Therapy) Group I attended May thru July 2008:

“Two sergeants are assigned to our barracks, an enlisted mans barracks.  Sarges do not, are not allowed to mix with the enlisted rabble!!  The guys don’t like the Sarges here.  I hear see all in our barracks as everyone who comes goes during non duty hour’s checks through me.  (I remember/feel something about the intense impermanence of everything)  The Sarges are Robillard, shorter curly sandy hair, cute and Blount, he walks with a limp, he is intense, glairs, always his fatigues are cardboard stiff, he usually has a sweet smell about him.  They came in late one evening (people often did), I need to challenge them, to sign in.  Blount challenges back, sticks his face into mine, hollars at me, I’m a trouble maker, a problem, a punk, he pushes me.  He stinks of beer and smokes.  He shoves me at Robillard, he stinks as well and he does not holler, his voice is sticky, slimy, gooey??, chiding, his face is in mine, he shoves me back at Blount, my face is pushed into his chest, his hard, rough fatigue shirt.  I can see only a part of his name band on his fatigues, B L O…, his face is on mine, I feel the stubble of his face, scratching, and his breath stinks! Mashing into my face, his slobbering mouth on me, he turns me around and throws me down on the table.  Robillard holds me down, he is sitting on my back or?, crushing me into the table.  Blount (?) tears at my pants, the tender new fat of my gut is scraped, torn, by my belt buckle.  He puts his penis in me, slams into me, smashing my stomach into the table edge.  The belt buckle? Grunting, panting – they are done.  I am on the floor, leaning against the table, I see his penis, not circumcised, and he pulls up his pants, buckles up (the belt buckle?) They leave-.” 

This is a photo of a picnic (?), a 35mm color slide, I had scanned.  In early July, 2008 I brought a box of old photo stuff to my daughters house in Minneapolis.  I have become homeless and I have been in the process of securing anything that may be of value for my children, a granddaughter and any others that may happen to care. 

We were sitting on her front steps and she started to look at some of the stuff, it’s a big box of photos and slides.  I was in week 8 of the 12 week CPT Group.  My emotions are raw and sensitive.  Kale has looked at several photos and is now looking at a group of slides.  About the 3^rd one and she says; hey Dad here’s one of some military people, my heart stopped!  I looked at it, there he is T Sgt Blount in the center, in profile, and everybody is guzzling beer, I remember that that’s about all we did.

Here I am in April of 1967, 16 months into my enlistment.  I am 270 pounds, I have added 80 pounds to my weight in 10 months, the sparkle, and the joy for life that I brought into my USAF enlistment is gone.  My thighs are purple with stretch marks and they hurt constantly, that’s where most of the fat went to. 

The scars from the stretching are still evident, 42 years later, on my thighs.

Here I am again in early May, almost to my discharge date, in San Francisco at Fisherman’s Warf, I believe it was my last visit to SFO as an Airman.

I can remember in such a hauntingly foggy, yet sharply focused way, what is going on in my head when my friend Jim McCoy snapped this photo.  We sang the “San Francisco Bay Blues” many times, and so many other blues and folk tunes, with the counter culture folks that were always at the Marina next to Fisherman’s Warf.  I believe that I resided - survived in a fantasy constructed from the songs and people and their political rhetoric and their hope!  I can be in my mind, in this photo, and have many, many times, staring out into the bay, breathing, running away from the nightmare that was falling down on me, wishing for escape, wanting it to go away, hoping to survive another day!

In 1968 when Otis Redding’s “Sittin on the Dock of the Bay” was released I sat and stared at this photo for many drunk hours, again, breathing, thinking of a ‘Better Day’ wondering if I would, could survive.

By this time the only thing I could recall was the injury to my shoulder and the nightmare months that followed before my discharge.  The remainder of the trauma played out as a nightmare.  I would become full of despair, my life not worth continuing, and a sharp gleaming spire would appear in front of me.  It would sparkle and then I would fall forward on it and ALL ended as I felt it piercing through my body.

This nightmare played every night, every night! And during the last 15 or so years also came to me during my waking hours often.  I have estimated that I had this nightmare at least 16,000 times, up until early 2008.

This is me in March or April of 1968, I am by Salt Creek in Rolling Meadows, IL.  My youngest brother John took this picture I believe.  I remember this time as a drunken blur; I lived like an animal as it relates to my upbringing.  I worked, drank, slept – worked, drank, slept, numb to the life I had had prior to my enlistment.  I did not renew any of my pre service relationships, had very little to do with my family and until mid 1969, struggled for any thread of direction for my life.

A friend I was hanging with told me about some people who had invited Young Americans to participate in our Great Nation, Hubert Humphrey, among them and had invited us to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.  I started to listen and read about the event and there were many voices from all aspects of our society inviting, imploring involvement.  I again took the call, a glimmer of hope in my heart; I went downtown to be a part of the invitation.  Within a few days it became nightmare to our Nation, to me.  I got out and back to my place, 2 blocks west of the Ravenswood El Station just as war happened downtown.  My heart and mind hardened to our Nation!

In May of 1969 I met Susie Sanner and we were married on June 29.  I had found a person who was more wounded than I was and I gave my life totally over to her, attended to her every need and she reciprocated.  We were alike in our total distain for ‘The Establishment’; we were disenfranchised from the ‘American Dream’ and we became Counterculture and then ‘Back to the Landers’

In the early spring of 1973 I quit my job at United Airlines; I was stationed in Monterey CA at the time.  We bought 80 acres of land in Western Minnesota and moved into a Tipi.

I started to ask for help from the Veterans Administration in the fall of 1973, I did not know what was wrong with me, what I did know was that there were nightmares, and confusion and this haunting “what happened to me” feeling that permeated everything.  The Veterans Service Officer I worked with in Otter Tail County was a rude and disrespectful person and the net result of this first attempt was a claim for my shoulder injury which was denied.  That was not the whole issue – and I had no words, no clear thoughts on what had happened to me or why.  All was scary, muddled and painful.  The net result was to bury the pain even more.

I also started college in 1973, at the Fergus Falls Community College.  For the three years I attended I felt so good, I was again having the unfettered opportunity to seek to understand, to ask questions and to engage in open dialog.

My marriage with Susie fell apart with great pain in the summer of 1976 and we were divorced on my 30^th birthday, October 21^st.  I am in wonder, looking back, that I survived that summer and fall.  I stopped eating and sleeping and thinking.  My weight fell to below 170 pounds.

I decided that the schooling was my salvation and I had to leave Fergus Falls and Otter Tail Co., so I moved to Duluth where I had friends and enrolled at UM Duluth. 

What a ride that was: 

1.      I had done the paperwork to have my VA school funding stuff transferred, that got all messed up and I did not receive any financial support until January of 1977, I was able to get this solved only with the aid of my local MN Representative, Bob Anderson and a lot of paperwork!  Due to lack of funds, I needed to take a job which made it necessary to drop many of the classes I had enrolled for.  This caused the VA, a couple of years later, to file a charge against me and request a return of much of the funding; I appealed twice and was denied in December of 1980.  This battle went on for a couple more years and ended in the VA garnishing me, taking money from a bank account.  This resulted in more very unhappy feelings for the VA and the USA in my mind and heart.

2.      I was floundering on every front, drinking again, very heavily, and some drug action, and carousing with the ladies and…. well surviving, almost.  I ended up getting pregnant with Teresa Mann McClain; she was married at the time to Joel McClain.  It snapped me out of the drinking process, as I come from respectful foundation and I take children as a VERY important responsibility, although I had not planned on ever becoming a parent!  So I struggled to make a commitment and plans with Teresa.

3.      In March of 1977 Teresa decided that she didn’t want me in her life, it was also where I had been living (they had a duplex) since moving to Duluth.  So I was now homeless and listless, I hit the road.

4.      From March thru July I was back and forth across the country, riding with a friend or hitchhiking and in early August I was in Minneapolis with one of the girlfriends who was also a friend of Teresa, who was going to aid her in the birth of her (and my) baby by, among other things, transporting a lay (renegade) midwife to Duluth.  Christy was very ill when Teresa called, she was in labor.  I ended up covering for Christy and – who would have ever guessed - attended the birth of [our] daughter Kale Amalia on August 7, 1977.  A few days later Teresa asked me to be on my way, I took Nannette back to the Twin Cities and started hanging with her, it turned out to be for many tumultuous years!

5.      In December Teresa decided that she could not live with her then husband Joel and divorced him and she decided that she would depend (???) on me.

We are now somewhat a family although the Nannette thing and the drugs and smoking and the alcohol are playing havoc with the whole affair.  This, the next chapter of my life, 30 years of complex, painful, loving, hateful, exciting, scary and………. Hey it’s a whole drama in itself.

In 1979 Teresa and I were again pregnant and on July 8, 1980 our son Aram Ellis was born.  Everything was tight, money, space, patience, respect, I was an emotional mess.  I did not see how I had come to this point and most of the time was spent on surviving, there was no time to find me, what was wrong?  This is also when the VA claim for the education money clobbered me.

During this time and through our divorce in late 2004 I attempted many times to seek help.  I asked for help from the VA several times and also did professional counseling with Jeff Christenson, a now retired Psychologist.  Frankly my life was such a mess, I could not keep a job, I didn’t want to, I was loving, and the next minute raging at my family, WHEW the years just clicked on and on.

During the summer of 1987 my daughter came home on an evening and requested that I go with her to see something.  We went to a park in Fergus Falls, MN where the “Traveling Viet Nam Memorial” was set up.  She had heard about it from a friend. 

My emotions exploded!  I burst into tears, and they kept coming, for hours as I recall.  My mind started to reveal what had happened to me; a process that has been 20 years long.

In the early spring of 1988 I went to the memorial in Washington DC and spent two days there, crying, sitting, walking sitting, crying, and slowly allowed my mind, my heart to remember, to uncover the pain.  It has taken 20 years and almost brought my life to a close many times.

At the time Kale was 10 years old and she knew that something was wrong with me, and she understood that it had something to do with my military service in the Viet Nam Era.

During this last 20 years I would get little scraps of memory about what had happened in the Air Force and this is somewhat reflected in the various claims I attempted to file with the VA. On several occasions I didn’t even get to the level of courage it took to even begin the process.  I recall that I made at least 12 personal commitments to ‘make’ someone at the VA listen to me, to no avail!  I again tried to ask for help, privately, at the Lake Region Mental Health Clinic in 2000/01?  What a joke that was, there was no one there equipped to hear me.

It was increasingly clear that those I love the most were also the people I was injuring the most and as our children became adults their pain was sent back to me in additionally painful ways.  My relationship with Teresa was both great and very painful and she often threatened to end it.  That happened in 2004 and we divorced in early 2005.

In April 2007 my life was mostly black; the spire nightmare was almost constant, awake or asleep.  I was at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis, attending to an increasing number of complex medical conditions, meniere’s disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol….?  I was at the end of what I could deal with.  I had an appointment with my primary care physician and the nurse that was taking my vitals, her name is Rose in 2J100, started to ask my about my mental condition, she saved me!!!

The next day I was being interviewed at Mental Health.  I was at a place in my life where I NEEDED to have someone to talk to and wonder upon wonder I was at a place and with people who would let me – were pressing me to talk about my life, my burden, my trauma!

I started counseling with Kim Pavlik , and this wonderful event, to have a counselor who was trained to work with my trauma, and who was compatible with me was – is amazing to me, day by day.

Kim suggested to me, starting in late 2007 that I should consider joining a new group process that was designed to heal the wounds of PTSD, we discussed it often and in March of this year I committed to joining a group.  It began in May and ended in July.

The nightmares kept happening thru the first part of my counseling therapy and I slowly built courage and decided that I could keep the nightmare in my mind and ‘Look” at what was happening.  Early this year I stuck with the mental images.  I discovered that the spire that had ended my life thousands of time was the top of the flag standard, it was the US Flag that flew during the dress parade of my basic training graduation.  My pain and trauma became confused with my love for country and for my fellow sisters and brothers and was killing me!

In mid June I had my left knee replaced, I had thought that it would work out with the CPT, both happening at the Minneapolis VA.  I was in ward 1F at the time as I am now homeless and had no one to care for me during my initial recovery.  I was beginning to think that it was a VERY bad decision that I had made.  The knee thing was physical pain and the CPT was mental pain and – WHEW - WHEW!

It was Sunday June 21 in the afternoon and I was sitting in a wheel chair in the front of the hospital and a woman came by carrying a violin case.  I enquired as to if she was going to play somewhere?  Yes she was in the main entrance in about an hour.

The main entrance is known as “The Flag Atrium” and it is a VERY uncomfortable place for me to even walk through for reasons that I had recently understood.  I went, I like all forms of music and the violin was my Moms instrument.  There I was sitting under a HUGE USA Flag listening to beautiful music and I started to cry and I cried until there was no water left in me, I cried so much pain, I remembered so much pain and I started to really heal - for the first time in forty two years!!!

The fracturing in my heart has been so great that I am amazed that I survived.  In these current weeks I often think that I have purpose and that is why I did continue to live.  It is as though I am just starting to live!

A couple of weeks ago I was leaving the Twin Cities for Fergus Falls and I didn’t get out of town early enough to miss the rush hour. Bummer I thought – and then a whole new feeling came over me, yet not new, I remembered how it was before I was raped, traumatized in the USAF.  I remembered that the rush hour traffic was a challenge, nothing more, and I was fully capable to deal with it, more I could enjoy the challenge and prosper through the challenge.

Here I am, almost 62 and I have no stable place to live, I am so lonely, no support for those ‘Golden Years”, those closest to me are deeply wounded themselves through my raging temper, by imposing my congested pain, that I could not heal, upon them. 

I have so many things that I need to atone to.  Here is one that I have no option to say I am sorry about being jerk to anymore; it is so painful - there are others. 

My youngest brother, John, took his own life in February of 2004; his life was also full of emotional pain and much of it I have some responsibility in.  He was born when I was 9, he was the 5th child.  My Mom pretty much passed the responsibility of parenting him onto me when he was 6 months old.  I did so unfailingly and when I went of into the USAF he was 10. One of the many people that that I totally shut off as a result of my trauma, was John.  My second youngest brother Carl took over his care.  I mentioned earlier that he was killed in an auto accident in 1971.  We all grieved Carl’s death.  John was 15 at the time and I had no time for him, no one had any time for him.  He asked many times during the ensuing years for compassion and all I ever gave him was harsh words and judgment.  There are other issues as well, including my last brother Steven who died 2 years ago of cancer, before I was able to see my own light of day. 

So much pain and emotion that I need to deal with, and so many thank you’s that I have tools to do so – FINALLY!  I ask that you, my government, my country, compensate me accordingly by acknowledging that this trauma, this pain, this life I have endured is 100% service connected and is the result of an uncompromising commitment to serve my country.

And I did it, am doing it, with honor.