Mental Doug and Vung Tau's Vietnam beaches

Doug

If you've been following me, you've read how I had myself stuck in Saigon.   Not physically but like that sailor who stops off in a port and can't seem to get out to sea again. Really don't know why or what held our mythical mainer in place but for myself it was the overpowering feeling of lurking dangers that no one other than myself was aware of that were waiting for me once I left.  These were invisible forces taking on their own life inside my mind and I was powerless in fending them off.

Triggering, for a lack of a better definition, an out of body sensation, my vision blurs as I defensibly watch myself implode. Another by product of my decrepit mind is the stomach problems I experience that no matter what medical test I'm subject to no physical cause shows up.

50 years ago, well close to it is when I first experienced this feeling, Vietnam 1968. One night while laying in my bunk a firefight started up outside the perimeter not far from our hut.  This out of body sensation kicked in, I pushed it away, guess feeling a little guilty as I looked on at the fighting.  I was an aircraft maintenance supply sergeant so the return fire wasn’t our thing unless everything  really went to shit.  Anyway, most nights there were firefights outside my hut and these uncomfortable mental feelings grew. Then just like that I'm on my way back to the states to be discharged after landing in Seattle, sent on my way again with an airline ticket back to Detroit and all was good.  Though  in fact their was more to it than just finishing my hitch.

I flew from Seattle to Detroit and after a couple hours in the car and I was home but it really wasn’t home anymore.  I had been away for four years and just spent a year living in a hut in Vietnam and home just didn’t seem right.  Then the feeling of anxiety, blurred vision and that out of body experience hit me hard.  Tried to explain my feelings to the people around me, in return received blank stares or the reply” you look okay to me”.   My family coped by ignoring my mental illness. Meanwhile I drank, found a doctor who prescribed valium and other drugs like that, totaled two cars and  drank some more.   Then it was found I really didn’t have such a great tan but a blockage in my liver, jaundice, but anyway, still had pills. Over the years since I’ve talked to a bunch of mental health folks as these feelings come and go and then here I am once again.

Vung Tau back beach

Anyway back to Saigon, I knew I had to make a move, maybe a change in scenery a bit of sun and sea therapy to get me back on tract. Vung Tau, ya that's the ticket only an hour and a half by boat. My friend Luyen booked me a seat and transported me aboard her motorbike to the boat dock.  Somewhere along the way I picked up the makings of the Jim dandy of all the respiratory infections, complete with all the makings of a crippling caugh.  My boat ride over was spent coughing and hacking slouched over in my seat.  Felt so bad

that when we arrived I wasn't sure if I had the strength to get out of my seat and into the Terminal.

Got a taxi to a hotel, spent two days listening to the surf from across the

Vung  Tau back beach

road as I lay on my back. With a day left I headed out with my camera and shot some beach photos.

It did help my state of mind as I headed back to Saigon and closer to my return flight to the states.

                        

  Vung Tau front beach