I have many people in my life who are military veterans. My father proudly served in the US Navy. My uncle Raymond served in the Army and fought in Vietnam.
I grew up with an uncle I never really knew. Yes he was present at all the family gatherings, Christmas Eve, 4th of July picnics, those types of things. We never get to know anyone through simple presents but being present may be all he could offer, on the surface that is. Uncle Ray was in my view distant but loving. Not loving in a hug and a tassel of the hair but loving in an I've got your back kind of way. This is a love lost on a child but honored as an adult.
We all carry traits given to us by family members. Physical appearance from our parents and grandparents being an obvious one. I have many idiosyncrasies that manifest on an almost daily basis and when they do I turn around and look for my father. I wonder if a large portion of my personality can be directly linked to Ray's father, my grandfather. Which leaves me to wonder the roll Uncle Ray has always played within myself.
Raymond Dean Newman was born the fifth of six children to hard working parents in what could be considered a lower middle class home. In my mind Ray was a fun loving, hard driving kid. A Bruce Springsteen kind of upbringing. The characters in Springsteen songs not Springsteen himself. Was this only in the mind of a child one would wonder? You may have to ask my mom on that one. (Bring your Springsteen "albums" if you do.)
Enter the Vietnam War.
Ray enlisted in the Army, fought 18 months in Vietnam and after completing his tour a Raymond Newman, or a semblance there of, came home.
I would imagine most veterans of war experience, combat or none, a very long period of extended absence from comfort, security and family all while under the constant threat of attack and all the horrors of war they are then asked to live with. In my Uncle Ray's case I don't wonder about the short periods of intense violence I would think he endured, I wonder about the months and months of a slow drone of it all and a psychological beating he must have been subject to.
And then he came home. Everything was fine now right? Not really...
Ray never spoke of his experiences in Vietnam - at all. Never. Ever. Except one. It involved a cleaning lady that worked for them who proved to be North Vietnamese and what happened when a spy was exposed.
Raymond returned from a war in a time when no one said thank you and PTSD was something they were told would simply subside in time. He was one who was asked not only to fight battles in the jungles of Vietnam but back here at home as well.
Memories, images, smells, sounds, and feelings of traumatic events can "intrude" into the lives of individuals with PTSD. Sufferers may remain so captured by the memory of past horror that they have difficulty paying attention to the present. Some of those who return home just give up living. They start dying little by little and over time piece by piece.
I always admired my Uncle Ray from a distance or a distance when seen through the eyes of a child. As I have grown I see him less as "Running on the backstreet where he swore he'd live forever. Taking it on them backstreets together". I see him less as a character and more the man he truly was. But never less then a hero. I understand the word "hero" gets thrown around a lot these days but for a now adult child, this flawed and troubled human being always has been and always will be my often silent, often stoic, American hero.
So today Uncle Ray, I think of you. I reflect on the parts of you I carry in me and I say thank you for everything you gave.
