Thursday Nights at the Vet Center

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THURSDAY NIGHTS AT THE VET CENTER
Wayne Sibley
Spokane, Washington

I'm not much for talking. That's sort of the point of this page.

I'm 55. I ran heavy equipment for the county for twenty-eight years. Dozers, graders, a scraper. Retired last year. Married to Lynne since 1971. Two daughters, three grandkids, one bad knee.

I was drafted in 1967. Army, infantry. I was in Vietnam from the spring of 1968 to the spring of 1969.

I came home and didn't talk about it for twenty-four years. Then I walked into the Vet Center.

This page is for the guys who haven't walked in yet.

What PTSD is | Me | What helped | Finding a Vet Center | Lynne's page for families

NO WAR STORIES

I'm not going to tell any. If you were there, you don't need them. If you weren't, you don't need them either.

WHAT PTSD IS

Post-traumatic stress disorder. It's what can happen to a person after something terrible. War. A bad wreck. A disaster. Being attacked.

It's not new. They called it shell shock in the first war and combat fatigue in the second. The doctors gave it the name PTSD in 1980, mostly because of guys like us coming home from Vietnam.

The signs, the way the counselor laid them out for me:

- Nightmares. Waking up in a sweat.
- Memories that come back like it's happening now.
- Jumping at loud noises. A car backfires and you're on the floor.
- Always on guard. Sitting with your back to the wall. Checking the doors.
- Anger. A short fuse, over nothing.
- Feeling numb. Cut off from people. Even your own family.
- Staying away from anything that reminds you.
- Not sleeping. Drinking to sleep.

It can show up right away, or it can sit there for years. A lot of us were fine, we thought, until we retired, or the kids moved out, or the Gulf War came on TV. Twenty years later. Thirty.

It isn't weakness. It isn't craziness. And it can be treated. Counseling, groups, sometimes medicine. Talk to the Vet Center or a doctor.

I'll say that one again. It can be treated.

ME

Came home in 1969. Went to work the next week. Didn't stop for twenty-four years.

I drank. Every night. Not falling-down drunk most of the time. Just enough to sleep.

I worked too hard. Overtime every chance. A dozer is loud. You can't think on a dozer. That was the idea.

I woke up at night. Lynne learned not to touch me to wake me up. She'd say my name from the doorway.

Fourth of July we went to the lake. She never said why. She didn't have to.

I wasn't a bad husband. I wasn't a good one either. I was gone, mostly, even when I was in the chair.

In 1993 Lynne put a Vet Center brochure on the kitchen table and set my coffee cup on top of it. She said, "Thursday. Seven o'clock. I'll drive."

She'd been married to me twenty-two years. I could tell she meant it. I went because I didn't want to lose her.

I sat in the parking lot for fifteen minutes. Then I went in.

WHAT HELPED

The group. Thursday nights, seven to nine. Eight to twelve guys, all from our war. Folding chairs, a coffee pot, a box of doughnuts somebody's wife made him bring.

First three Thursdays I didn't say a word. Nobody made me. The fourth one I said my name and my unit and the years. That was all. A guy across the circle nodded. That was enough.

We don't tell war stories much there either. We talk about now. The nightmares. The kids. The temper. Who's sleeping and who isn't. It turns out a lot of men were living the same life I was, in the same town, and none of us knew.

Some of the regulars:
- William. Marines, '67. Says he's the only one in the group with any sense. He isn't.
- Kenneth. Drives a bread truck. Quietest man I ever met. Brings the doughnuts.
- Russell. Helicopter crew chief. Fixes everybody's lawn mowers for free.
- John. Came in two years after me, sat in the parking lot for two weeks. I went out and got him.
- Robert. He's the one who got me fishing again.

The counselor. Tim. He was a Marine in '68 himself, so you can't pull anything on him. I see him on my own every other week too. He doesn't tell you what to do. He asks the question you've been not asking yourself.

Quitting drinking. I quit in January 1994. I'd tried before. This time I had the group and Tim, and they knew what the drinking was for. Going on six years. Coffee now. A lot of coffee.

The Wall. In May 1995 Lynne and I flew to Washington with Russell and his wife. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Wall. I'd said I'd never go.
I found the names I went for. I'm not going to say any more about it than that. Except that I went back to the hotel and slept nine hours straight, and I hadn't done that since 1968.

The river. The Spokane River, early mornings, before the town wakes up. Rainbows, mostly. I put most of them back. Robert and I go Saturdays. Fishing is the only place besides the group where my head goes quiet.

Lynne. She stayed. That's the whole thing. She has her own page here.

FINDING A VET CENTER

- Vet Centers opened in 1979, for Vietnam vets. Combat vets from other wars can go too now.
- They're free.
- They're private. What you say there stays there.
- They're small storefront offices in regular towns, not a big hospital. A lot of the counselors are vets.
- They help families too.
- Look in the phone book, in the blue government pages, under Veterans Affairs. Or ask at any VA hospital.

You don't have to talk the first time. You just have to go in.

IF YOU'RE IN TROUBLE TONIGHT

If you're thinking about hurting yourself or somebody else, call 911, or go to the nearest emergency room or VA hospital. Tell them you're a vet. Don't wait for Thursday.

Another vet I'd point you to: Dennis Seitz writes poems at Coming Home Slow. He was 25th Infantry, '68 to '69. His are about the rain and coming home, not the fighting. A counselor at his Vet Center got him writing. Same idea as mine. Different tool.

If you're a vet and you want to write, I'll write back. If you're a vet's kid, be patient with your dad. He's trying.

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Visitors since Veterans Day 1998:

Last updated Friday, September 24, 1999.
My daughter Margaret set up the computer. Any mistakes are mine.