In writing this work, my sole purpose was to bring to the forefront the true tragedy of the Vietnam War—the treatment of the returning veteran. I’m happy to say we have made great strides to correct that fault. But it isn’t enough, and we can never allow it to happen again. I further attempted to decry a warning. Listen to your veterans. They alone have the experiences tempered by war to advise and lead. In reading this story, you may notice an omission. So that you don’t believe it was simply a case of poor writing, let me explain in the book why I chose this technique. Walt Dodge is a highly decorated veteran of theVietnam War. He later became a certified teacher in California holding three credentials, an actor and director on stage and screen, plus a musician and composer winning the Drama Critic's Circle award for best original score for Shakespeare's Tempest performed at the Globe Theatre. He has worked in Timeshare for thirty years where he is considered one of the best in the industry. Dodge was included in the 1984 edition of Distinguished Young Men of America. His previously published works include the novels The Nicoli Conspiracy and How to Survive a Hawaiian Honeymoon published by AuthorHouse. Also the novellas Time Soaring, The Competition, and Curtain Time. He lives in Southern California with his wife, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and dog, Shylo. The Veteran By Walt Dodge AuthorHouse Copyright © 2017 Walt Dodge All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-5246-7352-9 CHAPTER 1 Even forty-eight years later, his homecoming still stung. Sitting alone on a park bench in the cold California rain, Eddy mulled over the details. Three questions came to his mind: What's changed? Who cares about us now? Who even remembers us? It was late October, and the precipitation soaked his hair, or what little was left of it, before running down his face and dripping off of his nose and chin. His thoughts and mind were so far away he didn't even notice let alone wipe it off. Eddy's face felt as numb as his heart. Nothing had been able to reach far enough to thaw the icy prison within which his soul had found refuge. He used to dream. He used to wish he could go back in time and change one thing to heal his life. But now, even that small hope had been killed. He tried to start a movement of veterans united to make a difference. But, politics reared its ugly head and the movement went nowhere. He tried to have a zest for life, but that same life had whipped it out of him. Most true Viet Nam Vets didn't talk about the war to anyone, other than another Combat Vet. Unless you've had the real experience, you just didn't understand. You couldn't understand. Eddy knew why this was the case. He thought of the sights, sounds, and smells. Dead bodies, torn apart and rotting in the jungle. The never ending, sense-piercing sounds of a firefight that went on for days and sometimes weeks. Rotting human flesh, giving up a smell like nothing else in the world that could never be forgotten, combined with the all-present aroma of gunpowder, napalm, and composition B (a plastic chemical explosive with the texture of modeling clay used in claymore mines and flexible enough to wrap around trees, bamboo, bridge supports, and pretty much anything you wanted to blowup). If only the rain could wash away the stink and slime of his life. His thoughts were immersed in the tide of recalling all the hells and heavens of his Viet Nam experience. Questions of the whys and what-fors had mostly stopped years before. Now he just sat and thought his own private thoughts. His early life hadn't been so bad. He had a relatively normal childhood growing up in Southern California in an average middle class neighborhood. He went to a private elementary school that he and his brother nicknamed The Prison where he had received a better than average education, or at least he came away with a better than average intelligence, except for street wisdom. They taught him all the necessary subjects: English, math, history, geography, music, and sports. But they left out one very important part of any child's education: How to deal with others, especially those that didn't think the same way, or grew up in the same environment, as you did. This precious learning experience he had to get the hard way. After elementary school it was on to public school for junior high and high where he went through the normal trauma of puberty while trying to adjust to how the world actually worked. The Prison kept all the students from learning and understanding the society in which they lived, especially Eddy and his brother. All the other students were from wealthy families. They were protected and lived according to a set of rules that Eddy would never attain. Society's restrictions and laws didn't seem to apply to them. Money buys a lot of looking the other way. Tuitions were paid up-front and parents or butlers driving Mercedes, Jaguars, Rolls