Vietnam Veterans Still Live Battles To Fight

While most reporters seem to overlook pre-9-11 veterans, this is a good article about Vietnam veterans and the battles they still have to fight.

There are no new wounds separating generations no matter how much easier it is for Congress to pretend it is all new to them.

Had it not been for Vietnam veterans fighting for all generations when they came home, there would have been nothing available for PTSD help among servicemembers, veterans and yes, the civilian population. As imperfect as things are today, it would have all been worse had it not been for them.

50 years later, Vietnam veterans still live with the war 
Post Bulletin
Matthew Stolle
April 18, 2015

The Vietnam War may have slipped into the annals of history, but for those who served, it never completely ended.

As a special forces commander during the Vietnam war, Bill Fritts of Byron ran recon and civil affairs missions in and around South Vietnam for 32 months. But it wasn't until two decades later, when the war had long been over, that Fritts realized it wasn't over for him.

He began having horrible dreams.

He would awaken at night drenched in sweat. Fritts had a recurring dream in which his men were "running operations" in some jungle-laden locale. It would dawn on Fritts, as the dreams continued, that the men in them were dead now. "I'm the only guy still alive."

Then one night Fritts woke up in his Byron home, and there, sitting at the end of his bed, was a North Vietnamese Army lieutenant, smoking a cigarette and smiling. As soon as Fritts would sit up, the Vietnamese man vanished.

A doctor later diagnosed Fritts' case as the worst Vietnam-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder he had ever seen.

It's been five decades since Fritts, now 79, served in the Vietnam War as a Green Beret special forces commander, running small-group missions, moving stealthily through the jungle, wearing the black pajamas that allowed him to blend into his surroundings.
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