My Demons

Bob Sleasman

Toby and Trace are still singing and it’s the wee hours of the morning. I'll try to tell you about my demons. Where I'm going to go with this is something I don't know until I get there. Everything from here on out is coming from forty years of not knowing why I have been being visited by my demons, and how they shaped my life, until this past November.

I don't know if I should start at the end or the beginning. There really is no end; I still have my demons only now I know why I have them. I also now know that the person I once was changed to a totally different person, without me ever knowing it.

Donna led me to this discovery after talking to a truck driver at a truck stop, who happened to be retired from the military. He was an expediter Donna met while laying over after delivering a load.

Before I go further about the above meeting I'll try to tell you about my demons. I might switch back and forth between the meeting of Donna and the retired military trucker and my demons.

It’s mentioned in my biography that I served in Vietnam from September 1968 to the end of August 1969. It was after my return home that the demons started visiting me. I believe the first visit was soon after my separation from active duty in March of 1970.

I call the visits demons because sometimes when I am visited by them it is like I'm in hell. I also say visits; I don't know what else to call them. I never talk much about what the visits are like, in fact I have never told anyone except a counselor at The Vet Center. This I did after Donnas’ meeting and discussion with the retired military truck driver. Donna doesn't even know what the visits are like. I guess she will now.

I can be visited by my demons at just about any time, but it’s mostly at night. It’s also at night when the visits are most intense. Over the years one would think a person would get use to the visits, not so. Sometime the visits aren't as intense. Also over the years the visits have come less frequent, especially the past five years or so.

I will be sleeping and the visit will start. I will find myself in the middle of the jungle, alone at night. I will be surrounded by people in black pajamas wearing conical hats firing AK 47’s at me. I try to defend myself with my M 16, but it won't fire. Closer and closer the enemy comes, holes start appearing in my body, blood oozes from these holes. There is no pain, just holes in my body and I laugh. I am being killed but there is no pain but I am dying. I am swarmed over by the enemy, I see their faces, and then I wake up, sometimes covered in sweat. I am awake the rest of the night. This visit is not too bad.

Like most of the visits, dreams if you want to call them that, it’s recurring.

Sometimes the demons won't let me sleep. I lay awake at night my head filled with memories I need to forget, but can't. These demons are real. They live inside of me. These demons that visit me are the worst.

I smell the grass after a summer rain through the open bedroom window, the smell becomes the steaming triple canopy jungle and I shake inside waiting for the firefight to start.

Again while I'm sleeping I am visited. This time it starts with the explosions of incoming mortar and RPG rounds. There are body parts, splashes of blood, screams, no faces or people just blood, gore and the sounds of war. I wake up, my heart is pounding and it takes a minute to realize I'm in bed and safe, for now.

Sometimes for no reason I will break out in a sweat in the middle of the day, my lips and fingers go numb. I have to seek a quiet spot away from people, or I will be alone when it happens and I will need to seek out a loved one and not be alone.

I was in a helicopter squadron. Sometimes when I hear the sound of a helicopters’ rotor blades cutting through the air it immediately brings me back to Vietnam and the memories I am forever trying to forget.

I will wake up at night bathed in a cold sweat with no memory of the visit, but knowing my demons had been with me.

The above are just a few of the visits my demons pay me. There are many others more intense and very graphic.

Sometimes I just find myself in a kind of zoned out state, lost someplace inside myself. I used to have flashbacks but for the most part they have all but disappeared. Once in a while I will have a flashback if I'm under a lot of pressure or stress during the day. The flashback will come that evening. These are not demons, they are actual events that happened that are etched in my mind and manage to pop out.

I have learned to live with my demons; it has taken many years for me to come to terms with my demons, at one point during the mid 1970’s through the mid 1980’s I found that alcohol was a way to help me get through my visits. One morning in October of 1986 I woke up after a night of heavy drinking and I said to myself that I needed to stop, I realized drinking wasn't the answer, I was just slowly killing myself. To this day I don't know how I came to that realization, but I'm sure glad I did.

My demons are just part of this post. At this time I will leave my demons behind for now and continue on. I'm going to try to explain other ways my tour of duty in Vietnam affected me. I warned you that I didn't know where I was going with this.

Now back to Donna and the truck driver.

As most expediters do when they layover, Donna and the other truck driver struck up a conversation, that conversation turned out to be a great help for me.

Through the course of the day Donna and the other truck driver talked about the usual trucking stuff. At some point they got on the subject of how many expediters are ex military, that’s when Donna found out her new friend was retired military. During the course of this conversation the truck driver told Donna about his experiences in the service and in Vietnam, and how his tour of duty there had affected him.

Donna being the smartest person I know, quickly picked up on how similar his actions were after he came home, and how he was still struggling with some issues. It dawned on her that I was going through some, if not most of the same things.

These had nothing to do with my demons. It was about how I had insulated myself from things. How I acted and reacted to situations. How I obsess on some things.

Donna mentioned the similarities to the trucker, who then told her I needed to get in touch with the VA as he had done.

After talking to the trucker, Donna called me. She told me all of the above and suggested I call the VA. The next day I called The Albany County Veterans Association. It was one of the smartest things I've ever done.

I need to stop here to add more background. I will try to keep it as brief as possible.

When I returned to the “World” as we called coming home from Vietnam, I was no longer me. This is very hard to explain but I will do my best, please bear with me.

When I returned home to my wife, family and friends, everything inside me had shut down. I still loved my wife but that part of me that used to be able to express that love was gone. I'm not talking about sex here; I'm talking about the everyday things. Things like small talk, listening to what my wife had to say. Showing interest in things that were important to her, helping around the house, the regular day to day stuff. It wasn't that I didn't want to do these things, I just forgot how to, or that I was supposed to. I don't know how to explain it better.

I went back to work as soon as I came home, I've always worked, but I was just going through the motions. I would go to work come home have dinner, never talk, go to bed, and do the same thing the next day.

Friends? Who needed them? When I first came home friendships were reestablished but after a while lifelong friends were forgotten. I became a loner.

Weekends were for drinking. I was not a drinker before I went to Vietnam. When I came home it helped me forget things I saw and did. It was a crutch. Drinking wasn't an everyday thing; it was done mostly on weekends. The drinking never got out of hand.

Something else changed. I became the most important person to me. I came first; I put myself ahead of everyone. The saddest part is that I never realized I was doing this, or any of the above things.

I was dead inside. I loved but couldn't express it. I was suspicious of everyone. “Luke the Gook “was everywhere. Nobody could be trusted.

I lost my family by 1974. My friends were gone also. I didn't care about the friends, but I couldn't get my family back. I tried the best I could, it wasn't good enough.

As I said earlier, from the mid 1970’s to mid 1980’s, drinking kept me going, drinking and the fire department. I never drank on the job that was one of my rules. I always could do my job, and did it very well.

Women, they came and went. I didn't want a relationship, I wanted sex. Women were disposable. The exception to this is my daughter Tricia’s mother. I tried to make our relationship work, but that fell apart after a few years. We are still friends though, and she attends most family functions.

That’s a very brief overview of me after my return home.

Today I still have few friends; I'm still kind of a loner. Donna has helped me become a much better person. Donna is my life; she also saved my life and never knew it.

I still have a problem with putting myself first. Donna has helped me see the light twice so far with this problem. I'm trying hard to put others first and I believe I'm making progress. I sure need to because I have two strikes on me. I have one more strike and I'm out, in more ways than one.

Now back to the VA

As I said earlier, I called The Albany County Veterans Association. I talked to the head honcho there, his name is Joe, and he fixed me up with an appointment the next day.

After I told Joe my story he said he could and would help me. He pulled out a stack of paperwork, sat down with me and helped me fill out paperwork for the VA, requesting a number of disabilities due to my service in Vietnam. After the paperwork was filled out Joe said he would have one of the other guys polish it up a little and submit it for me. These guys are great, they are all volunteers, and they bend over backwards for the veterans. They do all the work, fill out paperwork, do the research, collect all documents needed and submit everything to the VA. They also do all the follow-up stuff.

Joe being a Vietnam veteran suggested I go to counseling. He said he was 99% sure I had PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I agreed and he set me up with an appointment with a counselor at the local Vet Center.

I went to my initial counseling session after which I was told I was indeed suffering from PTSD. The counselor set up more sessions, she also said for me to be prepared for some very intense reactions from the sessions, because they would bring out the demons that have been buried for so long. Boy was she right.

I am now waiting for a VA disability for my PTSD, I was told I will get the disability but it would take up to a year. I have gotten a disability from the VA for another condition from my tour of duty, but was told that PTSD takes a little longer to get because of the paperwork involved.

That’s my story; I hope I didn't bore you. I didn't mean for it to drag on this long, but like I said, I didn't know where I was going with this thing.