Roseanna Dakan Keller

Vietnam Roseanna Dakan Keller

I went to Vietnam filled with a sense of excitement, wonder and purpose. I'd been trained to kill the enemy and survive and was sent into the jungles of Vietnam to perform. A perfectly honed machine, designed and trained to do a job automatically - but with no sense of how to deal with the guilt and trauma and the rage that now possessed me. Almost from the first day in Nam, the anthem of "going home" resonated within our minds and became the mantra for living in this hell-hole called Vietnam. So, after a year of fighting for survival you come home. Or do you? Because the home of your youthful mind no longer exists. It is long gone -forever dead. In its place is a mind in which now resides ghastly memories, irrational fears, self-annihilation, tremendous resentment and profound anger. The home of your mind becomes the worst place you've ever been. But you cannot leave it. Vietnam is now a part of you and its shadow surrounds all that you do and all that you are. The relationships with your wife and children are forever clouded by what impact Vietnam had. And you are left to wonder, what could have been if Vietnam had never occurred?