Hey flight -- It has been a while since I dropped in to see what condition your condition was in. My hope is that you are all doing well. I am taking a poetry class at the university this semester. Recently I was given an assignment to right a poem regarding some specific aspect of my life. I was to create a "poetic form" -- that is I was to have some regularity as to the feet or beats per line and I was to create a rhyme scheme. I thought I would pass along the results.

PTSD -- Definition and Manifestation

post-traumatice stress disorder n. (1980): a psychological reaction occurring after a highly stressing event that is usually characterized by depression, anxiety, flashbacks, recurrent nightmares, and avoidance of reminders of the event -- called also

post-traumatic stress syndrome.

I struggle to hold my thoughts intact
as my mind races away, driven from me
by forces unseen. The now, under attack
from days long past and the memory
of blood lust awakening in me the desire to act
on my need to extract life from our enemy.
And then, the flashes come and the twitching
starts. Deep within my gut, the trembling,
tears at my psyche, questioning my being
alive when so many breathe no longer.
Guilt clouds my world as I remember
how the taking of life made us feel stronger.
It is too late once the twitching starts.
I need for those who sent me there to know
all that is taken from one who must go
to those dark places where the twitching starts.

That's what I came up with. I was diagnosed with this shit in 1992, five months after I put the bottle down Vietnam came calling and at least up to this point I have been unable to show the bad parts of my experiences there the exit. I felt a need to share this with you guys. Go easy on me. One of the things that I am proudest of is that I flew with the 129th AHC, I never crashed a bird, and I never turned down a mission. Now, I get to feel all the things I would not back then. Miss you guys! Sure enough miss you hooligans -- so, keep 'em in the green! Lurch, out.