Alwaysawarrior

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TWELVE DAYS AND 10,000 MILES AWAY



Forty eight years ago this week I was home on my leave
Preparing for the biggest adventure of my young life
Many thoughts were continuing to run through my mind

Everyone was sleeping peacefully as I sat all alone
Contemplating what my fate would be over in Vietnam
How would I handle the stress involved with combat

Would I react as I had been trained to react there
Would I be too frozen with fear to do my own job
How would I react to those mortar or rocket attacks

So there I had sat for most of that night unable to sleep
Thinking of all the many ways in which I might be killed
My worst year was only twelve days and 10,000 miles away


© Terry Sasek - Alwaysawarrior - all rights reserved.
  (November 02, 2016)


Preparing to leave your family, your loved ones and all of your
friends had weighed heavily on me during my own 30 day leave at
home before leaving for my one year tour of duty at a very small
and very remote air base and not knowing if I would ever see any
of them again or if I would survive or end up badly wounded and
disabled. As it turned out I only received minor cuts and bruises
from those attacks but now 44 years after my Honorable Discharge
from the U.S. Air Force I am facing multiple health issues that
were caused by my own heavy exposure to the poison called Dioxin
which was one of the main ingredients that were part of those
defoliant chemicals called Agent Orange and Agent White sprayed
heavily over much of South Vietnam to kill off all of those tall
elephant grasses and jungle plants where the enemy would hide in
before attacking our remote outpost / air base called Binh Thuy.
Only by the grace of God did I survive my year in South Vietnam,
and I totally believe that he'll help me get through all of these
medical issues caused by the side effects from our heavy exposure
to those Agent Orange & Agent White spray missions over our base
and which are slowly crippling me. Now after fighting with the
Veterans Administration for over 6 years, I was awarded my claim
for service connected disability and I was given a 100% service
connected rating for being totally and permanently disabled as a
direct result of my heavy exposure to these defoliant chemicals.
















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TWELVE DAYS AND 10,000 MILES AWAY