Harps HQ

I served in the Navy during the Viet Nam era, and I came home and went to school on the GI bill. I was never anywhere near Viet Nam, and served in Naval Intelligence on land stations my whole 4 year enlistment. Years later I really began to see the horrible effects on many of the people who had actually been in Vietnam. They’re referred to now as “trip wire veterans”, and as I travel around, it seems like every town and city has a “Crazy Bob” or a “Mad Mike”, – you know – just one of those crazy Vietnam veterans … But these guys weren’t crazy when they went into the service, and they’ve been cast off by their own country. Many of them totally withdrew from society, and werent aware of the settlements and possible claims against Dow Chemical for their manufacturing Agent Orange, and most of them are outside the reach of veterans care programs. I wrote this in the late 1980s after knowing a real Mad Mike like this, whose live in girl friend left him for a 90 year old man with a colostomy bag, but he also had a good pension ….

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