This blog was started months ago as will be evident by the date it will claim to be posted on but I finish it on July 9, 2009.
My father turned 18 years old in basic training and soon found himself fighting a war he knew little about. Up to a few weeks ago all I knew about my father serving in the Vietnam War was just that. I always had questions about the war but I resisted asking him because I was afraid of opening up old wounds. My father plans on retiring to mexico by the end of the year and I realized I know little if nothing about his life. That gave me the motivation to ask questions because if I'm ever blessed with kids I want to be able to tell them something about their grandfather, for good or for bad.
War can leave even the toughest of men scared and I don't believe my father to be exempt. He witness a friend of his being blown to pieces not 40ft from where he stood by a vietnamese child who offered him a box of what he believed to be candy. It reminded me of an incident that accured out infront of the home where I use to live on Cesar Chavez st. a couple months back in april. It was late night when I step out to get something out of my car when I noticed this elderly man covered in clothes from head to toe with a shopping cart. I guess the reason he caught my eye was because he was with a dog who kept barking at my dogs. In the time it took me to from my car to the front door the man gets run over as he attempted to cross the street. For those who aren't familar with the street and where I use to live. It is wide with no street light on either side so you would have to be very careful to across. The van that hit him didn't see him at all because it didn't even attempt to stop. I saw a man toss through the air, cart and all, like he was a rag doll and the thud I heard still resonates in my memory more than any visual of that day. I immedately called 911 as he lay there lifelessly. His dog managed to get out of the way and survive until the next day where I recognized the road kill on the street as the same dog. Don't know if the man made it that night but it goes to show how a life can be taken instantly. One minute this guy is walking and breathing right next to me and the next his...
My father got the crabs four times while he was in nam. He told of wild unbelievable stories of vietnamese prositutes sticking razors in there vagina to injure the troops. None of this scared him away from fucking like a jack rabbit. You try telling a 18 year old not to fuck when sex and drugs are available at any given time. Anything to get your mind off of the reason your there. He told me of a fellow he met who got hooked on drugs and years later ran into him in his own home country of Mexico dealing drugs. My father has a past of dealing drugs as well and as recent as 5 years ago. I don't know how he got into it but I know he got out of it because he was getting pressured by a local gang to give them a percentage of his profit. He will tell you he quit out of his own free will but from what my brothers say, not so. He put us at risk by saleing his junk straight out of our own home and had us running into junkies as we came and left. It's something my brothers haven't forgave him for.
When I asked if he had killed anyone during the war I got a silence that said it all and I left it alone. I try not to paint my father as a bad guy but the facts speak for themselves. I struggle with forgiveness for what his done to his family. I forgive because war can cripple a man and at the same time I don't because it's been 40years since that time and he hasn't man up to his responsablities as a father. He has three boys who are not right. One has struggled with suicide, another is seeing a therapist and the other can't figure out why he can't make close relationships. Can you guess which I am?
I'm was told today that I was conceive by a rape. How do you think that makes me feel? You can't begin to know how that makes me feel. I knew I wasn't conceived out of love and that is already a huge burden to carry but rape is a whole different thing. Rape has surround my life and my family. It's something that hurts me as bad as it has hurt them. They can't understand how that is and its so because for someone to hurt someone else you love to death is hard to live with. You feel as much as you want to protect them you can't, your defenseless. I wake up some nights just thinking about it and its the number one cause of my meloncoly. And now this!? I myself am a cause of a rape. I might as well be a bastard child. My father wanted my mom not to have me but here I am for better or worst still trying to find out what love really is.
I leave you with footage not of the entertaining value. I want you to see and experience for at least a minute or two of what my father and so many others experience and which are cemented in their brains. Remember that they fought two wars, the vietnam war and their own.
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