One Man's Return from Combat

[ARTILLERY FIRE]

There's nothing like being in a firefight that gets everything moving. Every emotion you ever sustained, you've got that within two minutes of a firefight. It was a very frightening thing.

[ARTILLERY FIRE]

You lay there. You're helpless because you don't know where they are. They're throwing grenades at you.

[EXPLOSION]

And shooting machine guns at you. You don't know if you can get up, run. There's no hiding, because they'll find you. And where can you go?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Nam was hell. Nam took our souls, and took my soul, and took it away from me. Whatever goodness, real goodness I had, or happiness, it's still over there somewhere.

[FOOTSTEPS]

Psychiatrist Doug Bremner has been working for 10 years with patients like Dennis, who have been permanently traumatized by the terror they experienced in Vietnam.

Dennis has symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including intrusive memories of the war that come back to him at any time of the day, and which he has little control over. And they replay in a repetitive manner. He has nightmares of the war. He's jumpy and easily startled. And he's hyper-vigilant and on guard all the time.

Nealy a fifth of Vietnam Vets returned, like Dennis, traumatized.

I feel trapped in my life. I feel like I'm trapped in some kind of shell that is something that's never going to go away. I'm suicidal at times-- and hopelessness. And the dreams, I think, because of thinking about Vietnam so much, and how hopeless that situation is, I just kind of carried it into my life today.

I don't like busy streets all that much. I try to stay away from it. Walking in the streets of New York, or somewhere, I'm a little more watchful, you know, of the ambush.

Someone like Dennis knows that anyone could pop out of the bushes at any time with a gun and shoot you, and there's nothing that you can do about that. And he walks around with that knowledge all the time. But that makes it more difficult for him to work, and to be close to his family, and to do all those other things that we all take for granted.

Dennis is on a hair-trigger to fear. Cars back-firing or just the smell of diesel take him back to Vietnam.

All right, I need a perimeter set up here, quick.

[GUNFIRE]

Oh, man!

[GUN FIRE]

Get a perimeter set up around there!

Oh!

Get a medic company in here.

You got a first aid kit?

Oh, get down!

[ARTILLERY FIRE]