Part 9… 8584 Miles Apart

Boyd was experiencing the horrors of war serving as part of the 25th Infantry Division of the US Army. His base camp was located in the Cu Chi district, his squad would leave base camp and head into the jungle to engage an enemy could rarely see until shots were fired at them.

As they returned to base camp at night the Vietnamese would count how many returned, calculating if any were missing. They’d eat, sleep and prepare to head back out the next morning.

It is hard to imagine the impact of spending one’s days trying to kill without being killed. Fifty years later he has occasional nightmares. As we celebrate Independence Day, he will suffer a day of PTSD flashbacks from the fireworks. 

Often the squad was transported by helicopter into the jungle for patrol. He told me the worst part was when the helicopter dropped them in rice paddies and they had to push bodies that were floating out of the way as they walked toward land.

Boyd was determined not to allow himself to feel fear. He believed those were the soldiers who were killed or were so afraid, they would hide and not engage in the fight. Boyd was there to do his job, no matter how hard the enemy tried to frighten, threaten, intimidate, capture, or kill him. His survivor personality kicked in when he was shot January 15, 1968

I was trying to be brave as I waited for the year to pass, for his return, for when we would start over and life would be happy. I recognized that my storybook vision of happiness wasn’t realistic, yet I still believed God would redeem us.