Vietnam veteran still struggling with aftermath of war

OVANDO – Dave Miller joined the U.S. Army for altruistic reasons. As he explained, "I was reading and watching the news and stuff and I just thought Vietnam needed some help in their independence."

Miller was pretty sure he knew what war would be like. He had watched the TV segments. He was ready to face the hardships, and even possible death, for the sake of helping another country gain its independence as the U.S. had fought and gained its own independence. Instead he found his sense of right and wrong shaken to its foundations and replaced by a lifetime battle with PTSD.

Miller said he joined at age 18 and spent exactly 2 years, 3 months and 28 days in the Army. Now, 50 years beyond that time, he still sees snipers waiting in ambush behind the shrubs along Highway 83 – even though he knows there are no shrubs along the highway, even though he knows no one else sees any snipers out there.

The fear he cannot reconcile with the reality he knows to be true comes from too many close brushes with death. Miller told of the time he, and the "shotgun partner" sent along to protect him as he drove, encountered an ambush.

Rather than provide Miller with protection, the shotgun partner took cover and froze. Miller said, "The guy never fired a shot!" When Miller returned to base, he told his commanding officer, "Give me somebody who can hold his own or give me something else to do."

He was given the job of driving cargo trucks with nicknames like "deuce and a half 5-ton" and "the coffin." When he wasn't driving, Miller said he did a lit bit of everything.

Deeply ingrained in Miller was the dictum: you're responsible for your brother in the bush, not just for yourself. He proved that during an incident that occurred two months before he was to be discharged.

Miller said, "A monsoon had washed out the trench in front of the perimeter. I pointed that out to the brass {i.e., the command personnel] and they evidently didn't understand. They put wire in it. But wire to Charlie is just another door. ["Charlie" was the name American soldiers used to refer to the communist Viet Cong forces they were fighting.] Anyway, they slipped in one night and overran my side of the perimeter. The mortars started coming in and [one of the other soldiers froze]. He pulled back in the corner and wouldn't come down in the bunker. So I dropped my weapon and grabbed him by the collar and we went down into the bunker. I could hear Charlie coming, and I thought, "this is it."

Luckily, reinforcements came in time and Miller and the other soldier survived. Miller shook his head and said, "They came right up through that damn trench."

It's not just the shrubs that aren't there that trigger Miller's PTSD, certain times of day, certain light situations, especially fog, trigger horrific memories.

Miller said, "I can remember just like yesterday areas that we went into. Officers sending you in there and knowing that big clearing – and Charlie knows when that fog's going to lift – and man he caught us."

The memory of the battle at An Khe is especially vivid. The U.S. troops "caught hell" as Miller described it. His division was nearby and was ordered to back them up.

"It was just a nightmare," Miller said. "Too many people down." And he stopped talking.

But it is not only the death and horrors he saw or his own brushes with mortality that disturb Miller so deeply. He also struggles with the morality of what happened in Vietnam.

Miller said, "I volunteered to do it, but I lost belief in why I was there. You turn and look at yourself – the damage you are doing to those people. You're over there trying to help them get their independence and you're burning their homes. I had hard feelings about the Air Force because they didn't see the damage they did down there. But we had to clean it up."

He said now he understands he was blaming the wrong people. He recognizes that they were doing their duty just as he was doing his. But he can't reconcile the rightness of that with the wrongness of what happened to innocent people.

"What we were doing," Miller said, "was what we were supposed to be fighting against." The only conclusion he can draw is, "If we wouldn't have gotten involved, I think Vietnam would have handled itself. Couldn't be any worse than what it is now for them people."

Contemplating other wars, Miller said he sees the same thing. "What we did was inhumane, in my mind, in Japan [i.e., dropping the atomic bomb]. But in a way it was a payback, and we had to stop the damn war. Don't make it right though. Innocent people are going to be killed and nothing you can do to stop it, once it's started."

Millers' inner struggles found no salve when he returned home. He and other Vietnam soldiers were confronted by a nation that wanted to blame them for the atrocities pouring out of the newspapers and TVs.

"No welcome home. No nothing," Miller said. "Made you feel ashamed of what you did. We were put in a position where it was do or die. That's the way it was."

Although Miller sought help from the Veterans Administration, he also started drinking heavily. The VA sent him to what Miller termed "the funny farm" in Sheridan, Wyo. Miller found the treatment there largely unhelpful. Though they were willing to help him deal with the alcohol problem, they weren't willing to let him talk about the underlying war issues, especially not in group sessions where it might disturb the other patients.

Miller said, "So a few of us went down to Trails End Bar in Sheridan, got liquored up, broke the rules, and got sent home."

From there, things went from bad to worse.

Miller said, "I had trouble all the time. Drinking again. I knocked my first wife around a bit. We separated. I replaced her with the alcohol again. Met a wonderful lady. But we both had a problem with alcohol. Drinking and driving, I killed her."

After his discharge Miller worked for a while with an Ovando rancher and then for 10 years with the Street Maintenance Department in Missoula. He married again. He and Marcy just celebrated their 32 anniversary. He is still getting help from the VA, this time in Helena.

"They're pretty good this time," he said. "I'm trying to accept them with open eyes."

He said he knows he also has problems relating to his family. "I don't want to get close. And I need to get close. It's a terrible feeling."

Ovando's small town isolation suits him. He said, "You can sit out on the hill in the evenings and reminisce about things – some good, some bad. And if you want to holler, you can holler."