PLAINVILLE, Ill. (AP) - Thirty-five years is a long time to hold on to anything painful, especially if you don’t fully understand it.
March 3, 1970.
Jeff Snyder was 20 when he “proudly entered the U.S. Army.” He was deployed to Vietnam in March 1971, but he didn’t come back the same.
“I know I was more mature when I came out,” he said. “I saw my friends who didn’t go, and we had nothing in common anymore. They seemed immature. It changed my outlook on a lot of things.
“I just tried to blend back in, but it was very hard to do. You go through the motions, but still, it’s like you don’t fit in anymore. You’re different. Everything has changed. You don’t feel comfortable in certain situations anymore.
“I hadn’t been home a week, and I went to the Star Club in Hannibal with a couple friends. That was a mistake on my part because I spent the whole time up against the wall with my eyes darting back and forth. It was so loud. It was so noisy. There were so many people. I couldn’t take it. I just couldn’t do it.”
Snyder rushed out of the club that night without really grasping what was happening to him. He sat down on the sidewalk with his back against the wall and waited an hour and a half for his friends to leave.
“I still don’t like crowds. I can’t be in crowds. I can’t be,” he said. “I have to have my back to the wall, or a booth. A booth is OK, but I don’t like anyone moving around behind me.
“We’re all the same. My brother-in-law is like this. It’s the movement. You try to watch everybody because that’s the way it was when you were over there. But you can’t watch everybody here.”
Snyder took a lot of pictures while overseas. His photo album is full of the landscape he called home for almost a year. He has photos of make-shift bridges and narrow mountain roads, friends he stayed in touch with over the years, friends he never spoke to again after returning home and poor native children.
“My dad was a World War II vet,” he said. “They couldn’t have cameras because they didn’t want to give any secrets away. He couldn’t believe they let us have cameras, but everyone knew where we were. There were no secrets.”
Jan. 26, 1972.
Snyder returned from deployment. He had tried to pick his life up where he had left off, working as a mason, but something was wrong.
“I had anger issues,” he said. “Anger is a big part of it. Absolute rage, but you can’t pinpoint the source. Afterward, you wonder where it came from. I’d just blow up for no reason.
“You can’t be under that much stress for that long and not have it affect you. It’s constant. It’s always in your mind. I don’t care where you were, there was no place that was 100 percent safe. You’re always a little on edge. Always.
“One time I walked into McDonald’s, and they were wearing Vietnamese type hats for some promotion. It took me right back there. As far as I was concerned, I was there. After a couple of minutes of watching them it passed.
“You bury that. You don’t want to talk about it. You don’t want to deal with it. I’ve had nightmares and flash backs. You don’t explain it to people. Just tell them not to worry about it. The average person is not going to understand what’s going on.”
He carried these memories with him silently for 35 years.
“When my dad passed away, we were cleaning out his house. We found cards from guys he had been in World War II with. He had kept in touch with them. My sisters had never asked me anything about Vietnam. One of my sisters said she wished we knew more about dad’s experiences, and she wished she knew more about mine. No one ever asked me. I just thought no one cared. Nobody ever said anything. I never heard a thank you. It wasn’t the time for that. We were the bad guys.
“We landed in Alaska coming back, and we had to get off the plane for them to refuel. There was a group of five or six of us, in uniform, just standing there along the wall talking. A woman came down the hallway. She had a little girl with her, maybe 3 or 4. She saw us and just froze. She grabbed the little girl’s hand and went way out to the other wall to slip around us. What in the world?”
Things began to change when he started to write about his experiences. Partially for therapy, partially to leave a record for the next generation. He and his wife, Gerri, have no children, so his account, which is thicker than a dictionary now, will go to his nieces.
“We never got a thanks, and that stays with you,” he said. “I think we might have been more willing to talk about it if we had. That might have sped up the process of dealing with it. Some guys are still carrying it today.”
Snyder’s life changed when he heard about a large-scale reunion held annually by the Howard County Vietnam Veterans Organization. For the first time since he had left, he felt like he wasn’t alone.
“I didn’t have to worry,” he said. “It was one of the first places I could completely relax, and it was fantastic. I’ve been going for nine years. I’ve brought my brother-in-law and my nephew. You can relax around other vets because you know they have your back.
“My first year, a guy asked where I was staying. I told him a room in town, he told me to throw my gear in with them. I didn’t have any gear, but they found me some. You can always spot a first-timer because they get very emotional. They spotted me. It was a great experience.”
Snyder also participates in a PTSD support group twice a month.
“We go to lunch afterward. We have a table in the corner, but sometimes it’s full, so we have to sit somewhere else. Normally, you wouldn’t sit with your back anywhere other than the wall, but there you can relax. It makes a difference, not being on your own.
“You can’t deal with it unless you confront it and get it out in the open. If you keep it buried, you will never deal with it. It’s not going to get better, and you can’t forget it. You won’t ever get over it, but you can deal with it.”
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Source: The Quincy Herald-Whig, https://bit.ly/2q23mn3
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Information from: The Quincy Herald-Whig, https://www.whig.com
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