"Me too." (standard:non fiction, 6478 words)
Author: THE BIG EYE	Added: Feb 27 2005	Views/Reads: 2859/2019	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
first chapter from my book: PTSD in Alabama (vietnam vets) and the Bronx, (me, the treating psychiatrist.)

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

served for three years, two of them  as a radio operator  in the Army 
Air Force in the Central Pacific. 

I studied medicine in Geneva Switzerland and in my senior year, 1955, I
did an externship in a Tel Aviv hospital.  I met my future wife there, 
a sabra, a native-born Israeli, during that six week period;  in 1956  
I returned to Israel and we were married. I finished my psychiatric 
training in 1966 and immigrated  to Israel  with my wife and 3 
children. I have lived and worked in Israel for the last 24 years. I am 
a veteran of four Israeli wars and I was in the active military reserve 
until I was 55 years old. I learned to treat PTSD by working with 
hundreds of Holocaust survivors and their families, and with the Israel 
Defense Forces soldiers, some of whom suffered from PTSD.  A few months 
ago I was invited to come  to the Tumpalega VA hospital to set  up and 
run the PTSD  program and to be an adjunct professor of psychiatry at 
the University of Alabama Medical School.  My assistant in the group 
and a participating observer is Chaplain Mike Dills, the administrator 
of the PTSD program at  the  Tumpalega VA hospital.  He is a pastoral 
counselor, a  pilot, a Viet Nam veteran, and a colonel in the US Air 
Force active reserve. 

Mike started this morning's group as he usually does, by collecting the
attendance forms from the 15 patients and signing them. He is a gentle 
man, in his late forties, slim build, pleasant of face, his wire-rimmed 
glasses set low on his nose are his most distinctive facial feature. He 
is polite in manner, graceful in movement and modest in his behavior. 
But - -  from time to time he can be tough in  his speech and behavior. 
He is that way now, as he signs the attendance form and talks about the 
rules of  the program. He looks up occasionally to talk to them about  
maintaining discipline in the program, some of the rules of the 
program.  It is Friday morning and some of the patients had been 
complaining that  they aren't allowed to leave for the weekend home 
visit before two p.m. Swinging his finger-pointed arm around  the group 
and speaking crisply with his soft southern accent he says, "Listen up 
you guys. Friday is a therapy day and we don't want you to lose it, you 
hear?  There's precious little enough time as it is, with only five 
weeks to the whole darn program." He signs the last of the forms and 
looks sternly around the group, then frowning,  he says, "And you all 
know you've not been policing up the  room after groups.  Dr. Bronsky 
and I don't want to go around picking up after you guys, cause you 
leave your coffee cups and soda cans behind you." I  am sitting 
quietly, watching and thinking about how I will start the group.  Mike 
is a participating observer in the group, helping over the difficult 
cultural transition because the American PTSD is different  in some 
ways than the Israeli  form of PTSD. In working with Israeli vets I 
found they  never suffered the humiliation of being rejected and 
neglected after they fought for their country.  They were not 
scapegoated for political reasons, they were given good psychiatric 
treatment very soon after they began to luster from PTSD. There are 
significant  cultural, religious and social differences between the 
southern American veteran and the Holocaust survivors and the Israeli 
soldiers. I did my pre-med  studies at Tulane University in urban New 
Orleans I am not really familiar with the culture of Alabama.  These 
vets grew up with an abundance of violent activities: hunting, fishing, 
sports, drinking, fighting.  Many  of them were frequently and beaten 
as children. "My daddy made me go out and cut a big switch to bring him 
so he could beat my but.  If it wasn't big enough then he'd go out a 
get a really big one.  Most of them were raised in strict Protestant 
(Southern Baptist) families; before they went to Viet Nam they  
attended church regularly and almost all of them went into the service 
believing in God. Suddenly, I am  aware of the silence in the room, 
embedded in the loud thrumming of the air conditioning.  Out of the 
corner of my eye I notice that one of the vets is  nervously tapping 
his finger on the notebook sitting in his lap. Mike asks the vet, T.J., 
"You all ready to talk about your flashback?" Today is T.J.'s third 
session in the group and he has yet to speak of his PTSD symptoms.  
Yesterday afternoon he was watching TV on the back porch of the wards 
with the rest of the group,  watching a cowboy picture.  When the 
shooting started he acted as if he was back in Nam, crying and  in 
panic, hiding under the table, shouting "Incoming, incoming." 

The other vets calmed him down and took him to the nurse.  She sent  him
to see me and I worked with him in an individual therapy session.  Four 
days before I had seen him on admission: he  was in his early forties, 
had been a pre-med student who quit the university more than twenty 
years ago to enlist in the marines so he could fight for his country.  
In the admissions interview  he was anxious, cooperative but very 
reluctant to go into any details of the traumas he suffered in Nam. 

Now, in the group, T.J.'s hands are shaking and his body  is very tense.
 He is a small man with big spectacles, a shaggy mustache which 
partially covers his mouth and a neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard.  In a 
voice crackling with tension and rhythmically wringing his hands, he 
says, "Yes, I do.  I had a session with Dr. Bronsky yesterday and we 
talked about it."  He pauses, takes a deep  breath and lets it out 
slowly, putting the pen and notebook down on the floor besides his 
chair. He takes off his glasses, wipes them slowly with a crumpled, 
soiled handkerchief  that he  pulls out of his back pocket. Putting his 
glasses back on and clearing his throat quietly he says, "I saw how 
some of the guys got help when they talked about some of the stuff 
they're hung up on and I think it helped them.  But I'm a little 
afraid." After a brief silence my voice sounds very loud as I say,  "I 
know you're afraid because you're probably going to talk about 
something you kept bottled up in you for almost 25 years.  It was only 
yesterday that you spoke to me about it. I don't think you'll have a 
flashback and if you did, you'll get plenty of support from me and 
Chaplain Dills.  I'm sure the guys in the group will also be available 
"to protect your back."  Besides, I believe you have too much strength  
to let it blow your mind." 

He nods his understanding and agreement as does the Chaplain, along with
most of the vets in the group.  Raising my hand slightly off my lap in 
a 'stop sign' I say, "Before you start, I'd like to ask the guys here I 
have already worked with  if they thought that sharing the experience 
of their traumas from Viet Nam was worthwhile."  I look around the 
group and make eye contact with each patient  who had taken the risk 
and talked about a traumatic experience in Viet Nam. Tim,  sad-eyed, 
slow-talking, clean-shaven and very neatly dressed, relived his 
experience of handling  many hundreds of  bodies, bagging them, tagging 
them, shipping them back to the U.S. He had mind-promised the bagged 
bodies  that he would never forget them.  Since returning home he has 
been obsessed with his promise which has became intrusive and obsessive 
thoughts. He describes them as being "like a like a broken record, 
going round and round in my mind, especially when I try to sleep."  He 
visualizes the bodybags a number of times a day but if he feels 
threatened by someone, he imagines  him dead and puts him in a  
bodybag. Tim sits very straight in his chair, clears his throat and 
says to T.J.,  "Do it  man, I know it helped me." Bobby  is small and 
thin with a high-pitched voice.  In Nam he had been a 'tunnel rat': he 
had the job of exploring Viet Cong bunkers and tunnels.  When he worked 
in the group he sweat profusely, often  gulping for air, as he relived 
the experience of being in the middle of a platoon, his two best 
friends  walking point, the lead man and the second man. They were 
ambushed  and the point man  was killed immediately and the other one 
seriously wounded. He was crying out to Bobby for help, but  he 
couldn't get to him because he was pinned down by the murderous 
cross-fire. It would have been sure death for him if he had tried to 
get to  his friend. After his platoon broke the ambush Bobby found his 
second friend, dead from a bleeding wound in his leg.  If he had been 
able to get to him on time he could have saved him with a tourniquet.  
He has  been suffering from survivors guilt ever since.  He barely 
raises his head to look at Tim and mumbles in a little voice,  "You 
done said it for me, okay?" Kyle, obese, sweating, was a marine 
corpsman, as T.J. was.  When he talked in group he cried, grimaced, 
walking around  as  he  relived the trauma of losing his best buddy in 
a firefight. He was unable to help his friend because he was too far 
away to answer his cries of "Corpsman," and  he was too busy caring for 
the many wounded around him.  The next day he  found his dead friend 
with bamboo sticks in his eyes and his genitals in his mouth.  He leans 
and looks toward T.J.,  then points with his head in my direction,  
"Trust the man.  You're my brother.  We were both there. We'll watch 
your back." Don is grey-haired, very big,  muscular, very suspicious. 
His eyes usually are half-lidded and he glares aggressively at the 
person he is talking to. He often describes himself as a "trained 
killer." He is very bright but hides his intelligence  by acting and 
saying, "I'm just a little old country boy." He didn't allow himself to 
cry when he shared his experience with the group. He raged  and then 
crushed an empty soda can under his big foot before he stomped out of 
the room.  But he was back in five minutes to finish up.  His buddy he 
called  "The Wildman" saying , "We was both wildmen in them days.  You 
better believe it. When we come off patrols we'd get drunk, fight, tear 
up whorehouses."  He  was  gravely wounded because he took a grenade 
hit which tore off his face, leaving a pulpy red mass but his blond 
hair stayed clean and bright.    Don had the same bright blond hair.  
"Shit T.J., you can trust this damn Yankee.  Just a little, hear?" 
Lonny,  tall, thin, chronic alcoholic, looked grim, spoke softly, his 
white-knuckled fists pounded rhythmically on the chair arms, talked 
about his buddy on the navy river gunboat. After the war they were 
going to his friend's home town, Chicago, to visit the Playboy Club. 
His  friend was a member of the club and often told Lonny  what they 
would do with the big-busted bunnies. The day his friend bought it, 
Lonny was at sick call because he had a high fever.  His friend, who 
was usually the after gunner,  replaced him at his forward post on the 
fifty millimeter gun. He took a direct hit with a rocket which neatly 
took off the top of his body and head.  Since that time Lonny sees his 
friend   in occasional flashbacks and recurrent nightmares.  He points 
his finger at me and looks at T.J.  "Dr. B. is okay.  He's one of us.  
Go to it.  It don't mean shit anyway." 

T.J. is different in his demeanor and speech than the others in the
group.  Almost all of them grew up poor in rural areas, didn't finish 
high school, were driving farm vehicles, cars and motorcycles before 
they were sixteen years old.  T.J. came from a large southern city, his 
father was a college graduate and a high level civil servant. He begins 
to speak tensely but clearly,  telling the group that he had been a 
pre-med  student but quit after two years to join the marines. "In 
those days I was a patriot and I joined up to serve my country." He met 
his friend Richard who joined around the same time and they became fast 
friends. T.J. took to calling him Dicky Lee, a  private joke between 
them, christening his Boston catholic friend into the southern Baptist 
faith.  In the individual session the day before, he spoke tearfully 
and lovingly of Dicky Lee, whom he described as "my best friend, like a 
brother, the best partner anyone can have in life.  We went out 
bar-hopping, to whore houses.  We had plans that after the war that 
we'd go to medical  school together and open a private practice.  We 
were going to be partners". He continues, "For two years  we  were 
together all the time, studying and then working as medical corpsmen in 
navy hospitals.  We were really good and got to be qualified operating 
room technicians. When  we  got  our  orders to go to Viet Nam we made 
a pact. If one of us got  hit bad - " He stops speaking because he is 
choked up.  He gulps, resettles his thick glasses on his nose and then 
he says, "Like if one of us loses a leg or something, then the other 
one won't let the dying man suffer.  We had seen so many wounded 
marines, without arms, without legs, burned, blind."  Very quietly he 
adds, "Neither of us believed we would have to use this euthanasia 
agreement." In Viet Nam the two buddies separated and  corresponded 
regularly.  They didn't see each other for almost a year.  T.J. was 
stationed at a big field hospital that  received helicopter loads of 
wounded and dying.  Because there was a shortage of  medical doctors 
his main job was to be at the helicopter landing site when the wounded 
and dying came in. He did Triage.  He explains this to the group, 
saying, "This is a fancy word we use in emergency situations where 
usually the doctor has to use his clinical judgment to decide what to 
do with the f wounded. We didn't have enough doctors so I did Triage. 
There were three kinds of wounded: those you knew were going to die, no 
matter what.  We eased their pain and we left them to die; the lightly 
wounded didn't need immediate care and were ignored."  He pauses for a 
moment, looking up at the ceiling and then says bitterly,  "It was the 
big in-between group we had to treat first  so that we could get them 
back to the killing fields as quickly as possible." T.J.'s voice breaks 
and the dam of tears breaks and he cries.  There is some stirring to my 
left and I am handed the government issue tissue  box to pass on to 
T.J.  When the box reaches him he pulls one out and with a shaking hand 
wipes his eyes without removing his glasses.  He crumples the soggy 
tissue and carefully puts it into his lap. I ask him if he wants to 
stop and he responds by taking off his glasses, wiping them dry with a 
clean tissue, and says, "I'm going all the way." I speak in a voice 
that is slow, rhythmic and quiet, suggesting to him, "Why don't you 
take a deep breath...and then let go...slowly...as you breathe out." 
Yesterday I taught him a relaxation exercise which begins this way.  He 
starts to do it but then says  angrily  "I was playing God and I didn't 
want it, but what could I do. We had too many wounded and dying and not 
enough doctors. They said I had to do the triage so I had no choice."  
His anger is flooded away by deep sobbing. Some vets make a move to go 
to him but I shake my head no.  They are angry at me but do nothing.  
When he is composed I tell him, "Time out."  He looks up at me in 
surprise and then he nods in understanding.  In the private session  I 
taught him the meaning of a "Time out."   You stop whatever you are 
thinking about or  doing, and you regulate your breathing to be slower 
and deeper. Then you relax any tense parts of the body you are able to. 
At that point you can choose to go on or to stop. There is no movement 
in the group and the silence in the room is almost perfect.  Through 
the closed window behind T.J. I see  a slow tractor lawnmower clumsily 
moving in and around the scattered trees, cutting the  weedy lawns. I 
hear the distant hum of the air-conditioning,  faintly intruding.    
T.J. begins to talk and cry, talk and wipe, choking up with anger and 
helplessness. Slowly and steadily he describes what happened. Three 
medivac choppers came in together bringing many wounded and some dead.  
T.J. is running from marine to marine, efficient and effective, 
smoothly triageing the wounded, and ignoring the dead and the  roaring 
whirlpool of the spinning rotor blades. Then he trips over a squirming, 
moaning marine and he falls to the concrete.  He begins to get up when 
he notices that it is a legless, dying Dicky Lee. A moan-wail is torn 
from   T.J.'s mouth.  The vets on either side of him reach out to him 
but he folds into himself, putting his head down, bringing his knees up 
a little, hugging them to his chest, rocking rhythmically. I fight back 
my tears hesitating about intervening, and then l remember that T.J. 
wants to go all the way, and I decide that he can make it.  I don't 
intervene. The group is restless, most of them tearful, some crying, 
none loudly.  Mike is concerned and looks questioningly at me.  I 
indicate that I am in control and he sits back in his seat, sighing.  l 
wipe my wet eyes, look around the group. Most of them do  not make eye 
contact with me. The intensity of T.J.'s reaction has waned. I speak 
quietly, emphatically.  "T.J.?  Can you look at me?"  He does.  I lean 
towards him  and ask, slightly more emphatically, "Here?  Now?" Slowly, 
he unfolds and looks up at me. I ask him if he knows who I am  and 
what's happening. He nods, almost imperceptibly.  "Do you  want another 
time out?" He shakes his head, no.  "Fine.  By the way, we are all 
here, if you need us." I make a sweeping gesture which includes 
everyone in the room.  There is a responsive,  quiet chorus of yesses 
and heads nodding in support.       "Why don't you finish the story," I 
say and then pause... "Here...now...you...us...All of us together." I 
take a deep breath, hold it for a second, and let the air out slowly. 
He takes a deep breath and lets out the air, loudly, into the heavy 
silence. He begins to speak,  unmindful of the tears raining steadily 
down onto his shirt-front. "Dicky Lee was semi-conscious but he knew it 
was me.  When I spoke to him he nodded.   I put him against a mango 
tree and then I did what I had to.  I gave him enough morphine to put  
him out of his misery and  he relaxed right away.  Then he stopped 
breathing." He looks at me with unseeing eyes, sobbing hysterically.  
Three patients go to him, one hugs him, the other two put their hands 
on his shoulders.  One of them whispers something to T.J. and he looks 
up, nodding his head, continuing to cry quietly.  Then the three return 
to their seats. He stops crying and looks at me, indicating he wants to 
say something.  I nod at him and he says, "I wrote to his parents that 
he died quietly  in his sleep but I never told them the whole truth 
about the injection.  Five times in the last twenty years I  went to 
his home in Boston.  Each time I got to the door but I couldn't ring 
the bell."  I say, "I've got an idea I'd like to share with you." He 
nods almost imperceptibly and  in a quiet, soft voice, says,  "I'm with 
you.  Go." "In my imagination I heard you speak about God to Dicky Lee, 
in three different ways. In the first way you said to him, 'Thank God I 
was able to keep my part of our pact.'  In the second way you said, 
'Thank God I was with you so you didn't die alone.' And the third way, 
'Thank God you've gone  to heaven and your suffering has stopped.'" In 
a little child's voice he says,  "Do you really thinks so, Dr. 
Bronsky?" "You better believe that I do." Then I say aggressively, "And 
I'll tell you something else.  I had a wild thought a few minutes ago 
and I'm  going to show you what it is.  I might get hurt but I'm going 
to do it anyway." I get up and whisper in the ear of  the patient 
sitting on my right, "What I am going to do has nothing to do with you. 
 I'm going to use you so be ready and above all don't feel guilty.  I 
know exactly what I'm doing." I take a step in T.J.'s direction, and I 
purposely trip over the patient's foot and fall heavily to the floor.  
The rug cushions my fall and I roll onto my back, shaken up, 
momentarily confused, but unhurt.  I sit up, take a deep breath and as 
I let it out I say, "I purposely made myself trip to illustrate a 
point.  After the fall I know I can get up and I can stand on my own 
two feet."  I pause for emphasis and then I say,  "Dicky Lee, through 
no fault of his own, couldn't stand on his own two feet because his 
legs were gone.  But you can." T.J. begins to cry and some of the group 
murmur about stopping but T.J. says, "No, no. Let him go on."    I 
pause for a moment and then say, "Your legs are okay, and you can stand 
on your own two feet.  I am asking you to use them to help me get up." 
He gets up, unsteady on his feet.  Hands reach out to support him. I 
say loudly from my position on my back, "Let him stand on his own two 
feet."  He sits down heavily in his chair.  For a moment I have some 
conflicting thoughts about stopping but then I feel a big lump in my 
throat and my eyes flood with tears. With a voice near cracking, I say, 
 "Choose to do it, T.J., or choose not to.  Either way is okay with 
me."  What I am really saying is that I too need help from him, but it 
doesn't come out that way.  He gets up, swaying, and then staggers 
towards me.  I reach out my arm and he takes my hand in his. I use his 
support to sit up. For a moment I rest my head against his thick thigh. 
 Then I look up at him and say, "Either you got the strength or you 
don't." He takes a step back and still firmly holding my hand in his he 
pulls up strongly.  I am surprised by the ease with which  he helps me 
to my feet.  We hug, T.J. squeezing tight and patting me on the back.  
I hold him gently and stoop down a little to rest my head on his 
shoulder.   Then I feel weak and begin to sway.  He tightens his 
embrace and I stand more firmly. He says loudly, "Thank you, thank you, 
Dr. Bronsky."  Tears choke me but I manage to say,  "Thank you, T.J., 
thank you." After a few seconds we separate, he strongly squeezes my 
arm and he goes back to his seat, walking steadily.  I speak to his 
back, saying, "You're coming home, T.J.  Welcome home." I sit down, 
bent forward from the waist, my head down, staring at a small 
imperfection in the carpet.  My lips are quivering and the tears are 
filling my eyes but I can't let go. Don, big, muscular, ham-handed, 
("I'm a trained killer",)  gets up and walks towards T.J., saying,  
"You're  a man, god- damn it. You sure are one hell of a man."  He 
takes T.J.'s small hand in his huge one, pumps it up and down several 
times, shaking the dry-eyed T.J. They hug and rock, separate for a 
second and then hug and rock again. Don goes back to his seat and a 
number of veterans go to T.J. and shake his hand. He looks peaceful, 
breathing quietly. The tears in my eyes overflow and the chaplain asks 
me if there is something he or the group could do for me and I let go 
and burst into tears, deeply sobbing. I have wanted to cry like this 
for many years but was unable to let go. Sixteen years ago our first 
born, a son, almost eighteen years old, died of leukemia.  Since then 
I've cried a number of times but I never let go as I do now. For a 
minute I have spasms of sobbing, and a growing sense of purging 
release. When I regain some of my composure I tell the group why I let 
go. Don gets up and hugs me and I hug him around his waist.  Then Tim  
comes to shake my hand, saying slowly, gently, "Doc, I got to hand it 
to you. You're okay.  But don't you think you have to come home too?"  
The man on my left holds my hand. The  man on my right puts his arm 
around my shoulder and I put my head on his shoulder and a new burst of 
 wailing  sobs rack my chest. After a minute I stop crying, feeling   
peaceful and sad.  Chaplain Mike nods at me, says quietly that it is 
time to stop the group.  Everyone gets up except me.  Several patients 
come over to shake my hand, one tells me, "You're a man," another says, 
"Even though you ain't been to Nam you belong in the group."  I look 
up, seeing that Mike is the only one left and he's standing a few feet 
away from me, waiting. I get up and we hug and I cry some more.  
Quietly I say, "Thanks, Mike." He says, "God bless you, sir." Later 
that afternoon after I Finnish my out-patient clinic I  come out of my 
office, and T.J. is sitting in the  empty waiting room. I  am 
uncertain, begin to worry that something is wrong. "What're you doing 
here, T.J.?  Are you all right?  "He smiles softly, saying,  "I'm fine. 
 I came to see if you are all right." I sigh loudly, nod my head, tears 
in my eyes.  I say,  "I feel as if I've been walking around with a 
heavy weight on my shoulders and now it's not there anymore."  He takes 
my arm, holding it gently and says,   "Me and the other guys were 
talking about you. Like we were worried about you." We sit down in the 
waiting room and I tell him the details of my son's illness and death.  
I cry quietly and so does T.J.  He offers me his hanky but I shake my 
head, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.  He takes my hand and 
wipes it with his hanky.   He says, "I'm glad for you Doc. Another 
reason I came over was to tell you that I called Dicky Lee's parents, 
told them what happened and said I'll be coming to visit  them after I 
get out of the hospital."  He nods his head vigorously and says, " I 
feel much better.  How about you?" "Me too." 

T.J.'s summary of his experience, twenty-four hours later. Much of
yesterday's group is unclear in my mind.  I was mostly locked in on you 
and the pictures I was seeing in my mind.  During the early part I was 
only vaguely conscious of the other people in the room.  When you 
called a "time out" and asked if I would help you was when the group 
came back into focus.  When you fell to the floor and asked me if I 
would help you, I looked around the room.  There were many with tears 
in their eyes and others with concern.  There were a couple who showed 
anger but somehow I knew the anger was not directed at me.  I felt 
caring and kinship  and understanding.   I wanted very much to help you 
up but I had a strong feeling that I wanted to run.  I didn't know 
where I would go and something was telling me I had to stay and help 
you.   I think it was then that Tim  came to me and told me I should go 
to you, which I did.   When I got you up I felt like I was going to 
fall myself and I held on to you.  You  hugged me and it seemed all of 
my strength left me for a moment.  When I started back to my  chair, 
Tim,  and  then you, told me I was "going home."  I felt a release of 
tension and a strong feeling of support.  After I returned to my chair, 
members of the group came to me and offered support and  then I saw 
that you were broken up too and that the group was offering support to 
you as well.  This created an even stronger feeling of belonging in me. 


A summary of the group experience written by a Tim, received several
days after the group. (copied verbatim). To Whom Concerned!, I am a 
VietNam Veteran and recent patient of ATU, [Addiction Treatment Unit], 
& the P.T.S.D. Program, would like too bring to the attention of, not 
only Patients trying to recover but to all concerned, that God has led 
me too this Hospital of the V.A. Medical Center, Tumpalega, Ala.   I 
would like too share an emotional experience that I  saw yesterday with 
a friend and Dr. Irving Bronsky, while in Group (Vietnam).  This 
Veteran (T.J.) whom I found as a friend & a man suffering from an 
experience from Vietnam!, a Nightmare that like so many vets has  
suffered and used too destroy there lives & there Loved ones!  Dr. 
Bronsky pushed T.J. into confession of that experience (The experience 
is of Great Importance too Release) A memory that has been haunting 
T.J.,  My emotions was at first too stop Dr. Bronsky, but I also know 
from my own experiences that this pushing must be done if We veterans 
are to begin to stop torturing ourselves!  Dr. Bronsky kept Pushing & 
and I began praying for T.J. to ask God too allow him the Freedom of 
this Nightmare!  & Immediately after Dr. Bronsky's attempt this was 
accomplished. God through Dr. Bronsky honestly was able too succeed!  I 
found afterward  that not only T.J. but myself and Dr. Bronsky, Chaplin 
Mike Dills, & the rest of the group was sharing Release of Pain & this 
was being shown by crying from most all of us.  A event, that was truly 
a blessing from God.  Thru a wonderful man, very Concerned for all 
Vietnam Veterans & the human race!  I personelly Love & told this man, 
Dr. Irving Bronsky, a friend & a Professional that is truly sent to us 
from God! Sincerely with God's Love   A friend, a Vietnam veteran P.S.  
 Dr. bronsky  My Love & Respect goes to you.  From myself  A friend in 
Christ 

5 Years later,  May 1995. T.J. successfully finished the program,
feeling much better.  He continued to see me in the Outpatient clinic 
for medication follow-up and crisis-intervention support.  Three months 
after finishing the program he traveled to Boston, met Dicky Lee's 
parents and told them the truth.  They were very grateful.  Six months 
after he finished the program Dicky Lee's parents traveled to Tumpalega 
on their way to Florida.  They stayed with T.J.  He arranged a memorial 
mass at the only catholic church in town which was traumatic, tearful 
but therapeutic for the three of them.  A year after finishing the 
program T.J. was accepted into the local college's nursing school and 
graduated with top honors as a Registered Nurse.  He has been working 
at the Tumpalega V.A. hospital for the last four years, at first as a 
Nurse's Aid and after graduation as an R.N. on the PTSD ward.  He has 
begun to study for his M.A .in nursing and counseling. I finished at 
the Tumpalega V.A. after five years and I am now fully retired from the 
practice of psychiatry.  I teach and train professionals how to cope 
with  PTSD in themselves and in their clients.  I lecture and teach 
non-professionals on coping techniques for stress situations.  In 
Israel there is a whole bunch of stress situations,  most of the time. 
I write, I go to the gym three days a week for a workout.  I spend a 
lot of time on the  Internet.  Every morning about 10:30 I go to have a 
coffee at the local cafe, sit in the sun and shmooze with the other 
guys my age.  I spend a lot more time with my children and 
grandchildren.  I even have time to drive my wife to work, and pick her 
up, three days a week.  My wife and I will be going to Viet Nam for a 
personal visit in the fall of this year. irving itchy bronsky 
www.irving-itchy-bronsky.com 

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