Following his nervous breakdown in 1994, Critchlow started seeing a therapist. Still, he refused to talk about Vietnam. He didn’t see how it was relevant. As far as he could tell, it was his work, not the war, that stressed him out, that kept him drinking to calm his nerves. In 1996, he finally mustered up the courage to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Walking across the National Mall, Critchlow’s first thought as the wall came into view was that it was a lot bigger than he had imagined. Then names came into focus. There were so many. The war as it existed in Critchlow’s mind was much smaller, more personal. He found Aug. 19, 1969, and worked his way down, slowly, reading each name, touching it, letting the emotions come.

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After that trip, Critchlow eventually made his way back to the Central Highlands in Vietnam. It took him all day to find Hill 102, and when he got to the spot where he was wounded, he fell to his knees and sobbed. He had spent nearly three decades obsessing over the battle, scrutinizing it from every angle, noting everything that he had done wrong to get himself wounded and let his men down. But now, in the bright light of day 31 years later, a kind of clarity set in. Critchlow could see where the perimeter had been and his location at its center. He realized that he had to expose his position to direct the gunship that night. The strobe light was necessary. He had spent nearly his entire adult life punishing himself for nothing. This time, when he left Vietnam, he was ready to go home.

How does a person survive trauma and not be miserable? I genuinely wanted to know when I started researching the essay I’m sharing with you now. Because like Critchlow, I also crashed and burned years after coming back from war. In my case, the flash point was an explosion in southern Afghanistan that decimated my platoon. And the way I saw it, it was either atone or die as the guilt continued to erode my will to live.

Adam Linehan is a freelance writer and journalist. He served as a United States Army medic and was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

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