In retrospect, I returned from the war searching for remnants of my former life. I wasn’t the only one who had changed. The Vietnam War had the country polarized. My mind soon took a philosophical turn. The meaning I could no longer find in the structures of society I looked for in the wisdom of great thinkers. I sought the core of existence.
Empathy and Trauma
It is not surprising that medics would experience a deep sense of survivor’s guilt. People who have not witnessed what explosives and automatic weapons do to the human body can only imagine. Serious wounds are horrible—for the casualty, and the medics, nurses and doctors at every level from the field through the evacuation system. It is not just about saving a life. It is about amputations and blindness, paralysis, burns, infections, and pain. Not every wounded body can be put back together. And at the core of every one of them is a human being.