THE YELLOW WALL

This is the story of a man named Jarvis. I first met him about twenty years ago at Montrose Harbor. His sailboat, “Angelina,” is docked there during the sailing season. I did not know Jarvis very well but he seemed to be a nice and decent person. He never appeared to have a job, but I was told by other people at the harbor that Jarvis supported himself by renting apartments in buildings he owned.

When I first met Jarvis he was married. His wife, Ingrid, was a public defender whom I often met in Court as well as at the harbor. She never said much about Jarvis. They are now divorced. I never knew much about Jarvis. He did not talk much. But a few years ago, Jarvis began to talk and talk and talk and to tell his story.

Jarvis was born in Chicago in 1944. His father had been drafted, probably some time in 1943, became a paratrooper, and was sent to Europe for the remainder of World War II. He returned home to Chicago after the war had ended.

Jarvis attended Glenwood Military School for grades 8, 9, and 10. He liked the military school and believed it taught organization and discipline. The students learned to use guns with live ammunition. Jarvis transferred to Lakeview High School for his Junior and Senior years and graduated in the sixties.

While at Lakeview High, he worked full-time on a 3:00 to 11:00 p.m. shift. After graduation, he worked full-time in the parts department of a local company.

It was the sixties and the war in Vietnam was raging. There was a draft. Jarvis thought about this and decided he would not like to be in the army. He thought he would feel better if he were a Marine because it was more macho. Besides, the Marines had the best looking uniforms. These are the thoughts of a twenty year old. So he joined the Marines.

Basic training taught him to be a soldier. Following this, he had training in a specialty – tank warfare. Vietnam was and is a country with mountains, jungles, and rice paddies except by the coast which is sandy. There were a few dusty roads. There were a few tanks in Vietnam, but they were basically stationary and placed in areas where their guns might be of some use. The North Vietnamese Army knew better. Remember the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Soon Jarvis was off to Vietnam with all that knowledge about tanks, his main military skill. He arrived at the First Marines Air Wing Headquarters in Da Nang on July 28, 1966. He remembers it was sunny and hot that day. He was just past his twenty-second birthday.

In April of 1966, while he was in training, Jarvis had seen on television an attack on an air base, in which helicopters were blown up. It also appeared that some Vietnamese employees of the base participated in the attack against the base.

One of his first assignments was to be a guard at the very base he had seen on television. This base was known as MAG 16 or Marble Mountain Air Base. Marble Mountain refers to a cluster of five hills made of marble and limestone on the coast of the South China Sea about five miles South of Da Nang.

When he had first arrived, Jarvis was told about land mines surrounding the base set to spray anyone who stepped on them with ball bearings. At the time of the April attack, someone had managed to reposition the mines so that the marines would be the victims.

His main assignment at MAG 16 was guard duty from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. The duty involved seven bunkers with three men in each bunker. One person was allowed to sleep. This would change at 2:00 a.m. As the duty NCO, Jarvis would check on each bunker and would deliver sandwiches and sometimes soup to the other guards. For the last forty years, Jarvis wakes up every night at two a.m., the time that he checked the bunkers and made the changes in the guard duty. More about the 2:00 a.m. change in guard duty later.

During his night-time guard duty, Jarvis remembers frequently seeing a C-47, which he and his fellow Marines called “Puff the Magic Dragon.” He would see the antiaircraft tracers and believe that people would soon be dying.

The base was hot and dusty. “Grunts” would be brought there to be taken by helicopter to a hot spot. Many would return in body bags. Every morning after he finished guard duty at Marble Mountain, Jarvis would be returned to the base in Da Nang only to be brought back to Marble Mountain the next evening.

All was quiet for about a month and a half. Then, in September, 1966, when Jarvis was walking to the PX carrying his gun near the main gate of the base in Da Nang, there was some kind of explosion, not on the base, but nearby. The guards on duty could not leave their posts, so Jarvis was sent out to find out what had happened. He walked in the direction of the explosion which appeared to have been in a nearby village. The marines called the village “Dogpatch” because it was made up of tin shacks and a few cinder block cottages that had been painted various colors.

When he reached the village, the first thing Jarvis saw was a Vietnamese woman upright against the wall of a cottage. He has always remembered the wall as yellow but is unsure whether or not that was its actual color.

The eyes of the Vietnamese woman were wide open but she was very dead. There were two young children beside her. They appeared to be between three and six years old. There is no way to know whether they were her children or grandchildren or whether they were even related to her. They were also dead. It appeared that they had been killed by shrapnel.

A few feet away was a soldier of the South Vietnamese Army, called the Army of the Republic of Vietnam or ARVN, also dead. The soldier had a rifle by his side. There was a machete near the woman. There was blood and shrapnel everywhere. Jarvis checked for pulses. There were none. He called the medics anyway.

There were playing cards strewn around the scene. It appeared to Jarvis that the woman and the ARVN soldier had been playing some kind of card game at a table near the cottage. That is all he remembers. He cannot picture the face of the soldier or remember whether or not the soldier had any blood or shrapnel on him.

A local psychiatrist who has worked for the Veterans Administration has said that people who have lived through a traumatic experience often have trouble remembering important parts of what happened during the trauma. It is a symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder commonly abbreviated as PTSD.

Jarvis never found out what had actually happened. The evidence he remembers leads him to believe that the carnage was caused by a grenade. Did the ARVN soldier throw the grenade and accidentally die because he was too close to the blast? Did he intend to kill himself and the woman? Was the grenade thrown by someone else to kill either or both of them? Jarvis simply does not know.

What Jarvis does know and remember very vividly every morning when he has awakened for more than forty years is a Vietnamese woman in her forties up against a yellow wall with her eyes wide open but very, very dead. He also remembers the arrangement of the two young children lying dead in the sand. The image doesn’t go away. He knows that the soldier was further away, but still cannot picture him.

In January of 1967, near the time of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year holiday known as Tet, one year before the well-known Tet Offensive, the North Vietnamese launched a widespread attack with 140 millimeter rockets. Although Jarvis was five miles away from a warehouse for bombs and ammunition that blew up, he felt heat from the explosion and the concussion physically moved him and completely knocked him off his feet. Even though the sound of the explosion came from five miles away, the sound was totally unbearable. This was something that the vast majority of people have never heard or even imagined.

Jarvis was also subjected to many other unusual and potentially harmful noises. An airbase was connected to the marine headquarters. Day and night, jets were constantly taking off and landing, making the kind of loud noise associated with such activity. There were several occasions when jets were involved in major crashes creating extraordinarily loud noises. Basic training had been with explosions of live grenades and the tanks Jarvis trained in were extremely noisy.

Since the time of his exposure to all the noise, Jarvis has been subject to severe headaches. First he feels dizzy. Then he has severe pain over his right eye. Then the pain goes all the way to the back of his head. He loses his depth perception and must lay down. A recent MRI shows injury in his brain near his right eye.

At times, Jarvis was taken to various locations by helicopter, usually to guard the area. Sometimes, he was taken to Dong Hoi, right on the DMZ or Demilitarized Zone, where there was a primitive mortuary without a cooler to process the many marines killed on the DMZ. There was a pervasive sense of being surrounded by death. Every day, many body bags containing dead marines would arrive along the DMZ. Jarvis and his fellow marines put their own names on empty body bags because they believed that they would also die.

On occasion, Jarvis was sent out to “listen” near Marble Mountain. This required him to be alone with the closest backup or support more than half a mile away. He did this and wasn’t frightened by it until his return home.

On the occasions when Jarvis was sent out on patrol, he and his fellow marines heard fire coming from a particular direction. They would return fire in that direction. Did they hit anyone? They were unable to look or to see. They never knew. Jarvis always wondered about the purpose of the patrols.

Jarvis and his fellow marines had a total lack of trust for the ARVN soldiers. They never knew who the enemy was. Perhaps this sounds familiar.

In 2002, Daniel Ellsburg of Pentagon Papers fame, wrote Secrets, a book about the Vietnam War, in which he provided a detailed description of the time he spent in Vietnam with soldiers on patrol. They would go out every day and, although they were more-or-less hidden by the levees surrounding the rice paddies, the antenna from the radio carried by the radio man would disclose their presence to the Viet Cong, who were actually a kind of citizen-soldiers. Several American soldiers were killed on almost every patrol. Although fire was returned in the direction from which the enemy fire came, Ellsberg says that there is no evidence that any Viet Cong were killed as a result of these patrols. What was the strategy of sending these patrols?

On my recent trip to Antarctica, I met a recently-retired Admiral and asked him about the purpose of patrols. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the patrols are in vehicles, and casualties occur when these vehicles are blown up. The Admiral said, “I know. I know. We’re working on it.”

Karl Marlantes, a retired Marine Lieutenant who fought in Vietnam, has recently written a book called, “What It is Like to Go to War,” in which he points out that in Vietnam there were no objectives. We were there to “stop Communism” and to “make life better for the Vietnamese people.” How does one measure how this is being accomplished? By the number of patrols? By a body count of how many of the “enemy” we managed to kill? Unfortunately, it was these measures that were used.

Lieutenant Marlantes knows of what he speaks. He was a much-decorated combat veteran, receiving fifteen medals including the Navy Cross, a medal second only to the Medal of Honor, for his battlefield heroism. He had been a National Merit Scholar at Yale and had been a member of one of those famous Yale “secret societies.” Marlantes had also been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He now holds a Master’s Degree from Oxford.

Although he barely mentions it in his book, in an interview on the Q & A program on C-Span, Lieutenant Marlantes told interviewer, Brian Lamb, about some of his problems with PTSD. In an emotional tone he told about his near-breakdown at a job stress workshop and his immediate referral to treatment for his PTSD. He attributed the demise of his first marriage to his PTSD. As one example, he told of his family’s shock when he reacted to injuring his hand on a kitchen cabinet by using his fists to destroy all the cabinets. One time when he was startled by something, he started choking his mother. Lieutenant Marlantes believes that there is an actual permanent change in the brain of anyone who has been to war.

Back to Jarvis. In August of 1967, his tour of duty was ending after thirteen months. He was terrified when he was leaving because he had to leave his gun behind. When he got on the plane, he was terrified that the plane would be blown up in the last few minutes before takeoff. He thought he’d be all right and feel safe when he returned home. It was not to be.

Every morning when Jarvis wakes up, he sees the image of the Vietnamese woman dead against the yellow wall. He learned that Ted Peterson, his good friend from grade school and high school, had been killed in Viet Nam. Jarvis had, by accident, bumped into Ted just a few weeks before he was killed. They met by the main gate of the China Beach base on the way to the PX while Ted was enjoying some R & R. Jarvis would dream of Ted’s smiling face, golden hair, and blue eyes, and would wake up crying. He wanted to talk to Ted’s family but could not find them.

Jarvis would have night images and flashbacks of things that had happened when he was off on a helicopter or on a mission or in a firefight. He began to think about being out on the listening post alone and became frightened thinking about all the things that could have happened to him.

According to the previously mentioned psychiatrist, the most common symptoms of PTSD are anxiety, fear, a sense of danger, trouble concentrating or thinking clearly, and sleep disturbance. Jarvis sleeps with a bayonet beside his bed “in case something happens.” When he was married, he kept the bayonet in a drawer next to his bed. As mentioned before, he wakes up every night at two a.m.

Jarvis is hypervigilant at all times. When he wakes up at night, he goes to a window and looks out. He is “just checking to see if anyone is there.” When he goes into any new place, he makes sure he knows a way to get out.

After Jarvis came back from Vietnam, he went back to work in the parts department where he had been employed before he enlisted. He was only able to work there for two months. He then became the sound man for the national tour of the Buckinghams, a Chicago “American Sunshine Pop” group who had a number one single, Kind of a Drag. He was able to do this because he felt free and there was very little actual work.

Following this “job,” he attended Columbia College and received a degree in TV and film. Still he could not work. He did not know what was wrong with him. He was not the same person who had gone to Vietnam. He had changed and become a person he did not know. He now knows that his symptoms are clearly indicative of PTSD and/or possibly traumatic brain injury often called TBI.

In the 70’s, the VA did not really understand or recognize PTSD or traumatic brain injury even though the condition had been known for quite a long time. At the time of the Civil War, the condition was called “irritable heart” or “irritated heart.” At the time of World War I, it was known as “shell shock.” At the time of World War II, it was referred to as “battle fatigue.” There was no treatment available at any of those times.

Jarvis believes his father suffered from PTSD. His father had been a prisoner of war twice and had escaped both times. Although his parents divorced when he was only two years old, Jarvis’ siblings have described his father’s short temper and a certain roughness about him. He actually broke Jarvis’ mother’s nose at one point. He is now ninety years old and in a nursing home, suffering from dementia..

Jarvis was found to be zero-percent disabled and was told that he simply “remembered too much.” Isn’t the inability to stop thinking about horrible events from the past one of the major symptoms of PTSD?

Eventually, in partnership with friends, Jarvis was able to buy through a process of seller-financed transactions called “contract sales,” a few small apartment buildings. He currently personally owns two such apartment buildings on the North side of Chicago, not far from the well-known “Vietnamese restaurant row” on Argyle Street. The building he lives in is a solid sturdily-built brick and stone building surrounded by a substantial black wrought iron fence with a “NO TRESPASSING” sign on the gate. There is only one way in or out of the building. Think “fortress.” It helps him feel safe. He is constantly on guard.

Because of his proximity to “Vietnamese restaurant row,” Jarvis eats there now and then. He never ate Vietnamese food in Vietnam but now finds it “edible.” He says that the Vietnamese people from the older generation in the restaurants thank him for what he did.

One of Jarvis’ memories is of an old Vietnamese man and other locals, some missing limbs, scavenging from the Red Beach base garbage dump. He remembers seeing the old man grab a corned beef and of saying to himself, “I thought we were here to help these people.”

When Jarvis walks his dog near Ainslie and Kenmore, he sees a garden tended by Vietnamese women dressed in black pants and wearing straw hats. He is reminded of women tending the fields in Vietnam. Other vets, sometimes as many as six, come by also. They all appear to be suffering in the same way and they talk by the garden.

Jarvis says that the only time he really feels safe is when he rides his motorcycle surrounded by other Vietnamese War veterans. He and other veterans smoked marijuana to ease the anxiety they felt. Today, Jarvis is only really comfortable at home or on his sailboat. Any place else he is on guard. Something might happen. He does not like to be in crowds.

Some Vietnam veterans handle things differently. One of my clients, Casey, another Vietnam vet, has repressed the trauma so that he has been able to maintain a good job. Casey says that things come to his mind and he thinks that it must be a memory from a movie he has seen. Then he suddenly realizes that what he is thinking about actually happened. If he goes to the VA hospital, it all comes rushing back. Casey has a large dog “in case anyone comes by.” It helps him feel safe.

The Sun Times recently ran an article about Vietnam veterans who have done what Casey did reaching retirement age. It seems that when they retire, it all comes flooding back.

Back to Jarvis. He never got back to work. He had been able to tour with the Buckinghams because they never stayed in one place for long. There was a sense of freedom associated with the tour. Jarvis knew he could not tolerate a conventional job with nine to five hours.

Although the VA had no treatment available in the 70’s, they began to develop a program in the 80’s. Unfortunately, little effort was made by the VA to publicize availability and Jarvis was unaware of them. He always thought it was just him. It was only a few years ago that Jarvis began receiving treatment from the VA.

He has always had the flashbacks, the nightmares, and the devastating headaches. Jarvis says he thought about suicide a thousand times a day. Now that he has been getting treatment for the last few years, he only thinks about suicide ten times a day. He assured me that I need not worry about him taking his own life as long as his dog, Snuggles, was alive. When I asked him how old Snuggles was, I became alarmed when he said fourteen. This was two years ago and the dog is still alive and well as of this writing. Fortunately, Jarvis is currently learning to deal with these feelings by stopping and thinking about what is good in his life.

Jarvis is also learning to “control himself.” Ever since his return, any little thing could cause him to explode in anger. He would actually “see red.” Now, when he “sees red,” he knows to walk away.

Today with treatment, Jarvis is much improved. He has medication for depression and meets with other veterans once a month for group treatment. It used to be twice a month but has been cut back. Many of the other veterans in the group are in recovery from substance abuse – both drug and alcohol. Many others in the group, especially those from Iraq and Afghanistan deployments, are missing from one to four limbs. Many admit that they just stay in their bedrooms all the time.

There is always a psychiatrist and a counselor present at the sessions. Talking about what has happened to him has also helped. He has been told that that the yellow wall has been with him so long that it is not likely to change. Jarvis has finally been granted disability status forty years late. He has been rehabbing his apartments and is less withdrawn.

For more than a year, Jarvis was surrounded by unnecessary, constant, and horrible death. How would this not lead to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? What about today when troops are required to be deployed four or five times instead of the twelve or thirteen months of deployment in Vietnam? When you think about whether or not this country should go to war, I hope you will remember the yellow wall.

Jarvis has read this paper and agrees with the last statement.