Double Exposure: A Veteran Returns to Vietnam

By TC Davis

What might a Vietnam combat veteran discover about himself as he revisits the country he fought in forty two years ago? TCDavis, a pastor turned photographer, and former naval adviser to a South Vietnamese junk base, reveals his answer in Double Exposure a memoir of 22 illustrated reflections, both exciting and thought provoking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TC Davis
• Release date: Aug 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476321189

TC Davis

I am a retired pastor in the Presbyterian Church USA. During 31 years I served as a small church pastor, seminary professor, and pastoral psychotherapist. After retiring I answered another calling. I have become a photojournalist and website consultant. Presently I run an LLC, Teledavis.com, which helps communities of faith, small businesses and not-for-profit agencies with easy-to-edit and inexpensive websites; and I teach media literacy so that their members become capable consumers and producers of digital information. I'm a Vietnam vet, and recently published a Smashwords e-book, Double Exposure: A Veteran Returns to Vietnam. My long term goals are to perfect my skills in photography and film making, and use them to promote interfaith understanding and cooperation. Specialties: photography, film making, media literacy education, website design, photojournalism, interfaith relations, peacemaking

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Double Exposure:

A Veteran Returns to Vietnam

TC Davis

Copyright 2012 by TC Davis

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Part I: Going Out

Psalm 121: 5-8

Prologue

A Strategy for Memoir

Steaming on the Pandau Mekong

Following My Old Man

Going to War in Small Boats

Advisers and Friends

Enemy Territory

A Gift From Children

The Bamboo Bridge

Memories from a Rubber Plantation

God's Honest Truth

Part II: Coming In

Awakening

Walking in the Woods

Hearts and Minds

Seeing the Enemy

Spirit

Blood on the Trail

Walking in the Woods Again

Tripping

Eight Sets of Chopsticks

Epilogue

To Keep on Giving

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Part I: Going Out

Psalm 121: 5-8

The Lord is your keeper;

the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

He will keep your life.

The Lord will keep

your going out and your coming in,

from this time on and

forevermore.

Prologue

She bent her lean torso forward, squinting her blue-gray eyes beneath the brim of a long-billed ball cap, to monitor the slightest flutter of the sail. With no ability to move her legs, only moderate strength in her arms and hands, and restricted movement of her neck and head, Karen was skippering us away from the Shake-A-Leg dock in Coconut Grove, Florida, out into the turquoise waters of Biscayne Bay.

Shake-A-Leg, a not-for-profit organization, owns several heavy keeled sloops outfitted with a swiveling skipper’s chair bolted firmly to the after-deck, an easy-to-handle tiller, and other equipment designed to enable persons with paralysis to enjoy the ancient art of sailing.

It was mid 90s, and I was a volunteer, accompanying skippers like Karen. I would strap her into her chair. She would yank at the buckles to check their purchase. Then I would raise the sails, hop ashore to cast off the bow and stern lines, and jump back aboard to rejoin her. There was little for me to do after that except enjoy the scenery and conversation.

As we left the channel for open water, slipping close by dense mangroves, their roots entwined like the filaments of a spider’s web blown askew, I said to Karen, This reminds me so much of the Mekong Delta. Not the color of the water, but the mangroves and palm trees, the flat monotony of the land, the sauna heat, and the sound of the water when the bow settles into a wave.

I didn’t know you were in Vietnam, she said. What did you do there?

"I was a naval advisor to a South Vietnamese junk base. I don’t talk about it much. Tends to be a conversation stopper.

I know, Karen said. I was there too.

No kidding, well, welcome home! Were you a nurse? I asked, surprised that we had this in common.

No, a reporter, she replied. I was working for The New York Times.

I began to piece together these new bits of information about the courageous woman at the helm. Was it in Vietnam that she received her injuries? I didn’t know how deep I dared to dig. Sometimes it’s wiser to keep the lid on a coffin of buried memories. But Karen was obviously a stalwart soul, and had, unbidden, opened the lid just a crack. I supposed the two of us might venture to see what was inside.

Were you a combat reporter? I asked. Was that how you . . . .got paralyzed?

No, she replied. I wasn’t in combat. I was interviewing G.I.s who had been, though. One of them completely lost it during a flashback and went off on me.

Good God, Karen! I’m so sorry! was all I could say.

I imagined myself in her place, alone in a boat with another Vietnam vet who was about to open the dark box. I wanted to assure her there would be no explosion, that I was safe. Instead, I took another tack, bringing us both back to the present.

You had to give up reporting, I guess. You had to plot a very different course. How did you manage that?

Well, not very quickly, she explained. I could still write, so I continued for a while as a researcher for the Times. To tell the truth, getting paralyzed wasn’t all bad, because if it hadn’t been for that I never would have discovered sailing, and sailing has given me a whole new life.

She made this profession quite fervently. I perceived immediately that sailing was much more for Karen than a distraction from disabilities. Her situation was unique, but I could understand how she felt.

People ask me whether I regret going to Vietnam. In some ways, yes. I’m not proud of everything I did there. But if it hadn’t been for Vietnam, I probably never would have been tested to my limit.

So, said Karen, I see that Vietnam was a mixed bag for both of us.

Yes, I agreed. A good friend asked me, ‘How come Vietnam didn’t screw you up like so many other vets we hear about?’

Well, I explained to him, "stories about healthy survivors don’t sell as well as sensational tragedies. That’s a damn shame, because if veterans heard more stories about coming home and telling the truth and managing to live with