Vietnam vets return to the battlefields in a bid to end the war in their souls

"It's pitch black - I'm walking down this narrow path with a little flashlight," he says. "It's like a dike between two rice paddies. I suddenly realize: I am not afraid. I AM NOT AFRAID."

Phillips, 60, of Medford, a Vietnam War veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, was not having yet another dream of fighting the war.

He was among 20 Westerners, including eight American veterans, their spouses and several others with ties to the war, taking part in a Soldier's Heart healing journey led by nationally known psychotherapist Ed Tick of Albany, N.Y.

The group, who traveled from the delta to Hanoi and met with former enemy soldiers, returned from its three-week trip late in November.

Tick began the nonprofit Soldier's Heart program to help veterans heal the invisible wounds of war.

Phillips, who attended a conference Tick held for veterans in the Rogue Valley early this year, is a former Army specialist fourth class whose job was to drive in combat convoys in Vietnam and into Cambodia.

Based in Long Binh at the south end of the country, Phillips can tell you about hair-raising missions along remote jungle roads to fire bases, of losing trucks to enemy fire, of seeing dead bodies lined up along village streets as a warning to those who would collaborate with the Americans.

A college dropout, he spent all of 1970 and the first part of 1971 in South Vietnam. When he returned to the states, the former military brat whose father was a "lifer" in the Navy lost himself in a homeless world of drugs and booze.

"I was more alive in Vietnam than I had ever been in my whole life," he says. "I needed to go back there to find a piece of the puzzle that had been missing as part of my healing process."

He also felt the need to return to complete his mission. Never mind he had been there for more than a year, having extended his tour in Vietnam so he could get an early discharge upon returning to the states.

"After I got back from R & R (rest and relaxation) in Australia, I found out my unit had moved up near the DMZ," he says, referring to the demilitarized zone by Quang Tri on the north end of what was South Vietnam. "Frankly, I did not want to go up there."

Thanks to a friend in Army personnel, he was able to finagle another rest and relaxation trip to Australia. By the time he returned, he didn't have enough time left in country to be sent north.

He traveled north to Quang Tri on this trip to the spot where his buddies were deployed without him. It was there the group held an incense-burning ceremony for him in honor of his buddies, many of whose fate is unknown to Phillips.

"That gave me an opportunity to see where my buddies went, to feel some closure, like I had completed the mission," he says, then adds, "I was able to leave my survivor's guilt behind."

In addition to the delta and Quang Tri, they traveled to the central highlands to visit Play Cu, then to Chu Lai, Da Nang, Hue, Khe Sahn and finally Hanoi.

Phillips, who worked in various retail jobs over the years but was never able to hold down a job or a relationship after the war, spent two years undergoing therapy for post traumatic stress disorder at the Department of Veterans Affairs' Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics in White City.

That therapy helped prepare him for the healing mission.

"Without the two years I spent at the SORCC, I don't think I would have been able mentally to take the trip," he says. "I was more at ease with myself in going to Vietnam than the other veterans."

Yet his emotions were mixed upon returning to a country which arguably has more shades of green than any other.

"It was incredibly exhilarating but it also tore at me," he says, although noting the veterans bonded well together as they returned to the country where they experienced war as young men.

Describing the Vietnamese society of today as existing in a "pragmatic-chaotic harmony," he observes the old agrarian culture of farmers with water buffaloes remains, but he also found a modern economic machine humming along.

For instance, he cites the sky-scraping Hilton Hotel in Hanoi near the current museum made out of the old prison known as the "Hanoi Hilton," where former prisoner of war John McCain, now a U.S. senator from Arizona, was held during the war.

"Talk about the old and new living in harmony," Phillips says.

What he didn't find was evidence of post traumatic stress disorder in the former Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers the group met in both Cu Chi and Quang Tri.

In fact, his former enemies were somewhat puzzled after being informed their American counterpart continued to experience trauma from the war, he says.

"I told them we send our warriors to other countries to fight, that there was a big disconnect between our public and our veterans, while they (Vietnamese) fought for their homeland," he says. "Not only did their warriors experience the trauma and destruction and all the pain of war, but so did their civilian population. In their case it was a community effort to heal."

The former soldiers who once fought against the Americans were standoffish at first, he notes.

"But as we got to talking through the interpreter, that changed," he says. "I told them I returned as part of my healing process and I wanted to understand their healing process. I wanted them to know that when I served there I didn't have any hatred towards them. I told them I respected them as my enemy, something I learned growing up as a military brat."

Phillips, who was in Cu Chi during the war, met one elderly gentleman who had fought on the opposing side in Cu Chi.

"He told me he was in the tunnels the same time I was there," he says. "That was surreal. But we found our former enemies have no animosity towards our troops that were there.

"Their animosity is towards our government," he adds, "and the French government before us and the Japanese government before them."

For them, he says, the "American war" followed the French war and occupation, which in turn occurred after the Japanese occupation.

"One thing I discovered is that it's a very spiritual country about 90 percent of the people are Buddhists," he says. "They firmly believe in karma. They restored my faith in karma considerably.

"I learned when I listened to a Buddhist monk that every warrior will always carry the demons of war within him and probably never forget those demons," he continues. "But through the healing process you learn the demons can never defeat you."

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Information from: Mail Tribune,