An open letter to my birth son...

29 Apr 2024

An Open Letter to My Birth Son

I’ve been avoiding doing this for quite a long time...as in decades. Not wanting to hurt anyone, as has apparently happened in years past due to a lot of misinformation, I’ve just tried to “stay out of it” and live a genuine life.

So...it’s been some 20 years since I’ve seen you, or talked with you, almost 25 years since I left the CONUS for a small island in Hawai’i. It’s been attributed to your statement that I “ran away” from something by moving to Hawai’i in 1999.

Well, you were halfway right.

I (and a number of other like-minded persons) saw the “MAGA” monstrosity, the Ukrainian situation, and the ultra-radical rightwing move to not only remove the rights of the LGBTQ population as well as women in general, but allow and/or encourage violence toward them. We saw it before it happened. We were right (sorry to say).

“Running away?” Maybe. Semantics. Try “strategic relocation.”

Another point has to do with a remark that was attributed to you by my pastor at the stressful time of my suicide attempt in ‘07. That was, “None of that was true!” but no one could figure what was meant by “not true.” If it had to do with the barracks assault (I defended the victim, and was wounded) or the Point Welcome Incident, I have a hard time figuring “what” wasn’t true. Your mother hadn’t even met me at the time both events happened (‘66), and I’ll just say that VA doesn’t grant 80% disability for something that “didn’t happen.”

I lost any chance of assignment to the Academy when investigative services told me point blank that they had evidence of her simply mouthing anything (and, apparently, everything) that she heard relative to my work (after we got together in ‘67), which could include information to the Top Secret level. I was re-capped at Secret, and would not get any assignment to OCS or the Academy (both of which had been discussed). She lied about being on birth control (which doesn’t excuse my dumbness in that instance). The base CO told me, when she got pregnant, that barring any other influence, I could choose to stay with Squadron One for a second TAD tour at Alameda, or I would be assigned to the boats in Da Nang and leave immediately.

I chose to stay. I did so not to avoid ‘Nam, but because I would not abandon you, and the training officer (my boss) asked me to stay, because he didn’t have anyone else to replace my skill set, as well as actually having serious concerns about the child’s position if left in sole custody of your birth mother, if not for more than 2 or 3 years (which is how it worked out).

The “other” primary factor is the set of circumstances leading to my breakdown in 2007. VA and I didn’t know (or care) that each existed. I had no disability rating, despite destroyed hearing, chronic fatigue, PTSD, and various skeletal issues. I can’t go into detail. It would be a book. All but one were service-related, but no one had taken any trouble to advise me of what was REALLY going on with me.

Not even the really nice, highly respected, but nonetheless clueless doctor at the local clinic had any handle on it. He figured anyone who was trans was a bit “off,” and depression was “normal.” Viet Nam, and chronic fatigue (as it was known then) were incidental. At the same time, I bought into a Japanese cultural thing about honor, etc. (the church I was with was essentially Japanese-Hawaiian). The market went bad, tourism dried up, and the business I had built around fine art reproduction also dried up. I saw no hope of recapturing any ability to be productive. They told me I took enough antidepressants, anxiolyitics, and alcohol to kill five people. The docs were too damned good, and there I was...still.

A field worker with VA’s Kaua’i office tracked me down and got me to apply for the disability I needed, and got me the degree of help I needed to get my head straight again. She also put me on to the clinical projects to define Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) as the “new” chronic fatigue. I received the formal diagnosis from my VA PCP last year. They started out at 30%, but now am at 80%.

I was really fortunate and got a billet with a better subsidized housing complex in Kekaha town (literally in the middle of nowhere), and I’m a couple of miles from the PMRF base, PX, etc. at the mouth of Waimea Canyon. I get just enough to be reasonably comfortable.

My own bottom line on this? I love you. I always have, and always will. I couldn’t accept that I might go “end of watch” with the truth never being at least said, if not seen/heard/whatever. So...this “letter.” The entirety of it does not make your birth mom a bad person.

The cap to it all is that I was diagnosed (by my VA PCP, yet...he’s retiring in a few weeks, supports me, and had accepted the resulting flak) with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), the new name for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He feels I’ve been dealing with an exceptionally intense case of it (along with PTSD and a couple of other things) since ‘Nam. People are presently known to be dying from its effects...the entire inventory of which I deal with daily.

I turn 76 this year. I do think...a lot...about how many years I’ve got left to do whatever, to feel like I’m really “done.” This letter was a part of that.

I have no desire, or intent, to engage in any sort of discussion over this. It is what it is, and you (whomever you, the reader, are) can take it as you wish.

This was one of a pair of tasks I felt needed to be done so I could get my proverbial “stuff” together to move on.

Thank you for your patience in reading it.

E