My Cousin Charles passed away this week.  He was greatly overweight (400 lbs).  But that isn't what killed him.

He served in the Vietnam war.   For 30+ years he never talked about his service.  But our family always suspected his weight problem was connected to the war.  Finally, he started to open up about his experiences there.  He was assigned to teach english to the South Vietnamese military officers in Saigon.  That was a pretty good assignment in terms of personal safety except that he was also given night duty of guarding US officers.  This was a difficult assignment because the Viet Cong were dressed in plain clothes and couldn't be easily distinguished from the friendlies of South Vietnam.  So the US military in their great wisdom had him dressed in US uniform, with a gun that had NO BULLETS.  They didn't want US soldiers shooting South Vietnamese civilians.  So essentially they put a target on him.

This was a very stressful situation to be in.  His commanding officer saw the stress on him and said, "Soldier.  You've earned some R&R.  How about a week in the Philippines?"  My cousin relates that he told his commander, "Sir, you'd better not send me.  Because if you do, I probably won't come back."  He was shaking and there were tears streaming down his face as he said this."  His officer put his arm on his shoulder and said, "Son, you're not going to the Philippines.  You're going home."  Charles broke down.

As he relates it years later, the stress of that assignment may not have been the most difficult part of readjusting to civilian life, although that trauma was certainly a factor.  It was mostly survivors guilt.  He lost many friends.  Why was he safe back home?  Also, the guilt of feeling like a failure for being unable to serve out his tour of duty.  I believe it killed him.

He never married.  He composed songs and played guitar in a coffee shop.  He had a beautiful bass voice.  He was an extremely intelligent man with a gentle soul.  I will miss him.  

RIP cousin.