My older brother, Gary Hines, entered the American war in Viet Nam in 1967 and returned home two and one half years later, a victim of a “service connected nervous condition” – now referred to as PTSD. Ten years later, he took his own life. In an attempt to better understand his experiences, twenty-five years later, I collected his letters and photos and twice traveled to Viet Nam using them as guides to retrace his steps. The story continues to unfold.
In 1967 my brother, Gary Hines, entered the US Army during the Vietnam War. Because our parents were ill and Gary was our caretaker, I was sent to live with relatives. On November 4th, my brother arrived in Qui Nhon, Vietnam. I rarely saw my brother again until I was nearly grown.
Gary wrote many letters home while he was stationed in Vietnam. Although in his letters he spoke of his living quarters and described the helicopters he rode into the front lines, he rarely discussed the dangers. Discharged from the army in 1969 with a “service connected nervous conditionâ€, we later came to know his problem as “Post Traumatic Stress Disorderâ€. My pre-war brother, a normal and well-adjusted person had become, according to the US Veteran’s Administration, 50% disabled. He took his own life ten years later.
Twenty-five years after his death, I discovered among his belongings, a memo pad that revealed the names and addresses of his wartime friends, some of whom, with diligence, I have managed to contact – 35 years after the war.
Through the remembrances of his wartime friends and through my own journeys to Vietnam in 2007 and 2008, I retraced Gary’s “footsteps†using his letters and photographs as guides. I continue to make discoveries about wartime in Vietnam as experienced by its veterans. The visual record of those experiences continues to unfold.