A Minnesota PBS Initiative
Do You Still Feel The Pain?
The song sadly asks, “my brother, do you still feel the pain even though your eyes have died”?
These are very heavy words for me when I hear the song, and remember a wonderful Montagnard friend who suffered a horrible wound on Chi Ro Bu. This song always brings a tear to my eye.
His terrible screams of pain filled the night. The morphine was gone so the Bac Si had nothing to give him for the pain. He could only suffer and pray for death.
Every time he screamed, it felt like a hot poker was thrust deep into my soul. I found myself wishing for his death.
Did I wish for his death to stop the screaming or to end his intense pain?? Today I still wonder. Do I have a black mark on my soul?
The sunlight of morning came but my friend had died during the last minutes of darkness. Does he still feel the pain?
Montagnard troops.
Biographical Details
Submitted From: West Fargo, ND
Primary Location During Vietnam: Kon Tum, Vietnam 
Story Subject: Military Service
Military Branch: U.S. Army
Dates of Service: 1966 - 1968
Unit: MACV Advisory Team 24
Specialty: Infantry
Me in late 1967 or early 1968 before Tet.
Story Themes: 1966, 1967, 1968, Army, Art, Brotherhood, Charles Schwiderski, Death and Loss, Elton John, Infantry, Kon Tum, Kontum, MACV Advisory Team 24, Music, North Dakota, Physical Wounds, Poetry, Pop Culture, Read, Relationships, West Fargo
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