Being in combat watching the sadness of death, experiencing the fear of bullets whizzing by your head, seeing the destruction of war gives a human being a sense of being very temporary. — S.D. Bates, “In Search of Truly Noland” Like many veterans from current and past military conflicts, Stephen Bates has struggled through battles both public and personal. This Memorial Day, history and memories are brought full circle during a time of reflection, a sense of healing and self-reconciliation with respect for the men and women who have served their country with honor. The Army veteran of the Vietnam War sits on a couch in his well-kept Ocean Beach home, where he and his wife, Linda, have lived since 1999. He sits quietly, radiating a sense of introspection as he remembers back to his time in the jungle and fields of the Mekong Delta south of Saigon in Southeast Asia. Now an emerging tourist destination, the Vietnamese region was in the middle of the bloody conflict about 40 years ago. Bates had just turned 18 when his unit landed in the middle of the Tet Offensive. It was a battle some reports and documentaries have called a turning point in the war — a turn for the worse for American forces. Erupting in January 1968, the Tet Offensive was an attack against dozens of cities and towns by the Vietnamese communists during the lunar New Year. “It was quite a shock to me,” he said. “I was young and in combat and not there to be a tourist.” Bates, in fact, had become a well-trained soldier. He tears up a bit as he remembers the time with his Army “brothers” during the war. It’s an understandably sentimental moment for Bates, who is a leader, a soldier, a friend, husband, brother and son. Life-changing moment Bates stands up from his couch to finish making some tea and returns to his seat. His left arm drapes far over the top of his head and he continues talking about his service. And if not for his riveting gaze catching the listener square in the eye, one might notice Bates’ pinkie and ring fingers missing from that hand, the outcome of a war-related incident that earned him a Purple Heart. It happened as he walked in the fields, thinking of wonderful things. “I was walking point … a few meters ahead of the unit when they started firing at us,” Bates said. Bates and two buddies under his command hit the ground and tried to take cover. A grenade came flying in and hit the back of his curled-up friend. Under cover of fire, Bates grabbed his friend by the collar with one hand and the grenade with the other. “I just reacted,” Bates said. “[As] I threw it away, it exploded in the air.” The blast took his fingers and shredded one side of his body and legs. The blast threw him several feet away as it filled his body with shrapnel. Bates said it can take several minutes before a person’s lungs fill with blood and they drown from a trauma like that. In that span after the explosion, a helicopter evacuation team was able to save his life and get him to a field hospital, he said. “I always joke and tell people it would have killed a normal man,” Bates said. He vividly details the scene in his self-published, autobiographical novel, “In Search of Truly Noland.” For his service in Vietnam, the Army awarded Bates a disability pension. It also decorated him with a Bronze Star, a National Service Medal and a Combat Infantry Badge in addition to the Purple Heart. He retired a sergeant shortly after recovering physically from his injuries. But the trauma left him with scars that go beyond just bad memories. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder — a potentially crippling condition affecting many war veterans and other victims of trauma. Journey back in time Though Bates and his two friends survived the grenade incident, many others did not escape similar exchanges. They are not forgotten, however, evidenced 40 years later by the men, women and governments of America and Vietnam who are cooperating to find those thought to have been taken prisoners of war or deemed missing in action by the Joint Prisoners of War Missing In Action Accounting Command (JPAC), he said. Bates returned earlier this month from a sponsored tour of the old battle sites in Vietnam and the JPAC detachment in Hanoi. He joined a group of about 10 other injured American veterans of the Vietnam War who were selected for the journey back in time through a drawing conducted by the National Veterans of Foreign Wars to tour the country. They returned to Vietnam in April for a two-week tour of the country’s historical sites and cities: Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). These were the buzzing cities Bates never had a chance to see during his nine months in that country as a soldier in 1968, he said. Bates met with those at JPAC to witness firsthand their efforts in finding or identifying American soldiers so far unaccounted for. Bates said hope still resides in the hearts of families of the missing Americans that their loved ones will be found alive. To date, however, there is no evidence American prisoners of war are still held captive from previous wars, according to the JPAC website. He added that those he met at the JPAC station in Hanoi are doing everything they can to find the missing and bring some closure for families of the missing. “There is a hell of an effort trying to find them. That’s for sure,” Bates said. And they work hard to bring such closure, he said. Using 18 recovery teams, JPAC continues to look for missing Americans from several past U.S. conflicts: World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War-era, the Gulf War and, of course, Vietnam, according to the JPAC website. Teams sift through dirt, rock and bone in remote archeological and anthropological sites to locate the missing. Teams ship any discovered remains to a lab in Hawaii for possible identification, according to the website. The Central Identification Laboratory identifies the remains of about six Americans on average each month. There are more than 1,750 Americans still missing from the Vietnam War, according to the JPAC website. About 120 are still missing from the Cold War-era. More than 8,100 are still missing from the Korean War and more than 78,000 from World War II. One American is missing from Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, according to the JPAC website. Finding closure As men and women continue to scour the world to bring closure to the lives of families of those who have disappeared or were taken prisoner during wartime, the shock of physical wounds and memories still haunts survivors and their families today — including Bates. Those who struggle with the everyday stress of post-war life must fight another constant battle to heal the wounds of memories left by the traumatic events they’ve suffered. Countless men and women have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The condition’s symptoms include irritability, flashbacks, bad dreams, intense feelings of guilt and depression, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Victims often seek treatment or cope in other ways, including substance abuse. Bates, however, has a different philosophy that helps him live with the condition. He said the support from his friends, his wife Linda and others who’ve influenced him throughout his life have helped him live with PTSD. Now healthy enough to operate a family-run moving and cleaning business called A Veteran Hauling, Bates looks back on the bloody conflict with new eyes. He said it’s important that the men and women, and the nation as a whole, still suffering from the wounds of the past, find the will to heal. “If it’s one thing I took away from the trip,” he said, “it’s that it’s time for us to get over our anger, find forgiveness, find peace and move on.”