Depression runs in families. It can be hereditary, though not always. My mother suffered from horrible post pardum depression. My dad, though, his depression started way back, but manifests itself the worst after my dad wasin the military with Survivor's guilt. 

My dad was drafted into the military during the vietam war. Before being drafted, he was a bit of a drifter, living on the beach, moving around, not having an address, so he was almost charged as a draft dodger because the military could not find him. He just didn't know they were looking. 

In basic training, while other guys were crawling under barbed wire and doing other endurance tests, somehow my dad got picked as a driver, so long story short, he ended up being a driver for an old general. He did everything for this man from laundry to shining shoes, to fetching items, but most of all, he drove this gentalman around the base and area. Needless to say, you spend that much time with a man, and they became friends.

One day, when dad was bringing the general back to drop him off, he suddenly got really serious and told dad that in the morning they would be getting their assignments and that no mater what happened, he was to say that he could type. Dad wanted to laugh it off and explain he didn't really know how to type....  it was the 60s... who owned a typewriter except for those who truly needed them. But the general was adament. "Charlie - you tell them you know how to type. Do you understand" "yes sir."

In the morning, they were told to pack up everything they owned, and take it outside with them and stand in roll call formation. Dad said that they started with random questions and began grouping people from there, the rest they looked at charts and seperated. Dad was moved into a small group when he was the only person who raised their hand when asked if anyone could type. His group was 3 or 4 where as some groups were 20 men. Then they all were called in by group to the office to get thier orders. Dad was going to Germany to be a Quartermaster. 

In Germany he did pay roll and helped bitallions get what they needed through every menas he could. He gaurded the berlin wall, taking pictures of footprints in the sand around the wall in the morning and sitting in the guard tower at night. He drove around his own army issues Jeep and had a decent time.

Being able to see the lists of soldiers that went in and out of Germany, he saw that on the northern end of Germany a friend of his was station. A man he went to school with, lived no more than 5 miles away growing up. A friend he had great memories with, so he scheduled for something for him to deliver personally to where his friend was stationed. He said this base was completely different. Everyone was on edge, and when he wanted to take his friend out to eat before he went home, discovered that they barely ever left the base.

Now WW2 ended in 1945, and my dad awas born in 1946,... but officially a war ends with papers and signatures. Unofficially a war ends when a people move past the ideals that caused the fighting in the first place.  In germany in 1969, the war had not ended in some places. 

My dad wanted to take his friend out before he left, so remembering he passed a pub on the way in, they got permission and drove over for some Wiener Schnitzel and Bier. Dad knew they were in trouble when the crowd quieted to watch them walk across the floor to sit a a table against the wall. He figured they just didn't see many americans, since the men on the base near by very seldom left. The waitres seemed nice enough, and as they sat and took in their atmostphere with the local brew, they realized what kind of trouble they were in. 

looking at the walls, he said you could see the ligh paint that was thrown over the huge Swastikas and other National Socialist symbols and phrases. This was common practice in regiem changes. White wash over the old in hopes that they will gain power again and be able to quickly remove the white wash to proudly display these items again. Dad said they ate as quickly andquietly as possible and left. 

This was my dad's scariest moment in the military... unarmed and suddenly surrounded by Natzis. But for dad, he hates that this was the scariest moment he ever faced. Meanwhile, a half a world away, he had other friends who never woke up, never came home, left this world in the most horried ways imaginable. The fisr time we visited "The Wall" after it was built in DC, was a rough trip for all of us. Dad wanted to go, rubbed names of those he knew, and struggled all day to not openly weep. 

My father never used to stand up at military events to be recognized, even though he served more than his required 2 years of service. He was embarrised for years that he didn't go to where the active war was. He was embarrised he didn't die. His friend who was in germany. He came home, and they are friends to this day, and they visit with each other regularly to talk about that time... the time both of them don't talk about. Not because it was bloody or traumatic, but because they lived in a time where most of the men they knew, loved, befriended... did not live. 

They recently did a banner bregade in the town my dad lives in where they made banners of every service member for the upcoming parade. It was the first time my dad was willing to do something to honor him as a verteran without some coaxing first. In his seventies, he is still embarrissed. He still dreams of those men. He still cries at night. He still has survivor's guilt. 

He has learned that it helps him that he joined the local VFW and tends to grave site throughout the year. He also talks to more recent veterans about dealing with the de-programming and readjusting to civilian life. 

I'm not sure why I started writing this in the first place. I know I wanted to go somewhere, but it was lost in my own struggle to put this into words. 

I just hope that one day my dad finds the closer he needs and is able to move past that time and know that he was chosen to live for a reason. maybe that reason was to have children. Maybe that reason was to volunteer in all the places he does now to help. Maybe that reason is yet to be known, but for some reason he survived, and that is not something he should be ashamed of. 

Please don't be ashamed of surviving. You survived for a reason.