>> As far as my early years growing up hard life, moved a lot, a lot. I went to five different high schools in four years. I did get into a few colleges and stuff like that, but I didn't have any money. I said I'm going to join the Marine Corps because I can go into the service, and I can -- I would say I can serve my time. When I get out of the Marine Corps then I will have the advantages of a veteran, and I can pay for my own school. I won't have to ask anybody for shit. I volunteered for Vietnam. I wanted to know what war was like. And I wanted to know how I would do. Here I smile a lot, talk a lot. The words would roll off my tongue. I was quick witted and whatever hearing that, you know? And here, okay, here this is after. I had led platoons in combat. And sometimes when I made a decision people died. >> First you experience a traumatic event, and a traumatic event being not like, oh, it was traumatic for me not to get to the store on time, but people use that word a lot. But I'd say it overwhelms your psychological and emotional resources. And that your response would be intense helplessness and fear. >> We were on a trail coming out of the mountains, and my platoon had point for the first part of the morning. We could hear the firing, and then you could hear the marines firing back. And you could hear the guns talking. And it was sustained fire. And I come through a hedgerow and I stop because something wasn't right. And I just didn't know exactly what it was but something stopped me. And I stopped and I'm kind of crouching, I'm kind of looking forward. And then the point man from the other squad gets close to me, you know, so he's right there. He should have stayed. When I stopped he should have stopped. He should have stopped where he was but he didn't. He kept coming so we're bunched up. All of a sudden, a round comes out, it was a tracer that I saw, boom, it hits him right in the head. And it wasn't more than like 20, 30 yards in there because I could see where the fire came from. And so he's hit in the head. And it's like all that stuff splattering over me. I hit the ground. And my body is paralyzed. >> Again, the core of the PTSD is helplessness and vulnerability. The way you get out of feeling that way is by being the destroyer, right? Like I don't feel helpless if I'm rampaging, right? >> So I started going to the Village, and I started having problems with this one young lady. I don't know why. And - - [ Pause ] -- there was one time we got in an altercation about a pin. It was a U.S. government pin. I almost killed her. I put a round into the chamber and I did that and I caught myself. I had pulled the slack up. And a little bit more and that rifle was going to fire. And I caught myself. Darwin, what are you doing? What are you doing? And I walked away. And that's what saved me. I'm telling you this because I feel guilty. I carried that with me for years. I almost killed two people. I didn't kill them but I almost. It was so close. I went to sick bay and I said something's wrong with me. I told them it was my ears but it's my head. [ Pause ] >> I think it's normal to be affected by traumatic events. I think the thing that's really screwed up is the events themselves. Just like all of us when we were little kids you may have memories of your mom baking bread, and when you smell something it comes back so vividly. It's even encoded more powerfully in our brains if it's associated with danger. >> I tried to forget all of this stuff. I worked hard, I went to the university, I got myself a degree in economics. I worked full time. I worked my way up the corporate ladder. I worked my way way up. I felt that I had this, and maybe even now, that there's this darkness inside of me. You know, and -- [ Pause ] -- I have these feelings. I have the dreams. I have the dreams of running. >> The other symptom cluster is the re-experiencing, right, the nightmares, flashbacks, feeling as if it's occurring, re-occurring actually while it's happening. It's actually a disassociative state. >> I was on a board of directors of a private school, and we had a fundraising event. No, it was some kind of a gala and whatever. So they've got all these people sitting around. They have the dinner and they have the food, I have my wife with me. And it hit me I'm there but I'm not there. I remember sitting on a hill in Vietnam, and you can sit on a hill and you can see all around you and there's no one firing at you. And it's real peaceful. I said I could stay on this hill forever. >> You re-experience the event which makes us feel really uncomfortable and frightened and terrified which makes all those arousal symptoms happen, right? >> And it's like my world's falling apart. And so my world fell apart around 59, 60 years old and it crashed. And I said, you know, it's like I got a DUI, I got this, I got that, whatever, I can't get along at work and whatever, you know? You know and I want to kill people. And what's wrong with me? [ Pause ] >> I've asked guys who were like, well, how do I get rid of this? And I'm like, well, how do you unadapt? >> And people can push me now, they can push me now. A little thing that anger just comes up and it comes over, and I'll do the same thing to them, I'll kill them. And so I have to watch myself. [ Crying ] And I can -- I wasn't like that before. Before it wasn't like that before I went on all those operations. I wasn't that kind of person. >> Some guys like you met with like Darwin, right, and he still carries that around with him very strongly, right? But he can talk about it. He can tolerate it. In some ways it's become easier like a burden to carry because you can't get rid of it. I mean you can't, how would you forget those things? In some ways why would you want to forget them? In some ways he's honoring the guys he served with by remembering it. It's a weird kind of dual thing together. >> I mean everybody changes when they grow up and they mature and stuff like that here, you know. At that time I - - [ Pause ] -- I believed in the things, I had hope, and -- [ Pause ] -- I don't have that anymore.