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Saturday 7
December 199
Mr.
Cassidy
I am Jacques L, veterans of the war of Vietnam.
A few months ago, I wrote a word to you to be let know that I had
given up the suicide after having heard a cassette on which you play of
very beautiful melodies. Jean-Claude C, comrade-in-arms, had brought the
cassette to me here to New Brunswick.
Last week still here in
New Brunswick, in my hide-out close to Kedgwick where we had been given
go Jean-Claude and me, we were re-examined and he gave me your news as
well as a specimen of the New-Testament which will be quite useful for
me in my insulation. He
also did me gift of another cassette coming from you.
Useless to describe you, joy felt with the hearing of these new
celestial melodies where God speaks to me.
That once again
did me an enormous good. Jean-Claude
then told me to have my testimony would be useful for you to come to
assistance of other veterans who are in this terrible distress where
myself I was still a few months ago of that.
I made him the promise to think of a way by which I could express
these excessively painful things to report and I chose the writing
rather than the speech, for by the writing my sobs will pass
unperceived...
You will be able to use of my testimony in the way in which you
will want, of recording it yourself on cassette or of making it read by
someone else. If that can
help you in your doings, I of it will be quite content for I have a
great recognition towards you. You
will find hereafter my testimony written.
Know that by writing it, I often cried with large sobs. I had very badly in inside when I put on paper the first
pages. I make you grace of
a heap of details which are too morbid and I write only what is
necessary.
As required by a
regulation of the chapter of the veterans of Vietnam to which I am
attached and as I had done for the small word that I addressed to you, a
few months ago, I will make forward my letter and my testimony by the
chapter in question of the veterans of Vietnam in Quebec where one will
undertake to forward them to you by the mail.
The purpose of this regulation applies to all the veterans
attached to the chapter in question is to make so that it is known where
the members registered in the chapter are.
It may be thus that my letter and my testimony come to you
with a certain delay. Moreover,
I am unaware of if I will go to the post office the next week.
I have my hideout with several miles in wood and of practices I
go there only to the three weeks. It
could be also that I await the return of Jean-Claude C who must return
to see me before Christmas. In
this case, I will give my letter to him and my testimony and he would go
to the post office while passing by again by Kedgwick, unless he makes
them forward himself by the chapter in Quebec.
I benefit from the
occasion to address my best wishes to you as to all the people who are
dear to you for good and happy year 97.
May Peace, Joy, health and happiness accompanies you all during
the year! .
May God bless you abundantly?
Thank you with my entire hearth for the assistance, which you
bring to the veterans of the war of Vietnam.
You save lives to bring them to God.
With recognition and gratitude,
Jacques
L.
Testimony:
I
am a Jacques L veteran of the war of Vietnam.
This is my written testimony, which I hope for it will be able to
give an encouragement all to these comrades-in-arms which suffer day and
night martyrdom in their hearts consumed by fire and the breath burning
from the winds of war.
My
comrades-in-arms, know that I return by far.
Like you all, I opened the doors of the hell and I was marked by
the fire of his flames. Over
there, in this hell of Vietnam of the Sixties my eyes saw too many
abominable things far. Interminable scenes of indescribable horrors,
which are forever printed in my head.
The most infamous acts of the cruelties, the bloodiest carnages,
the most sordid massacres, the inhuman behaviors most morbid, and my
eyes very saw them. And I wanted to become blind more to see them.
I wished to lose the sight, I envied my comrades-in-arms which
wounded with the eyes by glares of shell had lost the sight.
But I did not become blind and I still saw horrors after horrors,
days after days. My ears understood too many infernal noises far.
Unbearable lamentations, appalling howls of pains, cries tearing
of despairs, sad tears which never stop, felt sorry for continual of the
children burned by Napalm, cries lugubrious of the old men failing in
the burnt ruins, dreadful rails of the women cut the throat of after
being violated, the extreme violent tone of our voices which swearing.
As many horrible noises which still make echo in my head because
I all heard them too much. And I wanted to become deaf more to hear them.
I envied my comrades-in-arms which had had the tympanums burst by
the howling thunder of the bombs, which exploded.
I wished to become deaf and I still heard day and night of the
distracting noises without ever being able to choke them by my own cries
of rage. My nostrils felt
too many odors abominable far. Scents
of putrefaction, stain air, corrupt by the innumerable bodies in
decomposition, winds polluted by the abundant rains of monsoon, which
made slip the ground. Nauseous
odor of the blood, which ran with flood in the rice plantations.
Feeling reluctant scent of the bodies flaring and the cut up
human flesh. As many odors
disgusting, which remained forever, impregnated in my nose just like
remained the scent of the powder of guns and rifles.
My nostrils all breathed them these stinks and I wished to lose
the sense of smell more to feel them.
I envied my comrades-in-arms, which could not any more scent, the
odors after having had the lungs and the respiratory tracts burned by
pollutant gases. But
I did not lose the sense of smell and I continued with felt these
unbearable odors day and night. My
hands did too much evil far. They
mutilated such an amount of body. So
many people were tortured and killed by them.
So many fatal fires were lit.
They cut so many children the throat of. They struck so many human beings. So much so that I hated my
hands. And I did of them
afraid not know until where they could go in this diabolic madness.
I wished to lose my members and to die.
I envied my comrades-in-arms died the combat which did not make
any more the evil and which did not have to endure all any more that I
lived day and night. So
many unforgettable things, which, if I described them all, would fill of
the pages and the pages and would make vomit that which would read them.
I do not have the heart to say some of advantage; I am still
struck even after thirty years.
I would not have
enough a life to do all it although it is worth to me to make and
achieve to erase the tenth of all the evil which I made when I was
behind the doors of the hell. I
will never have enough a life to be able to forgive all these abominable
actions and all these crimes. I
will never have enough a life to cure my being broken by the monster of
the war of Vietnam. This war never finished and it always lasts in my head.
But despite
everything, you all my comrades-in-arms know this:
I learned that it is nevertheless possible to carry out a happy
existence of living peacefully with all that in the head.
I acknowledge that, as for a very great number of my
comrades-in-arms which survived terrible carnages of the war of Vietnam
and which desperate ended up removing the life, I have me also wanted to
commit suicide in order to finish some with my insurmountable martyrdom.
I had exhausted all my forces and my warlike spirit was
destroyed. I could not
about it constantly beat me any more against my conscience, against my
dreadful memories, my thoughts and gestures if disturbing for the
company in which I existed. My
life did not make any more any sense and my reactions were intolerable
for those, which were with me. I did not endure any more myself and I
did not endure any more anyone around me.
I did not see that a door of exit in all that and it was the
suicide. With three
recoveries, I planned my suicide but each time, somebody or something
came to thwart my suicidal plans.
I know today that
it is the hand of God who acted then.
I refused at this time there to believe in it.
Finally, the course of last winter, I entered wood with the idea
stopped well throwing me under the ice of a lake.
The place was isolated and there, nobody, nor nothing would come
to disturb my project to commit suicide; and nobody would find my
corpse. I was with miles of any dwelling; all was moving for my
suicide when, at the place even where I was going to finish some, I saw
traces of step on the snow, which covered the ice of the lake. There I left the axe, which was to be used for to me to break
the ice of the lake, and I followed these traces of step, curious to
know which thus had passed in this place so isolated.
That led me on bank close to a small campfire where boiled of
water in a container, which was to be used to make coffee.
I traversed eyes
the neighborhoods for finally seeing somebody who broke branches of
trees. It was a fore-mentioned comrade-in-arms Jean-Claude met one
day with St-John and whom I had not re-seen since.
Having seen me in its turn, he came to my meeting and says then
to me: - hello my brother,
I sought you and I suspected well that you are in this lost corner.
Come to sit down close to fire, I have make hot coffee, one will
speak oneself and I will make you listen to something on a cassette
which was given to me.
How he knew that I
was at this place that he never meant to me it!
I had however spoken to nobody about it, not to be once again
disturbed in my suicidal project. Arrived
close to fire he took out of the pocket of his coat a small tape
recorder with batteries in which there was a cassette that it made play
while he spoke to me. My
attention went at once on the music, which came out of the small tape
recorder. Without knowing
why, I was fascinated by the melody, which I heard.
This music appeared me to come straight of the paradise and it
was as if God spoke to me by these notes about music.
I heard God who said to me:
- I love you Jacques L, you have much price in my eyes.
Do not make the irrevocable one, you can live one peacefully your
life if you me listening.
I listened to all
the melodies of the cassette still and still with my comrade-in-arms
until I completely forget my suicidal ideas.
I saw with the listening of this music the calm and peaceful life
in the creation, which surrounded me.
I had ceased envying deaths.
My eyes so tired, suddenly found rest and joy by seeing all the
beauty of the pure and intact nature, which was there around.
I thanked God not to have lost the sight.
My ears so tired, suddenly found rest and joy by hearing the
songs of the birds, the wind murmuring in the trees and the alleviating
sound of the water, which ran under the ice of a brook close from there.
I thanked God not to have lost hearing.
My nostrils found pleasure with scent suddenly the pleasant
perfumes of conifers, the cedars, pines, fir trees and virginals, which
surrounded me. And I
breathed with full lungs this fresh and so pure air.
I thanked God not to have lost the sense of smell.
Jean-Claude
explained me that it made me gift of the tape recorder and the cassette.
I still thanked God to be in life to taste with all these
beautiful and marvelous things. Despite
everything my interior wounds, all that lived me since my dreadful
experiment in Vietnam, I could nevertheless with happiness and peace.
It was still possible! Far
from human and their judgments, in this nature, which told me, the love
of God for me, I had found the place where I could carry out a peaceful
and happy existence. And it
is at this time there that I made the decision to live in wood.
Not like a wild animal, but rather as a child of God who knows
that his celestial Father gives him the work of his hands with love.
This Father liking, which knew well that because of my state I
cannot survive among the world, gave me its beautiful and peaceful
nature like refuge and its love like reason of living.
Here is which gave a direction to my life.
You all my
comrades-in-arms understand this well: Never despair no matter what it
arrives. Who you are, where
that you are, brother’s veterans of the war of Vietnam know that you
have price with the eyes of that which created you.
He loves you and He is, present they’re for each one among you
with His works that He gives you liberally and unconditionally.
What arrived to me while listening to the melodies on the
cassette, sitting close to a small campfire far with the bottom from
wood, with a comrade-in-arms which was concerned with me, that can also
arrive to you very well at you brothers veterans.
Believe it and that will arrive to you.
Nothing is impossible to God.
Have the faith and it will arrive to you an event similar to
that, which arrived to me.
After this event,
my comrade-in-arms Jean-Claude and me we were given go and he left while
promising to me to bring another cassette with a specimen of the word of
God. While leaving, he also suggested me writing a small word to
John Cassidy in Quebec, the giver of the cassette, to tell him what had
just occurred. This John
Cassidy is a good type with a big heart in which, my brothers, you can
have confidence; he gives his assistance to the veterans of the war of
Vietnam and he lives in Arundel in Quebec.
A few days ago, my
comrade-in-arms Jean-Claude faithful to his promise was present at our
go and like agreed; he brought to me another cassette given by John
Cassidy as well as a specimen of the word of God.
That gave me great pleasure.
The Word of God is comforting and I advise it with all my
comrades-in-arms. Listen to
him and you will know, not the god about which one spoke to us with the
war and which all we us have cursed after human butcheries and bloody
carnages, not the`` Young Bronze God of War`` which was an officer in
United States Marines Corps, but you will rather know true God who loves
to Him without condition and which will never reject anybody to Him, not
even the worst of the sinners who goes to Him.
You my
comrade-in-arms, which saw a companion giving without hesitating his
life in Vietnam to save you death, I know that you test love and
admiration towards this companion who was sacrificed by love for you.
If you listening the word of God, you will know also the Son of
God who Himself did not hesitate to give His life so that you happy
sharp. And He also you will
like Him and you will admire Him. He will become quickly for you the best companion on whom you
will be able to always count, no matter what it arrives to you in your
existence.
Here is the testimony,
which I give to my comrades-in-arms, which suffer day and night
martyrdom in their heart consumed by fire and the breath burning from
the winds of war. My comrades-in-arms, know that I return by far.
And I say to you that you can return to the peaceful and happy
life, despite everything your interior wounds and all that you brought
back of your descent in hell. It is still possible! I
of it am the living proof.
Jacques L.
Veterans of First Battalion
Fourth Regiment Navy
Third Navy Division
United States Marines Corps.
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