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I did use quite a bit of alcohol.
It was an every night occurrence.
You were getting rocketed day and night so after a while,
you've got to rely on something to get you to sleep.
You could hear, like I say, you can hear them shooting for
outgoing and you knew exactly what was going.
But if you heard one incoming, there was something almost the
same-- it sounded exactly the same except for when it hit,
there was a little cracking sound.
You could be dead asleep, and you'd wake up right away.
They blew up the barracks.
I got a piece of shrapnel across my leg and then I got
one in my stomach.
It was after I left Vietnam when they took x-rays of me
and they found out that I had some shrapnel in my stomach.
But I never did go to the doctor because when they blew
up the barracks, they had--
I'd seen guys that were with parts of their head blown off
and it was quite a mess.
It was a 122 rocket.
122 is about six feet, six inches long and maybe six
inches in diameter.
There would have been probably a lot more people killed if--
it was just lucky.
It came through the barracks, it went into part of the
sidewalk, and the sidewalk stopped quite a bit of the
metal from going out.
I went from Vietnam, I went to Germany and I did quite a bit
drinking while I was over there.
I didn't realize I had a problem, you know.
I didn't think it was much of a problem to myself, but I did
drink quite a bit.
Then, I went back to Vietnam again and we did the same
thing, drinking all the time.
And then I left from there.
I went to Thailand, and like I said, kept on drinking.
And then I left Thailand and I came here to Minnesota and I'd
go to the NCO club practically every night.
And then I met my wife and my wife didn't drink or smoke, so
after a while I just started laying off the alcohol.
I was still drinking some, but I pretty much quit.
And then I got married and I decided to quit altogether
because I didn't think I needed the alcohol anymore.
So my wife was there to help.
Everybody needs help whether they know it or not.
Like I said, I didn't realize that I needed help
until I met my wife.
Get somebody that you can talk to and try to get away from
what you've been doing.
If you're on drugs, or alcohol, or whatever, you can
try to get away from that that way.