“The war ended long ago, but nobody told us.” Is exactly the way I started my story to anyone who asked about it. I had just turned 18 and the oldest of 4 boys, which meant I was the first pick to go off to the Vietnam War. The first day of the bloodiest combat I’d ever come face to face with was on a cold, bitter day on November 1st, 1955 and I’ll never forget it until the day I die. I had met a young marine just a year older than I, who went by the nickname of Joker because he always had jokes, even during the most inappropriate times. We became close as we discovered we had a lot in common such as the same type of family, the same colored hair, same dreams and so on and dealing with a war like that, you had to have someone similar to yourself to talk to about life. We’ve went on numerous missions together always going and not knowing if we’d make it back and then coming back either laughing or high-fiving for making it out of that one alive. After staring possible death in the face several times and getting away with it, we started to believe we were invincible. On the 12th day of August 1957, we finally met our match. It was early morning when our commander had called into our unit, and I remember his exact words as they run a chilling fear through me every now and then. He had said in a voice that he couldn’t quite mask his own fear, “Boys, we’re sending you guys in on a helicopter and you’ll be there for a few days, a much more dangerous situation than usual.” Instantly, the unit went into a sort of shock and a bit of excitement. We had men high-fiving and laughing about how excited they were to be doing something the commander thought was so dangerous seeing that he was one of the unit’s bravest men. As the day went on, we started getting flown into the deep, dark area we’d be spending the next few days and as you could imagine, it was dark, humid, and so much more frightening than any other mission we’ve been on. I was with Joker and 4 other men in a smaller area waiting to ambush and shoot until we were clear to move on, but what came next was something I myself wasn’t even expecting. All I can really remember before blacking out was Joker screaming, “Get off me, let me go immediately!”, and that’s when I knew we had been ambushed instead of the other way around.  I can remember waking up after what must’ve been days and smelling burnt flesh and hearing screams that could break glass from a mile away and just looking around to see men I was with being tortured from the men on the opposing side. The torture had went on for only a few weeks, but it felt like years. Finally after 2 weeks, troops from our unit located our whereabouts and were able to rescue us from the underground hut where we were being tortured. As the men from out unit came in, killing the men who tortured us, we had all started to cry and begged for help. Joker was first to get untied, then myself, and then the other 4 men we were with. I’ve never felt such a joy in my entire life than I had that day I seen my men come in and recuse us from what could’ve been the end of our lives. Our unit had gotten sent home a week after and I was beyond thankful I was able to get on that ship and make it home to my family that was waiting for me. I was also beyond thankful to be able to have the privilege to find my beautiful wife 4 months later and be blessed with my 5 children right after. Although I am blessed for my men to have saved me, fighting for our country, getting married, and having children, I am constantly haunted by what happened to me years before hand. The war may have ended, but nobody told us it would replay in our minds for years and years after it happened.