Missing-in-Action: A Case Unresolved (Vietnam War)

[landsend]

As for his higher self being there, it's possible. This is one of the things that has occurred to me, and to which I have witnessed in out-of-body experiences whilst my 'body' was sleeping. I've recalled some of these through meditation that at the time I had no recollection of, but it seems the memory of it was stored somewhere.

It's curious that in the dream we were outside the church mourning, not inside the church. Like there was a barrier between physical mundane world, and the spiritual. Maybe that's symbolic of the barriers that separate him from her. In the dream I was very reassuring and knew that's how it's meant to be. Little me in daily life thinks the whole thing is very unfair. Yet there must be a reason for this to occur, one that little me down here can't see.

 

[landsend]

Post Ten – (Contact)

---

As the days went by, I was feeling increasingly restless. I couldn’t sleep very well, and during the day was overcome by bouts of grief. I felt like there was a well of pain inside me. An helpless feeling was also paramount. Well, all things seem to be pointing toward me having lived as ‘J’ in a previous life. That was the most obvious conclusion I could come to. This was not a pleasant conclusion. I had left that life unresolved. The conclusion was depressing. But at least now I could pinpoint where these feelings came from. Throughout my life I had gone through bouts of severe feelings of depression, and restlessness. I used to fight those feelings, and rebuke myself before I understood their true source.

Considering the eldest son still maintained a website trying to determine his dad’s fate, I felt the pull to contact him. Some distant part of me hoped I might be able to resolve some of those unfinished feelings.

I had read Jenny Cockell’s story in her book, ‘Yesterday’s Children’ whilst I was undergoing this. It helped me feel, at least, that I was not totally insane.
I decided to reach out to her, and contacted her via Facebook to hear what she said about contacting family members from previous lives.
I wrote to her this message, dated the 15 June 2017:

Dear Jenny,
My name is -- I am twenty-six, live in the UK and am married with two children. I’m writing to you regarding a former life that has been in the background of my mind much of my life, but was bought to the forefront the end of last year. I picked up your book, Yesterday’s Children, following a period of intense recall that occurred to me the end of last year. The former life in question has been something I have felt innately since childhood, become more aware of in my teenage years and revealed itself to me slowly. However, I did not have the name of who I was and, apart from a dream that I had of my possible death in which I was shot through the abdomen (in the place of my present day birth mark), I did not have concise memories. To cut a long story incredibly short, I was able to locate who I was, and this in turn triggered very intense, emotional recalls that were like waking trances. During these trances, my manner of being alters, including vocabulary and accent changes. My past life self effectively comes forward and my present day self takes a back seat. I never feel completely out of control during these trances, nor do I feel ‘alien’. I am aware of it happening, and I’m comfortable with the person who comes forward, for indeed it feels like a missing part of me that has always, in truth, been there. When I read your book, Yesterday’s Children, I was struck by how you felt the same feelings of having left things unresolved, and you were able to reach some resolution. That is the main reason I am writing to you now, as I am unsure on how to progress. I know that the children of my previous self are alive, and one in particular has been actively looking to resolve his father’s case since the early 90’s. In his words, he wants to find out the truth as to what happened. I managed to acquire a documentary from America regarding the issue, and on the documentary, along with photographs of my previous self, was my previous self’s son, living, breathing and older, talking about his father, how he went missing, the mysteries and cover-ups regarding his case. I was particularly struck by the son talking how he had to put a tombstone somewhere for his dad, despite there being no remains. It has taken me a lot to share this to anyone and so far only my husband is aware of this. I know that you were able to contact your previous family, and in doing so reach a resolution, but in truth I am unsure on how to progress with this, and indeed if ‘progressing’ is the right thing to do. Because this is such a delicate, understudied subject, I felt the need to reach out to somebody who would understand. I asked myself when writing this to you what exactly it is I want to achieve, and I believe I am just looking for some reassurance and advice from someone who has been there. I also recognise the need to stop ‘hiding’ behind my shell, there is the inner feeling that the only way I can reach a resolution is if I am willing to step out of my comfort zone and reach out to others. Finally, I want to thank you for allowing me to write to you, and for taking the time to read this. Kindest regards, --

She took the time to reply me, and her reply was very helpful. She told me that she had kept her message to the family very short, and concise, very gentle and to the point. She also told me that she had contacted another family regarding another life she recalled in between her current and the one detailed in that book, and that she had put off contacting the family for years. When she finally did, the mother of that life had passed on, and she was informed by the son of the mother that she would have been open to what she told him. She felt some regret that she had not contacted the family sooner.
Her main advice to me though was to mention to the family a few things only the family would know, and to only contact the family if it felt right to do so.
Jenny seemed a nice lady, lucid and sane. That in itself was reassuring to me.

On July 4 2017, it was the wee hours of the morning. Couldn’t sleep. I had an email typed out that I had written and re-written about a dozen times over the past weeks. I was staring at it and had my finger hovering over the send key. I planned to send it out to the eldest son of ‘J’ but didn’t believe I’d actually do it.
The email was very general. Nothing strange. Just that I was from the UK, had been looking into the POW/MIA issue in America and came across his dad’s case. I wrote that I felt drawn to look into his dad’s case, and had found some newspaper clipping’s regarding his dad, and if he wanted them I wouldn’t mind sharing. That was pretty much it.

Still, I couldn’t send it.

I fell asleep staring at the computer screen, and some very brief flashes came to me, they seemed to be in chronological order:

#1
I’m young, and physically very fit. This looks like the flashes of training I’ve seen before (pre-Vietnam tours). I’m climbing a rope up the side of a very large, steep obstacle on the side of cliff/hill. At the top of the hill is a beautiful landscape, with sweeping vistas of mountains and evergreen trees. There is a sense of achievement of having reached the top.
#2
Next, I’m in a jungle with dense vegetation. I’m drinking water from a large leaf.
#3
Now I have my hands tied back. I’m being led some place by an Oriental with a rifle.
#4
I’m lying on the floor of a bamboo hooch, nothing but skin and bones. My skin is red and peeling. I’m very sick.
#5
I’m drinking some sort of milky broth from a bowl.
#6
Now I’m sitting and eating with a group of Orientals, inside a hooch. I appear to have a rifle in his hands.
#7
I see a flash where I am with a small group of Orientals, high in the mountainous jungle. Again appear to have a rifle, but seem to be wearing non-combatant clothes. Covert operations comes to mind – mindless/numbness.
#8
There is a plane trip, on a non-military type aircraft. I’m walking across the airstrip to board the plane, an unspecified airliner.
#9
There is a conversation in a dim room between ‘A’ and others behind a desk or table. The conversation is formal in tone. One of the men stands out as being Eastern European. He is the one who initiates conversation. They interrogate me, asking me where I have been, what I know, and how my loyalties align.
#10
There is an impression of a Visa of some kind. This is some time after the previous image. Again, an impression of moving from one place to another by aircraft.
#11
I’m sent back – where? I’m alone, in a darkened room, sitting at a desk. I have a letter or document with important information in front of me on the desk. This document or letter seems to pertain to issue of men left behind after the VN War. Sense that this document has highly classified information, that could potentially wreak havoc if leaked.

There is the feeling that perhaps I was attempting to leak this information. And I was aware that leaking this information would put myself in personal danger.

When I ‘came to’ from these flashes, my finger was still hovering over the send button. My finger went down, apparently of its own accord. The email whooshed by, slipping out of my virtual hands. It was done.

 

[Speedwell]

Let's hope it goes/went well.

 

[landsend]

(Continued)

I woke up in the email feeling a tonne of regret. I avoided checking my email all morning, pretty much rebuking myself, asking myself what I was trying to gain.

I told myself to man up and just get it over with. Lo and behold, pretty much received a reply straight away. J’s son was very courteous, said he’d be interested in seeing any newspaper clippings I found. I forwarded him a folder I already had prepared (you know, just in case I finally got the courage to reach out and make contact). There was a lot of stuff there, including information I’d found about the men J’s dad had served with. I figured even if I didn’t get to talk to J’s son properly, at least he’d be able to know more about the men that his dad served with. This was something that I felt the need to share.
Making that first contact was a huge step for me, and lifted a tiny bit of that weight I had been carrying around.

After a couple of emails sharing what I’d found, I had a few questions. One question that kept plaguing my mind was if his dad had done two or three tours in Vietnam overall. Some places I had seen J’s son say that his dad had done two tours prior to his third where he went missing. But in my research of newspaper articles, and figuring out the dates on the timeline, it just didn’t sit well with me. The dates did not add up.

However I did find a newspaper clipping that stated his dad did a 15 month tour of duty in Vietnam for his first tour. This was unusual. Remember that he was working on an intel operation in Saigon in the last couple of months of his first tour, according to the books. According to the books, this tour should have ended in February, and he should have gone home. However, I found a clipping that stated he was home from Vietnam in May of 1966. That means there are around three unaccounted months where I have no clue where he was.

There are some shady memories involving a sensitive operation, possibly located in Cambodia (before any US involvement in Cambodia was even known), and I wanted to try and find a date frame for this. I did not correlate this to the second tour, but to those extra three months on the end of his first tour.
I asked J’s son if he had any info on his dad’s tour. For a long time, he did not reply me. He’s busy, I thought, and just let it go. After a while, I sent another email just to see if he’d received my email. He replied and referred me to the info available on his webpage. Of course I already knew all that info on the webpage, and it was not helpful. I didn’t want to be intrusive, so left it a couple of weeks.

I realised if I was to justify my intense interest in his dad’s life, I’d need a good reason. I’d have to explain myself more.

So, again I wrote an email, one that I kept re-writing until it sounded right. I never intended to actually send this email, but, once more, I did end up sending it.

In this email I explained that after reading about his dad’s case, I’d had a series of intense ‘dreams’ that could pertain to his dad’s life. Dreams of course was only partially correct in some of the instances. I just used the word dream, because I felt it was an easier to digest concept than ‘vision’. I explained that the ‘dreams’ had provoked me to look deeper into his dad’s life, hence the newspaper clippings.

I explained that one of the more vivid dreams was the one that I thought could be his wedding day. I said: ‘The dream was very detailed and emotional. His wife to be was pregnant, I saw that the best man was his brother who was in the Navy and I think maybe your dad collapsed or felt faint at the altar, there was an impression of being overwhelmed.’

I then closed the email saying I was sorry if all of that was horribly intrusive, but that I didn’t know how to express my interest with him without being entirely honest. I apologised once more if I had caused any offense, and just left the email saying that his dad’s case weighed very heavily on my heart, and my desire for the fate of his dad to be resolved.

Cue a few days of anxiety after sending that. He’s never going to reply me, I thought. And I wouldn’t blame him, either. I mean, what on Earth would I think if the shoe was on the other foot, and some stranger sent me all these weird emails about my missing father? I’d be pretty flabbergasted to say the least.
Two days later he did reply me. He said he wasn’t offended, but he was busy and needed some time to think over what I’d said. He told me to send him an email if I hadn’t heard from him in a week.

The relief of hearing from him again was pretty immense. Especially to hear that I hadn’t caused any offense, which was my biggest worry.
Again, a week went by, and no reply, so I sent out an email just to hear what he thought.

Couple of days later he said he was on a hectic schedule but did not mind discussing his dad’s case with me. I said I didn’t mind phone/email/chat – whatever was more convenient. I left it at that email, and said to myself – he’s busy, just leave it. I didn’t hear from him the whole month. The end of Aug (2017) we tried to arrange a chat, but again, it came to no avail.

I left it at that. I said, I can’t keep doing this. It was – awkward, to say the least. And I found myself waiting for replies and getting hurt. Which I’d then rebuke myself for getting hurt over. Talking to him seemed to open an even bigger well of pain that I hadn’t known existed.

 

[landsend]

(Continued)

I told myself that that was that, don’t expect anything. Leave it behind. I did not want to harass him, so did not plan to send any further emails.
In September 2017, I gave birth to my daughter after a rocket fast birth. Literally, woke up, had a contraction, called the midwife, called my mom to pick up the kids, and my daughter was born on the bathroom floor just as the midwife sauntered up the street and my mom was leaving with the kids. My husband was there, he delivered the baby. He had to scream for my mom to get a towel as we had none on hand. The midwife came in afterwards. It was so fast I didn’t even feel I’d given birth. Very surreal. My easiest birth yet, I was pretty happy to leave my birthing experiences on that note.
This baby was my smallest, too. My others had been monsters. This one was a little dinky 6 pounder. Very cute, very calm. An easy baby. After my screaming all day baby of before, it was a real blessing. I had, innately, been worried that this little baby might have been affected by my experiences of the previous months, but it seems it was not so. Maybe, even, this baby had stopped me from going off the rails. She had kept me on track.

I felt so good that I started to get back in the swing of things pretty fast. I was feeling pretty good, consumed with new babyness which snuffled all thoughts of past lives and Vietnam. That in itself was refreshing, to say the least. About a week after giving birth, I woke up one morning from a weird dream, one where there was cured meat hanging down the toilet. Weird, I thought. It reminded me of a short story I had written prior to getting pregnant, and prior to having my past life memories. The story was set in Spain’s pre-civil war times, and it was about the fictional massacre of a gypsy community in Spain. I started reading my short story to see why I was thinking of it, when I recalled that the catalyst of the massacre was the gypsy boy in the story stealing some cured meat from the priest of the town.

I thought nothing of it, hopped into the shower, and pretty much the moment the water hit me, I began to hemorrhage. Now, I’ll put this in here. One of my memories I had from the beginning of my past life memories occurring in December 2016 had happened to me whilst showering. I cannot type it all up here, because it is very graphic, but the recall was basically me seeing the outcome of a massacre during the VN War (this I feel occurred in the shady three months extra of J’s tour). The hot water of the shower falling on me, the humidity triggered a flashback because whilst we had been there, witnessing the outcome of this massacre, it had been raining heavily and I stood watching the pale bodies merged together, the rain dripping off me, off them.
Anyway, back to Sep 2017 a week after giving birth. I was still having the post-birth bleed, so thought it was that at first, but then, it just didn’t stop. I called my husband who was downstairs, climbed out the shower and ran to the toilet. He came upstairs and saw for himself what happened. We had a house full of kids so couldn’t just run to the hospital, so had to call my mom, then called for an ambulance.

I sat bleeding, and an ambulance operator asked me if I needed them. I was honestly asking myself is this for real? I stayed pretty calm and detached throughout despite bleeding uncontrollably. It’s reassuring to know that if you aren’t an inch from death, you apparently don’t need an ambulance these days. Anyhow, the bleeding slowed down whilst I was talking and I said I’d call my midwife. My midwife could tell listening to me that I didn’t sound right, so she advised me to head on down to the midwife unit at the hospital. My bathroom, when I left it looked like a murder scene. I asked my mom when she turned up if she didn’t mind cleaning it. I didn’t want the kids seeing that. I sipped on a rehydration drink, feeling dizzy and sick and headed to the hospital.
We were there hours, waiting to be seen. They had no clue why I had bled like that, but put it down to a womb infection (despite having no signs of infection). They gave me a prescription for antibiotics, and we headed down to the hospital dispensary. I had to walk real slow given that I still felt pretty light headed and had not eaten since the morning. I was also terrified of bleeding out again. The dispensary was half way across the other end of the hospital.

When we got there, there was a massive queue to be seen. Something like an half hour wait. I asked my husband to see if he could come back to pick up the prescription later, so I could get home and rest.

I sat down on a chair in the waiting area whilst he queued. There was a TV in the corner of the room. I looked up at it absentminded, wanting to get home. There was some sorta British mid-afternoon quiz show playing on on the TV. As I looked up, a question popped up on the screen. The question was something like: What did the prisoners-of-war in the Vietnam War name their prison in North Vietnam?

It was a multiple choice question. Hanoi Hilton, I mumbled to myself, shaking my head in disbelief.

I could not believe it. What was this? What were the odds? Of me having an hemorrhage on this day, being in hospital that long, to walk here slow, to sit on that chair and look up at a TV screen to see a question (on a British show, not American) related to the very thing that had been bothering me intensely for the past year?

And it had to be North Vietnam prisoners, not South Vietnam prisoners. The question on a daytime TV show would never be about those who didn’t get out.
As we walked out the hospital, I looked to the wall on the left. A local artist had painted scenes of the Second World War, scenes of air planes, tanks, men in uniform, scenes of battle.

What was this trying to tell me? There was no escaping The Nam. The Nam was following me.

 

[landsend]

Just a post filling a few gaps/some childhood correlations that could relate before I continue. Want to post this here as it will help clarify some things later.

Part Eleven (A Few Childhood Cues)
Coincidences like what happened to me in hospital kept happening to me, and still happen to me to this day. Particularly when I feel very doubtful, or blue, or feel like giving up on this whole thing – lo and behold something very strange happens. The strange event then nudges me on, despite me wanting very much to throw in the towel.

In one instance, me and the husband were watching Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket late one night. One scene flashes up, it’s the beginning of the Tet Offensive. The very moment the bombs start exploding in the movie, someone, out the blue, starts setting off the loudest fireworks I’ve ever heard outside of a formal display right outside our house on the opposite side of the road. It was pretty late too, past eleven at night. The fireworks were banging outside our house, flashing red/yellow through the blinds as the scene of the movie unfolded. I looked at my husband. and he at me. Might’ve joked nervously ‘Charlie’s callin!’ Couldn’t quite believe the timing to say the least.

Going back now to the event of the Bobby Bare song. It was not a solitary recall of one song. It’s happened to me a few times since, usually when dropping off to sleep. Often I forget the lyrics upon waking, or only have the general tune in my head, but it happened again in one instance where I was able to find and verify the song.

I had dropped off to sleep on my armchair, and kept hearing in my mind ‘It’s alllll the same to meee’, sung sorta sad/moaning. Another country and western song, I thought. I typed that one in Google, and nada. Nothing. But I was really determined to find this one. I loaded up the Spotify app, and typed in that portion of the lyric (it meant that the song chorus has to be the same as the song title for this to work). I scrolled down the list, and the results were pretty disappointing, until I found a song called ‘It’s All The Same To Me’ by an artist called ‘Jimmie Skinner’. He looked interesting, so I had a quick look at him and that song. (I did find the song later on YouTube, but its since been taken off for copyright reasons.) The song sounded very similar to the one which had been repeating in my mind just moments before.

'IT'S ALL THE SAME TO ME' by Jimmie Skinner

Now, I don't care if you go asleep,
Babe, it's all the same to me.
Aint nobody gonna worry when you're gone
There aint nobody gonna grieve.
I'm tired of your prowlin around at night,
You never stay home an treat your daddy right.
I don't care if you go asleep,
Baby, it's all the same to me.

Once you were the sweetest gal in town
and I thought you'd always be.
But now you wanna hang around the honkytonks
and listen to the jukebox beat.
You come in each morning at the break of dawn
Your hair all tangled and your rouge all wrong.
I don't care if you go asleep
Babe, it's all the same to me.

You had a way of loving that was all your own
Lord, it nearly drove me wild.
You didn't learn your lovin in the little red school
But let me tell you honey child,
Done took everything that I can stand,
You just don't fit in my future plans.
I don't care if you go asleep,
Babe, it's all the same to me.

Jimmie Skinner, it seems, was a bluegrass/country singer/writer during the 40s-60s. He apparently also distributed country music via a record shop he had and a worldwide catalogue which was popular with the Armed Forces. As a musician, he really was not very well known, and his songs have faded into obscurity, but since discovering him I found myself listening to his songs, over and over. Always I used to get this restless feeling about wanting to listen to some kind of music, but not knowing what. Since finding out this type of music, I no longer have that restless feeling.

Recalling these songs made me remember an odd habit of mine as a child. When I was very very little (probably as young as two), up until I was around ten or so, I used to go off into daydreams, often when I was bored, and start singing songs that I had ‘made up’. These songs would appear fully formed in my mind. The songs were often similar in nature, usually about heartbreak, or sorrow, country/blues sounding, occasionally they had a 50’s rockabilly vibe. I don’t recall precise lyrics, but remember there was a lot of ‘baby this’ ‘baby that’. As I grew up, I rationalised the habit and thought I just had an amazing innate ability for song writing.

I also recall that when singing these songs, I would access a very sad, lonely, nostalgic part of myself, and sometimes bought myself to the brink of tears singing the songs. All very odd things for a young child to do, I now realise. I also recall the feeling of a distinctive, older male presence surrounding me in those quiet moments. And I recall sitting on my sofa in the lounge and practising my yodelling techniques. Again, I rationalised this as I grew telling myself all kids like to practise yodelling.

I recently inquired about this to my mom/sister, and they instantly recall me doing this, including the yodelling. They both thought it was just an odd personality quirk of mine, as I did. It’s funny how the mind tries to rationalise seemingly strange habits.

(It’s also funny how yodelling is heavily featured in early country/bluegrass music. Also interesting to note that ‘J’ grew up in a Southern state during the 40s/50s.)

My parents never wrote down, or took much notice of me doing this, probably because it was an almost daily habit of mine. Plus this was pre-Google days. They would never have found out when I was young what on Earth I was singing. I’ve been trawling home videos and digitalising them to see if I can come across any of this singing, but so far have not found it recorded. I did, however, find video evidence of another habit I did as a child (again, very young, I was two in the video). The habit was basically whenever we were out as a family walking for any length of time, I would sometimes start marching like a little soldier. Again, I recall going into a bit of a trance whilst doing this. One time when we were out, I was marching off in the opposite direction of where we were supposed to be going and did not notice my family were calling me as. Pretty sure I have a photo of me doing this.

This relates to another trance like incident that occurred, again around the same age (two years). I cannot recall the incident fully, but more or less remember it since it is something that I would lie in bed thinking about for years after, often with a sense of shame. I recall that we were in town as a family. The next moment I recall is my family calling for me over and over. I vaguely recall ‘coming to’ and realising that I was holding a strange man’s hand, and my family were further up the road. That strange man was embarrassed, obviously, that this little girl had grabbed his hand and walked off with him. My recall of how he looked was that he was probably in his thirties, had a short light brown hair (buzzed short), he was lean, muscled and possibly had tattoos.

My mom told me that I had mistaken this man for my father, and thought I was walking with my dad. This seemed reasonable enough. However, when I look back now I realise that this man looked nothing like my father. I do not remember even grabbing his hand. When I was very young, I was a very cautious, shy child and wary of strangers. This grabbing a strangers hand was totally out of character for me.

I’ve reflected about this recently, and wondered if the man looked similar to my previous self, and perhaps some part of me had recognised ‘myself’ and grabbed a hold of ‘me’. All I can say is that from my recollection of him is that he fits the description of my previous self more than he does my father.

 

[landsend]

A few more childhood cues, apart from the aforementioned phobia of dysentery/illness -

- Being in highly humid places (e.g glass tropical houses in zoos/botanical gardens) bought to me feelings of intense nostalgia. The main feeling was that I was in an heightened state of alertness. This includes summer time in England when it is warm and rains, but more so in high humidity and heat of tropical greenhouses. I still get those feelings to this day.

- I always wanted a toy gun growing up, but was never allowed one. My cousins would play with pellet guns and BB guns, and I would leave the room when they started playing with them out of fear. Yet still wanted a toy gun myself. There was a simultaneous repulsion/fascination. Also recall that as kids we used to visit my nan every weekend. We kids would mess up my uncle’s bedroom, play on his games console, play with his Star Wars figures. My uncle liked scuba diving, and he had a divers knife on his nightstand that I used to stare at, be very fascinated with, but never dared to touch. Again it was that fascination/repulsion feeling.

- Again that repulsion/fascination feeling extended to other things that in hindsight I can relate to my previous self. I enjoyed running as a young kid, and was pretty fast. I did not compete with girls when I was younger, but against the boys in my class. I loved to run, but there was a curious pain behind that. I’ve seen recently that my previous self used to run track in a few newspaper clippings I found that reference his teenage years. I’m pretty sure that I avoided taking my love of running seriously because it reminded me of my previous life.

Again, this extended to my feelings towards the military. I was fascinated and repulsed by it.
Growing up, I never probed myself too deeply about that, and kept it to one side. Perhaps innately I knew there were hard feelings there that I did not want to access as a young kid. I was always fascinated by the US Army, and not the British. But there was always a feeling in the back of my head that I did not want to ‘go back’ into that.

In fact I can see a pattern that when something gave me that repulsion/fascination feeling when I was growing up, it’s usually related, in some form or other, to an aspect of my previous self. This includes the repression of my gender, which was, in part, suppressed along with the memories of my previous self. The two sort of went hand in hand.

- I had an extreme fear of lightening and thunder growing up. I know this is very common amongst kids, and on its own it stands for nothing. But I do recall how this fear persisted up until I was in my twenties (and still puts me on edge). When it thundered my favourite thing to do was to get somewhere sheltered, away from the windows and roll into a ball. I recall once as a kid we were out in a field and it started to rain/thunder, we were with other family members and kids my own age. I became hysterical and would not shut up till my mom took me to the car.

- This is related to the dysentery/illness phobia. As a kid, I hated pigs (still dislike them). I hated the smell of them, they repulsed me. Watching home videos recently I came across two year old me pleading to my parents repeatedly I wanted to leave (we were at a kiddy farm looking at animals), my dad focused the camera on the piglet in front and lo and behold, it was signposted 'Vietnamese spotted pig'. Recently I read something interesting. POWs in South Vietnam often were around pigs that belonged to the camp cadre. (This is quite graphic, so If you are squeamish, don’t read). The pigs would wander around camp, and during bouts of dysentery the pigs would come ‘clean’ the POWs rear end, effectively eating the refuse. Could this possibly be linked to my intense dislike of pigs? Perhaps—or maybe it’s just the intense smell that triggers my dislike.

- I recall as a child I’d have a recurrent thoughts/fantasies whilst waking up about a red retro looking car. When I started to recall my past self, one of the things that popped up was his love of cars. In particular, I saw him with a red and white car that he had when he was younger. It’s the same car I saw him driving off on his wedding day. Curiously, in this life, I chose a car that was red/burgundy and retro for my own wedding day.

- For my third birthday, I requested a Captain Scarlett figure, and red diecast car from the series. The figure and the car were favourite childhood toys of mine. I was quite obsessed with this show when I was a kid, which they replayed on tv during the 90's. Captain Scarlett in my eyes was awesome -- he was an officer who could fly planes, cars, jet-packs, be killed over and over in espionage type work. Again, not typical for a two-three year old girl to be into.

 

[Ministargazer]

Whilst I struggled to figure out where ‘Somewhere’ was (it sounded like Saigon –or somewhere similar), I could hear in the background of this chorus a woman singing in an ‘oooh oooh oooh’ fashion, a piano playing and a fiddle. The chorus was sung in a droning fashion (almost moaning). It sounded country/western in fashion.
Which is very odd, considering I had never, at that point, listened to country and western. I had not been exposed to it much apart from the obvious Johnny Cash and my mom listening sometimes to Dolly Parton when I grew up.

I got up, and remembered I had to wash the dishes. Grumpy grogginess was ensured.

As I was in the kitchen, rinsing suds off the pots and pans, it suddenly came back to me. That song! I’d heard a song in my mind.

I decided, for the hell of it, to type it in Google on my phone to see if anything came up. My expectations were not too high. A couple of lyric websites came up, ones that seemed to pertain to more modern songs. I was pretty much telling myself ‘see, told ya, it’s not real’ when I clicked on a video on YouTube. The song was called ‘Long Way To Tennessee’ and it was song by a Bobby Bare. The song had around 5k views, so, not really popular.
(

)

I clicked, stood and listened. I was really in disbelief at this point. This was definitely the song. It was eerily familiar. Like listening to a song I hadn’t heard in a long, long time.

I found the lyrics:

"Long Way To Tennessee"
I'm a long, long way from where I want to be
In the Arizona prison they've got me
And until they set me free, oh, oh, me
It's a long, long way from here to Tennessee.

Oh, my mouth is dry with dust my throat is raw
How I miss those big green trees in Arkansas
On the way to where I'll be when they set me free
But it's a long, long way from here to Tennessee.

A long, long way from me to the girl that I love so
Will she wait for me oh Lord I don't know
I know that I've done wrong but friends I've paid the price
Back in Tennessee I left sweet paradise.

But until they set me free, oh, oh, me
It's a long, long way from here to Tennessee.
It's a long, long way from here to Tennessee.
It's a long, long way from here to Tennessee...


There was the women singing in the ooh ooh fashion. There was even a fiddle and a piano, as I had heard.

I’m pretty sure I was recalling that we changed the word ‘here’ to wherever we were at that time.

I also found that the song was recorded and released in 1964 as part of an album. J’s first tour was in 1965. So, the time frame matched.

All this pretty much shocked me. It made me, once again, take all this seriously and was the encouragement I needed to keep going with it and not dismiss what I was receiving.

I could imagine J and his buddies in a bar, singing this song. Especially I thought of the young man who was shot, who had been musical and who had a love of country music. I wondered if it was he who had been singing that song.

That same day, I recalled the following. This has been a reoccurring image, which I saw in greater detail following hearing that song:

I’m sitting alone in a dark room at a desk or table. It’s dark. I’m feeling so empty, so angry. Something terrible has occurred, and I feel it’s all my fault. This, I feel, is following the incident where the two men were shot and killed.
It’s really late, probably the middle of the night and I’m drinking heavily. There’s a handgun in front of me on the table, and I’m staring at it. Contemplating. The thought crosses that I’d very much like to take my own life.

Then, I’m joined by someone. It’s a guy (he’s a big dark guy, not black but not white. Probably Hispanic – the same guy who appears in a few visions). Anyway, he pulls up a chair opposite me. I don’t stop him. (Maybe because he has bought more alcohol.) He stays with me, and we drink pretty much in silence together. He was pretty much there for me in a way that saved me from doing something stupid.

I’m pretty sure that this guy is the third guy in the photograph who always catches my eye. He is a big Hispanic guy, so matches the description. Curiously enough, this guy always reminds me of my current day husband, but I could write a whole post about all that. My husband was with me when I discovered the Bobby Bare song, and the same feeling of familiarity that I felt was shared with him.

A couple of months later, on Aug 16 (2017), I had the following dream:

I’m stuck on base (that’s the feeling I get). There’s buildings with corrugated roofs. I can see sandbags piled up ontop of each other. The sunlight is harsh, dirt and dust is flying in the air. There’s trucks that came to and from the base continually stirring up the dirt.

I’m informed that one of my men has suffered a head injury. Two Americans and a group of Vietnamese are sent out to relieve the situation. Not long after, I’m informed again that one of the men has been shot through the abdomen. I asked for a ‘SITREP’ (SITUATION REPORT). There are Vietnamese casualties. The vehicles coming send dust and dirt, flying around the base. There’s just a sense of chaos.

Now I’m in a room, with a map, planning what to do, but there is a sense of urgency, that the situation needs to be relieved, fast.

At this point (in August) I was heavily pregnant and having a lot of vivid dreams.

I almost forgot that dream till I woke up and read a text message from my husband. He said he had been listening to ‘that’ song by Bobby Bare. Suddenly, the dream came back.

Before that dream, I had been dreaming of a friend of ours, one who has the same name as the last name as the guy who was shot through the head. He always reminds me of that guy. He is my husbands best friend in this life, and was the bestman at our wedding. Anyway, in this dream, I saw him mourning at a funeral outside a church, wearing black. I was comforting him and telling him ‘this was how it was meant to be’. Curiously in this life our good friend has never married. I wondered what that dream was about, and asked my husband to inquire to see if everyone in his family was well. Everything appeared to be in order.

I felt very drawn to research the guy who was shot. Some weeks before the dream, I found the name of his wife and the fact that she was from Tennessee in a newspaper clipping which discussed that a bridge in West Virginia (where he was from) was being named in his honor. I found a family memorial which showed him playing music with his family, sitting with his guitar.

Then, a couple of weeks after having this dream, I felt drawn to research him yet again. In September I found it. I found that his wife had passed on. The obituary stated that she had passed away on August 16 (2017). The very day that I had those dreams.

I find this all very fascinating and I can relate as memories, song lyrics and melodies from the past as a black, bluesman returned to me in this lifetime and all of this has been published as my book "Go Back Jack" this year. Please keep records of your dreams and impressions. You may want to write your own story in future.

 

[landsend]

Part Twelve (Putting The Pieces Together)
---

Sometime after contacting J’s eldest son, I was suffering with pretty bad insomnia. Couldn’t get into a deep sleep, probably not helped by the fact I was heavily pregnant at that time. I also very much had J’s family on my mind, stuck with the conundrum of what to do next. Or whether doing anything at all was right. I felt pretty guilty for reaching out at all.

I woke up in the middle of the night in a state similar to an out-of-body experience, sorta aware of my bedroom without my eyes open. I became aware that ‘someone’ was standing in the corner of the room. That someone was my brother. Not my brother now (I do not have a brother), but J’s brother. I could not see him clearly, there was just a vague outline of him. But the feeling was very clear. I could feel his particular personality. In fact he was joking with me, sorta saying, God look at you now, you’re a girl! And pregnant! I had the impression of him laughing, not with malice, but just joking at the situation. It was how we used to joke.

So I was feeling pretty low about the situation I was in. But J’s brother left me with two messages. The first message was just to relax, stop taking everything so seriously ‘down here’. Easy enough for him to say, but he’s probably right.

The second message was that I just needed to put the puzzle pieces together.
That was pretty much it.

I woke up from that dream, and was left with a feeling of his love, our bond. It was a nice feeling. I had the feeling that J and his brother didn’t always see eye to eye, but that they were very close despite that. Half of the time it was just horsing around, boys being boys. And to feel that those bonds go beyond the grave, even into new bodies, new lives is incredible. There’s a part of us that stays in touch.

It was that little bit of reassurance I needed that I wasn’t doing something wrong. It wasn’t an instant answer, but something that stuck in the back of my mind. Without that reassurance, there’s a very real possibility I would have thrown in the towel. I did not want to harass or burden the family. That was the last thing I wanted.

A couple of months after giving birth, I got the strong urge to start compiling all the memories I had thus far into a document. I had the feeling that I had to prepare this document in a very sensitive way, and take most of the personal feelings out of it. I presented the ‘images’ in a chronological order, as they occurred to me. Almost like a witness report. I wrote the document from a third person perspective, not first person. I did not even assume that the person I was referring to was ‘J’. I put forward my evidence as to why I thought the document referred to ‘J’, just as I have here, with dreams, and my findings from meditations that led me to him.

As Jenny Cockell suggested, I put some memories here I had of the family, things that only the family members would know.
I think the only way I could get my head round writing this was to assume that I was not going to send this document to the family, but just compiling ‘just in case’. If I had thought of actually sending it, I think I would never have wrote it.

I felt an intense pull to contact the family again.
In November (25 November 2017), I was sitting writing in my journal about all this. I was reflecting about J’s brother and writing down something that had come to me in meditation. It was a brief flash of him, and the feeling that at the end of his life he had suffered an illness. I had seen an obituary for him some where on the internet, so I knew already he died pretty young (2004 – he was in his fifties). But the obituary did not state how he had passed away, just that he had been with family, and living in Hawaii.
In my meditation, I had seen him sitting in a wheelchair, bald, and weakened. I had the impression the illness was cancer, somewhere in his back. I thought it could have been colon or bowel, but wasn’t sure.

Then, I sat at my desk a while, reflecting. I was again reflecting whether I should contact J’s son once more, just to see if he was now available to chat.
I had not spoke to him since August and had no clue if we’d ever establish a proper conversation.

I wished I had some sort of sign.

I’m sitting there writing my thoughts down at my desk in the kitchen/diner. Above my desk is a cupboard. On the cupboard, between the two handles, I keep a hanging pendulum. I was writing, and from the corner of the eye could see that my pendulum was moving. I mean really moving, swinging from side to side. As if someone had taken their finger and pushed it. It moved in an unnatural way, because it was not banging against my cupboard. I stared at it, wondering.
When it stopped moving, I opened the cupboard doors, then shut them. The pendulum sometimes swings after opening the doors and closing them. But I’d been sitting still, writing in my journal. I had not moved to open the doors. I tried to push the pendulum with my finger, and it moved in a jittery way, banging against the door. It was not moving that way. I tried moving my desk, shaking it. The pendulum did not swing, just jolted a bit forward. I tried looking for a breeze. The windows of the kitchen were closed. My house does not suffer from draughts. We don’t even have opening windows in the front room to create a through flow.

My kitchen has a kitchen bar/island and my husband was standing there at the time, preparing some food. My desk is in in the corner, and he was facing my desk.

So I asked him, did you see that? Did you see that moving? He said yes, he said, I thought you moved it – but then he too realised I had just been sitting there writing and not moved during the whole time. He said that his mind had tried to ignore it, rationalise that it hadn’t happened.

Even I tried to rationalise. I tried to tell myself I must have stood, opened the doors and sat down and not realised. Surely? But I hadn’t.
The incident stuck with me. I’d been thinking about J’s brother at the time, and asking for a sign. Well, there’s my sign. It wasn’t the first time these things would happen about J’s brother. These things continue up until now, very strange little happenings, often in times of doubt. My mind always rationalises, and probably will always do that, but deep down there is a feeling of reassurance.

 

[landsend]

(Continued)
I sent another email to see if J’s son was available to chat now. He pretty much replied straight away saying that he was available, and then we began to arrange time/date to chat online. In the end, it was that easy.

We arranged to chat for beginning of December (via text chat). Telephone chat had been an option, but to be honest, the thought of trying to explain myself over the telephone with this very sensitive matter terrified me. I also dislike my voice, and always have done, so I didn’t want him hearing my voice. There is an element of – embarrassment – of who I am, now. I guess that’s probably all in my head, but still. Explaining myself via text is a lot easier for me. I actually pre-planned what I was going to say on a piece of paper. It was important to not mess up. Talking via chat had the added benefit that we would have a transcript of the conversation to look back on/share.

We talked online four days before J’s birthdate. It was a year on from first opening to all this.

I did not sleep the night before, had some Dutch courage to help me along on the day. I was nervous as heck, even if it was just a text chat. I couldn’t quite believe what I was doing. I mean, it felt like I’d been waiting a long, long time to talk to him. And I’m not just talking about the past year. It’s hard to rationalise the feeling.

The conversation went pretty well. I told him the truth as I knew it, without bombarding him. That I’d had a series of vivid ‘dreams’ following finding his dad’s case, one of which was his dad’s wedding day.

He told me my perceptions of the wedding didn’t seem far off, and asked me me to relay it to him again, which I did. The details of the dress, the pregnancy, the brother being his best man/in the Navy, and finally his dad feeling overwhelmed to the point he appeared to faint/feel faint. That it all appeared to me in Dec 2016, a year ago.

I also relayed my subsequent research to him, including the dates I found the newspaper clippings (April and June 2017).

He told me in return that his mother was pregnant with himself at the time of the wedding, and that his dad’s brother was in the Navy and probably his best man. He also said there probably would have been a lot of emotions at the wedding, considering the circumstances. He didn’t have any knowledge if his dad collapsed at the alter or not. Considering I was unsure of that part too, I was curious to see what happened there.

I sent him the photograph of the wedding dress I’d found in a newspaper clippings so he could see how my perceptions matched. Also noted that I’d found in the same clipping mentioned that his dad’s brother was his best man. He mentioned to me that his dad’s brother had passed away some of years ago now, but he had mentioned the wedding event briefly to him after they reconnected. They kept in touch then until his uncle passed away.

He admitted that it all matched and was pretty amazing. Then, naturally, he got curious about these other dreams I’d had.

I had to explain to him then that the reason I’d looked into the Vietnam war in the first place was due to two dreams I’d received (the shooting dream of 2007 & the panic attack I’d undergone in 2012). Then I explained that these dreams, and others I’d received since could possibly pertain to his father, too. I said then that I’d written them all up in a document, and could send them to him. They totalled, at that time, about 39. I think he was pretty flabbergasted at that. But he wanted to see the document. I was waiting for his approval before sending the doc, and there it was.

So, we left the conversation at that. I promised to send him the doc, and we agreed to meet virtually again and chat about it in a weeks time.

 

[landsend]

(Continued)

After talking to J’s son, I was left feeling like I’d been run over by a freight train. Pretty intense, to say the least. And well, I’d promised to send that document to him, so there was no backing out now.

I sent it, and heard nothing from him for a week. I had no clue what he thought of all that I’d chronicled. Again was incredibly nervous to talk to him. I mean for all I knew what I’d chronicled to him was absolute nonsense – maybe even offensive. On the flip side, maybe some of it had truth. I’m not sure what terrified me more. On one hand, if it was just drivel, my mind could say gloat and say, see, told you, you’re just a complete whacko, time to go see the shrink. On the other hand, if some of the things were real, or did pertain to real events then – well, I didn’t even think about how that might affect me.

So, we talked as planned, a week on. He revealed to me he’d shared the document with his sister. Great. He’d also been talking to his mother. Even better. (My heart was thumping so hard when I heard him say these things – it seems his mother was still living, and he’d discussed this with her).

I was feeling a bit embarrassed by it all. What was chronicled in the document was intensely personal, even after making it as impersonal as possible. It was kinda like revealing your diary to the world. But I had to put those personal feelings to one side just to get to the bottom of this.

He confessed his mother’s memory wasn’t what it used to be, and she had repressed a lot of those early memories. He said she didn’t recall her groom collapsing at the altar. I believe that. It’s not something you would just forget. I wasn’t sure on the collapsing, so I guess it was an internal feeling more than an external event. Funny in this life I was terrified too of collapsing on my wedding day… but we were given seats during the ceremony.

Other things, he said, stood out in the doc I’d sent to him.

All in all I think there was about six or seven things he could confirm for me because they related to him/his childhood. He pretty much confirmed all of these things related to real events.

Here’s a few of those from the original document – with my recall, vs. the real event:


Knife Incident

• My recall: I recalled that once, the eldest son had gotten a hold of his dad’s knife, and had cut his hand/finger. I remember his face being so red, he was crying hysterically, and his sister being there and crying hysterically. I couldn't figure out why the parents weren't watching him at the time, and why or how he had gotten a hold of this knife. I saw this recall over and over, a little boy holding his hand like he’d cut it. I tried to figure out why – was he outside playing in the dirt? I tried to see how he’d gotten the knife. Had he gone through the cupboards and found it? I couldn’t figure it out, how he would have gotten it. I just presumed he’d known of a place his dad kept a knife, considering I don’t believe his dad would have left one lying around.
  
  
• I also didn't know where the other boy (the baby) was. I figured that his parents had been arguing at the time, which is why they hadn't been watching them -- there was a sense of an argument. The strong point was he got a hold of his dad’s knife, he cut himself, his sister was there, parents were not present, and there was an argument that followed blaming (his dad) for leaving a knife within reachable distance. Lots of guilt and blaming.
  
  
• Correlations: There was an incident with a knife when he (the eldest son) was about five years old. He cut his finger, trying to close the knife up (must have been a switchblade). His mom and dad were not present. His mom had gone to pick up his dad from the nearby base at the time, and had taken his baby brother with her. So both parents were not present, and their baby brother was not in the house. His sister was at home with him at the time. He recalls getting a hold of the knife from a cupboard, playing with it (inside the house), cutting himself, trying to bandage himself up, and his parents coming back and finding him a bloody mess. He says it was his dad's knife. He doesn't recall what happened afterwards, but he suspects that an argument was not out of question.

Metal Chopper / Final Deployment

• My recall: I recall the eldest son sitting on his dad’s knee, it was around Christmas time. He had something in his hand, or his dad was showing him something. He had the biggest smile as his dad showed him what appeared to be a die-cast chopper (an AH-1G), which was a replica of the one J had trained to fly. J was showing him the parts, pointing to him where the guns and rockets were.
  
  I also had another memory, which I adjoined to this one, which was of his dad sitting at a desk and gluing the parts of a model together -- a plane, or an helicopter. I didn't know if I his dad had given this model to his son as a present, perhaps as a Christmas present.
  
  
• Finally also had this image of the two boys running around the (very big) dining table in the kitchen/diner with helicopters in their hands (I've not mentioned that to the son as of yet, so unsure of the accuracy).
  
  Next, I'm aware that J and his family are saying Grace at the table. They are having what feels like a final meal before he was deployed. The feeling between J and his wife is icy, and very formal. There's tension in the air.
  
  
• Correlations:
  
  
• Before his dad deployed for the final time to Vietnam, J’s son recalls staying up late to put together some models with his dad. Before deploying, his dad pointed to a box in the closet which contained a model airliner that he had put together for him for his birthday (which was in January).
  
  The son confirmed there was tensions before his dad deployed in Dec 1968.
  
  The son also inherited a model replica diecast AH-1G helicopter that belonged to his father. He believes that his dad had two such models, one of which he took with him on his final deployment to Vietnam.

Girl with Pigtails / Boy with Cowboy outfit

• My recall:
  I recalled a little girl of about five sporting pigtails, a full fringe and a blue dress with a lace round collar that had white detailing. The little girl seemed to have a small animal or teddy in her hands. She was asking her dad ‘Daddy, daddy, when are you coming home?’ And he told her joking that he was already home.
  
  I also had an impression of one of the boys dressed in a cowboy outfit, seeing his whole face light up in a smile wearing a cowboy hat, and having two toy pistols and holsters. I recalled that he had blonde hair*, big blue eyes, and he reminded me of my present son (but his face was different, and my son never had a dress up cowboy outfit).
  
  
• Correlations:
  The daughter confirmed that she wore her hair frequently in pigtails, and that they (both the boys) had cowboy outfits. They provided a photograph where the youngest boy was smiling, dressed up in a cowboy outfit, with pistols and holsters and cowboy boots. But the boys did not have blonde hair.
  
  *The blonde hair – I thought I’d merged this detail with my present son, who does have blonde hair. But possibly relates to something that I had seen since (Sep 2018).

Other confirmations from that second conversation included impressions I had from very early childhood – that J’s dad was drinking liquor from a glass and listening to music. J’s son said that his grandfather and his wife did enjoy having an after work cocktail. And there was a memory of the family playing together in snow – J’s son said that his sister recalled an incident like that.

There was one memory that bothered me a lot, that J did not mention in that second conversation. It was not a pleasant memory. It involved J’s wife, and their relationship following his dad coming back from his first tour of Vietnam. There was details of the house the family lived in/owned that I wanted to touch on, but we did not discuss that issue in that conversation.

 

[landsend]

(Continued)

Now J’s son wanted to know more about my recollection of the capture of his dad. Considering what I’d seen regarding family life was pretty accurate, reason says that some of what I’d seen regarding his dad’s capture could be accurate, too.

And, he asked the million dollar question. Why did I think this was all coming to me, considering I had no prior connections to Vietnam war, or his family? He wanted to know if I’d also had these impressions about other people, too, or just his dad.

I tried to explain, very gently, that I couldn’t logically explain it, and that this had only happened with his father. That I could connect the memories of his father even before I’d known of his case.

I didn’t want to mention the R word. After all, I didn’t know what beliefs they held, and didn’t want to place my viewpoint on them. Most of all, I did not want to claim I had once been their father in another life. It was just not my place to claim anything. I felt I just had to explain what I had seen and experienced. I did not expect the family to reach the same conclusion as me, that I had once lived as their father. That was not the main reason I’d contacted them. I really, deeply, just wanted to help resolve their father’s missing-in-action case. If sharing what I knew helped do that, and helped resolve some of those long held feelings of wondering what had happened to him, then I had gone above and beyond my goal.

Also there was another factor in this. It wasn’t just personal. It was about the MIA/POW issue following the Vietnam war. If what I was seeing was true, then, it shows that men were left behind following the war. The government lied to get out of Vietnam as quickly as possible. And some of those men that survived the Communist takeover may have been sent on, some to Eastern bloc countries, and then repatriated to the US.

But I still had my question. The question I’d asked waking up all those years ago from that dream, holding my side. Seeing my birthmark. Why was I shot?

Had I tried to get the truth out, and had it gone horribly wrong? Or was it something equally unfortunate, but more 'innocent'?

I thought I’d answered ‘who’ I was. But then, if I came back to the US in a witness type protection program, then, who, really, was I that day I was shot?

At this point I couldn't believe those things I'd seen regarding coming back to the US. But it never answered those questions, and didn't answer why that dream had come to me before all of this had occurred. In fact, I realise, if I had not had that dream back then, but rather had it later, I would not believe it. It would be a whole lot easier to dismiss.

 

[There and back again]

My opining about this country will forever be jaded but chances are that by coming here you won't be noticed nor will this Orwellian government even care as much worse has been exposed over the decades and even recently there has been trickles in the news about ongoing biological weapons research being conducted by the US in other nations. You don't have much to worry about other than the usual travel issues and potential family drama but nothing too bad.

 

[landsend]

Be that as it may, US gov has kept a tight lid on this issue throughout the years. They have their reasons for doing so, some of which are undisclosed for the likes of me and you. They practically waited for this issue to die a natural death. Yet, the families of those who are missing are the ones who suffer for not knowing.

If the government has some answers to some missing men, why not release the info now?

Take into account some of those who created a smokescreen are still there, still benefiting from the truth of this issue being buried. Some of them are prominent politicians. One recently passed on and was in the news even here, hailed a war hero. If the truth had come fully out, pretty sure he would not have held such a highly regarded position.

Like the war in Vietnam, most folks want to just ignore the issue and pretend it never happened. But it did happen.

At the moment I’m receiving fragments that there may be a potential way of proving my previous self came back to US. It’s early days though and still trying to verify that info/put together the fragments. I’m just beginning to accept he did come back.

My opining about this country will forever be jaded but chances are that by coming here you won't be noticed nor will this Orwellian government even care as much worse has been exposed over the decades and even recently there has been trickles in the news about ongoing biological weapons research being conducted by the US in other nations. You don't have much to worry about other than the usual travel issues and potential family drama but nothing too bad.

 

[landsend]

Part Thirteen

Talking to J’s son left me feeling very strange. It was a combination of emotions. Grief, pain, shame, mixed with a sense of relief and joy at being able to reconnect and resolve the issue at hand. Mostly I felt a lot of shame. Shame at having left that life unresolved, and shame at who I am presently. Of course this was all internal. Perhaps in some ways I was and am still punishing myself for what happened in that life. As for my present life shame – part of that relates to my being born female. I wasn’t even aware just how ashamed and at odds with having been born in this body and situation I was until I started talking with J’s son. But these were old feelings, stemming back to my childhood. The teenage feelings I had of being dropped into a foreign body, and country started to make more sense. It is, at its core, a state of denial and displacement of who I am now.

We continued to arrange to chat every so often to discuss some of the more intimate and personal details of my recollections. We also discussed details of his dad’s case to see if, and how my recollections lined up with the case details. After a while, J’s son mentioned to me reincarnation as an answer to why I was receiving all this info, and why I seemed so intimately connected despite us not having any family connection. He sent me a radio show discussing Bob’s Snow’s case of a policeman who recalled the life of artist Carol Beckwith. I’d heard of that case before, but not looked too deeply into it. Well, after that conversation, I opened up to him and told him that I can pinpoint many of these feelings further back, back to my teenage years and childhood. I told him that reincarnation was the explanation that I also felt was most likely. He had discussed this with his sister and his mother, and they both agreed with that conclusion. I found that surprising, considering the Catholic upbringing(s) – but it also was a bit of a relief to hear. I did not want to cause the family any offence, or any strife. It was one of my major worries, hence why I did not feel right to impose my feelings about reincarnation on them until it was mentioned to me by them.

One of the things that bothered me the most from my recollections was the rocky relations I saw between J and his wife, especially following J’s return from his first tour of Vietnam.

One of the most intense reoccurring memories was of seeing J return home, presumably after being out and getting drunk. It appeared he may have been away for some time. Below I’ll detail aspects of the memory, and then detail correlations of the memory that I’ve been able to confirm via the son. This memory was one of the first memories I received in December 2016.

23 Dec 2016
I am in between tours ‘Stateside’. This is somewhere South.
I’d been drinking out somewhere, on my own. Inside my car, it’s a more modern car than the one I’ve seen before (in the wedding memory). It’s got a long shape, more boxy in appearance, unsure about the colour but the steering wheel appeared a beige colour.
I pull up on the curb outside the place we were staying. I’m so drunk I should not be driving. It’s evening, still daylight. Maybe around midday, 5 o’clock. The house is a one story bungalow. My feelings were that it was not the best place, not too big, but there was room for the kids. The street was otherwise quiet, with houses of a similar description. Sub-urban. The front drive was long, room for one car despite me not parking on the drive (perhaps because J had been drinking he could not focus enough to park on the drive). The drive as I walked up it had a very slight slope, grass to the right side. There is a side entrance that leads to the kitchen, and you could walk round to the yard from the side.

I question why I was out drinking when it appeared early. There’s pain there. Feelings that someone, perhaps another serviceman, had died during the war. Whatever it is, it’s too painful to think about, hence why I turned to drink for comfort. There was a feeling of absolute loneliness, despair. Numbness.
I walk up the long driveway, and enter the house via the kitchen side door. I guess that’s because I felt guilty having been gone, and having been drinking. When I enter the kitchen I see my wife. Think she may have already seen me approaching since she was not surprised to see me. At first, she ignores me. She’s wearing a white sheath dress with a geometric pattern,the pattern has a bold black outline of triangles filled with block colours. She may have been at a table in the kitchen, it looked like a small square linoleum table in the kitchen area. The expression on her face is of person severely depressed.

The kitchen/diner was open plan. The kitchen led through to another room, which I assumed was used as the dining room. The ambience of the place looks brown in colour, dim, as if we had blinds or net curtains and wood panelling on the walls. The general ambience adds to the depressing oppressive feeling that’s been building up. The tension is so thick you could cut a knife with it.

Finally, she says something, or I do. Either way, an argument ensures, a heated argument. I’m unsure to the extent of this argument, but all I saw that it wasn’t pretty and the kids may have been present to witness it. I see a dining area with a big dominating wooden table and chairs. I’m not sure if this a memory of this house, or a different house and if I’m mixing the two memories of different houses and different drunken arguments. I was having trouble controlling the anger when drunk. I’m repressing all my experiences of war with drink. I’m not even sure how much the kids saw, and how much happened behind closed doors.

Whatever happened, either thoughts of things that J wanted to do, or real events that he did do under a drunken stupor, I’m deeply ashamed to witness in the present. It was clear to me J needed help, but what help was available then? Aside to the fact that J was too proud to ever admit or ask for help, there was no such thing as post-traumatic stress disorder in the 60’s.
I plucked up the courage to ask J’s son about the details of this imagery, considering he had ignored it in our previous conversation. He confirmed to me that he could relate that imagery to a series of incidents. He also confirmed that his fathers and mothers marriage was turbulent.

In other conversations, we discussed the house. The house my recollection seemed to pertain to was the property the family lived in the longest, and which they owned. That was the general feeling I had since I had felt the location was in that area. J’s son sent me the address of the place so I could check it out for myself.

We discussed the house. It was a single story house, with a long frontage, grass to the right side, a space to park at the front. You could get to the yard from the front. The kitchen was open plan, a kitchen diner.
I asked if there was a side entrance, considering I had seen his dad enter via a door to get to the kitchen. He was not sure on that detail at the time, but I insisted that’s what I had seen. After inquiring with his mother she said there had been a side entrance that led through the garage, and from the garage there was a door that led to the kitchen.

I also mentioned the wood panelling. He wasn’t sure on that, but it wasn’t out of question. As for the dominating wooden table, again, his mother confirmed they did own a big dominating table such as that.
The son had trouble remembering how the house had been, since the family had lived some time there after his father’s disappearance and they had remodelled parts of it (the kitchen/garage).

Sometime later I googled the house and saw it was up for rent so could check out photos for myself. Sure enough could see there was a door in the kitchen that probably led to the garage, the door was in the part of the kitchen I had envisioned myself entering (the upper left corner). The kitchen was open plan and led to another room which was probably now used as a dining/living area. And the walls had been painted white, but you could see the unmistakable lines of wood panelling underneath.

My perception of the house seemed to check out.



Kitchen w/ side door to garage/utility and wood panelling.



Front aspect of house, drive and grass to side.

 

[landsend]

(Continued)


Many months later (and recently), I had several visions during meditation that detailed further the aspects of J and his wife’s marriage. What I saw would have been one of the main reasons for the arguments. I pretty much dismissed this, because I was not happy with what I saw. I also had been in terrible mood prior to seeing the imagery, I was in one of my low periods, hence why I felt the need to meditate. The visions were basically outlining the extents of J’s infidelity. Other aspects involved the manner in which he committed these acts of infidelity. But I was able to confirm one of these visions. I mentioned it to the son because I recall him saying one of these incidents had occurred at someone else’s house – and I saw that the children were present to witness what happened.

4 Jun 2018
I see myself walking into a diner, a local place, somewhere in the town I live with my wife and kids. This is again in between tours, sometime after the first tour of Vietnam. I know this because I’m wearing my stateside uniform, possibly even my beret. I was not ashamed of who I was, and down here in the South most folks are accepting of the war. But I didn’t care if they were or not. I wore my uniform with pride.

As I walk into the diner, a waitress looks at me. Recognition flashes on her features. She’s a very pretty woman, with brown curly hair, blue eyes. She looks a bit like the singer ‘Loretta Lynn’, and I associate that name with her, either because Loretta is her name, or she just looks very much like her. She stops doing whatever she was doing and runs up to me to embrace me.

She pulls back, and tells me she hasn’t seen me in such a long time. Presumably she means before Vietnam. So it seems that this woman is known to me from before. I’m not sure how long before. She asks me how I am, how have I been.
I’m unsure about the extent of my feelings for this woman, but I do find her attractive. Either way, we plan to meet later that day when she gets off work. I say to her that I’d come by her place later.

Later, I pull up outside her place. It’s a one story house with a long front/drive, and there appears to be trees and bushes around the back. The feeling I get is that the house is in a similar area to where I live, but far enough away not to rouse suspicions. I also do not know if this woman is also married, but her husband is out. Considering the house looked like a typical family home, it seemed likely.
I go inside the house, and well, you can imagine the rest. Except, during, or perhaps after the act, someone starts knocking on the front door, pretty frantically too. Then she starts calling, can hear her voice muffled but hysterical through the door, even here in the bedroom. It’s my wife. She’s calling my name and telling me she knows that I’m in here.

Well, I rush to get dressed. I tell Loretta to hide (how ironic, he who did not want to hide, now telling her to hide?) but she says she has nothing to hide. I have this impression of looking through the bedroom door, down a hallway to the front door. Could see the impression of my wife – maybe there was frosted glass, or a blinds in the window I could look through?

Either way, I could see that she had parked on the drive. I could not understand how she had gotten here, considering I had taken the car. So I assume she borrowed someone’s car to get here, and, what’s more, she had bought the kids in tow. They were in the back of the car.

And I was pretty furious that she’d done that, that she had bought the kids along. There was so much anger that I envisioned what I could do if I opened the door to her. It wasn’t pretty. I’m not sure if I did do that, or if I just imagined it.

The guilt and thoughts and anger of this imagery forced my present self to open my eyes.

I did not write that down straight away. I dismissed it, and then, following discussing it with my husband, decided to force myself to write it down.
Later, in conversation with the son, I decided to bring it up, just in case it had any truth to it. I was honestly not sure. I wasn’t sure I wanted there to be any truth to it. But I was sure the son would know about it, considering in the vision he was in the back of the car. And I felt I needed to know the truth of what happened.

Well, I relayed the events to him, including the thoughts/imagery of what happened if his dad had opened the door. It seems that an event like this did indeed happen. Their mother had found a note with an address on it (presumably in an article of their dad’s clothing?). So she borrowed a car, and drove to the address with the kids in the back of the car. The house was one story, and had a long drive. Their mother had then got out, and knocked frantically on the door, hysterically calling for their dad to show himself. But, their dad did not show himself. Apparently the woman came to the door eventually, and, according to the son, their dad went out the back and ran off to hide.

I could see why J would do that. If no one saw him, he could deny he was ever there at all. And retaliating with anger was not the best thing to do. But still, in my present eyes, it was cowardly. It was an act of betrayal, and the least he could’ve done is own up to it and face the consequences. But of course, life’s never so black and white. Everyone needs loving sometimes, and, considering how things were between J and his wife, love was not at the forefront of their marriage.

I can see that J was suppressing so many things. It’s difficult to articulate, even now with a lifetime in between. Perhaps I’m still in denial.

 

[landsend]

Cars and other curiosities
-----------------------------

Sometime later me and J’s son were discussing another aspect of these visions, which was of his dad’s love of cars. If you recall, I’d seen the car in the memory of the wedding, and also, I had just the general feeling of this car – way back, before I’d even read about J’s case. The car I saw was red, possibly with a white panel. It seemed to have that combination of those colours, anyway. It was retro looking, I didn’t know the make but assumed it may have been a Chevy (a 1950’s Chevy – similar to the Chevy Bel-air). My knowledge of American cars of any era is lacking and Chevy was one of the few brands I knew from the various movies and songs etc. I had the feeling that J had this car back when he started dating his wife-to-be, and possibly before. He was very fond of that car.

Talking with the son he confirmed that his dad did have a car that he had tricked out when he was younger. He wasn’t sure how it was, but his sister managed to find a photograph and identified it as a 1954 Buick Roadmaster. It was most likely red (picture is black & white), and it has a white side panel. The son recalls that it was red.

What I'd narrowed the car down to ['56 Chevy Belair] vs. What the car actually was [ '54 Buick Roadmaster ]

 

[landsend]

I also saw another car, a more angular car which came later, I assume he traded in the 50’s model for something more modern and functional with the kids. I had no idea what type of car that was either, but thought it looked a bit like a Chevy Impala. Colour of this one was more ambiguous, I saw the steering wheel was a beige colour, outside seemed to have a metallic look, it was a dark colour, sometimes seemed an orange/gold shade, but I wasn’t sure. I think it depended on the light how it looked, it was that sort of paintwork.

As for the second car, the son confirmed that his dad did trade in the Buick for something more practical. In this case it was a Ford ‘63 Galaxie. It was a pretty angular looking car, but still quite sporty and attractive. The son relayed that this car was most likely a burgundy shade. Again the photo he sent me was black and white.

Left: What I narrowed the car to ['63 Chevy Impala] Right: What the car actually was ['63 Ford Galaxie]

This memory of the car dates way back to my childhood. When I was very young I had a recurrent fantasy of driving around a retro-looking red car. I would often think about it when waking up. I used to think that I’d like to drive a car like that when I was older. It’s quite possible I was tapping into these memories from my life as J.

On a further note relating to my childhood. I managed to acquire a photo of me doing my little march (I'm about 2 years old in this photograph -- out of shot is my mother and Aunt looking at me strutting away -- I was looking at them in photo). I looked up US Army regulations for marching. My arms appear relaxed with hand cupped and thumbs pointing downward. Heel hitting the ground first, and alternating legs/arms. The distancing for the legs/arms for US Army seems about right, too, but then I'm no expert so may be wrong there. I recall doing this whenever out and about with family on longer walks, but it was not every time we were out walking. When it did occur, I'd go off into my own little world, and marching was quite natural for me to do. I grew out of the habit as the years went by, along with my other curious habits, such as singing the country songs and also recalling the red car.


Me... two yrs old, marching

 

[glia21]

Hi landsend,
I have a great interest in your story and want to thank you for sharing it. Your experiences have some similiarities to mine since in contrast to my PL I´m also born female this time, have three kids and live in a foreign country. I did have a yearning to meet my PL son J from an early age on, so I´m eager to read about your conversations with J´s son. This will not happen to me but I´m glad it turns out so right for you
I have not much time right now, but will write later.
Keep on writing!

 

[landsend]

Hi landsend,
I have a great interest in your story and want to thank you for sharing it. Your experiences have some similiarities to mine since in contrast to my PL I´m also born female this time, have three kids and live in a foreign country. I did have a yearning to meet my PL son J from an early age on, so I´m eager to read about your conversations with J´s son. This will not happen to me but I´m glad it turns out so right for you
I have not much time right now, but will write later.
Keep on writing!

Glia,

Thanks for the message. Would like to hear more about your experiences, too. The matter of contacting family members is a sensitive issue, done largely on my part for the reason that things were left so unresolved. It is one of the oddest sensations, and definitely not for the faint hearted. Brings up many, many repressed feelings to say the least.

 

[landsend]

Just want to note something here before continuing with the posts. A vivid dream I had last night prompted me to recall this. Since I can remember and growing up (from a young child up until I was a teenager), I would have recurrent thoughts about a nuclear war. I would sit and fantasise for long periods of time about what would happen if a nuclear bomb was to fall where I was. The aspects of these fantasises were very detailed, I'd reflect on how there would be nothing left, how we would effectively feel nothing, visions of bodies and skeletons disintegrating to dust -- in one moment it could all be gone. I'd feel the fear about 'the bomb' dropping on me, on all of us, and feel the anticipation of the threat. As a child, I recall this Albert Einstein quote leaving a lasting impression: 'I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.'

I discussed this recently in conversation with my husband. I thought that these were quite normal thoughts, and thought that perhaps other people would think these thoughts, too. Not so... at least not for my generation (I was a 90s child), and being born in Europe makes it that little bit more odd. It's only in discussing it with my husband that I realised that these thoughts could correlate to the past, specifically my previous life as 'J'.

When I was trying to locate 'J's identity, one of the reoccurring images was myself sitting at some sort of primitive computer, with lots of dials, lights. I was, at the time, very dismissive of what I was seeing because at that point I was getting so much information that I thought couldn't possibly all correlate to one person.

In my research of 'J', I came across the following. 'J' joined the Army in 1958, after graduating highschool. This was during the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear warfare was very real (as outlined in the brilliant movie by Kubrick 'Dr. Strangelove'). Back then, there was no such thing as ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles), to drop a nuke, you had to send huge bomber planes. In my research, I've discovered that America had a nuclear threat system in place. It was sort of like an hierarchy where they would try to shoot the bombers out of the sky before they reached mainland US. They had radars strategically placed and manned by personnel, that would send out a warning if a threat was perceived. This warning would be sent to all the missile bases across US/Canada.
The bases across the US were usually strategically placed to be near big cities and populous areas, or areas that they perceived the Russians would target.
The missile bases across the US were really the last resort. If any of the planes got through, they would be the last ones to stop a nuclear bomb from falling and causing outright destruction.

Well, turns out that 'J' in the early 60s worked on one of these missile bases as a specialist. This was before he trained to be an officer. I've asked the son to see if he knows exactly what his dad was doing on the base, but he doesn't know unfortunately. From what I've read, it seems these bases held NIKE missiles and utilised radar technology. The radar technology was run by computers which were sophisticated for the times. The bases were split into three parts -- an area for the missiles/radar technology, and a barracks for the personnel.

'J' met his wife in the town where the base was located, and they went on to purchase the family home there. He also was deployed to Germany in 61 to a missile base there which had a similar purpose.

 

[glia21]

Landsend, I envy you for your ability to talk to your husband about all of this. I´m married since more than 10 years now and I keep on telling myself to speak about it the very next day but although something pushes me to do so I never do it. Like you, I´m a bit traumatized from remembering. I had a hard time when I was in my early teens, not only trying to fit into my gender but also feeling a lot like an outcast and living in a hostile environment. I only kind of adapted in my early 20ies and today my life works quite good but the flashes/glimpses/flashbacks/dreams never stopped.
And by now I don´t want them to, I want to solve the puzzle!

I have had a thread on the main topics so I don´t want to repeat myself, but I want to let you know that in my PL I also changed my identity when I was in my early 30ies and lived a different life where I had to keep quiet about certain events. I´m not so good at keeping my mouth shut, I´ve never been unfortunately

I used to have a "loop" memory for more than 20 years now where I sit in a car in a suburban area and watch a house. I know my ex-wife´s in there, her name is Helen, and my teenage son J and her new husband and little girl. At this point I imagine to go in. They are eating dinner. There are many many variations of this, I´ve written down a dozen short stories of what would have happened if I had entered. I would certainly not have been welcome. I wrote down what I`d have said, what they`d have said … but I think it never happened - I drove on and I died soon after. I see myself losing control of the car. Anyway, something else happened in between and I can´t figure out what it was. That´s haunting me.

 

[glia21]

btw nuclear war was nothing I feared much, being a child of the late 80ies, 90ies.
I was only a bit concerned about the yugoslavia civil war since I lived nearby.

 

[landsend]

Glia

Thanks for your message. I had a read through your thread, and found it interesting, and helpful. I can see a correlation between us, I also think my past self may have been on the run at the end of his life. At least I recall him feeling paranoid and keeping a loaded gun on the passenger seat, as well as constantly checking the side mirrors whilst driving to see if he was being followed.

Well, in the respect of telling partners it was pretty easy for me. I told him about my past life dream of being shot in the second message I sent to him (we met online ten years ago now). So he’s always known about my past life. He’s open about all these subjects and has had experiences with past life memories too. We have mutual memories of one life that we both had prior to meeting each other and which correlated.

You could try testing the waters first with your husband, just seeing what he thinks of the subject and go from there. You may be surprised by his response. Having someone to talk about it helps a lot. My husband has been an invaluable source of support throughout this whole ordeal.

 

[There and back again]

I've experienced the same when it comes to out of place thought patterns growing up having went through a couple of phases where oddly it was like a rehash of the old debate of communism like how it was with the revolution then it all changed over into a Nazi phase that lasted for a couple of years then faded away. Will have to say that it is never normal for someone in the eighth grade back in the 2000s to be concerned with book burnings, censorship, and persecution ect but there I was like it was a glitch in the matrix.

 

[landsend]

Part Fourteen – Captivity, Abandonment - The True Cost of Freedom

The next posts are going to outline where I am at currently. So far, I’ve tried to be as forefront and frank about how this whole experience has unfolded, and how it has affected my current life. It’s not been an easy journey by any means, and it is one that I’m still undergoing. Although at times reluctant, the journey does feel necessary to me, it is a journey I’ve been waiting to undergo for much of my life. I suffer daily with an underlying depression, one that ebbs and peaks, but nevertheless remains. I suppose that restless feeling that started me on this journey remains, as of this date of writing. At times it can be excruciating, and stops me from functioning properly in my daily life. It’s the main reason I am trying to resolve this with an urgency. I do not want to live the rest of this life feeling so unresolved, nor the next.

It has become apparent to me that finding out the fate of John requires a full investigation in the into MIA/POW issue there in America. There may not be written evidence for what happened to John, and indeed, things may even be covered up and buried till they are forgotten about by all the people who are asking questions. I can see how, over time, this has come to be a sad but true fact. The movement that was pushing for answers throughout the 80s/90s has now reduced to a few polished websites. I have had to go back in time to web archives to find some information.

For now, I refuse to lay down arms and say that I won’t find some evidence. I think there is evidence out there. My memories of John may be the key.

As I dig, I have found some very odd correlations where people have said and reported things that present me thought impossible when I witnessed them as John. The question I’ve been asking myself now is how can I have seen this information, and then found at least 5 or 6 other sources saying the exact same thing? How can they all be wrong, considering these people have not banded together and decided to create some conspiracy theory, and considering this information has not come from crackpots, but from high ranking defected Generals, and other reliable sources all separate from each other?

Perhaps the real conspiracy here not if men were left behind following America’s withdrawal from Vietnam, but that there have been people out there, including prominent political figures, who tried to debunk the whole matter as a conspiracy theory. The increasingly stark truth being revealed to me is that America withdrew to save face, no matter the cost.

That then begs the question: What exactly happened to John, and the men left behind?

 

[landsend]

Post-capture memories

To begin to understand what happened, I have to go back to the memories of the capture and subsequent captivity, and John’s case files available on the Library of Congress POW/MIA archives. I’ve had many fragments of memories, spanning from Dec 2016, up until now. I’ll focus on the ones that relate to the case files, and other correlations I’ve found through archives, books and media articles.

First of all, the crash. John crashed during a rocket run on enemy bunkers located high up a mountainous area of Thua Thien province, Vietnam. According to after action reports and fellow ARA (Aerial Rocket Artillery) crewmates, the day was foggy, the weather marginal, forcing the pilots that day to flow precariously low. John was apparently manning the gunner position, having switched places with his co-pilot at a refuel. They came in for the rocket run, when his co-pilot reported losing control of the cyclic. The next thing he knew, John’s co-pilot woke up on the jungle floor in considerable pain. His left leg was badly mangled. There was no sign of John.

Back in 2012 I had a spontaneous flashback that resulted in an horrific panic attack. In the flashback, I was above a dense jungle area, the jungle appeared on fire, and there was smoke/fog in the air when I began to have the sensation of spinning out of control, followed by pure, unadulterated fear. At the time I did not relate this to a shoot down incident. I had no clue what was going on. I did not even perceive I was in an helicopter, at the time, even though I had a birds-eye view of the jungle below.


Densely forested mountain range in area of chopper crash

Seeing what happened next is equally confusing, and panic inducing. It has come back to me a couple of times since, most strongly in Dec 2016, and then again in May 2017. I recalled the moment before the shoot down. Certain numbers kept being repeated, he seemed to be talking over the radio relaying those numbers. The actual crash is a blur – did he pass out in this moment? There’s sheer panic, then ‘coming to’ in the cockpit. It was ever increasing panic from then on. It was also hyper alertness, where every single second counted. There is a vividness to the imagery, and also a black tar that seems to seep around me when I recall the imagery. Panic rises through me, it’s tangible in my head. A sick feeling cripples me. Then there was an awareness of one of his legs, the left leg, an injury perhaps. The injury was not so bad that he could not walk.

I see that John got out of the cockpit, and then attended to his co-pilot whom he thought dead. He pulled him out and realised he wasn’t, but then realised he would die pretty quick if no one found him. He had no time to mess around. He pretty much again was trying to find his bearings (the numbers repeat), and then he looked at his watch to see which way would be the best to head. A south-westerly direction stood out, or he became aware that the enemy was in that general direction. Perhaps he heard vegetation being snapped/voices. His immediate reaction was to head for a water source of some kind, and he went off into the dense vegetation.

Looking at after action reports, and reading the thoughts of those who served with John, as well as his co-pilot, the conclusion was that he got away.

When the chopper crashed into the jungle mountainside, it broke up in several pieces. The main wreckage was located several hundred metres from the main rotor. When the ground search and rescue (SAR) teams came in, they mistook the rotor for the main wreckage and swept that area instead. This delayed the search of the immediate area of the main wreckage by a day.

The main wreckage was located 24 hours after the crash during an aerial search. John’s co-pilot was found beside the wreckage and extracted alive. During the aerial search, not long after John’s helicopter went down, another helicopter was shot down whilst searching during the bad weather. All three men on board were unfortunately killed. Prior to that, there had been another shoot down of a craft some months before in the same general area, killing those on board. That gives an idea really of how well defended that particular area was, and how much NVA/VC presence was in that particular spot.

When they did finally examine the wreckage, John’s part of the cockpit was seen to be relatively intact. His seatbelt was undone, and placed neatly aside suggesting he had left the cockpit of his own will. No traces of blood were found in his part of the cockpit, suggesting minimal injuries. Similarly, his helmet was found nearby and no traces of blood were found.

Equipment and survival gear was found scattered about the wreckage. It seems that he got out, and left in a hurry. Some that served with John said he may have led the enemy away to save his co-pilots life. At some point, I do believe the VC/NVA reached the wreckage, and John may have been alerted to them prior to running. John’s co-pilot reported having his watch and bi-fold misplaced, as well as there being sandal footprints on the ground around the wreckage. Most likely they left John’s co-pilot, who was badly injured, for dead, and then went in pursuit of John. The fact that enemy outposts were later found abandoned nearby further confirms this line of thinking.

Further examination of the after action reports revealed military co-ordinates of the crash area, the search, and the mission that John was on prior to being shot down. I was able to obtain a military map of the area from the Texas Tech University Vietnam archives. A quick search on the internet, and I was able to read up on how to plot military co-ordinates. I then went and pulled all the co-ordinates I could get, and started plotting them out so I could get a sense of the area myself.


Area of crash wrt bunker location

According to the reports, John was attacking a bunker complex located above a valley. This point is south-west of where the chopper crashed, roughly 8 o’clock, which is what I feel he was looking at on his watch when trying to find his bearings following the crash. The bunker was above a valley, there was a river below. Considering that, I find it unlikely he headed in that direction. There was another stream in a north-westerly direction. Most likely that’s where he headed.

What’s more interesting is that the numbers I was repeating back in December 2016 correlate for the general area of the crash. This makes me feel that John, being in the gunner/navigator position, knew exactly where he was on the maps, and had visualised a map of the area prior to flying out.

 

[landsend]

(Continued)

Now, this is where the available reports of what happened dry up, and get confusing. There are some reports of an helicopter being shot down in the area that John was shot down, reported by Vietnamese witnesses. These type of reports are known as ‘hearsay’ reports. Investigators have been looking into John’s case all these years, going back and forward to interview so-called witnesses. After John was declared presumed dead in 1977, looking for burial sites near the crash site is the main line of investigation that has been taken.

Some of these witnesses report capturing a pilot, that he resisted arrest and was shot in his left arm. Other witnesses describe a man with a leg injury. One of the witnesses said that because of his injury they had to carry the pilot on a stretcher to Regional Headquarters where he would be processed. The witness reported that whilst crossing a river, the pilot slipped and fell, and subsequently died. They apparently buried the man along the river bed. Investigators excavated the area of the supposed burial and found nothing, no trace of remains, no personal artefacts. Nada. According to a leading investigator, it was extremely unusual to not find any personal artefacts at a burial site.

Recently (Sep 2018), I examined that particular witness report myself and found that the witness’s memory itself was under question, it was noted that the witness had possibly suffered an head injury during the war and his memory may not be accurate.

As I started looking in depth at the case, particularly at that witness testimony, I was hit with a sense of deja vu. Parts of the testimony resonated with me, particularly the account of the river incident where supposedly the witnesses had reported the prisoner had fallen, hit his head and died.

Later, I decided to meditate on it, and the following came to me:

Sep 12 2018 -

I’m in a densely forested area, dense jungle. I’m aware that this is not long after being captured and taken prisoner. I was with a small group of Vietnamese, maybe 4-5 men.

We are near a river in the jungle, there is more light here with a break from the vegetation. I’m on my knees, hands tied back, and one of the guys has me by the nape of my neck. He’s dunking me into the water, repeatedly thrusting my head into the depths of the river. I can see the water blurry through my open eyes. I try not to inhale the water. Every time he lifts me to the surface, I gasp for breath. He keeps me under longer than he should. I’m not sure how many times he does this, seems to go on for a long time. I’m aware of three guys, the guy whose doing the dunking, another man behind him and to his right, and a man on his left who has a rifle pointed in my direction. They’re standing in the shallow depths of the river near to where I am. In the shallow water there are small jagged rocks. From my vantage I can see in my peripheral visions the legs of the guy on the left, and the gun pointing at me. I note that the rifle is similar to the AK-47, it is a Chinese copy of that rifle (Type 56).

Not sure why this is occurring, but it appears they may be doing this as a punishment. Most likely I had taken advantage of the vulnerability of the river crossing and tried to escape.

Just at the moment I think they’re going to drown me, another more senior guy comes along to tell them to stop. The dunking guy lets go of me, and I fall over, exhausted, coughing and gasping for air. I can hear the senior guy shouting in rapid Vietnamese. Maybe he was reprimanding them for almost killing me. Either way, the senior guy comes over to me to examine me. He says something to me in Vietnamese that I can’t discern – it seems he’s attempting in his Vietnamese way to say my last name, as well as trying to ask me if I’m hurt. He seems to be referring to the left side of my head, it appears to be bleeding fresh blood. That injury was not there during the crash.

Another vision showed me these men again, in particular the guy who was doing the dunking. He appeared very young, perhaps still a teenager, much less a man than a boy. His immaturity, and cruelness struck me. I think half of it was an act, to show he was tough, the other half was inherited bitterness from the war. Most likely he’d lost people he’d loved in the war. Most Vietnamese people had. Who knows what this kid had seen and done to make him the way he was.

Again, I’m in a dense jungle area, apparently resting. Even though I’m resting I have my hands tied back, and can only sit on my haunches. There’s the same captors here as from the river crossing incident.

I’m staring at one of the men, who appears little more than a boy, in truth. Perhaps he was eighteen. He was sitting against the base of the tree, watching me. He had in his hands a silver revolver, perhaps a Colt. I’m aware that it’s my pistol, taken from my person upon capture. He’s twirling it around his finger, playing with it like it’s a toy, opening the barrel, in general just horsing around with it. There’s a feeling of great annoyance at what he’s doing, but I’m powerless to do anything about it.

He then points the pistol at me, says something like ‘John Wayne – American John Wayne’. At this point I was terrified, and the annoyance turns to fury. I had no clue what he would do.

Without warning, he pulls the trigger of the gun. The gun ‘clicks’. I had no clue if he knew if it was loaded or not, I assume he knew it wasn’t but I’m not sure. The guy seemed to find the whole ordeal funny. He had great satisfaction of having that power over me. I tried not to give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear, or fury. In truth, I was terrified and mortified by the whole ordeal.

 

[landsend]

Other visions during that meditation pointed toward being paraded through mountain villages on the back of an oxcart. One of the incidents was remarkably similar to an incident that occurred to me in my present life when I was a teenager. During high school, like many folks who didn’t fit in, I had a bad time. But I now realise, looking back, that I was bullied. At the time I didn’t constitute it as bullying, because I had erroneously thought that to be bullied you had to be physically punched, or kicked. I think that form of bullying, although still terrible, would have felt more understandable to me-- because at least I could have justified to myself why I felt so powerless, and terrible. At the time I did not realise that people can be horrifically cruel and damaging without physical blows. I didn’t realise that people could make you feel worthless without raising a fist.

I’ll describe what happened to John:

I’m on the back of some sort of cart, we are moving through a mountain village. My hands and legs are tied back, and I’m here, partially hidden by sacks of rice. We are moving through the center of the village, it’s a clearing on a plateau, the jungle has been cleared back here. I can see the blue outline of a ridge line in the distance. The village really is nothing more than a couple of huts.

I can see the people of the village following us through the gaps of the wooden cart. As we move through, I hear them shouting what sounds like ‘America’, or ‘Americal’ – maybe a pidgin way of saying American. Obviously my presence here is an exciting event, and the whole village has turned out to see me.

The cart slows down, maybe stops. I don’t know if I’m taken from the cart, or if the people reach through the gaps to touch me. They touch me, my arms, my legs, my combat fatigues (clothes I was shot down in), and I’m powerless to stop them with my hands tied back. I see a woman’s face, she looks about twenty, she’s young with liquid black intense eyes, so full with hate are her eyes. She touches my face, like I’m nothing, wiping her fingers across my cheek she says something to me that sounds like ‘Nuoc Ni’. I can not hear the second word, but the first word clearly sounds like ‘Nuoc’.

Straight away following that vision, I spoke her words into Google Translate. It bought up ‘Nước Mỹ’ – apparently Vietnamese for America. Of course I had no clue during the vision. I do not speak Vietnamese. And I believe John at that point only had a vague understanding of Vietnamese. I was surprised it correlated, but the vision had been so clear that deep down, it didn’t surprise me. But it did disturb me, nevertheless.

Perhaps more surprising was the event of my teenage years, of which this vision bought back to me.
There was a girl in my high school who was always particularly cruel to me, one of a group of girls, including so called friends, who would sometimes take turns to belittle me. There’s one occasion that stands out to me – although this may have occurred more than once. I recall us standing at break time together. The girls started taking it in turn to start touching my face, without my permission, and making comments about my appearance. I recall standing there, absolutely paralysed, apparently powerless to do anything. I’ve looked back on this event of my life and asked myself why I didn’t say something to them, why didn’t I retaliate? One of the girls who did it was apparently a friend. Other events that happened I did retaliate – but not in this moment.

One girl for years when I looked back on this event reminded me of a Vietnamese person. She was of south Asian descent, from India. She had these big black eyes, black hair, a flat round face. I recall her running her fingers across my cheeks, and being stricken by it.

Their comments about my appearance, them touching my face, me being powerless – it was an event that affected me profoundly and to this day when I look back on it, it brings tears to my eyes. Tears of shame, mostly. I used to ask myself why this happened. Why did they do this to me? Why didn’t I do something, tell them to stop? Why did I feel so powerless?

I used to say to myself that I deserved it. I deserved that treatment. I used to say to myself I was being punished for something that I had done—something that I had done a long, long time ago. Being barely thirteen and having those thoughts, it made no sense. It made no sense to me then why I was carrying so much pain, for something so little.

 

[landsend]

landsend, you have a very valuable testimony there, and it's fascinating to read. I'm interested in the way you see it and describe what's in your vision. It's similar to my own way of seeing. But everything I have hasn't come from regression or meditation or similar. It's something that's just been there for a long time. I can choose to access it at any time. Inevitably, as I have no outside sources as yet to refer to, my memory is patchy.

What I'd like to know is how you go about your meditation where you find so much. What's the method? I'd very much like to try it, in the hope of recapturing more that might answer so many questions I have.

You've discovered so much. I feel your chances of finding what you want seem quite high. I really hope so.

I also identify with the bullying at school. I was 'different' and nobody likes that. I was called 'the dreamer' - both by my schoolmates and their parents. For the exact same reason as you, I never responded to the bullying, some of which was physical. I too felt I was being punished for something I'd done, and deserved whatever I got. Interestingly I met the bullies I'd disliked so much for years - we met as adults, and I still felt the same intense dislike, even though the bully had turned into an extremely good and kind person, and was pleasant to me!

Tanker,

Thanks for the message.

I use meditation as a means to focus my mind. Often it's simply a case of sitting in a quiet place with no distractions, closing my eyes, and letting whatever is there to come to the surface. However I have found, through trial and error, that I can sharpen and refine the process to get better answers. Obviously what works for me may not work for other people, but in general I've found the following formula to bring results. Also bearing in mind that if I'm not ready to see the full details of a memory, no amount of meditation will prise it out. And also my memories are a result of different methods, some through spontaneous recall, some through meditation, and others regression attempts. The major key is writing down all your memory fragments to start building a bigger picture.

For meditation -

- Prior to meditation write down or think about the intent of your meditation. It doesn't matter if there is no intent, just focus on the fact that you plan to meditate, maybe write down the time you start the meditation, and your general mood. Keep pen and paper ready.
- At this point, if you have a recording device, it might be the time to start recording. I have found that I forget things sometimes when I've come out of a meditation, so having a recording of me speaking about what I see aids me to recall.
- Solitude is necessary. Set aside 30-40 minutes of time with no distractions, no phones, (although if you plan to record your results, a phone may be useful as a recording device).
- Soft relaxing music -- this is helpful for me to quiet my mind, and just general relaxation. I play this during the meditation. I've always found binaural beats useful for getting into the zone [Link posted at the end]
Works best with headphones. I discovered the effects of this white noise by accident once whilst sitting near a generator at the seaside. The effects of the vibrational beat, plus the sea put me into a state of bliss, an instant trance.
- After closing my eyes, I focus on my breath and do a breathing exercise. Usually inhaling to a count, holding, exhaling to a count, holding, and repeat. Then focusing on my body, relaxing it. Ideally you want to get to a relaxed body asleep/mind awake state.
- At this point sometimes the memories start coming without doing anything else. If they do, I let them come. If I see nothing, I start to guide myself. I try to bring myself into a deeper relaxation by imagining myself go down a set of spiralling stairs, usually counting down from 10-1. At the bottom of the stairs is a door. The door leads me to where I need to go, and what I need to know. Again count down 5-1, imagining myself going to the door, opening it, and going through it, through the door is an enticing white light. Once I'm through it, I usually start seeing things related to my past life. You can use any sort of imagery you want, but I've found that anything that gives me the feeling of going 'down' in the subconscious helps, and a countdown works well too. I've used a mirror/pond imagery and slipping into my past self as I go 'down'. That works quite well, too.
- Once you've seen a enough, you may want to bring yourself out of the imagery. Around 15-20 minutes is a good time to aim for, anything longer can be draining. To bring yourself out of the imagery you can count upwards from 1-10. Or simply open your eyes, write down what you saw and go for a walk outside/do something mundane like a chore. That helps to bring you out of the imagery to the present.

Hope that helps,
Landsend

Theta wave binaural beats: