Billy B.

Bill was a student in the very first class I taught at the university level.  It was a reading and study skills course for students who weren't quite ready for college level work.  Bill was older than the other students, perhaps 45 years old.  He was a Vietnam veteran coming back to school on the GI loan, wanting to get a degree in Social Work.  From the first day, Bill was friendly and affable and very vocal in class.  I liked him, and I enjoyed his input, but I noticed a pattern right way - everything in his environment was turned back towards his experience in the war. 

At first this trend was a bit annoying, but it eventually disrupted the course.  The other students began to roll their eyes anytime Bill started to talk.  I finally sat him down and let him know he needed to change his reference point, and to stop talking about the war in class.  He reacted a bit angrily, thinking I wanted to discredit his experience, but he eventually cooled off and agreed that he had been too zealous.  He finished the course with a C, and moved on to courses in his major.  He lasted two or three semesters until the frustration and demands of his coursework overwhelmed him.  In the meantime, I stayed in touch and even visited him and his wife on occasion. He lived in a small apartment with three large, expensive parrots - that is the way I always remember him, with one on his head and the other on his shoulder kissing him.  His wife was a nice woman, but you could see the years with him had worn her down.  Bill had not functioned very well in the fifteen years he had been out of the service.  He was often depressed or explosive, and was hospitalized numerous times for PTSD.  On many occasions, his wife would call me over to calm him down and take him to the hospital.  It was a sad degeneration.

I had mixed feelings about Bill, or Billy B. as his wife referred to him.  I liked him, but his constant references to the war tired me.  To be honest, I also had my doubts as the extent and veracity of his experiences, making me less tolerant for his appeals to my sympathy.  I recognized almost immediately when I met him that he was on a spiraling, downward path, and I gave up trying to pull him out of it early on.  Bill was in that very weird period in American history where we were somewhere between loathing the Vietnam Vets and finally acknowledging their sacrifice.  This ambivalence was the catalyst for his disease - no one wanted to even hear his woes, his tales, let alone grant him the respect of empathy he so desired.  I am not sure if it would have helped if they did, I think that need would have been unquenchable.

Four or five years after I met him, Bill died of a prescription drug overdose. He left behind a drained and lost widow, and an estranged daughter.  Besides the preacher and me, there were two other people at his funeral: his wife and a representative from Veteran Affairs.  It was the inevitable conclusion to a very sad life.  I don't know if the war did that to Bill, or Bill would have had problems no matter what his circumstances.  I do know that it saddens me, and at this time of year makes me more grateful for my blessings, and the friends and family around me.