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TOPEKA — When Ward Downey, 61, talks about his experiences with post traumatic stress disorder, he avoids using the word nightmare.

“That’s too mild a term,” he said. “I call them night terrors. I’ve had them ever since I got back from Vietnam in October 1967.”

The fear that comes with sleep is so real and “so vicious,” he said, he fears what he might do if abruptly awakened.

“I’ve been married going on 34 years now, but I haven’t slept with my wife for decades,” Downey said. “It’s just too dangerous.

When he and wife go to a restaurant, Downey prefers to sit with his back to a wall. “I’m not comfortable, otherwise,” he said.

“I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t mind fireworks,” he said. “They’re not fun, but I can tolerate them as long as I know when they’re going to go off.”

Wounded three times

Downey, a Marine Corps infantryman, was wounded three times while in Vietnam.

“I got shot at lots of times, but I never got hit,” he said. “But I got loaded up with shrapnel – rocket and mortar fire – three different times. The third time was friendly fire and put me in the hospital.”

Fresh out of high school and basic training, Downey described himself as short, cocky and wiry.

In Vietnam, he said, he briefly served as a “tunnel rat,” crawling into the underground mazes used by the Viet Cong.

“It was strictly OJT (on the job training). We had no training in that before we went over,” he said. “I’d go in with a .45 (pistol) and a KA-BAR (knife) and a flashlight with a red lens that I’d stolen off the U.S.S. Okinawa because the Marine Corps didn’t equip us with any flashlights.”

Without the red lens, the flashlight, he said, would have been too illuminating, warning the Viet Cong of his approach.

In the tunnel, he shot anything that moved.

A lot of crying

“I was barely 18, not a year out of high school, when I saw my first combat,” he said. “I was capable of handling it physically, but, mentally, I wasn’t. I don’t think any of us were.”

After his discharge in October 1967, Downey returned to Topeka.

“I knew something was wrong with me, but I didn’t know what it was,” he said. “I cried an awful lot. I was scared all the time. I was hyper vigilant.”

He did not ask for help and none was offered.

“The only relief I ever got was alcohol and drugs,” Downey said. “I became an alcoholic and a drug addict, but I was a functioning alcoholic and a functioning drug addict. I hardly ever missed a day of work.”

Two months after his discharge, Downey went to work for the U.S. Postal Service, delivering mail. He quit after 32 years.

“I got into this altercation with my supervisor who said I was doing something I wasn’t. He said he was going to dock me two days’ pay,” he said. “I actually liked the guy, but I it’s like I told him: Don’t ever mess with a man’s paycheck. I knew somebody was going to get hurt over the deal, so I just quit. A little bit after that is when I turned to the VA.”

Downey was admitted to the PTSD inpatient unit at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs hospital in Topeka.

“That helped immensely,” he said, noting he was later granted a “100 percent medical disability” benefit for his PTSD.

The hospital continues to see Vietnam veterans with PTSD.

“They’re coming in more and more,” said Dan Bartlett, an American Legion service representative who helps veterans apply for benefits.

“What’s happened is they’re getting older – they’re in their 60s now,” he said. “It used to be they didn’t trust the government or the VA because if they tried to get help before, they wasn’t any. But now they’re standing up for today’s veterans, they see all the stories about PTSD, they’re seeing that the VA is trying to help and they’re coming in.

“We’re seeing World War II and some Korea vets as well,” Bartlett said.

"Thank God the government is getting wiser"

Downey said he’s lucky he turned to the VA when he did.

“I’ve been going to (military) reunions the last five or six years,” Downey said, “and I’ve noticed that the guys who always thought they were incapable of coming down with PTSD – the officers, the sergeants and staff sergeants - are starting to apply for benefits. They thought they were immune, which to me is just hogwash. They suffered just like the rest of us.”

Downey said he welcomed the military’s efforts to make today’s troops and their spouses aware of PTSD.

“When we got home from Vietnam,” he said, “we got our money and a ticket home. That was it, there was no help available. It wasn’t even thought of, so I thank God the government is getting wiser when it comes to making help available.”

His advice for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan: “You’ve got to take it very seriously,” Downey said. “PTSD can pop up in many different forms and when it does it’s not pretty.”

Downey sad he’s been “sober and clean” for almost 25 years.