As we helped from-the-East-Coast, intoxicated Ray into the ambulance, he began to harmlessly flirt with one of the paramedics, referring to her as Sugar, but slurring his speech through and through. We’d received a “man down” call–our last of the day–after a cellphone Samaritan had been driving by and saw him on his side lying on the sidewalk. The paramedic told him someone thought he was dead.

Ray had been drinking, so he staggered into the ambulance as we took him to the sobering center–basically, a facility with 24 beds and rubber sheet-coated mattresses for drunk people to sleep off their alcohol and get them in off the streets. As we took Ray’s vitals, I started up a conversation with him, asking him what he typically drank in an average day. “I start with a quart of Listerine,” he began, “and then a couple pints of vodka, an 18-pack of beer, and then I mix some Listerine with the vodka so it tastes better.”

“Listerine?” I questioned, probably with much more judgment in my voice than I had wished.

Ray kind of trailed off, and then became tearful as the rig started its engine. He told me of his 18 months in Vietnam–drafted when he was a mere 19 years old–and of the horrors that he witnessed, a few stray tears collecting at the corners of his eyes. Stories of 6 men he had killed, of friends he had loved dearly who had taken bullets to the head from snipers right in front of his face. Atrocities. Terrible things. The other paramedic thanked him for his service to our country. I told him I couldn’t imagine having to go through such a thing, and that no one should have to.

I asked him if alcoholism ran in his family. “No, not anywhere,” he told me. “Not my mother, not my father, not my brothers–nobody. I drink because it’s so hard to forget everything that happened over there. I blame that war.”

He had started drinking after he had returned from Vietnam. “My first night back, me and 8 buddies went to a bar, and do you know what they said to us? They called us baby killers,” he said, his voice quivering. “Baby killers. On my first day back to my country.” He recounted the huge bar brawl that ensued.

Ray’s whole experience hurt to hear. It certainly hurt to know that Ray has been on the streets and drinking for 40 years, and still doesn’t want to quit, and that he had to experience all that he has.

But I think it hurt even more to think that 40 years from now, a medical student will be doing a ride along with the paramedics, harmlessly start up a conversation with an intoxicated gentleman, and will hear the exact same story from a veteran of Iraq.

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