He Spent Every Day In Vietnam Expecting To Die- A Veteran's Story Of Despair Then Healing

Today, I am joined by Vietnam veteran, therapist, and author Conard Hogan, who shares his raw and insightful journey from the battlefields of Vietnam to the healing process of writing and recovery. Mr. Hogan dives into his background growing up in Kentucky, his unexpected path to military service, and how the trauma of war led him to pursue a life of therapy, both for himself and for others. He highlights the emotional toll of war—even for those who never saw direct combat.

Mr. Hogan discusses the inspiration behind his memoirs, including Barbwire, Brothels, and Bombs in the Night, which chronicles his Vietnam experience, and Once Upon a Kentucky Farm, a reflection on his upbringing. He opens up about his post-service mental health struggles, his near-suicidal state, and the life-saving impact of counseling and community support. He emphasizes the critical role of connection, vulnerability, and healing through storytelling.

The conversation also explores the importance of veterans finding safe, understanding communities—whether through peer groups, therapy, or creative expression. Mr. Hogan encourages us, especially veterans, to avoid isolating themselves and instead engage with those who can truly relate. As a licensed marriage and family therapist, he offers practical advice on navigating trauma and finding purpose after service.

We wrap up the episode with a glimpse into Mr. Hogan's current projects, including his upcoming book about mountain climbing and facing fears. His words serve as a beacon of hope for anyone dealing with trauma, offering proof that recovery is a lifelong journey—and one that can be full of meaning, passion, and purpose.

https://www.connardhogan.com/about-3

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Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode, A couple of nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and today we are here with a Vietnam veteran who has written a couple of books, and I personally enjoy Vietnam books quite a bit. Growing up. I never read them or anything, but since starting the show, I've had a couple of guests on who served during that time and I've read their stories and it's um.

It's like watching a movie. When I read those books, like it's so hard to imagine, at least me at my age, you know, that this was real. That people, these are real characters who did this stuff, you know? Because it just seems like one of those war movies you would've watched on tv, you know? But we were here with a man who lived it.

He is gonna tell us how it was. You know, there's a lot of misconceptions about it. Even nowadays, there's still so many lingering thoughts about it. We've seen a. Positive shift in the treatment of Vietnam veterans, uh, as we discussed on the show. But that initial reaction, many were spat on boo not welcome home.

And so I think having these conversations, even though it's been so long since Vietnam helps perpetuate giving them back the respect and honor that they deserved it. You know, they were very mistreated. And then also helping prevent. No matter what happens in the future, we know that we, we have that respect for, uh, these individuals, most of whom were forced or drafted into service.

So, Mr. Conard Hogan, I'd love for you to tell us about that and introduce yourself for us. Okay. Be happy to, I may, uh, stumble a little here or there. And my caveat about Vietnam of course, and everyone should. Probably assume this is, I can only speak from my personal experience, right? So, um, we had, oh gosh, I don't know how many, two or 3 million servicemen involved in Vietnam.

And so there's that many stories. Each of them are slightly different. Yeah. Um, I, uh, a little bit of background about me first, I guess. I grew up in Kentucky, wrote my memoir. That's my first book. Whoops, right there. About growing up in Kentucky, um, wanted to become an astronaut, got into engineering school.

My grades weren't too bad or too good. I was on probation. Um, my eyes got bad. I decided I couldn't become an astronaut. Um, dropped out and after about a year, this was in, uh, 68, I dropped out of engineering school. Uh, beginning of, uh. 69 in January, I was inducted into the Army. Um, let's see. And so I wrote, that's my book then about, um, my experience in the army in Vietnam is about the, the difficulty I had with it.

Um, I ended up suicidal toward the end, and particularly after I was discharged, uh, finally reached out and got some help when I had gone back to, um, undergraduate school. Western studying sociology. Um, at that point, uh, I think that saved my life. Then I immigrated to California after that. Uh, got a, uh, degree master's degree in marriage and family child counseling.

Was licensed as a marriage and family therapist. Uh, worked 25 years after I've. Receive my license. At first you get, you have to do an internship. So I did that for about two years. Got a license practice for 25 years before I retired as a marriage and family therapist, working with, um, individuals with drug and alcohol problems in various nonprofit programs.

And then later on, uh, moved a little more into nonprofit programs dealing with psychiatric disorders Major. Depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, so forth. Retired in oh five. I started writing. I started having interest in writing about 1980s when I was doing some mountain climbing. And I'm working on a third book by the way, uh, related to those experiences.

Um, and so when I retired, I got much more involved and interested in writing and, uh, got my first book. Uh. Once Upon a Kentucky Farm published in uh, 2022, and then my second book, the Vietnam Book, Barbar Brothels and Bombs in the Night, published in 2023. Um. So since my, my, my retirement, I've been focused on writing and I've liked to do other things all my life.

I've liked hiking. Um, gotten interested in pottery about 25 years ago. Still, still working to make pottery, um, love travel. Um, I do have, uh, as you see the background here is the background for my website and I do blog on my website about my travels, uh, some about the 12 steps, not a whole lot, and about my hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail.

So there's a lot of information out there about me and my background. So. That's kind of a, a long summary, but maybe have a question to lead me from here. Yeah, for sure. There's a couple of things I wanna focus on, starting with. You know, you talk about having an interest in writing since the 1980s, but when you wrote your two books, I mean, what was the point behind them?

One, obviously it was probably therapeutic to you in some senses and helped you realize a lot as most writers discover. But what do you hope the readers will take from it? You know, reading about Vietnam and a young man growing up on a farm in Kentucky. I mean, how does this affect Mr. Whiskey? How does it affect, you know, Mr.

And Mrs. So-and-so, what can we get outta it? Mm-hmm. Uh, there's a couple of paths that I can take on this for sure. Uh, yes, it, it is. Um, I, I knew before I st before I got these books published, when I was writing 'em that I wanted to share this about myself, I, and both of them are focused around my trauma, trauma childhood, growing up in Kentucky, trauma in Vietnam.

Um, I knew I wanted to write about that to. As a, not the final stage of my recovery process. Recovery's not ever completed. Um, lemme say a little bit about that a minute. The first stage of recovery you have to own. You have to realize, you have to accept that there's a problem. Maybe that's half the work right there.

Then you then. Perhaps you need to share it with a higher power. If you believe in a higher power, the next step is you gotta talk to somebody else about it. You gotta verbalize it, you gotta get it out. Um, ideally, and, uh, it doesn't work too well if you don't have someone that can't accept what you're saying without judgment.

But you want to have someone who will listen to you without judgment, not criticize you about it. And hopefully maybe guide you a little bit with it. But that's, that last part's, not necessarily Absolutely, uh, absolutely necessary. I think the next step, um, is in, is writing, at least for me. Right? So that's what I had in mind when I was writing these books.

Now I started writing in the eighties about climbing. I, I don't know if that was the case. It was so much about trauma. I had fear of heights, but I wanted to, I, I had liked reading about other authors who had been mountain climbers and so I wanted to kind of feel like I was like them to kind of be bigger than and relate to these historical, famous people.

Um. It became more, uh, clear to me when I got closer to when I started writing Kentucky Farm and, uh, and getting, getting near to publishing that. Um, let's see. So about trauma, I struggled with it. Um, the saving grace for me when I was growing up as a child dealing with my trauma was my mother and my two grandmothers, particularly my.

Maternal grandmother, she never criticized me. She gave me space to be who I was, and I didn't act out a lot around her. I was a decent kid, but I always felt like I was safe with her. Um, and in my second book in dealing with my trauma about that in, in the counseling, uh, Edith Ope. Who I dedicated the book to.

Um, I felt, uh, epitomized that, that kind of acceptance without criticism. Um, I was, I'm hoping, I was hoping as I wrote these and got 'em published and still do that, if they help one person, uh, that would be great. But the more the merrier, so to speak, that people can read them even though they're not a how to.

Um. We'll, we'll relate to them in some ways and gain some inspiration on what they can do to take steps and their further re recovery on their own trauma. And I do believe everyone in life has trauma. Not everyone ends up with PTSD, but all of us have trauma to different degrees, different times in our life, different ways.

Um, and it's all about how we deal with it. Um, so I, I, I'm hoping that people will read those and can relate to those not just as a, an interesting story, uh, with some interesting historical background, but also inspiration, uh, in how they can deal with those little or big experiences of trauma that they have or have had.

So I'm wondering if I covered, covered that for you. You did for sure. And you know, speaking of trauma, I just wanna take a little bit. Of a deeper dive into Vietnam. You talked about growing up wanting to be an astronaut to, you know, get away from this world into a new one, and Vietnam basically did that for you, took you to an entirely different world than what America was at that time.

So can you tell us, uh, about, you know, what were you doing in the Army when you got sent over to Vietnam, and how did that unfold from there? Hmm. Well, I, uh, as I said, I dropped out of, um, engineering school and I didn't want to enlist in the Army. I, I wanted to become, uh, a pilot in the Air Force. And actually when I was in engineering school, I joined Air Force ROTC, but because my eyes, my eyes went bad, my grades weren't good, that, that kind of iced the cake for me.

And, and I said, you know, I'm not gonna be an astronaut. And my dream of that, which I had been looking. Working toward since probably the eighth grade. So five, six years kind of fell apart and I didn't know what to do. And so when I dropped outta school, engineering school, I was in limbo. And at some point the draft board found out about that and decided, said, you know, we want you come on in.

So, um, I was, uh, drafted in January of 29. 29th of January, 1969. And when at that time we, um, went into the military, the first place we went was called an induction center. And that was like an orientation, uh, or orientation center that was like getting you the preliminaries and oriented and shaved heads and a and a, uh.

Uniform and knowing how to salute and how to stand at attention and march and make your bed and all that. Yeah. Uh, and you're there until you get assigned a basic training unit so that everybody in that basic training unit arrives to start the basic training on the same day. So they're kind of collecting people from here and there and, and getting them organized to start basic training.

And within three days of being in the orientation camp or so, they told us we're, go, you're gonna. Donate blood. Didn't ask us, they said, that's what you're gonna do. So they march us around a ways. And all this is among barracks? Yeah. Pretty much the same as you see, um, uh, the old World War II barracks and they, uh, had us in formation.

They separated us. They said, anybody here been in jail, in prison, convicted of a felony, blah, blah, blah. And they had those people raise their hand. They said, you go over there. They weeded out, quote unquote, all the undesirables, I guess, and, and then they said to us they're gonna go off and give blood. So they marched them off.

Well, the rest of us, they gave us the pep pep talk and a speech and it would, I don't know, 20 minutes or so. And the guy basically said, you know, you have an opportunity, um. To determine what kinda job you're gonna do, your MOS military occupational status while you're in the army. We will, if you take a test that will determine what you're qualified for, your aptitude, so forth.

And if you enlist, which means instead of serving two years under the draft, if you enlist and serve three years, we will guarantee that or one of those MOS, um, to you. And then he gave us the kicker. He said, I guarantee I knew it. You don't do that, you're gonna go to NAM in the infantry. And I said, uh, I ain't going to Nam in the infantry.

So I took the test and qualified to become, amongst other things, I guess they only told me about one, but they said intelligence analyst. I thought, now that sounds pretty safe to me. Right, right, right. Compared to infantry. Yeah. So I, I enlisted for that. The, the, uh, the, uh, designation is 96 Bravo 20. Um, so, uh, did the training for that, uh, spent maybe.

Five months between basic and a IT and one month leave before I ended up, um, shipping to Vietnam about June of 69. Um, when I ended up there, I was assigned to, um, 55th military intelligence detachment and they were part of two core headquarters in the Tran right on the beach. That was about 30 miles north of Cameron Bay.

That's pretty famous place. Most people would recognize that name. Um, and spent my time there. So I was in a non-combat role. I didn't, I didn't see combat directly, but the one thing after growing up, my father who was rageaholic and drinking, um, every moment of every day, and, um, I was aware I could get my butt butt shut off.

I sniper could get me from somewhere or throw a grenade at me or something. Yeah. And we were allowed, the first six months I was there, approximately, I was billeted in the headquarters compound. Actually. We were allowed to leave the compound when we're not on duty, go out to the beach right across the road, go downtown at night to the bars and the brothels and the whatever.

And there were times I'd go out. Um, and wondering, am I gonna get shot? Um, the latter six months of my time, we were moved and billeted out what we call the pie slice on the perimeter side of the air base or the airfield there in the train. So we spent time out there and when we were out there, we'd occasionally get a mortar attack.

So it became a little bit more, uh, tense for me at that point. Uh, luckily I was en enlisted in the VC or whomever were firing at us. Were more interested in the officers, so they'd shoot at the officer's barracks, right? And one time one of our officers got wounded, did. Uh, he was on the top floor mortar came through the roof.

It just corrugated steel, so it was like eighth inch or quarter inch maybe steel. Mortar came through, hit the floor in his room and exploded. He had gotten under his bunk, but it wounded it. One of the shrapnel pieces went into his big toe, and so he was wounded in the big toe. Oh, ouch. And we fi, I visited him after when he, when was back in his bunk with a bandage on his foot, and he said, well, I'm not, I get a Purple heart, but they're not gonna send me home.

So. I dunno if that gives you a gist of, of the whole thing there, but it, my trauma was not the physical part of wallowing in the mud and seeing people get killed or having to fire. Although we did stand guard a couple of times, um, mine was the fear of I was gonna get wounded or killed. That was very real to me.

Yeah. No, I, I completely understand that living every day, I mean, you mentioned going to bars and brothels and, uh, not barbed wire. Hopefully you weren't going into that, but, you know, no. You talked about were you living every day, like your last, and do you regret maybe, well, partying too hard or you made bad decisions?

Like what, how did that affect your life? Ha having that constant anxiety and fear that it any day could be your last. Yeah. Uh, well.

I, I, I went to Vietnam, a virgin, and I decided I don't want to, if I died of virgin, that would be sacrilegious. And I decided I'm not gonna die a virgin. And, and having hormones out the yin yang at 20 years old, of course, 21, of course. Uh, it's just, uh, like a moth to a flame or a moth to a light bulb. So I was almost compelled in that sense.

Um, now my strategy, when I went downtown, I'd usually go with someone else, A buddy or two. Yeah, one, one fella. And when we were in the streets, we'd usually kind of, it's like I'm amongst the crowd. I'm kind of safe. Keep your eyes open, watch out for each other. And I realize. Uh, maybe it wasn't as dangerous as I thought, but it could have been.

That was the issue. It could have been, I didn't know. Nobody knew, uh, when something was gonna happen. You know who, who, who would know if someone coming down the street has a pistol and they're gonna plan to, you know, kill the first GI they see. Um, there wasn't a whole lot of that in the terrain, but there was some, um.

And I, I had a little bit of a, well, now looking back, moral dilemma about, you know, prostitution. Uh, some of those girls were pretty young, and I don't know if they were being trafficked or not, but the way I looked at it, they were trying to survive too. They were experiencing trauma. I think everybody, you know, the, the, uh, Vietnamese people were.

Quite traumatized over this. Yeah. Um, so that was, that was one kind of, you know, questionable thing. I could judge myself about it, but I think I would say I did the best I could. I wasn't trying to be mean toward people or, you know, uh, malicious. But, um, that might be one thing I, I'd kinda regret, uh, about it.

But I, you know, being young, I, I think we all make mistakes. Yeah. Um, I. Uh, I don't know if, um, I, I would say there's a lot I regret about it. Um, after I was, um, discharged, I, I saved up money. We were able to buy a new car, quote unquote a new car. At that time, they were like two or $3,000 for us. I don't know if it was a discounted program or what, but I bought a.

Racer, uh, a Roadrunner. And, um, with the money I had saved up and, and of course I received it when I was discharged and got home, um, or. When I returned stateside, I should say that. And I used it while I was, uh, still in the Army and assigned Fort Bragg for another oh, year, year and a couple of months. But right at right about the time I was, uh, discharged from the Army and looking to go, um, undergraduate school again, Western.

I wrecked it. I wreck it 'cause I, uh, I've been drinking and driving and angry and so that was right. Pretty, that was a pretty clear message to me. Not right at that moment, but as I reflected on it that I was suicidal. Um, and that built up over the next few months that when I was in Western I decided I needed to go get some help.

So I reached out and got and started counseling. Um. I could say I regretted driving that night. But those kind of things, you can't really Yeah. Yeah. Put into a bigger context. It's like I, uh, you needed that. Yeah. Well, I did what I did so Right. I just doing the best I could to get by. So what I want to focus on here is, is you know, a positive message with, you talked about being suicidal and doing what most men don't do, especially men of the Vietnam era, which was reaching out for help.

Mm-hmm. And obviously a lot more men reach out for help nowadays than past prior, but. What would be your message around that to not just military men to everyone, but especially military men? You know, the importance of it, the humility of it, and the benefit of it. Um, I didn't, well after my discharging and.

Enrolling in, uh, undergraduate school at Western. Uh, there was a, um, kinda a quasi fraternity called VOC Veterans on Campus, and I decided to join that group. Now, we didn't pledge, I mean, um, uh, haze like they would in a sorority or a fraternity, but. Because we, we all knew we were, we'd been hazed by the army in Vietnam already.

So, uh, yeah. I, I think joining, I, I think if, if, even if, um, a veteran, particularly a combat veteran or somebody that's been in a combat zone, um. Doesn't feel like they need therapy or they have a major trauma or something. I think being around other people who can share your experiences with you is a start.

So maybe something like a, uh, um, American reunion, a veterans, uh, hall, uh, a group. Uh, I went to one here in, uh. Close by and they were doing like a games night and there was a lot of veterans there with I think their spouses and I don't know if they had children there, but they were socializing with one another.

So I think the idea I'm trying to get across here, the first thing probably really important is socialize with people who can understand you and then talk about it. People are gonna reminisce anyway. My dad did that old, he didn't do a whole lot of it, but reminisce. Um. And as things, uh, if, if things are significant enough, I, how would I say this a different way?

Um, if things are disturbing a person. If they're having nightmares or dreaming about it, if they're feeling intense about something and they just can't quite let it go, uh, then maybe they want to dig a little deeper and to talk to somebody, um, who may want to help them understand what the root of it is or how they can go about coming up with some, uh, skill building and techniques to process it more.

Um. For me, I think writing was good. Anybody could write about their experience, whether they get it published or not, or whoever they Right. Uh, share it with. I think that's good. Um, I don't know. Since I didn't use the VA in that way, I don't know how well. Uh, that whole process is, yeah, they're already helping identify PTSD and trauma and doing a therapy for that.

Now that changes, I, it's gotten better probably this last 50 years, but I don't know the state of it now. Um, I can't say, but that's one, one place to reach out. Then there are crisis lines, uh, suicide lines and, you know, help lines to, to call as well. Um. That would be the thing I'd say to reach out. But, but the underlying message along all that is just, you gotta have connections with people.

You can't isolate. It doesn't do any good to be alone. Mm-hmm. None of us, well, Aristotle said, man is a social animal. Um, when we're in the military, we're gonna create those relationships people, and a lot of times we lose those when we're discharged. I did. Uh, that's not all the case. Yeah. But, you know, reconnect with people who understand the kinds of things you went through and socialize.

And like I was said, uh, I think a lot of the va, um, places around would have opportunity for, for, uh, veterans to go with their families, have family events. And I think that's a great way to, a great way to keep that social connection with people and not isolate. Yeah, no, I love that, that community and support, especially because, you know, sometimes we don't wanna bring something up, especially the people who we feel like don't care or don't understand, but by being in a group of veterans is gonna naturally come up.

Uh, like you said, someone's gonna start reminiscing or someone else is gonna. Open up first. And it really, you know, makes that way for it. And that's why I encourage too, like if, if it's maybe like a faith-based group finding like a prayer group or Bible study, because you might have questions or conversations you want to have and.

You dunno how to bring it up. And someone there is gonna, hey say, hey, I want to discuss this topic. Or if it's women's mental health, men's mental health, whatever it may be. And I completely agree that we're social. You know, in the Bible it says it is not good for man to be alone. You know, God himself said that.

And the book of Ecclesiastes talks about how two is better than one. You know, if one person falls down by themself, they have to get up. But if, uh, they have someone there to pick them up and one person alone will freeze to death, but you can keep warm and. A cord of three strands is not easily broken. So I think that community is so important, and we've discussed a lot on this show that isolation post service where you, it's difficult.

You don't want to just make the military your identity and, and stay trapped in that. Uh, but there's a difference between. Staying, you know, uh, quote military man or woman, uh, and then being a part of that community, you know? Mm-hmm. Being with those fellow veterans or active duty members isn't the same as serving in the military still, and it being your identity, I.

So I think it's important to separate the two because a lot of people are so focused on no longer being in the military that they don't want any ties to it. And you know, I didn't enjoy my military service, but I still love spending time with veterans because they, they understand certain things that just my civilian friends.

Don't understand or they don't mm-hmm. Care or reciprocate. So I think it's important, like you said, whether that's the, I know for me personally, I participate in the Bingo Knights with the American Legion and it's a whole bunch of vets and you know, it's good. Even me as a young man, you know, there's still plenty of overlap between, you know, how the military is.

It's changed a lot and in some ways it's still the save. Mm-hmm. And so there's plenty of stuff you said that I was like, I can relate to that. Yeah. Uh, what I want to ask here, uh, as we begin to wrap up this episode is. Are there any more books in you? Do you think this is it? I know you love writing.

You've talked about a passion for it since 1980, so I don't see it going away anytime soon. Well, um, the one I I, I had been working on the first book, uh, once Upon a Kentucky farm and a little bit about, uh, barb brothels and bombs in the night. Before Covid, but when Covid came and we got locked down and I, I, one had two things.

One, I wasn't sure about my survival of Covid and two realized I was getting older and I had a lot of free time, so it kind of prompted me to. To publish at that point. So I, that's why I got my first book published in 22 and the second one in 23. Um, oddly enough, the one I'm working on now is the one I started on in the eighties.

That's my climbing experiences. Mm-hmm. I don't know if it's gonna be somewhat like a crossover between, uh, climbing adventure and memoir. Uh, part I mentioned earlier, partly it's not so much traumatic in the sense that unless you have an accident on the mountain or something, which, you know, I. Things have happened, but I had fear of heights and that at times I had to face that with some of the, uh, moves or particular mountains I was attempting to scale.

Um, so it was somewhat of a memoir based on some of my kind of traumatic, quasi traumatic, uh, experience of that, even though I volunteered to do it, uh, somewhat like unlike Vietnam and unlike my childhood, right. Um. Uh, so I, I don't have a working title at this point of it. I'm waiting for a, a person who's edited my first two books to finish her editorial comments of it, and then I'll work on, uh, getting that finalized and published.

And I'm hoping, uh, sometime, maybe later this year, I'm, I'm not trying to be in too much of a rush 'cause I really pushed the first two right. As I said, and I just felt like, oh, that was just, if, if I had not pushed them so quickly, um, I wouldn't have felt so burned out, but that was like, gimme a break. I, I can do other things.

I've got other things I can do. So I'll work on this third one. Take my time. I'm sure I'll do blogging no matter what I do with this third book, uh, my travels. Um, and um, my. Hiking of the Pacific Crush Trail, which I'm working on, and some more 12 step recovery, um, themes and, uh, people can read about those if they go to my website.

I don't know if that's, I think that's probably available. We've made that available to them. Um, and read a little bit about my first two books too, which are available on Amazon. Um, third one. I'll get it out there at some point, but I don't wanna break my neck over it. Right, right. No, definitely. I wanna backtrack just 1, 1, 1 minute on something that, that came up when we were just talking previously about, um, socializing if, if, well, one of the dangers about isolation or discharging from a military, let's say, and wanting to put that behind you.

If you start rejecting that part of your experiences, you're more apt to, um, create a, um, kinda a festering wound for yourself. Um, if you've got any trauma, it's kind of unresolved there. Um, otherwise you just kind of isolate yourself Anyway, so I, I think. A danger if people are in the, uh, military and they say, you know, they, they're gonna cut it off and they don't want to be involved with it anymore.

They're, they're rejecting part of their own experiences, which is unhealthy. Yeah. So I just wanted to make that point, uh, to encourage people. Yeah. I appreci that not to do that. For sure. And so we'll have the description for your website below with all the links and everything so people can look at your work and as well get in contact with you if need be.

But I wanna thank you for coming on the show today and sharing this, and again, for sharing your experience. Like I said, it's not something that. Many have gone through or will go through, but I think it's important to recognize it, to draw lessons from it that are universal. And again, to just better educate and, and grow as a society for the future.