This one is whippin' my ass.

Of all the battles I've been through, this brain damage thing has been one of the toughest. This isn't nearly as painful as the physical trauma that came after they took a skull saw and opened my head to get to the tumor. Sometimes emotional pains however, are just as difficult even though it's a completely different kind of pain.

Many of you have seen the pictures that Tim Jr took right after the surgery and among those of you who did, you can vividly see what I mean. Everybody pretty much understands the pain from various surgeries and many of you can understand the emotional battles of life but this one doesn't allow me to bring out the big guns and fight like a warrior to defeat it.

Battles are a strange thing. I say that because there are so many different kinds of battles that it's very difficult to relate battles like this to those of you who have been in other kinds but not one that's just like this.

It doesn't matter if it's a fist fight in school, a nasty divorce or a Regimental sized battle with the North Vietnamese Army. Whenever it arrives, you have to do something or be prepared to live with doing nothing about it. I can't do that. It seems that sitting on my ass with closed mouth is proving to be more detrimental than being arrested for hitting the guy over the head with a Campbell Soup can.

Going to war and fighting in battle after battle gives one a different perspective about fighting. A mini gun shooting 4,000 rounds per minute brings on a different thought about how one might fight. If you add a 50 caliber like we had on the Nighthawk Gunship and a couple of M 60's with their 650 round per minute capacity, that brings on a completely different reaction to situations where you are attacked. Put that in your problem solving arsenal and you may be able to imagine what I mean.

I realize that having some loud mouth at the grocery store that pops off with something that would justify a boot in his face, is a far cry from the kinds of battles that combat Veterans faced in war. What I now realize surrounds the fact that I don't recall any situation in my life where someone assaulted me verbally or otherwise, who didn't have to answer for doing that. I've never simply walked away from something like that and I now realize that regardless of how I handled problems in my life, I'm very satisfied with the way I responded to any and all attacks made against me. I don't have a single regret for any action I ever took against my fellow man, especially those who proved to be my enemy.

This situation is so far removed from anything I've ever experienced that I don't have any kind of comparative analysis to make. He might as well have spit in my face and said that he was glad Johnny Newberry died from Agent Orange. From that, I guess it's fair to say that: "Sticks and Stones may break my bones" is correct but incomplete. If you finish that old saying with, "But words will never hurt me", I see it as something that's totally inaccurate.

I went to the hospital today for my regular visit but was sent to Neurology after that. It was quite pleasant in that they were somewhat intrigued by the manner in which I handled the incident. I'll have a thing or two to say about that but will do so later because I'm really tired after a total of 5 hours spent there today. Stand by for more later.

Tim