A few personal snippets:

In Nam as a newbie I'm burning shit. A lot of newbies did that. The same night I drink Black Label beer. It helped with the perspective. In Mai Loc and other exotic locales I escape with what passes for my life then later...more Black Label. In Japan, alone, oh so friggin very alone, bawling tears into my pillow for my wife and four year old son which even now I hate myself for driving away. I reach for the very same bottle which put me on that lonely pillow in the first place. I weep for that second woman...the one legged woman I married. I weep for our dreams. I weep for the baby boy we almost had. I weep for the supreme irony...that a woman who at sixteen learned she must surely die, struggled back, found a guy who loved her for who she was, became pregnant, shared the joy which only knowledge of an expected child can bring...only to discover in her seventh month...she must surely die...and with her...the child. More beer. And then the ultimate folly. Another marriage. This time two children...a boy and a girl. A family. This too gone, divorced, after six years of politically correct sobriety and gainful employment. More beer. Not sure if reality or beer is the problem.

None of this is particularly unique. In fact it is so UN-unique I know dozens (hundreds?) of people with similar historically interesting baggage. Are they all drunks? Nope. Not all of them. Others smoke weed. Others snort hallucinogens and still others get a special release from working and doing...constantly...busy...busy. There are as many escapes, it seems, as there is baggage.