According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of U.S military veterans in 2008 totaled 23.2 million. Of that number, 7.8 million were Vietnam-era veterans – approximately 33 percent of all veterans. And 740,000 of the living veterans served in both Gulf Wars (Aug. 2, 1990, to present.)

Gregory Buffkins Sr. nearly lost his life in Vietnam more than once. A Bronze Star recipient, he was an emotional wreck when he returned home.

Gregory Buffkins Sr., a Vietnam-era Army veteran, is still fighting the war in his mind. He is trying to return to some semblance of normalcy after experiencing grave conditions on the battlefield for nearly two years.

Darrin Price, who served 20 years in the Army, saw things on the battlefield that haunt him still. After serving in Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia and Iraq, he returned to Memphis an angry man.

On Nov. 11, both Buffkins and Price plan to observe Veterans Day in their own way – with family and friends who were there for them when they fought on foreign soil and didn’t know if they would return.

Buffkins is 20 years Price’s junior, but their stories are similar.  

Gregory Buffkins Sr.: ‘I see myself growing’

The war in Vietnam lasted 11 years and cost the U.S. government an estimated $200 billion according to one Cornell University study. Gregory Buffkins Sr. would pay dearly as well, though the heavy toll did not become apparent until after his military discharge in 1970.

Buffkins, 60, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which often develops after a catastrophic life experience or terrifying event such as war.

PTSD, he believes, eventually led to alcohol abuse, angry outbursts and addiction to powder and crack cocaine. “It was a form of self-medication,” said Buffkins, who wound up in prison several times for burglaries, forgery and aggravated assault.

He was in and out of rehab and married twice. He blamed PTSD for the dissolution of his first marriage. “I was fighting my wife and having nightmares,” he concedes.

He married his second wife while living in Washington, D.C. “She got choked on some food during a family reunion and went into cardiac arrest and died.”

Buffkins’ world from that point was off-kilter. He thought he could hold everything together. The alcohol and drugs, he said, only masked the problem.

He needed help with PTSD and thought a program in New Haven, Ct., would help him find peace. It was a temporary fix, he said, for he was not yet at a point where he could turn back this painful disorder.

Later on, Buffkins said he found a semblance of peace at Barron Heights Transitional Living Center, a shelter for homeless Veterans and citizens of Memphis and Shelby County.

“God has sent the VA (Hospital) and Barron Heights to me,” said Buffkins, who said he once thought it would be better to be an alcoholic than a person with a mental disorder.  

For the past seven months, Buffkins has been staying at Barron Heights trying to cope with reoccurring nightmares and heal the emotional battlefield scars. This is his second go-round at Barron Heights. Joyce Moore, he said, is his pillar.

“I see myself growing,” said Buffkins, who dropped out of Booker T. Washington High School, got his G.E.D. and was sent to Vietnam “like a flash.”

“I have my moments. But when we talk about what happened, my mind would go back” to Vietnam, where he nearly lost his life more than once.     

“I went to Vietnam in March 1968 as an infantryman. That first year I got shot in both my legs and my right hand,” said Buffkins, flexing the hand where a bullet had ripped through his tendons.

The injuries weren’t life threatening. After recuperating in a hospital on the base at Fort Polk, La., Buffkins was prepared to go back to the war zone in Southeast Asia.

He underwent surgery on his hand and 30 days later was dispatched to Fort Riley in Kansas, where he stayed three or four more months before returning to Vietnam.

“My brother was getting ready to be shipped over there (Vietnam), so I felt it was best for me to go back because I had been there before,” said Buffkins, who enlisted in 1967.

“I went back as a door gunner on a UH-1H Huey Helicopter (a gunship equipped with machine guns, rockets and grenade launchers).”

Promoted to crew chief, Buffkins was airmobile most of the time and fought the war from up high. He was shot once again. This time metal fragments crashed into Buffkins’ jaw and shoulder.

Another soldier was hit in the guts, he said. “I thought his blood had gotten on me. I was dazed for a moment, but I noticed the bullet had hit the mouthpiece on my helmet. I guess that saved me.”

The helicopter crashed after 81 bullets ripped through its metal hull, said Buffkins. “I was stitched up and two days later I was burned. I guess they were shooting mortars and I got burned.”

Enemy combatants also shot away the helicopter’s hydraulic line while Buffkins and his crew were repelling down the side of the Black Virgins Mountain along Tay Ninh in Vietnam.

Buffkins survived a third crash as well while the crew was dropping napalm during a battle. “They shot the tail boom off the helicopter. Then the ship went into an eggbeater (spiraling out of control). We landed in between the friendly and the enemy ... caught in the crossfire.”

With two tours of duty totaling 18 months, Buffkins managed to survive. He was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery and meritorious service. He returned to his own life.

“Once I got to Memphis, I felt out of place.”