No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War.

It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.

- Richard M. Nixon

His voice was deep and distressed; words slightly slurred - sending a chill of fear through my body.

"I'll shoot the bastards! They're not taking me alive. And there'll be plenty of them coming with me!"

I felt panicky. So many hairy situations on the helpline phones before - but never murder threats. I thanked God and my trainers for the ability to sound calm and warm, unlike the pulse thundering in my ears.. and hands taking on a life of their own, shaking like an autumn leaf hanging from a tendril.

As a volunteer telephone counsellor, I'd had an average overnight shift. Earlier, teenagers had 'razzed' this helpline (bored certainly—lonely and needy as well?) An anxious enquiry about contraception; a few lonely folk who couldn't sleep as their problems crowded out their rest; a homeless youth desperate for a night's shelter, and several calls from a persistent sexual fantasiser who couldn't get enough of my deep phone voice. Patience and empathy were stretched tight on that call. But all had needed that friendly ear and the feeling someone, somewhere, cared enough to walk a short distance in their shoes. Finally, in those last darkest hours before dawn, the lowest ebb of the troubled human spirit was reached—a common time for the burden to get unbearably heavy, for the suicidal to lose hope.

He was a Vietnam War veteran with an irrational belief that police were coming to get him, sometime later. He was going to wipe them out, the bastards. Careful questioning revealed he had the potential to do exactly that. He had guns, including an M16 assault rifle; ammunition - a lot of ammunition, he said. The phone in my hand felt like he sounded - a bomb primed to explode.

Did he understand his phone call proved that deep inside he harboured doubts? Almost two hours later he could accept this. Two hours deep inside his world, I heard his pain, anger, frustration.... and his grief. Two long and painful hours before I could feel confident enough of his emotional state to finally say goodbye.

He poured out his horror of the suffering and death he had witnessed and been part of in the 'killing fields'. There had been a special agony at the deaths of the women and children. His despair and revulsion peaked when he talked of children used as bait, walking time-bombs, tiny trained guerrillas who needed to be killed as surely as their siblings, parents, grandparents. Anyone was capable of being a living booby trap, a killing machine.

Graphically, sickeningly, he described the agonising effects of napalm. The effects never seen by the now-distant pilots, but witnessed over and over by the soldiers on the ground. And he wept in anguish for the slow and tortured deaths of mates; the total blowing away of fellow fighters - close alongside one moment, partially or fully disintegrated the next. He cried then... and ever so quietly, so did I.

His world was a place of corruption, snipers, barbaric traps and snares, malaria and leeches. A wet, humid world, where stinking green mould grew on everything; where saturated shoes and clothing chafed skin raw, and then festered with disgusting infections; where men forgot what the word 'dry' meant; where men forgot what being human once meant.

His words were of horror, despair, and the heart-breaking helplessness he and his mates had suffered in one of the filthiest wars Man has created. This War, even more than others, had left its survivors emotionally bankrupt. At some point, despite desperately trying to hide my tears, he realised and was deeply touched. This was definitely not part of the normal counselling role, but on this night, on this call, it happened... subtly altering our connection. He'd felt no-one truly cared enough to understand his disillusionment, his anger and pain.

Like too many shattered veterans, he'd been treated as some kind of sadistic monster instead of a hero; loudly and bitterly abused on his return; made to feel guilty and ashamed somehow of his involvement. No 'Welcome Home' banners for these warriors, no celebration, no cheering. Instead they had spittle aimed at them, red paint thrown to symbolise the bloodshed, and abusive jeering.

Deeply saddened by Man's inhumanity, I also felt shame, remembering my own appalling selfishness through the disaster called the Vietnam War and the days that followed its so-called 'end'. I'd certainly cared as the media showed me the graphic story, but it was all so distant and unimaginable... and I was so busy milking cows. I felt great compassion for the men when they came home, and great antagonism towards the politics and the politicians who dictated yet another war must be fought by ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances... but what did I do? Nothing. I was busy.

"They just kept screaming a whole heap of crap," my caller continued. His voice had an underlying angriness as he talked of efforts to fit back into a now alien world. He was so uncomfortably changed, slowly and painfully suffering the frustration and heartbreak of trying to be the same person everyone had once known and loved. He despaired of ever freeing himself of the nightmares and memories that tormented him, of waking up screaming in the night. Alcoholic oblivion was one solution. Until next morning.

Throughout the call, he expressed his amazement at sharing so much. Only his old fighting mates, his fellow-survivors, had understood - but each and every one of them was struggling with his own demons. Like a steam valve opening and relieving the pent-up pressures, he painfully wound down as he sobered to the stark realisation of what he had been contemplating. "I must have been completely 'nuts' for a while there, love" he said. And he was right. 'Temporary insanity' is what they call it in law-courts.

Finally, we admitted our exhaustion and agreed to terminate the call. He promised to rest... and seek support and help from another veteran and his priest later that day. No 'shoot-out' was reported by any of the media that day - to my profound relief. He had kept his word. And I kept mine - a long and fervent prayer for the safety of these men as they continued their new battle against the painful enemy within. That haunting one called memory.

Until this night, my life had not been truly touched by the crippling effects of the war everyone wanted to forget. Humbled and grateful for the privilege of at last having 'been there' for one of these men in a moment of extreme need, I thanked God for the surprisingly supportive strength of a listening ear and a loving heart.

Postscript: 25 years after their return home, the heroes had their victory parade. Their 'Welcome Home' approval granted; the names of their dead listed alongside the victims of other wars in War Memorial sites. They marched the city streets; they were cheered loudly; many tears were shed.

It has helped... but it was so little, so late.

We were children of the 1950s and John Kennedy's young stalwarts of the early 1960s. He told the world that Americans would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship" in the defense of freedom. We were the down payment on that costly contract, but the man who signed it was not there when we fulfilled his promise. John Kennedy waited for us on a hill in Arlington National Cemetery, and in time we came by the thousands to fill those slopes with our white marble markers and to ask on the murmur of the wind if that was truly the future he had envisioned for us."

- Joseph L. Galloway, American newspaper correspondent and columnist