Flipping through an old photo album gives a daughter and a wife a glimpse of Vietnam they'd never seen before. But, this photo album--Jack Kelly's photo album--his own daughter has never seen.
"I'm the one who put it in a cardboard box in the closet. It's still there," Jack said.
This weekend was a tough one for Jack. Every moment prior to this one was spent trying to keep Vietnam under a tight lid.
"I think I blocked it," he said. "That's part of how I deal with things is drive it deep and forget about it."
Unlike Jim Vialard and Jesse Rodriguez, Jack was drafted.
"I didn't like the military one bit. I didn't like the regimentation of the military. I didn't like being ordered around one bit," he said.
But Jack got the job done. That's all it was to him. Little did he know how much that job was going to change him. He avoids crowds, sticks to what's safe.
"I go to a little tiny restaurant that's about this wide, and I have my little table over here. That's, ya know, table number 8, I have my own personal waitress. I actually hired her to work for me," he said.
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A Healing Reunion
As News 8's Crestina Chavez explains, three veterans persevered from the scars of a horrifying battle for their lives in a faraway land.
 
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Jack's almost positive it's a symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD wasn't the catch phrase nor what it monitored – like it is today. But all three, Jack, Jim and Jesse, say they suffer from it and went to great lengths to run away from it. They talked openly about how they turned to alcohol to self-soothe.
"If I started, I could not stop and at some point that took over, it just took over," Jack said.
Jim explained how he drank until his body wouldn't let him.
"Drank to get away from the dreams and some of the nightmares, it only made it worse," he said.
Jesse revealed how it almost destroyed him.
"It tore my family to pieces, myself, my wife, my kids, they were a big part of it," he said.
After surviving war, Jesse surrendered to the demons.
"And, I wanted to end it all, and I had took all my medications, and I went into a coma for three days," he said.
Jesse ended up in a psychiatric ward. He started going to a group with other Vietnam veterans. They came out to his house during this reunion as a show of support.
Jim is a self-confessed victim of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
"I never got a scratch other than my heart and my mind," he said. "To the day my mother died in 1980, she used to say to me, 'Well, they sent my boy's body home, but they never sent my son.'"
He never sought help, says he never will.
"I was taught that if I was a lallygagger, or I'd stop to feel sorry for myself, that I was a loser. So, I never stopped," he said.
But, the guilt Jim feels gnaws at him.
"Why not? I'm the guy that walked through it all, never got a scratch. I was the guy in charge of these guys," he said.
A taste of comfort. That's what brought Jack here.
"I told my wife I needed to go," he said. "I'd have walked here."
A wife who probably hasn't met the same man everyone else here knows. He's finally opened up about the past.
"Now, I've shared, I think that's a big step," he said.
On track in a new direction that brings together the old Jack and some old friends each with a hand in their salvation.
