Combat – the ultimate Survivor game. The rules are simple – do whatever is necessary to stay alive.  Participants will have the opportunity to reach down into a very dark side of their being in order to endure situations where their life will be reduced to its lowest common denominator:  kill or be killed. For those who do survive, their life will be forever changed. Mine was. 

In early February of 1968 (during Tet ) we were conducting operations in the Au Shaw Valley.  Events from that time, and over the next 3 months, left me with a nagging question that has plagued me every day since – “Who Am I?”  My quest for an answer has taken me down many diverse paths.  And each path was clouded with the effects of PTSD: the nightmares, waking up in a cold sweat, being startled by the slightest unexpected noise, explosive emotional outbursts during frustrating experiences, and the self-destructive tendencies that have caused me to lose every job I’ve held since Vietnam.   

For me, what works to relieve my anxieties, is creative expressions – doing something that puts the anxiety outside of my mind.  For the past two years, I have been using Photoshop7 to create digital images to express the subject of my nightmare and fantasies – still searching for an answer to my life’s question. The only conclusion that I have reached is that there is no answer - only an ever deepening search which takes me closer the Source of Universal Creative Energy.

Comments from Bill McDonald: President of the American Author Association and author of several books including "A Spiritual Warrior's Journey".

I have used the talents of award winning digital imagery artist, Allen Gandy to design my book cover for my newest poetry book, "Sacred Eye - Poetry in Search of the Divine". His artistic eye and intuitive ability to come up with images that work with and actually enhance the book are remarkable. His book cover for my book was awarded the Gold Book Cover Award for Design and Style by the American Authors Association.