Between Truth and Fantasy

My Dad once told me, “Believe only half of what you see and nothing you hear.” I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but now I do.

Before I went to Vietnam, I read a book in the Northeast Louisiana State College library about hypnotism. It wasn’t a systematic instructional manual, but it did explain why hypnotism works and “suggested” how to use it.

I won’t try to explain how it works, but I gleaned enough from the book to test the theory. During my tour of Vietnam, I encountered many willing subjects and I soon became proficient at hypnosis. Delving with the brain can have serious consequences, something I quickly learned.

I was on a forward firebase in the middle of the jungle. My company had just completed a fifteen-day stint in the triple canopy never-land of the Vietnam War and we were luxuriating in a five-day stand-down on Firebase Betty. Fellow Sky Troopers had gathered around a fire as I prepared to hypnotize a soldier.

My shtick was to make a trooper think he was a chicken. Usually, the person hypnotized would crouch like a fowl and begin clucking and slowly looking for worms. This soldier’s reaction was quiet different.

Charles, a close friend of mine, became very frenzied. He jumped over the berm and began running down the hill, into the darkness. Trip wire and deadly claymore mines awaited him.

“One, two three,” I yelled, following him over the berm. “You are awake. Stop where you are.”

Charles straightened up and came to a halt, looking frightened as he stared into the darkness. I grabbed his arm and led him back over the berm, into the light of the blazing fire, surrounded by laughing GI’s.

Hypnosis is a reality, and not a joke. It is a powerful form of mind control and weeks passed before I used it again.

Louisiana Mystery Writer