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www.shamansociety.org 19 THE AMERICAN WAR NURSE BUILDS A WINDY TOMB My back is bowed from decades of carrying the soul of the legless girl who began as my patient but became my niece as we flew colored kites in the wind off my ship. In dreams my eyes are pink and swollen with the ocean of tears both shed and withheld since the angry wounded called her VC child and desperate arms snatched her back to the jungle. Today I carry one stone at a time. With each dripping tear I recite her name. Gently I let her down off my back and give my lost niece this tomb for a home. Eight children tumble round my fractured legs to help me lay the last stones on her cairn. One red dragonfly hovers in our wafting incense and a sweet breeze kisses my cheek with her name. Through the Vietnamese recognition of wandering souls Beth Marie Murphy achieved both spiritual explanation and comfort from her decades of dream- ing about Mein. This same spiritual explanation has proven useful to many war veterans that nightmares of the dead are not pathological symptoms to be eradicated but may be the souls of people violently slain trying to commu- nicate with the living.4 The Vietnamese belief in wandering souls their practices of building them windy tombs and honoring them as our lost loved ones or allies have brought significant help and relief not just to the Vietnamese. When embraced and applied with the support of spirit in respectful ritual and in the context of a loving community we may heal our disturbed relations with wandering souls whether they were family mem- bers friends our young charges or even enemy combatants. In Viet Nam continuity is everywhere. Travelers visitors even war veterans who fought against the Vietnamese are welcomed as brothers and sisters aunts and uncles. Together we can honor the wandering souls achieve healing for those souls and for ourselves and experience renewal and rebirth. About the Author Edward Tick Ph.D. is an internationally recognized transformational healer writer and educator and co-directs Soldiers Heart a non-profit veteran healing initiative. He is an expert on veterans PTSD and the psychology of military-related issues and has conducted trainings retreats and workshops across the country and overseas. He is the author of War and the Soul The Golden Tortoise The Practice of Dream Healing and Sacred Mountain as well as over 100 articles. Endnotes 1 Accounts of such encounters are reported for example in Bao Ninh The Sorrow of War trans. Phan Thanh Hao London Minerva 1994. 2 The excerpt from Nguyen Dus Call to Wandering Souls is from Huu Ngoc Sketches for a Portrait of Vietnamese Culture Ha Noi Gioi Publishers 1998 881. The translation of Dr. Huus. 3 This first section of prose and poetry is taken from Edward Tick The Golden Tortoise Viet Nam Journeys Los Angeles Red Hen Press 2005 98-99. The first paragraph has been added for introduction and some paragraphs have been reordered or slightly expanded for this article. The remainder of this article is published here for the first time. 4 This interpretation and its applica- tion to therapy and healing of war veterans are presented in Edward Tick War and the Soul Wheaton IL Quest Books 2005. U.S. Nurse Corps pin issued during the Vietnam War.