By D. Lynn Smith

My first show working in television was for the Vietnam era drama, Tour of Duty. I was a writer’s assistant, which basically meant I typed any and all changes to the writer’s scripts, formatted the scripts properly, and made copies to distribute to the cast and crew. The second part of my job was to answer fan mail.

One day I slit open a letter and, to my surprise, a grenade pin fell out. I went on to read a letter from a man who served in Vietnam. He wrote that he was dug into a fox hole during a fire fight and pulled the pin on a grenade. Then he dropped the grenade. His life flashed before his eyes, but the grenade was a dud and he was spared.

He went on to write that when he came home from the war, he couldn’t talk to his family about what he’d been through. When his son would ask questions, his wife would shush him. Every night the man went out to the garage and sat there for hours, just holding that grenade pin.

Then he and his family started watching Tour of Duty. After the first show was over, his son asked him, “Was that what it was like, Daddy?” His wife didn’t shush his son this time. And he found himself talking about the episode and comparing it to his experience in the war.

When we received this letter, Tour was in its third season. He and his family watched every show, and talked about the war afterward. And this man healed. His last line in the letter was; “Because of Tour of Duty, I no longer need to keep this grenade pin.”

Even now as I write this, I have tears in my eyes. This was the first time I realized the impact something that is considered entertainment can have on the public. Tour gave vets and their families a way to talk about the war; gave vets a way to heal when nothing else could help.

I was lucky enough to have a similar experience when I worked on Touched by An Angel. I wrote an episode about a 16-year-old gang member who is sentenced to death row for a horrific crime, and meets his father, who is also on death row. The episode was about ending the cycle of violence and keeping the younger brother from going down the same path. After that show aired, we had 14 juvenile detention centers write to get copies because the episode had a powerful impact on the young inmates.

So what does all this have to do with comics? Since Gates of Midnight debuted, I’ve received several letters from people suffering from PTSD, saying that it’s good to see a character who suffers from the same symptoms they do. Just this week I had a young man tell me that it was refreshing to see a soldier (Raven) suffering from PTSD because most television shows and stories ignore that terrible side effect of being in combat.

I find people all around me suddenly willing to talk about how PTSD had impacted their lives. Everyone one of them say that they try to hide their condition because people just don’t understand it. These people aren’t just soldiers, though some of them are. Some are women who have suffered horrific attacks. Some are people who just experienced too much trauma in their lives.

When I created Raven, I wasn’t thinking about how this might impact those people, just like the creators of Tour didn’t think about healing vets or I thought about helping incarcerated juveniles. I just wanted to create a realistic character with real world problems. The knife throwing scene in the first pages of Issue #1? That comes from waking my father, who was a police officer, from a nap. It was the scariest thing because more often than not he woke up swinging. Luckily both my sister and I were quick on our feet and never got hit. About a year or so after he retired, that stopped.

So yes, PTSD is a real thing. Many people don’t realize they are suffering from it. Many people don’t realize they have friends and/or family members who suffer from it.

If Gates can create a way for people to heal, the way Tour did, then that is just icing on the cake for me. It’s a consequence I didn’t plan on, but one I welcome. And if anybody out there wants to tell me their stories, I’m happy to hear them. I already plan on using some of what I’ve learned from people who’ve written in, in the next issues of Gates. And I already published one letter I received, with the writer’s permission.

As I’ve stated before, Gates of Midnight isn’t an issue-oriented comic. But I do populate the world with people I’ve known from my own life. I’m trying to make the world of Gates as real as possible, at least as real as you can when there are monsters coming through a gate from another world!

Oh, and the grenade pin, I gave it, along with the letter, to my supervising producer. He’d served in Vietnam as a helicopter gunner. I felt I left this man’s heart in good hands.

In memory of many, in honor of all. Thank you