And no one dared wake Roy when he was sleeping for fear this stranger in his own home would react with violence.

"I don't know how I got married," he said. It has lasted until now, he figures, because he spent most of his children's lives working "24/7," as he put it.

"I had to do everything I could to keep my mind from focusing on those experiences," he said. But now his children are grown and he predicts his marriage won't last much longer.

He managed to keep his Vietnam experience from his children until about six years ago, about the same time he began seeing a therapist through the VA.

For Roy, the PTSD that will never go away has been and will always be his life's biggest frustration. If he's lucky, he sleeps about four hours a night — his mind and body are in a state of constant fatigue.

He likes to spend time in the garden. He reads. "I'll find something to do to fill the time," he said. "I have to be doing something all of the time." If not, the PTSD gets the better of him.

Roy doesn't consider himself a danger to himself anymore. And he refuses to throw his life away because of one problem, albeit a seemingly all-consuming one such as PTSD.

Having four grown children in his life helps motivate him toward change.

"I've come to greatly appreciate my children," he said.

And he's been helping local law enforcement officials during training sessions on how to spot and deal with PTSD. Veterans have also benefited from Roy's lifelong fight.

"I would do anything to help another vet who was experiencing, or possibly experiencing, the same thing as I," he said.

But helping a police officer or veteran to understand PTSD, even doing an interview with a reporter, means it takes Roy days just to recover from revisiting the Vietnam that was once locked inside his head.

Numerous medications and counseling are helping him to safely and rationally release some of the pain and anger.

Today he counts to 10 and thinks about his actions and reactions instead of "popping" someone in the mouth or chewing out his children for a remark that he admitted most people would not consider offensive.

Still, he doesn't laugh or smile much. "It almost takes a miracle," he said.

Through it all he has never leaned on illegal drugs to mask his problems or dull his senses. When alcohol became a tempting crutch to get through the constant physical pain and mental anguish he still endures, a self-described "strong-willed" Roy made a decision to dodge the bottle.

Roy admits, however, his inner strength isn't enough to keep him from thoughts of killing himself. When those thoughts reached a crescendo about six years ago — and with the urging of his children — Roy decided to seek help to beat back a beast inside that won't rest.

"There is a reason to continue to fight the battle," he said. "It is an animal you cannot and will never be able to conquer — I still fight battles and I always will."

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com