The question of our mortality is one we likely avoid dwelling on.

And for many of us, the thought of encountering a ghost would be a terrifying experience.

But there are those among the Vietnamese people who are so accustomed to the idea of

ghosts, they refer to them simply as their invisible neighbors. Their beliefs dictate that unless

their bones are properly buried, their spirit may remain bound to the earth, tragically unable

to pass on to the afterlife. And in war, a proper burial is a luxury,

unafforted to many soldiers and civilians, their bodies being completely obliterated by an artillery

shell or forgotten and lost to both rot and animal predation in the jungle. It would seem that becoming a ghost is evidently a

far more terrifying prospect for people who are accustomed to seeing them walking among the living.

The American forces discovered this belief what they considered a widespread superstition

and used it to formulate an effective psychological

warfare campaign against the North Vietnamese, an operation known as Wandering Soul.

But are these just mere superstitions?

What would an American soldier think when he finds himself encountering something that he doesn't believe in.

I'm Luke Lamanah, and this is wartime stories.

... This story belongs to a man we will call Thomas.

As noted by his friend Craig Jorgensen, a fellow war veteran and the author who interviewed him for this story,

Thomas is described as being the quiet, deeply religious, dark-suited conservative type, who just happens to be a Vietnam veteran.

This isn't your standard war story, Thomas told him. I mean, it's not the typical

there I was with the Shushine kid who had a booby-trap grenade kind of story. Or say the kind of story

where the Viet Cong attacks your camp. And then when you're looking over the dead enemy bodies in the

wire, you see the body of your favorite barber from the base barber shop who always cut your hair.

...