Stumbling Home
The first leg of my flight out of Vietnam only took a couple of hours. We flew to Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa, which at that time was an American Protectorate. Just about the whole island was a U.S. military base, with the largest force being the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps used one of their many bases there for the processing of Marines and Corpsmen going to and coming home from the Republic of Vietnam (aka Shithole). On my way to Vietnam we’d stopped in Okinawa. That’s where my bag had been mislaid along with my orders. My week being the butt of their jokes prepared me for my time ahead with the Marines.[1]
This time, I was on the other side. I was no longer the fresh-faced, dumb, never-been-outside-the-country-or-to-war-small-town kid.
As I looked at all the faces of the young men, headed into a hell the likes of which they couldn’t begin to imagine, I wanted to tell them, kiss what you know of yourself goodbye as you will be changed forever — good, bad or worse than you could possibly conceive but change you will, if you survive.
Only now do I truly understand what I saw and heard back then. The distant looks, some of the “Geez, I’d feel sorry for you but I’m outta here.” Buddies nudging each other, “Look, the new cannon fodder,” along with a few, “You’ll be sorry, if you live.”
I’d spent over a week in Okinawa on my way to the Shithole being shuffled around, given immunizations, and issued Marine Corps working uniforms.[2]Somewhere on the island, I had stored another green sea bag with all of my Navy uniforms, whites, dress blues and other such novelties. Much to my surprise it was found, however, much like what happened to the clothing I took over to Vietnam with me, they were stained green (even the blues). The old sailor trick of placing your uniform items in plastic trash bags works well as long as the bags stay intact. My only option was to let the Marine Corps issue me a winter uniform to travel in. Instead of wearing my Navy blues home, I got the Marine winter green with a Navy 3rd Class Hospital Corpsman insignia on it.
There I was, awaiting a flight off the island of Okinawa, like any other military cargo, not knowing when the flight would be. While I waited for a flight to be manifested, I ran into another St. Albans alumni, Greg Buker. He was in the original draft out of there as I was. He’d been assigned to the 7th Marine Regiment which had been somewhere around the Da Nang area. He was in one piece with all of his fingers and toes. He also had stories about some of the other St. Albans alumni. He joined Stokes and me at the Enlisted Club that evening, and we discovered he had also developed a penchant for finding sleep the same way we did — drink till you pass out and laugh along the way, no matter how stupid or ridiculous things seemed. A table full of Vietnam veteran Corpsmen got away with a lot of shit at the Camp Hansen Enlisted Club. I still find it funny today that when the club closed at 2 am, the MP’s would line the walkway from the club to the open bay barracks armed with night sticks, seven mornings a week. Also, the tables and chairs in the bar were bolted to the floor to keep them from being tossed about.
Vietnam produced a lot of angry Marines not to mention the unit pride and racism that existed, both of which could be fuel for people used to settling their differences then and there.
After a couple of days of being told to hurry up and wait, the day finally arrived. Stokes and I found out that our flight would be departing the following afternoon or evening. That meant one more night of walking the gauntlet then back home to CONUS (Continental United States) on a World Bird. God help us, the military loves its acronyms. World Birds were chartered planes from various airlines, including Eastern, Pan American, and Flying Tiger, used to fly us to and from CONUS. The planes are just like a civilian would pay to fly in. No booze though, just two airline meals. There was also a layover at the civilian airport in Anchorage, Alaska. What a sight. The bar was a log cabin-ish structure, with bear and moose heads on the wall, overhead log beams, red checked flannel curtains, and tablecloths. Stokes and I managed to chug a couple of beers before re-boarding for the final leg of the flight to Travis Air Force Base outside of San Francisco. It may not have been much, but they helped me sleep for a bit.
Our first touch back on American soil did not elicit much excitement from a lot of us. It was only Alaska, which is formally not part of CONUS, the 48 contiguous states. So it still seemed we were far from home. The real breath of freedom would be in California. When we finally landed at Travis Air Force Base, there was a hearty cheer from the passengers. Stokes and I were pretty mellow about it. We’d only chatted a bit on the flight, and it was more in remembrance of people, Marine and Navy alike, so I if I was to label this, we were developing Survivor’s Guilt. He’d lost his childhood best friend, “Gus” Gustafson[3], with whom he joined under the buddy program.[4]I was a poor substitute for a bond that strong.[5]
It was zero dark thirty when we de-planed, and all we received was a cursory look at our half empty sea bags by Customs folks. All the rumors about returning servicemen’s bags being emptied out onto benches and floors and Customs agents digging through everything may have happened to others, just not to us. Stokes, another Corpsman and I grabbed a taxi to San Francisco airport. The Air Force provided nice buses to take us to the airport, but none of us wanted to be stuck on a bus, no matter how nice. It seemed too pedestrian, not suitable for people who were in a hurry to buy an airplane ticket and find an open airport bar. The other Corpsman left Stokes and me to go find an airplane to take him to some place on the East Coast. I went with Stokes to an airline counter where he purchased his ticket for Somewhere, Texas. At first I was told there weren’t any flights to Memphis, TN until later in the day, however, the ticket agent then referred me to Eastern Airlines (I think) to catch a 6 am flight. I found the counter, bought my ticket and then to our disappointment, the agent informed us that the bars at the airport didn’t open until 10 am.
In any case, in four hours I would be on my way back to the place I couldn’t wait to get out of two years earlier — New Madrid. To my surprise, I looked forward to going to a place that had a certain amount of familiarity if not comfort about it. I could take a real shower, eat a hot meal, have ice in my drink, and since it was winter in southeast Missouri, there was no humidity to contend with. Some time around 4 am that morning, whatever the day or date was, Stokes and I shook hands promising to stay in touch. We never did, separating as he headed to Dimmit, Texas and then San Diego, California and me, off to New Madrid and then New Orleans, Louisiana to finish out my eight months remaining on my enlistment.
I’m not sure how or why people stay in touch after such an experience. I didn’t feel like I belonged to a merry Band of Brothers. I felt like a survivor. I didn’t want to rehash “The Good Ol’ Day’s” because there was nothing good about them. If you were to meet up with someone you knew from back then the conversation would inevitably involve memories like, “Old Jimmy Bob got his brains, what little he had, blown all over the rocks just east of Laos.” Or, “Remember when what’s his name lost his leg in that mortar barrage?” Hmm, I’d rather not recall the ones who died or were mutilated.
From time to time, I would run into other Corpsmen throughout my career and conversations would wind up being, “Who were you with? Oh yea, real ass kicking outfit.” (No matter which one it was.) “Yea, really terrible time to be there.” And the not so funny joke, “Oh Wow, congratulations for winning the lifetime achievement award.” No thanks.
I came to realize that everyone else’s experiences are always worse than your own. As far as I was concerned, if you were alive, hopefully with ten fingers and ten toes attached to the arms and legs you were born with, you were doing well. And, of course, if your genitals were still in tact, you were great! That was always the first area you checked post explosion.
With my ticket in hand, I proceeded to my gate. Ahead of me, a group of straggly hippy looking dudes moved off the wall of the concourse and stood in front of me. Hmm, no, not today, not to me, I neither need this nor do I want this. When I was in the Shithole, I’d heard stories of people returning home and getting into fights at the airport when they returned. Not once did I ever think it would happen to me, small insignificant me. None of the dickheads were particularly large, but there were several of them against one of me, and at this time of the morning the airport was predictably empty.
“So baby burner. Just get back from bayoneting some old men, women and children.”
“No asshole, if you had half a brain you’d see I’m a Corpsman. I took care of the wounded and injured.”
“Fuck you baby killer.”
One of the guys moved forward and pushed me in an attempt to provoke me so I’d swing first. The pushing went on for a few seconds when another of the shitheads stepped in. That’s when I got the first and only connection to one of the dumb asses’ jaws. I knew that it was only a matter of time before I got my ass kicked so I had to at least get in one good punch. As I was getting ready to be pummeled for god knows how long, a policeman finally showed up and separated us. He dismissed the hippies with a few words, “Don’t you have something better to do.” Then he turned to me and said, “You’ve been away for a while. Someone should have told you to change into civilian clothes before you got to the airport. Anyway, get to your gate and stay there until the plane leaves. Just don’t cause me any more problems.”
I never expected a hero’s welcome, a parade or even handshake. But after surviving the kind of hell on earth that was Vietnam, you can’t imagine the kind of betrayal you feel when your countrymen brand you a criminal for doing your job. It’s easy to believe you would die before you killed another human being, or that you could never hate another living soul, but you can never know or predict the person you become once you’ve been in war. And that is something those hippies could never understand. What they saw on television or in photos didn’t convey the pain of losing your own humanity and what it took to stay alive in the jungle and try to come out reasonably sane without wanting to kill yourself.
I was relieved to not get my ass kicked by five foul smelling dickheads and to not get arrested, but oh yea, the uniform you’re supposed to take pride in makes you a target in your own country. And their message of peace and tolerance through their own violent methods wasn’t making the world a better place. The police became complicit while Walter Cronkite’s and the rest of the media’s one-sided narrative fueled the fire. Welcome home Mother Fucker!!!!!
[1]Whatever You Say, Sir https://medium.com/war-cigarettes-and-san-miguel/whatever-you-say-sir-d84b1e71fbdf31 October 2017
[2]Id.
[3]Gus had been killed when a mortar round struck the edge of a foxhole he was in as he tried to treat a wounded Marine, somewhere around Khe Sanh.
[4]Merry F*@&in Christmas, https://medium.com/war-cigarettes-and-san-miguel/merry-f-in-christmas-2844a258a5e47 November 2017
[5]Life in the Rear https://medium.com/war-cigarettes-and-san-miguel/life-in-the-rear-a36b873d71658 July 2018
