CUE: The Day the Music Died, DON MCLEAN
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.”
Charles Dickens tried his best to liken all ages, one to another, in the opening of A Tale of Two Cities. I wonder if in eternal retrospect he had any idea how close to the mark he had come.
As our plane touched down on the extended runways in San Francisco, great elation rose from the back of the aircraft. It was a combination of relief and euphoria. I suspect it was a sensation my father and my grandfather experienced after their times in the war. Indeed, it has probably been the same for all returning American veterans, save those who served the South so faithfully during the Civil War. Those who wore the gray went back to find their homeland changed forever and strange new values in place. It took me decades to understand that those who came back from the unpleasantness in Southeast Asia did so amid a wave of change that was sweeping over the land of our birth. On that cold morning, as we crawled off that civilian airliner in San Francisco, I doubt if we had any sense at all of the growing new mind-set in America. Before we reached our homes, it would become all too clear.
We were ferried to the Oakland replacement center in an army-green bus, which somehow took a bit of the exhilaration out of the triumphant return. We were once again in a United States Army that demanded all sorts of protocol. Upon reaching the replacement center, we were unceremoniously stripped of our jungle fatigues and sent into a shower built to handle a hundred men at a time. As we bathed and marveled at the clean hot water, our clothing was sent to be burned. It was a sort of funeral rite for all we had become in the past year.
I have no idea how many hours we wandered through the jungle of forms and instructions in Oakland. I can only remember that eventually, I stood with a number of other uncomfortable-looking characters, clad in a dress-green uniform, bedecked with all sorts of ribbons and badges. The new bits of color on the green uniform would tell my story of service to those who knew the code.
The group of men was halted before a set of large wooden doors that barred the way to freedom. An army chaplain stood before the doors and held up his hand for silence. As the crowd quieted down, the older man looked over the group with a gaze that brought us all up short. We sensed something important was about to happen. He lowered his hand and spoke in a clear and amazingly compassionate voice: “Gentlemen, the president of the United States and the secretary of defense wish to thank you for your faithful service to your country.”
He took a beat and let that statement fade away. Then his voice changed, and he was suddenly one of us, as the combat infantryman's badge on his uniform silently indicated:
“I know that many of you have had to do some pretty hard things in the past year. The very fact that you made it back to stand here today means that you did your job, did those things well. Now you're home…. Don't ever f——g do it again.”
With that, the huge doors slid open and we stepped out into the sunshine. We were home, and we were free to go where we pleased. I believe that was the strangest feeling I have ever had in my life.
Outside I found Chester Johnson waiting for me. We shook hands, flagged a taxicab down, and headed for the airport. While waiting for our flight to Texas, it became obvious that we were somewhat invisible to many of the people around us. Folks who were the typical model of middle-class America seemed to turn their eyes away as we walked by. That is, many did so. Others seemed to fall into two groups. Those who were old enough to have lived through World War II greeted us with warmth and a certain parental-type pride. Young people who were of college or even high school age looked at us with smoldering eyes and projected an open disdain. Chester and I were both taken aback by the attitudes, and we found ourselves withdrawing and avoiding encounters with other passengers. It was safer to just exist until we got back to Texas and more familiar ground.
As it turned out, even Texas was not completely exempt from the new wave of hostility toward those who had fought in Southeast Asia. As I made my way to my father's office on the campus of what was then North Texas State University, I was stopped by a pretty young woman who wore a headband and bell-bottom jeans that looked as if they had been washed in battery acid. She ran her tiny fingers over the combat ribbons that brought color to the front of my green uniform. She looked into my eyes with an anger that was overwhelming and asked me, “How many babies did you kill to get those?”
I still had a short time to do in the army. Like so many, I was sent to a training command to live out my last days as a soldier and bring along the new inductees. As a combat survivor, I would be charged with preparing the new men for what lay ahead of them on the other side of the world. During this period of service, I never ran into any of those I had served with in C Company, 1st of the 5th. Indeed, it would be three decades before I would see any of them again.
We had all gone to Vietnam and to the company one at a time. We arrived alone, and we went home the same way, leaving in each of us a sense of the unfinished and the unfulfilled. We shared the unexplainable experience of war together and then were split apart and left to fend for ourselves, after learning to depend on each other so desperately.
Thirty years later, the survivors of the 2nd Platoon would gather once again in the tiny town of Holden, Missouri. The Internet provided the means of locating and contacting those who had been swallowed up by time and distance. We were no longer young men. A lifetime had worked its will upon us, and we met as aging veterans of what had become only a sad footnote in the history of this country. Clements's close-cropped beard was snow white, and French had a silver mustache that was nothing short of sporty. Bradley and Vunak had both gained weight, and I had lost all the hair on top of my head. Lester still looked very much the same, as did Gilreath and Lieutenant Clark, yet the years had understandably turned us all into different men than we had been. We were different, and yet, as we talked and laughed and cried, the years seemed to fall away, and for a short time the young men we had been seemed very much alive.
Oddly enough, this gathering was at the invitation of the family of Joe Raber, who were holding a family reunion in honor of Joe. It was fitting. It was a blessing. It gave Joe's family a chance to spend time with those who had been close to him in his last days and who had loved him in ways that might comfort them for such a tragic loss. This time was a blessing for us as well. The years had left us with an empty place in our makeup. It was a place reserved for those who had shared a terrible time together but had not had time to decompress after such a deep dive into the depths of man's inhumanity to man. Thirty years later, in a tiny farming town in Missouri, we came together again and for three days were a unit once more.
As we separated and returned to our lives, we took with us a renewed relationship that is still very much alive. We talk on the phone and e-mail often. We send Christmas cards and jokes to each other. When loss strikes us now, we close ranks and send our love and respect to families who always seem unaware that their loved one was once admired and held dear by a group that is now so diversified but was once a family, forged and made strong in the fire that few truly understand.
The war is a long time gone now. As Americans we have all moved on and even immersed ourselves in new military conflicts, which have impacted the country in much the same way as did Vietnam. Life has come almost full circle for me since summer ’69. I have had a full and wonderful life with a kind and understanding wife and friends who surround us and fill our days with goodness. The times that seemed so confusing to the world have given way to other times and predicaments that have been faced by new generations in much the same fumbling ways. The nights of blood and terror in the Asian darkness seem long ago and so very far away to me now. And yet, on summer nights when the Texas breeze blows warm and the darkness seems to take on a life of its own, I still drag myself from sleep, hearing the scratchy, metallic sounds of the radio that call to me from out of the undying past.
“Five Four Whiskey,…Five Four Whiskey,…Niner Four Oscar.”