We stopped in Subic Bay, the Philippines, to fuel up, but from then on, we sailed across the Pacific. I was never so happy to be below deck in a hot engine room.
After about three weeks, we landed in Seattle. I think I was the first one down the gangplank, and I literally kissed the ground of the United States.
I got my pay, nearly $2,000; Johnny got his, plus he received a “vessel attack bonus” for being on the ship when the rockets hit. My friend planned to stay with the Limon, which was probably going back to Vietnam. Not me. I was headed to New York, so we parted ways. Johnny reached out his hand, and I grabbed him and gave him a big hug. The guy had kept me and a lot of other people—and animals—alive during the entire Tet offensive.
I headed straight downtown for the first department store I could find, which turned out to be a J. C. Penney. There I bought underwear, socks, a pair of pants, and a shirt. I also picked up a pair of shoes—even a jacket. I asked them to clip the tags off everything, and I walked into the fitting room, put on the new clothes, and threw my old ones—the jeans and madras shirt that I had basically been wearing for four months—into a garbage can.
I hiked to the nearest big hotel and saw a line of cabs waiting out front. I asked the first driver to take me to the airport.
“What airline?” he said.
“Any airline that flies to New York,” I said.
He took me to American Airlines, and I bought a ticket in coach. For some reason—maybe because the plane was two-thirds empty—they bumped me up to first class.
A middle-aged guy in a suit was sitting next to me. He asked me where I was headed, and I just said, “Home.”
I guess that, despite my fresh new outfit, I looked a little worse for wear, or maybe because I was young, he asked me if I was coming back from ’Nam. I told him yeah, but that I hadn’t served, I had been . . . visiting a few friends. “It’s a long story,” I said.
He replied, “We have about six hours on this flight, and I’m all ears. How about a drink?”
He was drinking one of those cocktails they serve on planes, and I said, “Whatever you’re drinking, I’m drinking.” Appropriately enough, it was a Manhattan. I’d never had one before or since, but I had about four of them while I told him my story. Then, at some point, out the window, the skyscrapers of New York City appeared, and I teared up. They looked like they were fist-pumping the sky. I couldn’t wait to leave the plane at JFK Airport.
I thanked the businessman, went out and hailed a taxi, and told the driver to head straight to Inwood, Manhattan. More specifically: “To Doc Fiddler’s Bar on Sherman Avenue and Isham Street.” It was nighttime, and the city looked even bigger and sparklier than when I left—as if crystals had shot up out of the East River. I was lucky to be coming home, when others hadn’t. I hoped my buddies would come home soon, too.
I had gone to show them a gesture of support. I guess you could call it an extreme gesture of support. As the taxi wended its way to Inwood, I was thinking about whether what I had done was as totally reckless and crazy as some had said to me. Then the cab pulled up in front of Doc Fiddler’s—where it all began.
I walked in, and the bar was nearly full. Somebody spotted me and yelled out:
“Colonel! It’s Chickie!!”
Georgie Lynch, aka the Colonel—whose idea this journey was—yelled out, “Holy s—, Chick, you’re alive!”
“Yeah, I’m alive, and so are Tommy and Rick and Kevin and Bobby.”
There was pandemonium, and I didn’t care anymore whether it had been a reckless thing to do. The Colonel, who never drank on duty, poured himself and everyone else a beer and raised it:
“To Chickie,” he said, “who brought our boys beer, respect, pride—and love, goddamn it!”
There were cheers and more toasts and more storytelling. I saw they had a map over the bar on which they had been trying to trace my journey from Rick’s report and letters from the guys. Much later, somebody offered to drive me home, so I asked him to take me to my parents’ house in New Jersey. It was in the wee hours by now, and I rang the bell awhile until my father finally answered. When he opened the door and saw me, he called out, “Oh my God! Catherine, it’s Chickie!”
My mother came running out in her robe, and she hugged me tight and cried for a while. She said, “Chickie, promise me you’ll never go back to Vietnam again.”
I said, “Oh, I promise, Ma. I promise.”
That was an easy promise to keep.