Matt was cutting the front lawn, late in June, when Mr. Ed walked over.
“Hey, pal! You’ve about got the lawn done, huh?”
“Yes sir, I’m almost done for today. Have to go cut Papa’s grass tomorrow.”
“Good! Hard work is good for the soul. I am going to be out of town for a couple of weeks. Can you and Ellie get the mail and look after things for me? You know the routine.”
“Yes sir, no problem. Where do you have to go?”
“Well, we have a bunch of stops. First is the National Vietnam Veterans Convention in Washington, DC. Then we go to a small town in Pennsylvania for a Fourth of July festival. Our last stop is a Fourth of July parade in Maryland. We’ll drive about 800 miles in eleven days and do three different shows.”
“Wow, that’s a lot.” Matt said after a low whistle. “We’ll take care of the house for you. Hope you have a safe trip!”
“Thank you. Take care!” Mr. Ed said before heading back home to packing.
After Matt finished the lawn, he found his sister. “Mr. Ed is going out of town for a couple of weeks. We need to get his mail and newspapers every day.”
“OK, when do we start?”
Matt shrugged, “Tomorrow I guess. It looks like he’s packing up now.”
The kids went about their summer, enjoying the sun, playing on the river, watching fireworks, having picnics, and spending time with family. Every day they checked next door, keeping an eye on the house and picking up the mail. The highlight of their Independence Day weekend was watching the costumed re-enactors at Tryon Palace, a restored colonial governor’s mansion in their hometown. They celebrated Independence Day with colonial games on the lawn, a Continental Army reenacting unit’s twenty-one gun salute, and a reading of the Declaration of Independence by ‘Joseph Hewes.’
The interpreter dressed in Revolutionary-era finery, pretending to be Hewes, a delegate to the Continental Congress from Eastern North Carolina and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He climbed the steps of the palace and read the Declaration of Independence. An interpreter heckled as a traitor to the crown. The crowd cheered him as a patriot. A grand crowd gathered to witness the event. Afterwards, most worked their way to the nearby waterfront park for fireworks over the river.
A week after the Fourth, Mr. Ed returned home. Matt and Ellie were playing ball on the lawn when he pulled in. Remembering the trouble they got into last time, Ellie ran inside to ask, “Mom, Mr. Ed is home. Can we take his mail over?”
Mother agreed and helped Ellie with the mailbag.
“Thanks Mom.” she called as she ran out the door. “Come on, Matt, let’s go!”
The two kids ran next door, carrying the black leather mailbag.
“Mr. Ed, Mr. Ed! Welcome home!” Matt ran to the back of the SUV and started working to disconnect the trailer hitch.
“Well, hi guys! How was your Fourth?”
“We had a lot of fun. We heard the Declaration of Independence, had a picnic and watched fireworks. We even saw old muskets fire a twenty-one gun salute!” Ellie answered after placing the wooden blocks behind the wheels. Mr. Ed adjusted the wheel chocks and helped Matt finish unhooking the Loach.
“You guys sure know how to welcome a guy home. It’s a lot different than what happened when I got back from Vietnam.”
“Can you tell us about it? Last we heard you were on freedom ride.” Mr. Ed looked at Ellie, trying to remember what she was talking about, and then he smiled, remembering.
“Oh! You mean a Freedom Flight, the nickname of the airliners that took people home from Vietnam. When you rode one of them, you were done with your tour of duty. Off to the States, back to civilization, and freedom! There were two other ways to leave Vietnam. One was by ship. Some of the Marines and most of the Navy wound up going home by ship. The other way was in a box with a flag over you. No one wanted to be on that flight. My Freedom Flight left Ton Son Nhut and headed toward Guam.
“We passed the International Date Line again. This time moving ‘back’ in time. We landed in Guam before we took off from Vietnam. Now that was something kind of fun. Guam was hopping busy. B-52s, remember the big bomber you saw at the air show, were flying from Guam to deliver their bomb loads to North Vietnam. Civilian liners were taking GIs to Vietnam. Big Air Force cargo planes were passing through. An aircraft carrier was in the harbor, meaning a bunch of sailors were there on liberty.
“We had a five-day layover on Guam. This break was helpful for me. I was really struggling with feelings of guilt and abandonment. I felt like I had abandoned my buddies, and I needed some time to process my feelings. The USO had a presence on Guam, running a liberty beach on the island. We had a lot of freedom during this holdover. I remember the second morning very well – July 20, 1969 – a big group of us was hanging out in an officer’s club. They had a black and white TV running in the corner, a bunch of people clustered around it.
“‘Hey guys, what’s going on?’ A newcomer asked. Everyone stayed glued to the TV. I elbowed my way in and caught a grainy broadcast. There was a funny-looking ladder on one side of the screens. It looked like night, in the desert somewhere, maybe.
Finally, one of the men that had been there for a while said, ‘we’re about to walk a man on the moon.’ The desert I was seeing was the moon. The ladder was the side of the lunar landing craft.
“Just then, a heavy white boot appeared at the top of the screen. It bounded down the ladder. A man, in a thick white suit, with a rectangular backpack and domed helmet appeared. The figure paused at the bottom, and then he bounced off, landing with both feet. The audio was muffled, a bit garbled, but I heard Neil Armstrong’s words, ‘That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’
“The people in the officer’s club cheered as if it was the World Series. We stayed glued to the screen, watching Walter Cronkite talk about the landing and the accomplishments of the United States. This is one of those things that everyone remembers, like Pearl Harbor, Kennedy’s Assassination, 9/11. Events like that just stick with people. I was blessed to be able to watch it live, some of my men heard the broadcast on AFRN. Most did not see it till a long time afterward.
“Guam was nice. We were able to relax and hang out on the beach. We played basketball, volleyball, and football. The physical activity was a great way to burn off stress. I reported to the processing center the next day for my flight home. A staff sergeant operating the desk told me that I would have to wait since an incoming VIP flight had stopped all traffic. Disappointed, I walked out to get some fresh air. Guam was still hot, but the ocean breeze was fresh. As I walked outside a giant, white and twotoned blue airplane came roaring overhead. There was a giant American flag on the tail. The lettering on the side read United States of America. It was not a normal Air Force or Navy paint job. As it banked to land on the big Strategic Air Command runway that the B-52s normally used I saw the seal beside the passenger door. It was Air Force One, President Nixon’s plane!
“I was not able to see where the plane taxied. It was on the other side of the SAC airfield. Later, a week or two after I got home, I found a newspaper from July 25. While I was on Guam, President Nixon had flown in to deliver a speech. He was in the Pacific area to welcome home the Apollo 11 astronauts. I guess someone thought Guam would be a good place for a policy speech about Vietnam. Nixon’s speech said that the United States would be transitioning back to an advisory role. He called this new policy “Vietnamization”, or the Guam Doctrine. The American combat role would phase out, U.S. soldiers would advise, or teach, the Army of South Vietnam how to fight their own war.
“In the end, I got a week long R and R on Guam. That helped me transition between the war and civilian life. My flight off Guam was held up until the next day. Air Force One left a few hours after Nixon’s speech, but it took longer than that for Guam to get back to normal. My next flight was from Guam to Los Angeles. I’d overnight at Los Alamitos, a Naval Air station near there. Our chartered Continental flight landed at LAX, the big commercial airport in Los Angeles. We were guided to US Army buses waiting just outside the terminal. I noticed the buses had heavy screens welded over the window openings, the last time I had seen that type of modification was in Saigon. There the screens kept the VC from throwing hand grenades into the buses or trucks.
“‘Why the screens on the windows?’ one of the men asked.
“‘Screens keep out the tomatoes, when it’s too hot to roll up the windows. Move along,’ answered the Corporal driving the bus.
“‘Tomatoes, what kind of crazy place is this?’ said the man, shrugging as he got onto the bus.
“Once the bus was loaded, the Corporal started driving. Just outside the main LAX gates, before we were able to get on the freeway, a huge group of protesters stood holding signs. The signs said all sorts of horrible things. They were very critical of the war, and most of their anger was directed at us. I was furious. Why could the protesters not understand that we were just doing our duty? The crowd in Washington and the Generals made decisions and ran the war. Soldiers just did what they were told.
“We had to stop at an intersection near the protesters. Four or five of them ran up. Those punks were throwing rotten tomatoes at us, just for coming home. The tomatoes splattered on the screens, juices sprayed in, and stained our uniforms. The smell was overwhelming. Rotting tomatoes put off a nasty pungent odor. We had just spent a year of our lives sweating, bleeding, and dying so people could throw rotten tomatoes at us. The emotions that I had been fighting with on Guam came flooding back. I wanted to scream. I wanted to jump off the bus and throw tomatoes at them. I wanted a gunship to fly by and show them what it meant to be scared. Once we cleared the intersection and got on the freeway, things got a little better. The fresh air cleared the rotten odors. Time and distance allowed us to clear our heads too.”
“You mean the people in California treated you badly when you got home? That wasn’t very nice of them. Why did they throw rotten tomatoes at you?” Matt asked.
Mr. Ed scratched his beard, thinking about how to put things. “Well, a lot of people didn’t like the war. The draft was very unpopular. They thought we were fighting and dying for nothing. They thought that we were over there just killing Vietnamese. They really felt that there was no purpose to war other than to kill people. Some thought we were the killers. It was a tough situation. In a way, they were reaching out against what they could see. Later, I learned that there were peace demonstrations all over the place. Most of them were respectful protests. A few got out of hand. People were arrested, stuff was damaged, and some people even got hurt.”
“We spent one night in California. The next morning we put on civilian clothes. A whole host of taxis brought us back to the airport in groups of two or three. There, we boarded flights home. I had a flight from LA to Atlanta, and then went on to Raleigh. The night before, I had called my parents and arranged for Dad to pick me up in Raleigh. It was about a three-hour drive from home. He met me at the baggage claim area. He had been waiting, reading a newspaper and watching for me. He stood up when he saw me.
“‘Hi son, welcome home.’ He held his hand out. I brushed it aside and hugged him. We stood there, arms wrapped around each other for some time. He broke the moment. ‘Let’s get your bags. Your mother is dying to see you.’
We watched for the conveyor belt to bring out my luggage, the same kit bag that I had carried into Vietnam a year earlier. A bit worse for wear but still holding almost everything I owned.
“We walked out of the airport and into the parking deck to Dad’s old ‘58 Dodge sedan. The ride home was quiet, except for the wind blowing through the windows. It was the middle of summer in North Carolina. It was hot and humid, but it did not feel as hot, humid, or as oppressive, as Cu Chi. Dad did not ask many questions; I did not volunteer much. Three hours later, we pulled into New Bern. The familiar landmarks seemed to call to me. We passed the diner near the rock quarry, passed the brand new hospital building. We stopped at the light at the end of the road, waiting to make a left turn.
“‘Son, are you ready to go home or would you like to go somewhere and talk first?’ I expect that he had been chewing on that question since at least Smithfield, nearly two hours earlier.
“‘I’m trying to absorb it all. I need some time to do that. I’ve got a month of leave before my next assignment.’ I looked over to him and said, ‘Right now, I think that we shouldn’t keep Mother waiting. Let’s go home.’
“Was your mother happy to see you? I know mine would be, even if we spend a night away at camp she grabs us tight when we get home.”
“You know she was, Matt. Mothers are a special breed of woman. They always love their babies. My brothers and sisters were there, a few family friends, Dad had set up a kind of welcome home party. It was great for me to have that kind of transition back into the States.
“I spent the next month visiting old friends, getting my belongings packed and ready to move to my next assignment, and fishing – a lot. The flounder were especially big that summer, and I spent a bunch of time on the water. It was therapeutic to run the Jon Boat into the little creeks off the Neuse River, chasing fish. The quiet of the water, the warm sun with no one shooting at me. I was able to process my experiences and work through some stresses.
Many men were not so lucky. We were dumped back into a society that didn’t appreciate what we’d done, the sacrifices we had made – how our youth, innocence – and in some cases – body parts, and lives had been given to protect them from the threat of Communism. Many of my friends were spit on, berated, and mistreated. Their houses and cars were vandalized. Our fellow Americans treated them really badly. It took twenty-odd years, and another war, for many of those soldiers to get a genuine ‘thank you for your service.’ Even to this day, a lot of them have not heard those words in person.
“Anyway, I spent a month around home. The last week was a little hectic as I finished packing my belongings and moved to Fayetteville. My next assignment was with the 82nd Airborne Division’s Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Bragg. I had orders for a platoon commander’s position and a promotion to 1st Lieutenant.”
“Mr. Ed, I still don’t understand why people were so mean to you,” Ellie said. “It seems like you were all just doing your job. I don’t like it when people are mean.”
“You know, darling, I don’t like it either.” He smiled. “Sometimes people don’t know what else to do. They have strong feelings and want to be heard. Sometimes they feel like they want revenge, or maybe they think that they know better. In the end, the good people in the world have to work to try to make the world better – no matter how hard the bad people try to make it worse. That’s why I stayed in the Army. Well, that, and I like flying helicopters.” He gently elbowed Matt with a wink.
“Yes sir, did you ever forgive those protesters for being so mean to you all?” Ellie asked, showing her soft side.
“President Johnson, Secretary of State Kissinger, General Westmoreland, they all bought into the concept that we could stop communism by fighting its spread. Sure, they made some mistakes, but you have to look at what they did through the lens of the early 1960s. We were deep in a struggle against Communism. The ‘Red Menace’ was everywhere. The United States was leading the free world and desperately wanted to protect our freedoms. Every other –ism of the twentieth century, Nazism, Nationalism, Federalism, Monarchism – we fought with guns, planes, tanks, bombs, and men. That is what LBJ did. It turns out, though, that the best way to fight communism was by economic, not military, means. We fought Communism with dollars, food, radio, television, and movies. The government did not know that at the time, but hindsight is 20-20 they say.
“To answer your question, it took me a long time to rationalize it all. At first, I was very upset about the treatment we got when we came home. Later, and I mean MUCH later, I met a group of other veterans that put it in a different perspective. I will paraphrase what they said. Those protesters were exercising their First Amendment rights. The South Vietnamese people that we were fighting for did not have that right. That is why we were there – to try to keep the Vietnamese people free. The folks back home did not understand that. In a way, they were just like the enemy we were fighting, blinded by an ideology. They had a particular worldview, biased by people around them. In a strange way, we were fighting so that the protesters could protest against our fighting.”
“I guess that makes a little sense.” Ellie said, trying to understand the paradox.
“I wish the protesters had concentrated on the leaders, not the soldiers.” After a moment of thought, she looked up, “Mr. Ed, is there anything Matt and I can do now? You know, to help make up for the way so many troops were treated when they came home?”
With that question, he knelt down and placed a hand on Ellie’s shoulder, looking her in the eyes. “If you see men, or women, with buttons that say ‘I served’, a campaign ribbon, bumper sticker, or Veteran ball cap take a minute to speak to them. Most will happily tell you what unit they were with, where they deployed, or when they served. Don’t ask if they fought, killed anyone, or saw anyone die. Just talk to them with respect, like a friend. Most importantly, remember it’s never too late to say, welcome home.”