CHAPTER 18

HOME AT LAST

FEBRUARY 16, 1973–EARLY MAY 1973

SHORTLY AFTER JERRY LANDED, the Curtis family, along with Terry’s parents and Jerry’s sister, were escorted to a small, one-bedroom suite with a kitchen and sitting area in guest housing on Keesler AFB. There they visited for a couple of hours, continuing to celebrate Jerry’s return home with hugs and tears of joy.

But it was time for Terry’s parents and Jerry’s sister to leave with Tommy and Lori for their return to the couple’s home in Alexandria. The grandparents planned to stay there with the children until Jerry completed his three-week convalescing at Keesler’s regional hospital. Terry intended to stay with him, and then the couple would return home together.

Once everyone had embraced Jerry one last time, the family members left, and Jerry and Terry were alone in the small suite. They stood quietly looking at each other, the realization suddenly upon both of them that although they were husband and wife, they were also eight-year strangers.

Jerry broke the silence. “Are things still the same with us?” he asked with his usual penetrating gaze.

“Yes, of course,” said Terry, attempting to sound as positive as possible. “Of course,” she repeated but remained standing where she was.

“And you think we can work this out together after so long? It’s been eight years,” said Jerry. His voice was intense.

Terry nodded. “Yes, I want this to work too. And it will —we will make it work.”

Jerry reached toward her and placed his hand under her chin. “I love you, Terry, so very much. And I’m so thankful you waited for me.”

The woman who had occupied his thoughts more times than could be counted was now at last in his arms.

During Jerry’s time at Keesler, medical and dental appointments, as well as complete debriefings, filled his days. Each morning Air Force intelligence officers recorded everything Jerry could remember about the situation in Hanoi. Since several hundred prisoners remained in North Vietnam, gathering as much data as possible was imperative. Names, shoot-down dates, and any information concerning any servicemen who may have been captured or lost in the theater of operation was of vital importance.

Then, each afternoon was consumed with medical exams and tests. But mostly, due to years of poor diet and hygiene, Jerry required time in the dentist’s chair.

As he entered the dental office for the very first appointment, he shook hands with the dentist, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, who would be in charge of the extensive work he needed done.

“Sure hope this goes better than the last time I was in a dental chair,” Jerry said to him while the dentist began pulling on his gloves and adjusting his light.

“How’s that, sir?” the dentist asked.

“Well, the last time I was in a dental chair, it was just a crudely made wooden seat with a straight back and boards for arms in what looked like an empty concrete storage room,” laughed Jerry.

“Oh, my,” the dentist said, “that must have been in the prison in Hanoi. Tell me about it.”

“I had broken a molar down to the gumline in 1967 on a piece of rock in my rice —it abscessed a couple of times a year after that. The pain was so bad, I had to sleep sitting up to let it drain. But when they thought our release might be imminent, the V began attempting to meet some of our physical needs. So one day last year, an armed guard took me to a small room I’d never seen before at the Hanoi Hilton. A medic who didn’t speak a word of English —I’m not sure how much dental training he had —tried to extract what was left of the tooth,” said Jerry, remembering back to the painful experience.

“He gave me what was supposed to be a shot of Novocain from the largest syringe I’ve ever seen, but it never deadened the area around my tooth,” Jerry said. The dentist shook his head.

“Then,” continued the patient, “he couldn’t get any leverage on it. Time and again, he would try to get the instrument around it to extract it —each time he pulled, it felt like those roots were attached to my privates!” Jerry could laugh about it now.

“Oh, no!” said the dentist, “What happened —was he finally able to remove it?”

“Well, each time he yanked, I bolted upward in the chair —he knew I was miserable. He would take the syringe and give me another shot. I truly believe he was trying his very best to help me —and to keep from hurting me. But something was wrong with the Novocain —it just wasn’t effective. Finally, he turned to the guard and said something. The guard left, and in a few minutes he came back with four bricks.”

The dentist’s eyes widened. “What on earth did he do with the bricks?”

“That is what I was thinking —don’t tell me this guy is going to try to knock it out with a brick!” Jerry continued. “But he stacked the bricks beside that wooden chair so he could be taller and get more leverage on the tooth. He sliced open the gum and finally was able to dig down enough to get a grip on the roots. For about a month afterward, it continually sloughed off pieces of bone.”

“Well, sir, why don’t you lean back, and let’s see if we can make this visit a little more pleasant,” the Air Force dentist said with a laugh. He injected Jerry with enough anesthesia to deaden nearly his whole mouth.

Jerry lay back in the comfortable dental chair and fell sound asleep.

Repairing what had been done on that occasion, plus other deterioration due to lack of oral hygiene, kept the dentists busy nearly every afternoon the entire time Jerry remained at Keesler. Other issues concerned beriberi in his feet —which, once established, is primarily controlled with medication —and episodes he had experienced in prison with rapid heartbeats.

In late 1967, Jerry had noticed the onset of an irregular, racing pulse. He first became aware of it during winter months when prisoners often were cold soaked from lack of proper clothing. During this time, they also were experiencing additional stress brought about by worsening prison conditions and the trauma of renewed torture. While incarcerated, Jerry controlled his accelerated heartbeat with isometrics. Usually, this practice helped to bring his pulse back into rhythm, but often he just had to wait it out.

Yet Jerry felt extremely fortunate. Many POWs returned needing operations or rebreaking of bones that were set incorrectly (or never set at all), and several had permanently restricted range of motion in arms and legs from torture sessions.

While Jerry was busy with these tasks, Terry spent her time mainly taking long walks down by the Gulf. She could hardly believe Jerry was back. Terry could still vividly remember the afternoon she was told about Jerry’s shoot-down. Notification arrived around 6:00 p.m. The doorbell rang, and when she answered, there stood a group of men in uniform on her front porch: a chaplain, a doctor, and two other servicemen from the detachment Jerry had been in. For a few minutes, no one spoke, and Terry invited them in. At first she hadn’t suspected anything, despite that, as any military wife or mother knows, when people are standing on the doorstep in uniform, they usually are bearers of bad news.

They had informed her that Jerry’s helicopter had been shot down and that he was listed as missing in action. That was all the information they had —he was just missing.

Terry knew her husband’s mission in Southeast Asia entailed flying rescue helicopters for the purpose of extracting downed pilots. And she knew he had completed several successful missions previously, but not this time.

Almost as soon as she received this notification, her home filled with people —neighbors and church friends came over, family members drove in from Houston. Immediately, she was surrounded with love and prayers.

Terry remembered how those who supported her probably secretly thought Jerry had been killed, that he would not be coming home. Many people brought food, just as so many churches in the South do when there is a death in the family. But she never took this as a death message. She always knew there was hope. And now Jerry was back.

By late afternoon each day, they both looked forward to spending time together. He told her about his time in prison, and she related what life was like back in the States.

She told Jerry how, six months after he was shot down, she had received a phone call around 1:30 in the morning. It was from the mother of airman Bill Robinson, who had called with greetings from her son. Terry immediately knew there had to have been communication between Bill and Jerry —and that renewed her hope that Jerry was alive. She and her friends believed it was an answer to prayer.

A year later, when Jerry’s status changed from missing in action to prisoner of war, there were three other women living in Alexandria whose husbands were also in Vietnam: one husband was a prisoner also; the other two were missing in action and, in fact, did not come home.

Terry and these three other women had formed a support group for one another. They made trips to Washington, DC, to talk with whomever they could about the POW/MIA situation; they promoted letter-writing campaigns and collected signatures petitioning the North Vietnamese for better treatment of the men; they sold bumper stickers to remind people not to forget about their servicemen in Vietnam. Some women rented billboards to serve as a visible reminder for people in the USA of military servicemen in captivity.

But the biggest —and most successful —project had revolved around the national bracelet campaign. Wives and family members sold metal bracelets engraved with the names of a serviceman who was either a known POW or MIA. People were asked to choose someone they knew, or even someone they didn’t know, in order to honor them. They were to wear the bracelets until either the men returned or they found out they were not coming home.

Terry had been so grateful to the people who had worn those bracelets and had prayed for the men. She attributed Jerry’s homecoming to the prayers on his behalf.

Each day at Keesler that Jerry and Terry spent catching up was a blessing.

However, on the twenty-first of February, Jerry got dressed in his uniform and told personnel he was leaving and would be back in a couple of days. “I’ve missed seven of my son’s birthdays, and I don’t plan to miss another.”

Jerry and Terry drove to Alexandria, Louisiana, to the house he had lived in eight years earlier. When they entered the neighborhood, Jerry saw sights he had thought about many times during the past years, but things looked so different. The houses had aged, the landscaping matured. Bushes and shrubs were now fully grown. Trees that had been nose high when he left towered over rooflines. He couldn’t believe how tall they were.

When the couple turned down their street, Jerry was amazed by yet another incredible sight. Nearly every house celebrated the return of their friend and neighbor with homemade signs and banners, all welcoming back the wartime hero.

As they pulled up in front of their house, Tommy, Lori, Terry’s parents, and Jerry’s sister Fayrene waited outside for them. After another round of hugs and kisses, he entered through the front door. He was finally home.

The following day, the family celebrated Tommy’s fifteenth birthday with presents and a feast of homemade cake and ice cream. For the time being, the couple decided to limit this visit to family only, rather than inviting friends and neighbors. Since Jerry had to return to Keesler in two days for more medical and dental checkups and continued debriefings, it allowed a quiet visit together. None of them could stop hugging their returned husband, father, brother, and son-in-law.

But the town of Alexandria and his church family made it clear that upon his permanent return in fourteen days, they planned to honor him properly with a parade and receptions.

And indeed they did. After his final days at Keesler AFB, Jerry went home to stay. Shortly afterward, a citywide parade with local high school marching bands, color guards, and other parade participants strutted before three-thousand-plus people crowded along streets and sidewalks just to catch a glimpse of the returning POW.

Jerry and his family rode in an open car, finally stopping in front of the review stand. After the mayor publicly welcomed the Curtises, the lieutenant colonel stood to address the hushed crowd.

“I just want to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers while I was gone. It means so much to see all of you here today. God bless you, and God bless America.”

The next day Jerry’s church hosted a reception and, to Jerry’s complete surprise, unveiled a project planned and executed quickly once his release had been assured: a flagpole on the church grounds with a large bronze plaque dedicating the new site to him and his commitment to God and country. Jerry was speechless when he saw the marker and permanent flagpole.

The church had supported Terry during Jerry’s entire time away. Terry had worn many hats during her husband’s absence. It had not been easy assuming the roles of mother and father, yard man and mechanic during those eight years. But life in the family had maintained some semblance of normalcy without Jerry because her family and friends from church had come to the rescue. They had always been eager to help in any way they could. She couldn’t recall a Sunday at church when someone didn’t say, “Have you heard anything?” So it was quite a celebration when Jerry returned.

At the church reception during the receiving line, the freed captive reconnected with many of the same high school students he had admonished to pray for him on that last Sunday back in 1965. As they came up to him with hugs and handshakes, he hardly recognized them. They were now adults themselves —they had careers, many of them were married, and several had children of their own. He thought to himself that these were some of the ones God had used as instruments for praying for his well-being while he had been in prison. It was a weekend filled with great rejoicing.

The following Monday, however, he awakened with only one thought.

He told his children as they left for classes that day, “Come home, Tommy, as soon as you’re out from school —you, too, Lori. There’s something I want us to do together.” That afternoon, Jerry took both of them to a local Honda motorbike dealership and purchased a 100cc bike for Tommy and a 70cc bike for Lori.

“I can’t believe it!” Tommy said, examining his shiny new motorbike. “I kept asking Mom if I could get one while you were gone, but Mom kept saying wait until you got back! When can we go riding?”

Lori simply stood beside hers, wide eyed with amazement. “Daddy, is this mine?”

“Yes, it is,” Jerry answered her, “and I think you will like riding it. I’ll show you how.”

As the weeks progressed, Jerry found the phone ringing constantly with requests for speaking engagements and interviews. The first month home, his calendar quickly filled with an event every day.

Looking over his schedule one morning, however, he saw penciled into the only empty day that week “Ride motorbikes with Tommy.” It was written in his son’s handwriting, a gentle reminder he might need to slow down.

But nothing compared to the momentous day around the first of May when he and Terry received an elegant invitation in the mail: their presence was requested, along with all returning prisoners of war from Vietnam, at a seated dinner at the White House.