Heading Home 1968

A Story by Paul McCall

My trip home after serving in Viet Nam

After wasting thirteen month of my life in Viet Nam, I was finally on my way home. Not for the last time though, not yet, I still had about one more year left on my enlistment.

The day I heard arguing coming from our command tent as I was walking by. I could not help listening; the first voice I heard was that of our first sergeant. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. He was trying to convince the C.O. how in cretin cases, grunts were expendable in order to achieve an objective! I was relived to hear the C.O. flat out reject this type of World War One, way of thinking. This was the first time I began to feel my service in Viet Nam was waste time. Adding to this, about two weeks later I received a disturbing letter from home. It was from my mother, she told me my brothers had taken up doing drugs. She went into all the details of the collateral damage this was causing back home. There was no way for me to help. This affected me a great deal and to cope, I felt a desperate need for some form of counseling. I requested to speak with the company Chaplin. This turned into a reality check and reinforced my growing concern that the military was more against me than with me. The only thing this full bird Colonel, Chaplin had in common with a priest was the small gold-cross pined on the right collar of his starched camouflage utilities. This hypocrite mistakenly assumed I was looking for a ticket home and asked me why I was coming to him when I had a mission to complete?

I was one of the very lucky one’s and got out of that war with only a few scratches. The plane that flew us out on that bright, sunny day in December 1968 was a commercial jetliner from the states. I forgot if it was a Pan Am or what but I’ll never forget when she lifted off the runway at that military air base in DaNang. Everyone on board was cheering and whistling as soon as the wheels left the ground and the gear was coming up. I was paranoid about some V.C. b******s hitting us with a rocket as we lifted off so I was still gripping the armrests. Once we had some altitude, I took out my Polaroid camera. Some strange impulse forced me to take some last shots of Viet Nam from my window seat before the clouds gobbled us up. The pictures came out lousy; I’m no photographer.

I couldn’t really relax until we were deep into the clouds. As soon as we leveled off and the no smoking light went out, a pretty stewardess began serving drinks. I had a Gin and Tonic; I don’t think anyone turned them down. I curled up in my window seat, my head rested in the recess of the window; my eyes were fixed, staring out, the seat next to me was empty. The drone of the jets engines drowned out all ambient sound from inside the plain. Just below us a carpet of white clouds stretched out as far as I could see. My mind seemed blank as I studied them. Something touched my shoulder causing me to jump! I whacked my head on the top of the recess of the window.

“Oh… I’m so sorry” the stewardess apologized, she raised her voice to penetrate over the loud jet engines, “are you alright?” the impact was hard enough to cause me to rub my head rapidly until the pain subsided.

“Yeah, I’m okay” I shouted back, as I checked my vision in my left eye for damage. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were sleeping, your eyes were open!” “Don’t worry it’s all right, I wasn’t sleeping” she leaned a little closer so I could hear her, “I just wanted to see if you wanted something more to drink?” The Gin and Tonic I had earlier didn’t settle well in my stomach so I switched to a soft drink. “Yeah, I’ll have a Tonic” “excuse me?” she said with a puzzled look. “A soda, a coke if you got one, “what’s a Tonic”? She asked, that’s what we call soda back where I come from” “Oh… all right, I’ll be right back”. She still looked like she didn’t understand. She was quite, I stretched my neck over the back of the seat in front of me to check her out as she went to the front of the plane; once she was out of sight I went back to the window to pick up where I left off. I was kind of pissed; I had been in like another world when she scared the s**t out of me, a good world, a better world.

I had my radar going so I would not get surprised when she returned. When the stewardess came back, I pulled down the little tray from the back of the seat in front of me. She placed a can of coke and a plastic cup with ice in the holders in the tray. She smiled nicely and asked, “Is there anything ells I can get for you corporal?” her use of my rank set me aback! “No… no thanks I’m good” and away she went. I took a couple swigs straight from the can and went back to the window.

We had to land in Guam for processing before we could go to the mainland. What actually happened though was I fell victim to a little black market operation. I had two wooden crates that were to be shipped separately packed with things I bought on R&R along with two pair or jungle boots and some camouflage utilities, a 8mm movie projector and so on. My fellow military comrades stationed at processing open up and went through everything I had packed before I left DaNang. They stole everything of value and pretty much cleaned me out. I didn’t learn of this until I got home and opened my two crates. It was suppose to have been an inspection for contraband. We also had to get check out for any diseases that we may have contracted. The Doctors took blood, checked my blood pressure and listen to my dead heart.

Instead of feeling happy about going home, for some unknown reason I felt empty inside. None of us were allowed to leave the base and I was forced to be content with spending my off time in the dark, empty, sparsely furnished and ill-equipped Enlisted Men’s Club on base. It was a weekend and all the soldiers stationed there were allowed to leave the base and go in to town but I was quarantined and held prisoner on base, so I had to make due.

I walked in the E. M. club; the place was completely empty except for about four or five fellow prisoners sitting next to a pool table near a jukebox. I went straight to the bar and I ordered four slow gin fizzes, then I chose a distant table in the dark empty sorry excuse for a club. Music coming form the jukebox was so poor it sounded like it was coming from another room; it was weak and echoing so badly I couldn’t even make out the words to the songs.

There was only one waitress; she looked reluctant about her job. She was unattractive too; she brought me my drinks and placed them on the table. Observing I was alone she asked, “You gonna drink those by yourself?” I think she was trying to look sexy? I looked up at her with absolutely no interest, “yup”. She stood there for a moment in silence and then sauntered back to the bar leaving me with my drinks. I noticed her and the guy bartending talking and glancing over at me every so often. I drank the first one right down like it was Kool-Aid. I hadn’t been buzzed in a long time and all I want to do was get wasted. I was first introduced to the “slow gin fizz” when I was on my second R&R in Yokohama Japan. They were delicious but these things tasted like vinegar. I really didn’t give a dam, I was drinking for effect but my thoughts about ordering another round were gone. When I was on my last drink I nursed it and just sat there swimming around in my own head. When I finished my drink I went back to the barracks, laid on my rack wondering if I had been poisoned?

Two days went by and I got orders to pack up and board another jetliner. This time I was headed for Hawaii where we were to refuel and then fly on to California. From California I would fly to Chicago and during that flight as I stared out my window I saw another jetliner going in the opposite direction. It passed by so close I swear I could see peoples faces in the windows. At the time I knew nothing of flight regulations but I later learned that that was as close to a midair collision that two planes could come with out killing every person on both planes.

When we got to Chicago we heard that Boston was in for some bad weather. Then during the long flight the captain came over the speaker and announced that Boston had to close due to heavy snow and we were being diverted to Hartford Connecticut. Once there we would be put on busses that would take us to Boston, adding an extra four hours and depending on the weather it could be more. If I hadn’t fallen asleep on the buss I could have jumped off in Framingham, Massachusetts. That would have been forty miles closer to home. I woke when as people began gathering their things as the bus was arriving at Logan. It was now after twenty hundred hours, or just past eight o’clock at night.

I phoned home for a ride. My step-father, Glen ‘who isn’t really my step-father I just call him that to save long troublesome conversations’ was not at all happy about driving all the way to Boston’s Logan air port to pick me up, especially in a snow storm. I can’t say that I blame him for that. For the next three plus hours I sat in the cafeteria at Logan. As I sat there I observed humanity bustling around. It was almost midnight when Glen showed up. We tossed my sea-bag and the one other bag I had with me in the back seat of the car and off we went. At first Glen was a little stiff but once we got talking his anger subsided, not long after that I couldn’t shut him up. Glen was enjoying all the military talk ‘mostly his’ and was giving me what seemed his entire service history in the Pacific during World War II. I never had to say much except for an occasional wow, yap, nope and you don’t say. When you’re fresh out of the frying pan you don’t feel like talking about the fire.

When we pulled in the driveway there was old Brutes in the headlights smiling and wagging his tail like he always did when any one of us came home, even if it was just from shopping. Brutes was part Colley-Shepard and mostly mutt. His face was white and his ears brown, when he got excited he had this way of showing his teeth like he was trying to smile. When I got out of the car I crouched down and took him in my arms, hugging him and kissing him with tears in my eyes. I could tell he knew who I was, even after two years. It was windy and cold, he stuck right by me all the way into the house, smiling and waging his tail using his whole body. Every one acted happy to see me but I knew Brutes happiness was the real thing. My little sister was up and clamped on to my leg for a ride as I walk down the long hallway to the kitchen.

My mother came over, gave me a big hug and a peck on the cheek, “My god your cold!” she cried as she quickly let me go. “You want some coffee Paul I just made a pot?” I was cold, “you know I never turn down a cup of hot coffee Ma!” I began to take off my coat. I could tell by my mothers’ behavior and smell that Ma was still drinking. My little three year old sister ‘who I referred to as, Tweedy’ was still clamped on to my leg and holding on tight as I walked around the kitchen, she looked like a baby bear clinging to a tree. She let go and began jumping up to me with her arm opened. I picked her up and gave her a big hug and some kisses. It was now about three in the morning, Tweedy was in the pajamas I had sent her for her birthday which was only weeks away, they had pictures of Tweedy bird on them and had attached slippers. “And just what are you doing up this late young lady?” I said to her. She had a perpetual huge smile on her cute little mischievous face, she look like she knew she was getting away with something. “I don’t know?” she replied unable to stop smiling.

Our kitchen table was kept against the wall to make more room to move around. It was only pulled away for special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. This occasion was not that special; in fact it almost seemed to me like I was an unexpected visitor! I looked across the kitchen, my two younger brothers who were sitting somberly at the end of the table drinking coffee and smoking Marlboros cigarettes. Charles (the younger) was on the end facing me and Blaine was next to him facing the wall. They were suspiciously quiet as they sat there just taking it all in. “I told you, you were going to make it, didn’t I?” my younger brother Charles said to me with glassy eyes that kept exchanging suspicious glances with Blaine. He had a big s**t-eating grin on his face.

Brutes, was still making the rounds for some attention wagging his tail going from one to another taking advantage of the semi happy atmosphere collecting all the patting, hugs and “good boys” he could. Glen was milling around the kitchen collecting fresh leftovers preparing a plate of hot food for me that he would warm up in the microwave. As he always did when company would drop in. my mother put a cup of hot coffee down on the table opposite from where my brothers were sitting and pulled out the chair. “Here, Paul, sit down Glen is making you something to eat.” As I sat down I still had my hat on and my little sister, Tweedy on my lap. As I took the hat from my head she grabbed it and put it over her tiny head, she looked to each of us in the room for our reaction. She looked at me and I said, “hay Ma, look we have another Marine in the family!” everybody laughed and little Tweedy was pleased. My brothers looked like they had a glow of some kind going but I refrained from saying anything, not wanting to spoil the moment.

Shortly after Glen plopped a huge plate of hot food down in front of me. It looked like meatloaf along with mashed potatoes, vegetables and gravy. He had put a huge blob of butter on the veggies and the potatoes. It looked and smelled really good and I was starving. My brother Blaine looked at the huge plate and looked up at Glen and said, sarcastically “hey, where’s mine?” “You had yours already!” Glen snapped back. Glen and my brothers hated each other but Glen felt forced to tolerate them. Blaine and Charles saw Glen as an opportunist who married my mother so he could grab her house and property. Cementing the deal by getting my mother pregnant and having Tweedy.

Glen liked me because I was the assertive one of my mothers’ previous offspring’s. My brothers weren’t jealous of me, they didn’t care if Glen liked them or not. Still, sometimes his favoritism toward me did cause minor problems between us, most of which were due to Glen’s financial generosity toward me.

Though Glen only warmed things up, he thought of himself a gourmet chef and he was still standing next to me awaiting my gratitude. I quickly realized this and promptly thanked him, adding a little garnish of my own, “look’s really good Glen thanks”. When he accepted my appreciation he accompanied it with a little jab for Blaine when he added, “there’s more if you’re still hungry okay Paul?” Blaine and Charles looked at each other in silent, united distain for Glen. Our little sister recovered the drop in good cheer by jumping off me and trying to ride poor Brutes like he was a pony. That got everyone laughing though Brutes didn’t seem so thrilled about it.

After I ate, I was tired from all the traveling and the long drive home. I got real sleepy and went to bed up stairs in my old room. My brother Blaine had taken my room in my absence. I didn’t care if he slept in the snow banks; tonight I was sleeping in my own bed! It made me wonder if he thought I wouldn’t make it home? Leaving the homegrown war festering down stairs, I could still faintly hear them arguing as I drifted off and got some much needed rest. The next morning began with anguish! I was not use to being able to sleep in and woke with a start. Once I realized where I was, it was so nice to put my head back down on the pillow and sleep a little longer. When I eventually got up I was excited about put on civilian clothes for the first time in a long time, I wanted to look as civilian as possible. Then it occurred to me, I had no friends and there was no one to call, no one to tell, “Hey man I’m home!”

While I was in Viet Nam I had my mother set up a joint bank account under both our names in a local bank. I sent most of my paycheck home every month in an allotment from Viet Nam. When I asked my Mother for the bankbook she was in the living room. She began to get emotional. “What’s wrong?” I asked. Then she sat down in her chair that we referred to as, “the throne” tears began streaming down her face. She kept looking up at me with terribly sad, crying eyes but could not speak. “What is it Ma, what’s the matter?” I said. Slowly and timidly she confessed in a voice so meek I could barely hear her, “I’m so sorry Paul” “sorry about what?” I pleaded. “I spent your money, I was going to pay it back, but I couldn’t” now she was all out balling. I couldn’t believe my ears; I had sent home thousands of dollars over the thirteen months I was in Viet Nam and had planed to buying a new car with the money.

I demonstrated no anger, I hugged her and told her to not to worry, but I felt betrayed and inside I was screaming mad. I used her car and drove to the bank. The whole drive I couldn’t stop shaking my head, barking and cursing out loud. The bank told me I had just enough in there to keep the account open. I was destroyed I could not believe that my own mother could do this; I was sick!

The country was crazy protesting the war. With no car I had to hitch rides when my mother was using her car. She gave me a ride to the Minnie mall but I had to either walk or hitch back home. Soon an older guy stopped to give me a ride. As soon as he learned I was fresh home from Viet Nam he jerked the car over to the side of the road and ordered me out of the car! Once I got out I asked what his problem was? He spit at me through the open door and sped off spinning his wheels and kicking up stone and dust, the momentum slamming the door. I knew about all the protest s**t but I never thought I would find it in my own hometown!

© 2013 Paul McCall

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LJW

What a story. Not like in the movies, is it? I was struck by how you just came walking back into the family home, into their lives that had gone on day after day, unchanged. And how anyone wouldn't know bettet than to talk about war when you're fresh off the flight home!

A simple story about a maligned and complex time. I noticed some words spelled wrong, a few places could use a bit of editing. Would be glad to help if you want some.

Thank you for your service to our country. My 1st husband and a few friends are Vietnam Vets from MA and RI. I live very close to Blackstone myself.