cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
Coming Home, August 1969
Things I had promised never to do; harass the FNGs coming in to replace us, yet here I was, standing on my tip toes, hands cupped, yelling "short!" as the newbies stepped off their 707, soon to be our Freedom Bird, our ride back to The World. Then I caught hold of myself, slumped to the floor, rested my head on my duffle bag and waited. Might as well catch a few z's before getting on board.
It took forever to re-fuel the jet, clean the cabin and get the new crew through their pre-flight. Nothing but butterflies in the stomach, looking at my watch incessantly, biting finger nails down to the quick. At last we were called aboard, officers first, and I trudged up the ramp and found a window seat about halfway back on the left of the plane. Just as it was on the trip to Vietnam, I was alone. No one I had served with or known in my year was on board. It seemed like everyone else was with a buddy, even the other officers. Oh well, it assured me of having two seats to myself.
If I thought it took forever for the crew to ready the plane it was nothing compared to the agony of waiting until the engines began to whine and the big Boeing began to taxi. Buckled down, stews finished with their final check, the engines roar. The plane lumbers down the concrete, you could sense the tension and a hundred hearts pumping furiously, minds willing the plane faster, a loud thump from below as the wheels come up and the raspy voice of the captain on the intercom; "Gentlemen, we are airborne from Vietnam!"
The plane erupted, guys screamed, pounded each other on the back. "Fuck Vietnam!" shouts rattled about, and then it was over. A somber silence; perhaps a time when we thought of those not on the plane with us.
The plane began to bank and I looked out the window, back to the tortured land below, jeeps and trucks whisked along highways I had once ridden. I recalled the night convoy to Bien Hoa, less than thirty days in country, just barely a First Lieutenant, the one where my asshole was shut so tight -- 'pucker factor' we called it, -- my pucker factor had been ten out of a possible ten. Five trucks and two jeeps snaking through a village, old men, women and children, not a young man in sight -- Where were they, with the VC? -- the Vietnamese stared blankly at us, What the fuck were the crazy Americans doing now, at night, during their turn to own the highway and this village?
Everyone in the convoy sat with a finger tracing the curve of a trigger, eyes peering into the dark shadows of the houses, watching the rooflines for snipers. My eye's switched from the shadows, to the machine gunner, to the road and back again to the shadows. My sweaty hand grasping the radio mic, thumb rubbing against the gnarled push-to-talk button, mind racing through the call signs and the names of each pre-planned artillaery concentration, nerves brittle.
We bore through, motors roaring, gear boxes whining, horns blasting -- bore through -- chasing the cats and kids and chickens from the street, dust pouring into the air and settling on the village and it's occupants. Not a night for winning hearts and minds and I have to wonder just what is so damned important about the cargo we are hauling that it has to be a night convoy.
That night came back in high definition clarity, my first flash back, as I sat in the plane, whisked through the heavy, fetid air and stared at the moon-like surface of the ground below. Bomb and artillery craters, some gray, some blue, some brown, most a sickly green. We must have fought over the same areas hundreds of times and gained nothing but a tenuous hold and piles of dead Vietnamese.
Say good by, I thought, good by and good riddance. I had no use for many of the Vietnamese military I had met and sometimes worked with. Their own worst enemy. They undoubtedly were not sorry to see me and my comrades leaving either.
A day is lost in the sky. We stop at Tachikowa, once an Imperial Japanese Army Air Force base. I buy my sister a necklace of jade pearls --if that's the term for something that looks like a green pearl.
For one long section of the ride we sit with daylight on one side of the plane and night on the other. We land again, in Fairbanks. Alaska smells like a pine scented deodorant card.
Airborne once more, now slipping in and out of restless sleep, I see the forests of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon sliding by, somewhere along the way, five thousand feet beneath us, I see the bright red tail of a Northwest Orient 707 heading toward 'Nam, I imagine the kids in their brand new jungle fatigues, sitting in their seats, pondering their fate in war.
We reach California and Travis AFB is soon in sight . Nervous coughs, edgy chatter, bodies squirming in seats, heads turned to see something of home through the small windows.
On the ground we are hurried into busses. Those not ETSing (Estimated Termination of Service) are greeted by families, swarmed by loving arms, kissed by moms, wives or girlfriends.
I feel envious, but pick up my suitcase and duffle bag and shuffle along to the waiting bus. Though its hot we are told to keep the windows shut until we're out on the highway. Outside the gate we are greeted by a throng of protestors, angry shouts and screams leak through the windows and reach our puzzled ears. Signs reading "Murderer," "NAZI," "Baby Killers" flash and dance above the crowd. Dog shit, tomatoes and small stones thud against the sides of the bus or ping off the windows.
It's a hour down I -5 and California 101, then onto Bay Bridge and into Oakland Army Depot, past long rows of World War II wooden buildings and thousands of conex containers waiting shipment to, where else, Vietnam.
My friend, Lieutenant Jim Farwell, now based at Oakland after being awarded three purple hearts and two Silver Stars in a shortened six month tour with the Wolfhounds of the 25th Infantry Division, greets me and we head off for the city.
Confronted by a gang of 16 year olds who call us Nazis and pigs, we walk past, and then I hear the hocking up and spitting. A wad of phlegm whistles past me like an errant round from an AK-47. I turn, fists balled up, ready to take them all on. Jim, the real hero, grabs my field jacket and tugs. "Forget them," he urges, they're too young to understand."
Later, over a third scotch, Jim lays out the near future. "You might as well try and put it behind you as fast as you can. You can forget the kind of welcome our dads received. The country is mad and since they can't get to the politicians, they're taking it out on us."
It takes me a while to see just how right he is.
Things I had promised never to do; harass the FNGs coming in to replace us, yet here I was, standing on my tip toes, hands cupped, yelling "short!" as the newbies stepped off their 707, soon to be our Freedom Bird, our ride back to The World. Then I caught hold of myself, slumped to the floor, rested my head on my duffle bag and waited. Might as well catch a few z's before getting on board.
It took forever to re-fuel the jet, clean the cabin and get the new crew through their pre-flight. Nothing but butterflies in the stomach, looking at my watch incessantly, biting finger nails down to the quick. At last we were called aboard, officers first, and I trudged up the ramp and found a window seat about halfway back on the left of the plane. Just as it was on the trip to Vietnam, I was alone. No one I had served with or known in my year was on board. It seemed like everyone else was with a buddy, even the other officers. Oh well, it assured me of having two seats to myself.
If I thought it took forever for the crew to ready the plane it was nothing compared to the agony of waiting until the engines began to whine and the big Boeing began to taxi. Buckled down, stews finished with their final check, the engines roar. The plane lumbers down the concrete, you could sense the tension and a hundred hearts pumping furiously, minds willing the plane faster, a loud thump from below as the wheels come up and the raspy voice of the captain on the intercom; "Gentlemen, we are airborne from Vietnam!"
The plane erupted, guys screamed, pounded each other on the back. "Fuck Vietnam!" shouts rattled about, and then it was over. A somber silence; perhaps a time when we thought of those not on the plane with us.
The plane began to bank and I looked out the window, back to the tortured land below, jeeps and trucks whisked along highways I had once ridden. I recalled the night convoy to Bien Hoa, less than thirty days in country, just barely a First Lieutenant, the one where my asshole was shut so tight -- 'pucker factor' we called it, -- my pucker factor had been ten out of a possible ten. Five trucks and two jeeps snaking through a village, old men, women and children, not a young man in sight -- Where were they, with the VC? -- the Vietnamese stared blankly at us, What the fuck were the crazy Americans doing now, at night, during their turn to own the highway and this village?
Everyone in the convoy sat with a finger tracing the curve of a trigger, eyes peering into the dark shadows of the houses, watching the rooflines for snipers. My eye's switched from the shadows, to the machine gunner, to the road and back again to the shadows. My sweaty hand grasping the radio mic, thumb rubbing against the gnarled push-to-talk button, mind racing through the call signs and the names of each pre-planned artillaery concentration, nerves brittle.
We bore through, motors roaring, gear boxes whining, horns blasting -- bore through -- chasing the cats and kids and chickens from the street, dust pouring into the air and settling on the village and it's occupants. Not a night for winning hearts and minds and I have to wonder just what is so damned important about the cargo we are hauling that it has to be a night convoy.
That night came back in high definition clarity, my first flash back, as I sat in the plane, whisked through the heavy, fetid air and stared at the moon-like surface of the ground below. Bomb and artillery craters, some gray, some blue, some brown, most a sickly green. We must have fought over the same areas hundreds of times and gained nothing but a tenuous hold and piles of dead Vietnamese.
Say good by, I thought, good by and good riddance. I had no use for many of the Vietnamese military I had met and sometimes worked with. Their own worst enemy. They undoubtedly were not sorry to see me and my comrades leaving either.
A day is lost in the sky. We stop at Tachikowa, once an Imperial Japanese Army Air Force base. I buy my sister a necklace of jade pearls --if that's the term for something that looks like a green pearl.
For one long section of the ride we sit with daylight on one side of the plane and night on the other. We land again, in Fairbanks. Alaska smells like a pine scented deodorant card.
Airborne once more, now slipping in and out of restless sleep, I see the forests of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon sliding by, somewhere along the way, five thousand feet beneath us, I see the bright red tail of a Northwest Orient 707 heading toward 'Nam, I imagine the kids in their brand new jungle fatigues, sitting in their seats, pondering their fate in war.
We reach California and Travis AFB is soon in sight . Nervous coughs, edgy chatter, bodies squirming in seats, heads turned to see something of home through the small windows.
On the ground we are hurried into busses. Those not ETSing (Estimated Termination of Service) are greeted by families, swarmed by loving arms, kissed by moms, wives or girlfriends.
I feel envious, but pick up my suitcase and duffle bag and shuffle along to the waiting bus. Though its hot we are told to keep the windows shut until we're out on the highway. Outside the gate we are greeted by a throng of protestors, angry shouts and screams leak through the windows and reach our puzzled ears. Signs reading "Murderer," "NAZI," "Baby Killers" flash and dance above the crowd. Dog shit, tomatoes and small stones thud against the sides of the bus or ping off the windows.
It's a hour down I -5 and California 101, then onto Bay Bridge and into Oakland Army Depot, past long rows of World War II wooden buildings and thousands of conex containers waiting shipment to, where else, Vietnam.
My friend, Lieutenant Jim Farwell, now based at Oakland after being awarded three purple hearts and two Silver Stars in a shortened six month tour with the Wolfhounds of the 25th Infantry Division, greets me and we head off for the city.
Confronted by a gang of 16 year olds who call us Nazis and pigs, we walk past, and then I hear the hocking up and spitting. A wad of phlegm whistles past me like an errant round from an AK-47. I turn, fists balled up, ready to take them all on. Jim, the real hero, grabs my field jacket and tugs. "Forget them," he urges, they're too young to understand."
Later, over a third scotch, Jim lays out the near future. "You might as well try and put it behind you as fast as you can. You can forget the kind of welcome our dads received. The country is mad and since they can't get to the politicians, they're taking it out on us."
It takes me a while to see just how right he is.
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