My Dad was a Navy vet of WWII, a "Tin Can Sailor" who served aboard a destroyer in the Pacific. His ship narrowly avoided diving kamikaze aircraft off Okinawa and later sailed into Tokyo Harbor as part of the fleet that would accept Japanese surrender. His ship was the 2nd in line and entered in full alert, the crew manning their battle stations, unsure if the promise of surrender was just a ruse. Growing up, I remember well the Japanese carbines and bayonets he had returned with as souvenirs.
I also remember well the Memorial Day parades down main street of small town America in the days of Ike and Elvis and my dad's snappy new Chevy Impala with air-conditioning and a continental kit on the trunk. The American Legion led the way, bearing arms and carrying the flag, and there was my dad. A church had a big patch of grassy lawn right next to the general store, and that's where the Legion ended up for a twenty-one gun salute.
Ready, arms!
Ready, aim!
Ready, fire!
Three times the squad fired blanks into the sky over the roof of the general store. As soon as the Legionnaires would march away, the young boys, including my brother and me, would rush onto the lawn to claim the spent shell casings. One of those boys I grew up with would later became a Major General.
I ended up a buck sergeant, E-5, and I spent Memorial Day 1970 in base camp near An Khe in the central highlands of Vietnam, waiting impatiently for the last couple days to pass before my return to Minnesota at the completion of my tour of duty. There would be plenty of friendly faces to greet my return: my fiance (we'll celebrate our 40th anniversary in a few weeks), Mom and Dad, my two younger sisters, but not my brother who was embarking on his own tour of duty in Vietnam. Our reunion would come later.
The mission of our outfit (K company, Ranger, 75th Infantry) was Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRP: pronounced lurp). We worked in four man teams that were flown by helicopter into remote areas and dropped off in the jungle for reconnaissance. After four or five days, the choppers would return to pick us up. Because subterfuge was our primary defense, we would be retrieved by the birds ASAP in the event we were exposed. We played hide and seek well.
For 5-6 months, I worked with the same three teammates operating as R-18 (Ranger 18 or Romeo 18 according to the phonetic alphabet). We were stationed in the central Highlands of Viet Nam, in conjunction with the 4th Infantry Division, and lived in base camps near An Khe, Pleiku, and Ban Me Thuot when we weren't in the field.
Mark Estopare was barely 18 and from St. Louis. I haven't seen him since Viet Nam, but we have spoken by phone a couple of times. I understand he has had a hard time of it with PTSD.
Billy Powers wasn't much older and spoke with a Texas twang. I saw Billy in San Antonio at a Ranger reunion about three years ago, and the drawl was still there as well as his buoyant humor. He suffered a back injury from a work accident a few years earlier and was receiving worker's comp. Still in Texas with grown kids.
Gary Heald was the oldest at 23 (I was 21). Gary flew to Minnesota to be one of the groomsmen in my wedding in 1971, I had dinner with him in Los Angeles in 1987, and he was at the same Ranger reunion in San Antonio three years ago. We stay in touch via email. Gary grew up in Oklahoma but settled in California. Remarried with adult kids.
We have animal stories: a rat perched on my shoulder as I pulled midnight guard duty; a tiger silhouetted against the moon as he sauntered along the edge of our night location; and monkeys passing by in the treetops, sounding like the whole God damned North Viet Namese army crashing down on us as we hunkered to the ground, butt muscles tight, and lungs unbreathing. We have drinking stories, and drugs, too. Filipino bands singing rock and roll; movie stars and football players snapping photos of us and we of them; the Beatles partying late on the Panasonic bought at the PX; poker players with military script; and personal AOâs. We have stories of searing sun and monsoon rains. Ponchos. Poncho liners. Prick 25s. Rucksacks. C4. Fragmentary grenades. Smoke grenades. White phosphorous grenades. Later, Bronze stars with V devices. We have flying stories of door gunners and cobra gunships and hot LZs. We have mountain stories, river stories, hooches under triple-canopy jungle stories, and stories of elephant grass much taller than our head. In our stories, there are many faces with names long forgotten. We have shooting stories that come to us in the pale light between wake and sleep, and non-shooting stories, too, of young men from the north passing unknowing in front of our claymores and M16 muzzles, smokin' and ajokin' down the mountain, alive still and so were we. We became fathers and grandfathers with stories; I think they did, too. I have published five short stories based on these experiences.
I remember my return from Nam through Fort Lewis, Washington, and the call home. Mom couldn't talk, she just sobbed. After preliminary processing, I went to the 24-hour steak house and ate my welcome-home steak alone. After more processing, I was finally on my way to Sea-Tac airport and a standby ticket on a Northwest jet to Minneapolis. The plane was barely half-full, and a young woman asked to sit next to me although she could have sat anywhere. She bought me a drink and thanked me for my service and listened to my stories until I drifted off to sleep.
Readjustment was not difficult for me, but jet lag was. I remember waking up about 4 am and riding a bike around the deserted streets of Hopkins, Mn where I was staying with my fiance who lived with her sister. The sunrise was glorious as the neighborhood came alive. But I was angry later when we visited a Sears store, and I saw plastic guns, replica M-16s, in the toy department. War was not a game for kids to play.
