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Toward FREEDOM
Those of us who support, and are grateful and appreciate the services our men and women of the armed forces can make damn sure this behavior is not acceptable. It is those who oppose that always make the most noise and we need to turn that around.
We could not get on the planes. Students on standby had no difficulty.
We did not understand. This was just 4 months after the Russians invading Czechoslovakia, and our units were still on Red Alert. It was like these people only thought one thing of anybody in the military.
We ended up renting a car. I still had my American Express card leftover from my earlier and wellpaid civilian lifestyle. I recall it taking a very long time to do a credit check on that card. Probably thought I stole it!
6 of us drove home to the Midwest in that car.
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Toward FREEDOM
Topeka, Kansas, May 1967. Five or so guys from my Comm Sqnd all got orders and were leaving shortly, so as GI's are wont to do, we stopped on the way home for a couple beers. All except me were going to Nam or Thailand.
Anyhoo, after half an hour or so, four or five Washburn U longhair types and a couple of chicks came over and started talking to us. At first they were pretty cool, but wasn't long before they started getting smart-ass. Finally one of them got right in my face and called me a something-or-other, poured his beer on me, and generally pissed me off. So, I replied in the language young GI's know best, with a right-hand from hell upside his jaw. Man, did I ever connect! His jaw snapped big-time, and was way off the side of his face. Problem was, I had a bone sticking almost through the skin on the back of my hand!
Funny thing tho. I was on orders to Ciampino airport in Rome, Italy. I couldn't have done any of the things these punks were accusing us of even if I had wanted to.
One fun "R&R" was to be plunked down for three days with his team in North Vietnam to look for survivors and to ensure a downed F-111 had self-destructed, as programmed.
At the end of the year, he was plucked from the jungle and sent to Bangkok, boarding a chartered flight back to San Francisco.
While the hostesses tried to prepare them for what was ahead, suggesting they travel in civilian clothes, that was not possible for most, having to be in uniform to get Standby rates; in his case across country to South Carolina.
As they debarked in San Fran, they were greeted by a large contingent of college students, with taunts and jeers, and one girl did spit in his face.
Fresh from a year of combat, routinely patrolling the villages surrounding the base, obvious, stickout newcomer communist infiltrators 'dealt with' before they could try to down our aircraft, leaving or landing, he acted instinctively.
In full view of several police officers, he snapped and broke her arm, and without a word the military group each grabbed a student and dragged them into the bathroom.
They were given lessons on "Thou Shalt Not Spit in Public 101."
When they finally emerged, the police smiled and gave thumbs up salutes.
It got worse.
As he boarded a flight to Dallas, the stewardess frowned at him and told him he had to sit in the back of the plane "so the civilians would not be upset."
Same thing on the Dallas to Columbia flight.
Knowing only he would be aboard an available flight from Dallas, I met every plane from there all day long, until one after 4 p.m.
Again, all the passengers off-loaded, and my spirits fell - but suddenly, he appeared - the very last one allowed off.
Welcome Home, Hero?
You never get over that, and when the returnees from Desert Storm tried to make amends, suppressed emotions of two decades poured out from us both.
Side Note - the year he was away, alone with children 5, 12 and 13, I taught school at Myrtle Beach AFB, but not only was the civilian population not supportive, but military wives and men were not!.
Only one couple (the fellow having worked with him and his wife from Okinawa) helped me.
I finally figured out every wife feared the dark shadow would touch their husband if they spoke of my (and that of others) situation, and they would be sent to fight.
I went to college in the 60's and was completely submerged in the "Hippie" lifestyle. But I never got involved in war protests. I had at least four friends who went to Vietnam, and I corresponded with all of them throughout their tours.
Two of them told me the same thing in their letters - in the exact same words (No, I am NOT making this up): "This is the worst mistake I have ever made in my life".
So, I dodged the draft - and I'd do the same thing today, in similar circumsatances. They told me that they were having to eat s**t from sergeants who were Georgia rednecks with 3rd-grade educations (and I'm not making *that* up either, that's a direct quote) - and that they were risking their lives for nothing. I took what I thought to be their advice, and I have NO regrets.
But we had vets home on leave all over the streets in Portland... they used to pick me up hitchhiking, looking for a good time. Nobody spit on them - we all felt sorry for them. They hung around on the street, partying with the rest of us, stretching out the last moments before they had to go back to Hell.
Like I said, I must have been on another planet...
I remember 1969 in Chicago.
If you're old enough to recall, until then, nobody - except for some hippies and Peter Fonda wannabes - wore American flags on their clothes or hats. That was a no-no. Anyway, at the height of the protests in front of the Federal Courthouse where the trial of the "Chicago 7" (Abbie Hoffman, Renny Davis, Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, Lee Weiner, John Froines) was underway, the construction workers downtown - the "hardhats" - had a belly-full of seeing NVA flags carried around and hearing the favorite chant of the protesters, "Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh, NLF is gonna win!" One day, the "hardhats" put American flag stickers on their hardhats and at noon, thousands upon thousands of union and non-union iron workers, sheet metal workers, carpenters, cement finishers, plumbers, electricians, painters, laborers, etc. all walked off their jobs and confronted the unwashed rabble of anti-American protesters and pounded lumps on them! They routed the scum out of downtown and made sure they didn't come back. Ever since then, wearing the American flag on a hardhat has been de riguer, as the whole country took a shine to wearing the flag. The "hardhats" gained a reputation and during that time were feared by hippie and Yippie scum. The hardhats brought the peace to Chicago. I remember. My dad was one of them.
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