Posted on 05/24/2003 9:37:21 PM PDT by redrock
"WELCOME HOME"
By themselves....they are powerful words. Conjuring up images of family....of your mother and father....sisters and brothers....of being away for a long time...and having them so glad that you're back.
Together.......the words can be so powerful that they can actually heal.
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I enlisted in the United States Army when I was 17.
I had already graduated High school....and had been taught from the time that I was born that each of us has a duty.
A duty to serve and protect our Nation....which in reality is serving and protecting our families...and our way of life.
Because of my Religious Beliefs..(and because I was 17...and Positive that I was right) I was granted conscientious objector status ...and viola!!! (at least in Army terms) I became a Medic.
After training I asked to be sent to Vietnam.....and I served with 1st Cav for 2 tours...where I quickly learned some difficult lessons.
The least of which is that after 2 months in the field....I started to carry a weapon..(although I'm still not convinced that a worn out .45 is a real weapon...instead of just a REAL loud noisemaker)
I also learned that even tho I have never really been able to reconcile my Religion with War.....I HAVE been able to learn that some things ARE worth fighting for..(and they said I could never learn...sheesh!).
I also learned that what we were doing in Vietnam was trying (at least on the soldier level) to help a people have Freedom.That's one of the things worth fighting for...Freedom.
But...the war ended....with the Politicians tucking their tails between their legs and running away.....leaving the Vietnamese to suffer and die.
...and those same politicians...those same members of government....those same Liberal's who ranted against the war....also leaving us...the soldiers...to suffer and die.
To never be even acknowledged....to be treated as family members returning from far away.
To be welcomed home.
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Well...life goes on...and most of us tried to get on with our lives....putting what we had seen and done in some private...secluded part of our souls. To be brought out only when the alcohol levels rose to a certain point....or when another member of our Fraternity was nearby..and we felt somewhat safe.
Sometimes we even lied about being there...denying it so that we wouldn't have to maybe endure someones hatred...or so that maybe we would get the job. In college classes we shut up....and let the Liberal Professors spout off. Never trying to deny what they spewed.....as we were unsure of our place....since it seemed to so many of us that no one wanted us around...that they didn't want our memories of another time and place. That they didn't want us contradicting THEIR version of the Vietnam War.
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Time passed....and most of us made peace with what we had seen and done. Most of us, in various degrees, put our memories in a safe place...covered over with scabs and scars.
For me...I never talked about those times.I had put those memories in a safe place...guarded with walls.
...and then one day...I read in a newspaper in Southern Utah...that a thing called a 'Moving Wall' was going to be in a nearby town. A small copy of that Black Granite Wall in Washington.
My stomach churned....but I knew that I needed to go.
To walk along it's length and re-visit the people I knew to be on there.
To say hello....
I got to the park where the 'Moving Wall' had been set up...with my daughter..(who was 4 at the time). I sat in the car for over an hour....trying to gain the courage to face that wall..(and trying to explain to a very patient 4 year old just why we were just sitting there).
Finally...I could get out of the car...and walking towards it felt like moving thru the worst Vietnamese mud. It felt like it took years just to go a few yards.
When I got close to the wall ...I started to see the names...and my heart was racing and I was sweating like I had never done so before. I was crying...I couldn't hold it in...and then...the moment of my personal Deliverance arrived.
I felt a touch on my arm...and I looked down into the face of a 9 or 10 year old little girl with a hugh grin on her face.
She asked me if I had been in Vietnam.
I said yes.....and then she said the words that healed...that allowed the scabs and scars to be taken away.
"WELCOME HOME"
Not in the least. Not one whit.
Welcome home.
Welcome Home!
To continue the Pat Conroy article "The Man I Should Have Been" from yesterday....It was 1972, and Conroy was protesting, while Al Kroboth was a prisoner of the Viet Cong.....
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In the meantime, Al and his captors had finally arrived in the North; the Viet Cong traded him to North Vietnamese soldiers for the final leg of the trip to Hanoi. Many times when they stopped to rest, local villagers tried to kill him.
His captors wired his hands behind his back, so he trained himself to sleep in the center of huts when the villagers began sticking knives and bayonets into the thin walls. Following the U.S. air raids, old women would come into the huts to excrete on him and yank out hunks of his hair.
After the nightmare journey of his walk, Al was relieved when his guards finally delivered him to the POW camp in Hanoi, and the cell door locked behind him.
At the camp Al began to die. He threw up every meal and was misidentified as the prison's oldest American soldier because his appearance was so skeletal.
But the extraordinary camaraderies among fellow prisoners caught fire in Al, and did so in time to save his life.
While I was demonstrating in America against Nixon and the Christmas bombings in Hanoi, Al and his fellow prisoners were holding hands under the full fury of those bombings, singing "God Bless America." It was those bombs that convinced Hanoi they would do well to release the American POWs, including my college teammate.
When he told me about the C-141 landing to pick up the prisoners, Al said he felt no emotion, none at all, untill he saw the American flag painted on the plane's tail.
I stopped writing as Al wept over the memory of that flag on that plane, during that time in the life of America.
That same long night, after listening to Al's story, I began to make judgments about my conduct during the Vietnam War.
In the darkness of the sleeping Kroboth household, lying in the third-floor guest bedroom, I began to assess my role as a citizen in the '60s, when my country called my name and I shot her the bird.
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To be continued here tomorrow.....
redrock
redrock
redrock
redrock
Just 2 little words...can make all the difference in the world.
redrock
Welcome home, guys!
We will not forget.
*Part I - Rambo and the Bogus War Heroes
* Part II - Welcome Home, Babykiller
* Part III - Will the Real Vietnam Vet Stand Up?
* Part VI - The VVA - The Vietnam Victims of America
For me...I never talked about those times.I had put those memories in a safe place...guarded with walls.
Hoping the scars heal soon and the walls are lowered a bit more. We all remember or have heard the anti's version. We'd like to hear the real story. Too few are willing to do it...
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