The epitome of "cool"...
I thought about several men I know, or boys I knew, who were affected by the war in Vietnam. Was anyone of my generation NOT affected by Vietnam? I cannot imagine how anyone escaped uninjured, unless, of course, you were under that runway with Dave!
There was Phil. He was in one of my junior college classes. Even though I had a boyfriend at the time, Phil and I became good friends. We would always save a chair for the other one: we liked to sit across from each other so we could exchange looks and smart-aleck remarks during the lecture. Phil was a nice-looking young man, full of life and laughter. I think he would have been a wonderful boyfriend, if I didn’t already have one. He was so smart, so full of life, and had so much to look forward to in his life. He was dead at age nineteen in the jungles of Vietnam. Oh God, why?
There was #2, my ex-husband. He did not serve in the war zone; he was on Guam, in a high-security role that he will not speak about to this day. I did manage to figure out that he had a LOT to do with monitoring the enemies’ communications, even “scrambling” them, when possible. I only know I guessed right because of the look that flashed across his face for an instant when I proffered my guess. He has never, and would never, tell me or anyone else what he heard and saw. The planes bringing out the injured soldiers landed in Guam, and he did tell me that the casualty numbers claimed by President Johnson—and what he saw—did not jive.
His injuries are not visible: he has become a paranoid, isolated, violent drunk. A wonderful man: intelligent, funny, caring, kind and full of life, was lost to the memories he cannot shake, reminding him of his military service. Again, I have to ask: Why?
Most recently, I met Mike. A wonderful, extremely intelligent man; funny, likeable, laughs easily, and still has a zest for life. He was a chopper pilot in Vietnam. He flew “dust-offs”: he flew in low and slow to pick up injured soldiers, risking his own life to save theirs. He “dropped” two choppers out of the sky, and was able to walk away from one of them. The other time, he was in the hospital, then rehab, for months. Then, he went right back to what he was doing.
Mike laughs easily. I asked him about crashing the choppers: “we’re you under mortar fire?” Laughing, he told me that, yes, one time he was shot “right out of the air”; the other time? Laughing even harder, he told me that he “was so busy flying guys out that I forgot to refuel!” Both times, he managed to deliver his “cargo” and crash solo.
Mike does suffer from PTSD, so he didn’t leave Vietnam unscathed. The real tragedy occurred when he got back. Mike loves the outdoors and found his dream job: as a forest ranger in the Coast Range, here in California. One night, 23 years ago, he was driving a Forestry Service van on a winding road. He was hit by a drunk driver and the van was sent hurtling down an embankment. Mike was thrown free but the van landed on top of him. By his own account, he spent 14 hours pinned underneath it, at the bottom of a ravine, before he was discovered.
Mike is now a quadriplegic. He has minimal movement of his neck, can breathe on his own, and cannot feel or move his arms or legs. What plausible explanation is there for surviving chopper crashes in Vietnam only to come home and become a quad? I have to ask why?
These men are all good men, changed forever by their service to their country. Coming home from Vietnam, they were spat upon by ordinary people. They were treated as if they had done something wrong, or evil. What did they do? They served their country.
They didn’t make policy, they didn’t plan war strategies. They “simply” put their lives on the line daily; each a small part of a bigger picture. Each of them died a little bit in that foreign place………each of them came home infested with demons.
Except Phil: he didn’t get to come home at all. Well, he came home in a metal box. So many promising futures, so many good and kind young men; so many lives altered forever. So much tragedy to try to comprehend; is the world a better place because these men sacrificed their promise? Was it really necessary to kill or damage so many good people? Can somebody please tell me why?
