Thank you to my husband and his brothers who were never welcomed home. Although later than some, at 22 you, my husband, went to boot camp at Paris Island, SC and headed to Vietnam early 67. You were with Headquarters, 9th Marine Regiment, first at DA Nang, then moved up to Dang Ha, where during the Vietnam War, this was the northernmost town in South Vietnam and was the location on a strategically important U.S. Marine Combat Base, out posted to provide surveillance of troops movements across the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with visits to Con Tien, also a United States Marine Corps combat base located near the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone about 3 km from North Vietnam. It was the site of fierce fighting from February 1967 through February 1968. Youve said that to get to the chow hall you and the troops had to walk past rows and rows of body bags laying in the sun waiting for transport home. Youve said you helped pick up many body parts so they could be returned to families. Youve said you never got too close or friendly with anyone because you knew they could be gone the next second. Youve said you agreed to exchange guard duty with a guy that asked you because he needed sleep. Youve said you should have been the one in that bunker that night when it was blown to pieces and everyone killed. Youve said you wrote a letter to the boys mom and told her what a good Marine he was. Youve said those bouncing bettys were hell. And the day you were to leave VN, you had to race to reach the back of that C123 at Dang Ha that would fly just low enough on the airstrip for you guys to make your way in by a full run into its belly. Youve said that to run faster, you threw your duffle bag down, held on to your helmet and sprinted as fast as you could before it lifted higher from the ground. Youve said no one ever knew if the plane would get shot from the sky or not. But youve said you made it back to Los Angeles and received spit from the hari krishnas roaming the airport. Youve said when you were back in your hometown you hit the ground or sidewalk when a familiar war sound found its way to your ears. Youve said you were on your way back to Vietnam when our government pulled the plug, Youve said that was one of the angriest days of your life when you witnessed on tv North Vietnamese tanks rolling over the South after all youd seen lost, and believed U.S. Forces would have won that war. Eighteen years later after we married, I learned not to touch you when your sweat rolled to my side of the bed, and you were shuffling and mumbling in your sleep. After almost being knocked from the bed that one night, I learned to get up and calmly quietly call your name from across the room. And I look at you now, all these years later and know that what was so many years ago still has to have a hold in your subconscious, and with the death of your only child in battle in a new 21st century war, is it a wonder I see you rotating between putting up a concrete wall to protect yourself from more pain and being a kind gentle giant of a man. I love you. Your Punkin.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 01:39:54 +0000
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