As I wobbled down the jetway in my unaccustomed pumps, my stateside stockings scraping
my thighs, I longed for the crumpled green fatigues and combat boots that had been my
constant companions for a year. I was daydreaming of going back to my hooch and
hopping into some off-duty shorts when--oh, my!--the little brothers had grown taller than
I during my tour in Vietnam; the sisters were sporting gaps where front teeth had been; my
mother, beginning to gray, was smiling; my father stared shyly at the ground. I had
survived! I was home! I was happy.
During the two-hour ride to our family's house, high-volume cross-talk ricocheted
throughout the car. I: My departure from Vietnam had been delayed for hours by
incoming. They: The high school track team was probably going to win district.
I: wondered whether the last casualty I had treated, a triple amp, was still alive,
or whether his body had accompanied me back to the World. They: My youngest sister
had received my homemade valentine in time for her first-grade Valentine's Day party.
I: No, the brown on my fingernails wasn't tobacco stain; it was bloodstain.
As the miles passed, the familiar sights, sounds, and smells of home squabbled in my mind
with the Technicolor reality of the war I had just left. Disoriented, I thought
fleetingly that my freedom bird must have landed on the wrong planet. Maybe I was
caught in a Rod Serling script. Sitting in the car surrounded by the family I had
ached for, I became claustrophobic. I didn't recognize them. They didn't
recognize me. I didn't recognize myself.
I found myself floundering, struggling to salvage the rapturous homecoming I had
fantasized daily during the previous year. I had but thirty days of leave to
reacquaint myself with the Land of the Big PX before reporting to Ft. Riley, Kansas.
At least homecoming dinner did not disappoint. Mom loaded the table with
everything I had not had access to for a year: chicken fried steak, iced tea, hot
biscuits, mashed potatoes made from whole Idaho spuds, pecan pie.
References to my recent occupational experience were carefully censored from my dinner
conversation. It seemed to be expected. However, somewhere between
"Please" and "mashed potatoes," I inadvertently uttered the
F-word. My sisters' eyes swelled in their tiny, pale faces. A unanimous geyser
of mashed potatoes erupted from my brothers' mouths. It took me several seconds to
discern my blunder. "In the kitchen, young lady!" my mother ordered.
I was stunned. In Vietnam the F-word had been used as a noun marker, an obligatory
part of speech. Apparently there were some facts about Vietnam that Mom hadn't
gotten from the 6:00 news. "I will NOT have that kind of language in MY house!
And you are not to discuss that--that place in my presence!"
The icy, wounded truce lasted about three days before I placed the phone call requesting a
change of orders; Ft. Riley would never know what it had missed. Twenty-five days
later I was on a flight back to Vietnam, to rejoin my family of nobody's children, all of
whom wore the same color of ugly, who all shared the same arcane patois. I returned
to that awful, beautiful land where we had learned to bleed and cry and die like grownups,
to the place where we had at least earned the right to say whatever we fucking well
pleased.
©1996 by Dusty
Back to Dusty's Prose or Poetry
My Vietnam Related Websites:
Women in Vietnam
~ Not only nurses served . . .
Dusty's Home Page
~ Poetry and prose by a woman who was a nurse in Vietnam
Emily's
Poetry ~ By a Red Cross Donut Dolly
Battle Dressing ~ The Journey of a Nurse in Vietnam
Tim O'Brien's Home Page
~ National Book Award Winner and Americal Vet
Shrapnel in the Heart
~ The most moving book you will read on Vietnam
The
Irish on the Wall ~ An effort to locate the Irish who died in Vietnam
Project
Hearts and Minds ~ Help put Viet Nam back together
All About Vietnam
~ An annotated bibliography of books about Vietnam for sale thru Amazon
Worldwide!
Photos from a Holts' Military History Tour
~ My trip to
Vietnam, February 1998
Illinois
Vietnam Women's Memorial ~ Honoring all the Illinois women who served
My Other Websites:
Chicago
Theatre Z - A ~ This is the best theater town in the country!
Writers
Theatre of Chicago ~ And this is the best theater in town
Literature
of the Korean War ~ Don't let the literature be forgotten
Poetry
of the First World War ~ Owen, Hardy and others
Samuel
Pepys ~ One of my favorite authors
Gil
Thorp ~ THE Coach
Maybe
Later . . . ~ My Creative Nonfiction
Chi-COW-go
~ Cowz plus Commentary (this used to be a cow town)
Graham
Fulton, Scottish Poet ~ Charles Manson Auditions for the Monkees
Soccer
Literature ~ I'm a fan and I read
O'Leary
Lantern ~ Fire! Fire! Fire!
Other Important Websites:
PreviewPort.com
~ Connecting Authors and Writers Worldwide
Remember
Oklahoma City ~ Civil Service and Military Employees will never forget
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