mama says om theme: warm
I boarded the plane and was getting settled in for the trip back home when the flight attendant came over the PA and announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, you are all special to us but today we have some extra-special passengers on board! Please welcome the group of soldiers on their way home from Iraq! Thank you all!" Everyone clapped and cheered while the soldiers waved and smiled. A nice, warm welcome.
I wanted to personally shake their hands and thank them, but they were too far from my seat. The plane lifted off and my mind went back to my father's own story of returning home.
My Dad served two tours in Vietnam as a medevac helicopter pilot. His job was to transport the wounded for medical help, and often the bodies that were beyond help. For years after, he would not talk about what happened over there but later he began writing about it. He published a book called Flying Alligators and Silver Spurs a couple of years ago. Here is an excerpt from it describing his trip home after finishing his second tour. Each tour was one year long and afterward, they were sent back with no emotional support and no time to "decompress".
Until I actually got on board the large, chartered civilian airliner, I was in a mood of celebration. Going up the stair entrance to the aircraft shocked me into a mood change. Here was a mini-skirted young stewardess (they still called them that) welcoming us aboard, who looked and smelled like the wonderful American girl that she was. Suddenly the apparently instant transformation hit me. I had been living like an animal, at times; living with fatigue and the constant dread which too often turned into instant fear while flying every day; routinely creating and reviewing horrors; not much caring how I looked or spoke; and had all but forgotten about running water. Now, from appearances, I could just as well be boarding past her smiling face in New York or San Antonio. Didn't this girl realize where she was? Did she know it was possible for a 122 mm rocket to come screaming into us at any second? And I actually had that thought. I wondered, had the NVA ever tried to rocket or mortar an airliner? I can only describe my feeling as culture shock.
...Over the Pacific I was still elated to be leaving, yet a great sadness began to weigh onto me at the same time. I seemed to feel both emotions at once. And underlying these emotions was a great, deep anger, which I did not understand. But I had survived! Then I would be very glad again, then the sadness would well up, and so on. Hardly anyone talked during the long flight. I think I was not the only one with conflicting thoughts. The sadness was very, very deep. I now believe it was because I had never allowed myself to grieve for lost comrades. There had been no time, and I had to use denial as a defense. The anger stayed with me for years, and I have read this is common. My wife says that I was never the same man after that second tour.
After receiving only 'blank stares and no smiles from silent civilians' on his stops in Alaska and California, on his final stretch home to Texas the stewardesses broke out some champagne for him and his buddies and they had a 'makeshift little party'.
According to his book, that was the only welcome home he ever received, other than from family members. No parades. No cheering crowds. Thankfully, no one spat in his face as some did to other returning American soldiers.
On this Memorial Day, I want to thank my father and those who have served our country in the past and present. Whether we agree with our government or not, the people risking their lives, limbs, and sanity in places far from their home and loved ones deserve our undying gratitude and respect.
They are fathers, mothers, husbands, wives.
Sisters and brothers.
Sons and daughters.
Not just casualty counts we hear on the news every day.
The next time you see someone in uniform please remember my father and shake their hand. Look them in the eye and tell them 'thank you.' They have been through hell and back. Not one of them should have to come home, as my father did, to a bunch of ungrateful, self-centered, spoiled fellow Americans who don't have the decency to give them a smile.
As we sit here in our comfortable homes, reading blogs and shopping on eBay, there are American soldiers and Marines on the other side of the world in a desert. Let's not forget it.
for other mamas on "warm" check out mama says om
I wanted to personally shake their hands and thank them, but they were too far from my seat. The plane lifted off and my mind went back to my father's own story of returning home.
My Dad served two tours in Vietnam as a medevac helicopter pilot. His job was to transport the wounded for medical help, and often the bodies that were beyond help. For years after, he would not talk about what happened over there but later he began writing about it. He published a book called Flying Alligators and Silver Spurs a couple of years ago. Here is an excerpt from it describing his trip home after finishing his second tour. Each tour was one year long and afterward, they were sent back with no emotional support and no time to "decompress".
Until I actually got on board the large, chartered civilian airliner, I was in a mood of celebration. Going up the stair entrance to the aircraft shocked me into a mood change. Here was a mini-skirted young stewardess (they still called them that) welcoming us aboard, who looked and smelled like the wonderful American girl that she was. Suddenly the apparently instant transformation hit me. I had been living like an animal, at times; living with fatigue and the constant dread which too often turned into instant fear while flying every day; routinely creating and reviewing horrors; not much caring how I looked or spoke; and had all but forgotten about running water. Now, from appearances, I could just as well be boarding past her smiling face in New York or San Antonio. Didn't this girl realize where she was? Did she know it was possible for a 122 mm rocket to come screaming into us at any second? And I actually had that thought. I wondered, had the NVA ever tried to rocket or mortar an airliner? I can only describe my feeling as culture shock.
...Over the Pacific I was still elated to be leaving, yet a great sadness began to weigh onto me at the same time. I seemed to feel both emotions at once. And underlying these emotions was a great, deep anger, which I did not understand. But I had survived! Then I would be very glad again, then the sadness would well up, and so on. Hardly anyone talked during the long flight. I think I was not the only one with conflicting thoughts. The sadness was very, very deep. I now believe it was because I had never allowed myself to grieve for lost comrades. There had been no time, and I had to use denial as a defense. The anger stayed with me for years, and I have read this is common. My wife says that I was never the same man after that second tour.
After receiving only 'blank stares and no smiles from silent civilians' on his stops in Alaska and California, on his final stretch home to Texas the stewardesses broke out some champagne for him and his buddies and they had a 'makeshift little party'.
According to his book, that was the only welcome home he ever received, other than from family members. No parades. No cheering crowds. Thankfully, no one spat in his face as some did to other returning American soldiers.
On this Memorial Day, I want to thank my father and those who have served our country in the past and present. Whether we agree with our government or not, the people risking their lives, limbs, and sanity in places far from their home and loved ones deserve our undying gratitude and respect.
They are fathers, mothers, husbands, wives.
Sisters and brothers.
Sons and daughters.
Not just casualty counts we hear on the news every day.
The next time you see someone in uniform please remember my father and shake their hand. Look them in the eye and tell them 'thank you.' They have been through hell and back. Not one of them should have to come home, as my father did, to a bunch of ungrateful, self-centered, spoiled fellow Americans who don't have the decency to give them a smile.
As we sit here in our comfortable homes, reading blogs and shopping on eBay, there are American soldiers and Marines on the other side of the world in a desert. Let's not forget it.
for other mamas on "warm" check out mama says om
posted by Nicole | 7:55 PM
3 Comments:
Awww sweetie, that was so sweet it gave me chills. It was a touching tribute to your father and the soliders. I get so aggravated with how they are treated so this was a nice tribute!
What a great tribute... and incorporation of the theme and holiday weekend!
Thanks for this piece, Nicole--a good reminder, even to my family of civilians living in a Marine Corps community in Japan.
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