After part of 68 and 69 in beautiful SE Asia, I was actually home for Thanksgiving! What a sweet feeling! I cannot possibly describe the feeling of extreme elation when I could see the ranch from the plane. Damn! I was alive! And home!
There were a few cultural issues to be dealt with like, "Mom, would you pass the f***ing salt?"
Big oops! Or dropping flat on the floor when bro or sisters would slam a door or drop something big. But nothing was really made of it. Dad knew & I think he tipped everyone else off.
Dinner was great! Real food! Cooked by Mom! Sisters helped and were duly complimented on their emerging cooking skills. Pigged OUT!
In the evening, things began to drag on so I excused myself and drove into town where I ran into a friend from HS.
"Man! Good to see you again!!" None of this PC 'thanks for your service' horse crap. ( which pi$$es me off to this very day.) Well, I was glad to see him, too! He had some refreshments & we drove around. He soon saw a girl he knew from a nearby small town who had a friend with her. They were also bored & jumped in to share a bottle o' vino with us. A girl who got in the back seat with me & introduced herself. Lord have MERCY she was pretty! A 17 y/o HS student. I didn't feel it was sinful to be with a teenager - heck, I was one, too! 19 going on 35.
We hit it off very well. Said she liked my tan. I liked her dimples and dazzling smile. I was so stricken, I forgot to be all nervous like I had been around cuties and other people in general. Which might not make much sense... and I'm really not able to explain it or why I just didn't feel "normal".
If you've ever read 'All Quiet on the Western Front' there's a scene in which the protagonist becomes wounded. On a hospital train, a nurse tells him to get in a bunk with clean white sheets. He just doesn't feel
right about soiling clean sheets. That feeling is as close as I can come to describing it.
Later that week, the girl introduced me to her parents so we could continue to date. I was nervous about that, but they were cool with everything. I saw her nearly every day.
The 30 days passed in a flash & it was time to go back. I had already signed up for Viet Nam again and now had cause to regret it. Mom said she couldn't stand to see me leave so Dad drove me over to a nearby town where there was an airport. I tossed my stuff in the car & noticed my younger sister physically expressing her grief. I was struck dumb - I had never in my wildest dreams imagined anybody actually cared. It was tough to get in the car.
Much to my surprise the girl was waiting for us in town. She had called to see when I was leaving and asked to accompany Dad & I to the airport. That had a profound effect on me, too.
I quickly ran out of things to talk about. Not easy to conversate with a basketball sized lump in your throat. She seemed to understand and held my hand tightly.
And WAY too quickly there was the airport. The airplane had one engine fired up already so it was a quick smacker good bye. She was also expressing her abject grief... which was very, very hard for me to take. I wanted desperately to comfort her.
Dragging my butt on that plane was THE hardest thing I have ever done. Some tough grunt I was! But I held it together. Somehow.
Two weeks later I was in Viet Nam again. It hadn't changed so you could tell. The girl wrote and I did see her again when I got out. We dated a while, but I wasn't right in the head & we went our separate ways. I will always think well of her.
I will always fondly remember that Thanksgiving, too. For the first time, I felt truly close to my family. And for the first time, I was actually
thankful. SW
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