Coming home from Nam. A marine's reception on returning. (standard:adventure, 5487 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jun 19 2020	Views/Reads: 1419/966	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A story of a marine coming back from the Vietnam war, and his reception here. Unlike modern wars, we did NOT get a good reception. Family and employers shunned us. There was no fanfare, parades, or even thanks for our efforts. Many thought us tainted.

"You ain't left yet, short-timer?"  Joey Jefferson, a very large and
very black guy in dirty jungle fatigues says, slapping me on the back.  
"Short," he shouts to a crowded EM club in Chu Lai, South Vietnam, 
"twelve days an a wake-up." 

"Shut the fuck up," several guys yell back, good-naturedly. It's a
standard ritual for all us guys when ending our tours in that country. 

All of us in there, mostly marines and army in that club, have a set
number of months in-country. Typically, we buy a calendar when arriving 
and start marking off the days. Tomorrow I leave for "The World" and 
discharge. 

"Tomorrow morning," I tell Joey, "there ain't gonna be no wake-up, since
I'm staying up all night to celebrate."  I turn to the bartender, a 
pretty Vietnamese girl wearing a see-through blouse. "I can sleep on 
the freedom bird.  Give this filthy Nigger a drink, okay?" 

Joey and I go back a long way, over eight months in the same squad.  In
combat, eight months is a long time.  During that period over half the 
squad has been wounded, transferred, or killed and had to be replaced.  
It's 1971 and the war supposedly winding down.  Already, several 
companies on our base have packed up and gone home, en mass.  Tomorrow 
I'll follow them. 

"You ought'a reenlist," Joey tells me with a frown.  "The duty should be
good stateside, you bein' a sergeant an all.  I think I will.  The 
captain promised me sergeant if I do it.  Imagine gettin' paid ta lay 
around a air-conditioned concrete barracks with your own room an nobody 
shootin' at ya." 

"And all the chickenshit we don't have over here in this shithole?  Na.
I'll pass." 

"Man, what else ya got goin'?  Both parents dead, nothin' but a coal
mine ta look foreword ta.  Goin' ta church ta meet girls.  Sheeit, man. 
You better stay in the crotch.  The marines'll look out fer ya." 

"I'll take my chances. I got a few thousand saved up, enough until I get
a job." 

"Sheeeit.  Damned honky fool." 

*** 

Well, I make it back to the World, severance pay in my pocket and free
as that proverbial bird.  The plane drops me in California.  I even 
receive travel pay to West Virginia.  With ten-grand in my pocket, free 
white and twenty-years old, I'm faced with planning my future. 

After a few nervous hours of processing out, I eventually step outside a
large white-painted Nissan hut on the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base 
between L.A. and San Diego. Only one final perimeter fence is 
separating me from freedom. 

I can't suppress a feeling of elation as I pass through a gate near a
civilian bus stop.  Although technically a civilian myself, I'm still 
thinking as a marine, not in the least prepared for my first taste of 
the war in the US.  I've never realized how much the "crotch" in the 
form of the Stars and Stripes military newspaper and Armed Forces Radio 
has protected me from the current animosity of many normal Americans. 

Since I had no civilian clothing in Vietnam, I'm wearing a dress uniform
I've just been issued as part of processing out as a civilian.  Doesn't 
make sense to give me those expensive duds, knowing I'll toss them as 
quickly as I find a clothing store, but it's the marine way. 

My mind on other things, I pay scant attention to a crowd of
scroungy-looking young people standing outside the gate.  To me, they 
look like rejected movie extras, some sporting green or orange Mohawk 
hairdos while wearing brightly-colored mismatched clothing. 

Immediately, a very cute and petite blond girl runs over.  A wide grin
on her face, she shoves it up close and spits in mine, to cheers and 
jeers from her friends. 


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