Coming home from Nam. A marine's reception on returning. (standard:adventure, 5487 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jun 19 2020	Views/Reads: 1420/966	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.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


"Baby killer," she screams in my spittle-dripping face. 

My first inclination is to flatten that pretty nose, but I see other
angry faces glaring at me and change my mind. I'm in a quandary.  Do I 
continue, through them, to wait for a bus? Or do I go back into the 
base and look for another exit? 

Screw it, I think.  After all, it isn't a bullet.  I grin back. 

"Thank you for your interest, ma'am," I tell her, shuffling aside and
shoving my way through the group.  Simmering, I sit my ass down on a 
bench, both feet planted firmly on the ground. I'm ready to defend 
myself but find them already waiting for their next victim. I'm now 
ignored as they concentrate on three more men in uniform, staring back 
from the other side of the fence. They must have seen my reception and 
be reconsidering that particular gateway. 

When the next bus comes along, I stand to get on, not caring a bit as to
its destination.  One place is as good as another, as long as I get to 
town to find a hotel and make plans. 

First, I figure, is a room.  Next, to get drunk without fearing enemy
mortars, exploding rockets, land mines, punji sticks, snipers or other 
minor distractions. One loaded weapon per man was the order in the Nam, 
and it stayed with you wherever you went, even to the shitter at three 
in the morning. 

Tomorrow, I figure, is soon enough to make plans.  Joey is right in one
respect, I don't really want to go back to a small town in West 
Virginia and a truncated life underground in a coal mine. 

I step onto a moderately-loaded city bus, lucky to find a window-seat
near the middle.  As the vehicle starts up, I see that same girl 
walking toward me down the aisle.  Apparently she doesn't see me, 
because she plops her shapely butt down next to mine. 

With my eyes still on her as we start up, I can see the woman jerk as
she looks down at my uniformed legs.  The shock is still on her face as 
her eyes swing up to mine.  Face reddening, she tenses to get to her 
feet. 

"Afraid of the big bad baby killer?" I ask. 

"Fuck you," she mutters, continuing to rise. 

Holding her arm tightly, I force her back down.  I can't say if I'm
really all that angry, want revenge, or to try to explain. It just 
seems to be the right thing to do at the moment. 

"Let me go. You going to kill me, too?" 

"No. I don't think so. If there were more room I might spank you,
though. Are you always this immature?" 

"Me? Immature? You're the one going around killing innocent people.  How
many you murder? Uh? Tell me that? How many innocent children?" 

Again angry, she shakes my now-limp hand off her arm, turning to show me
glaring blue eyes over a sneering mouth. 

"I don't really know," I tell her, honestly, "since I never stood still,
aimed my rifle, fired, and saw anyone fall." 

"Oh, sure.  You all say that. Not you, always someone else." 

"No. I've killed people, even women, that were trying to kill me.
Innocent? I didn't have time to ask." I look out the window as I try to 
explain something I'm not all that sure of myself to someone who 
doesn't really want to know. Someone with a closed mind that is not 
capable of understanding combat. "War is chaotic," I tell her, "in that 
everything is peaceful, then shots come from nowhere or from behind 
trees or bushes. For two or three minutes everyone's firing -- back and 
forth. Then, then it's peaceful again except for the moans and 
screaming of the wounded." 

"I've heard all about it," she replies. "Then you go in there and shoot
the wounded in the head with pistols.  It was on television.  I saw a 
general shoot an unarmed man in the head." 

"Hardly. We treat their wounded just the same as our own." 

"Is that before or after you throw them out of helicopters?" 

She has me there. I've never been involved with those sorts of actions,
but have heard them described often enough by those who were. It was 
not an unusual tactic and I have no quick reply. 

"See?  I knew it. You've shoved living children out of helicopters,
haven't you?" 

"No. Damn it. I never threw anyone out of a helicopter." 

"I don't beeelieeve you."  She has a satisfied look on that pretty face.
"Tell me. Do you reeeallly believe you're saving the world from the 
evils of Communism?" 

Again with the difficult questions. 

"I can't really say I do, miss.  At first, there was no question. 
Later, though, when I saw what we're doing there, how the poorer people 
seem to hate us ... I just don't know what to say." 

We argue back and forth for fifteen or twenty minutes, until we reach
her bus stop. 

"Well, I guess you, personally, aren't that bad. Have a nice day," she
tells me, getting to her feet and flouncing out, shapely butt swinging. 


I leave the bus in downtown San Diego, where I find a cheap hotel and a
bottle of expensive whiskey. It isn't until I, pretty well inebriated, 
undress for bed that I find a slip of paper in a coat pocket. 

"Sandra Jenkins," it says, giving a telephone number and a message.
"Call me, baby killer." 

It isn't until much later that I try to remember her writing anything
during that brief bus trip, and fail.  She must have had it written 
beforehand.  Later the reason became clear. 

*** 

After a few days of getting, and staying, drunk in my room, I still have
no plans.  Since San Diego seems as good a place as any to start over, 
I buy a ten-year-old Ford van and go job hunting.  I forget all about 
that pretty but obnoxious girl on the bus. 

Since I have no real skills outside ground-pounding, finding a job
proves difficult.  There are a lot of them, but few for a 
twenty-year-old with no prior experience or even a high-school diploma. 
 I lied on my marine application and quit high school to join. Now, I'm 
sorry I did. 

It isn't long before I notice a change of attitude when prospective
employers see my combat-marine background. Several magazine articles 
specify how unstable us ex-military guys are, which certainly doesn't 
help my case.  We're all supposed to be drunks or drug addicts.  Either 
that or mentally damaged by the killing.  Definitely NOT team players. 

I can't, knowing the changes in myself, swear they're wrong. War changes
a person. You might go in as kid, but you leave as a man. There are no 
kids in a war zone.  No boys, civilian or military.  They grow up fast, 
into men. It's common to see young children, five on up, selling pot or 
their sisters on the street. 

See, in wartime you learn to both subdue your emotions, laughing at
death while living in constant fear.  If you can see off-base, you know 
you may be in a sniper's sights -- and that is a fact.  You hear about 
it every day. 

For instance, I remember one morning. I got up early to dress for a work
detail.  After turning a light on in the tent, a clay Buddha on a table 
next to my bunk exploded.  Later, after the sun came up, I found a new 
bullet hole in the screening.  A sign of the time and place was that I 
didn't even bother reporting the incident, which was fairly common. 

The same with the almost nightly mortar and rocket attacks.  It got to
the point where when hearing sirens I'd simply roll over and go back to 
sleep.  If the ground started shaking, I'd wake again and take shelter 
in a ditch outside my tent.  Eventually, I developed a "don't give a 
shit" attitude.  It was either that or go crazy. 

In any case, finding a job is difficult, forcing me into frying
hamburgers at a McDonald's. 

To save money, I give up the hotel room to live in my van. I park in the
lot behind the restaurant.  A long extension cord lets me plug into an 
outside outlet when I need electricity, usually at night after the 
place closes so I can watch television in my vehicle. 

The manager doesn't mind my staying there. Having a trained killer as a
free security guard pleases her.  Being there at night also leads to me 
working the last shift and closing up, which means I have the keys and 
can use the restroom inside. 

It isn't until a month after our first meeting that I remember Sandra's
note, finding it in an envelope with other saved papers, such as my 
discharge orders. 

*** 

"Can I speak to Sandra?" I ask, calling from work. A grill filled with
shaped hamburgers simmers in front of me in various stages of rawness. 

It has taken me hours to work up enough courage, not helped by the phone
being answered by a man.  Father, husband, or boyfriend? I wonder. 

"Just a minute, buddy.  I sent the kid to get her." 

There's a thud as their telephone drops to a hard surface.  About a
minute later, I hear someone running on a wooden floor, then the 
receiver being picked up amid sounds of heavy breathing. 

"Mommy's comin'.  Hi.  My name's Amy.  Bring some candy, okay?" in a
childish voice. 

That information throws me.  The girl I met didn't seem that old, at
least not enough to have a child that can run and talk that well.  The 
voice changes to that of an adult female. 

"Yeah?" The sound of gum chewing. "Who is this, Tommy?" 

"Uh, maybe you don't remember me.  The mari ... ex-marine you talked to
on the bus to San Diego?  Last month?" 

"Oh, one of Sandy's crazy friends.  Should have figured.  Na. I'm not
Sandy.  I'm her sister, Julie.  Just a minute, I'll get her.  She's 
asleep." 

"Wait.  You don't have to wake her.  She probably doesn't remember me
anyway.  We only met once, on a bu--" 

"No problem, buddy.  I don't mind waking that boobynut -- not at all." 

Their telephone hits the surface again, with a louder thump than before.
 While waiting, I hold the phone against an ear with my shoulder.  It 
takes two hands to flip burgers before the ones at one end burn.  I 
have half of them on buns, the others turned and scooted over, and am 
busily putting raw discs at the other side before the phone is picked 
up again. 

"Sandy.  What you want?  It you, Tommy?" 

I have to explain again who I am. 

"I remember.  Say, can you meet me tomorrow, about noon? In the park at
Jefferson and Elm?  South side. Oh, and what's your name, anyway?" 

That was quick, I think.  Has she been thinking of me all this time? I
wonder. 

"Sure. I'll be there. Larry, Larry Jamis." 

I'm in seventh heaven. 

In my present lifestyle, I have no love life at all.  Even the guys
behind the serving line at McD's have cute asses to pinch.  Working in 
the back and stinking from the grill, I don't even have that.  My 
domain is a rank of deep-fat fryers, a hot grill and a small window to 
pass finished product through via metal slots.  The only time I see the 
girls is when they push past me to smoke out back. 

After work, I wash up in the back sink and go out to my van to drink,
watch tv, and sleep.  A hermit's existence.  I'm saving whatever I can, 
planning one day, when I reach that vital twenty-one years, to escape 
into a better job or maybe go back to school. 

I lay in bed half the night, not being able to sleep while thinking of
all the things that can go wrong on my first date as a civilian.  After 
more than a year of subsisting on small slant-eyed hookers, I try to 
recall what to say to a “decent” American girl. 

Rising early, I drive to a shopping center to buy a civilian suit and
white shirt, then get a haircut -- the first store-boughten one since 
I've been back. I'm at the park by eleven-fifteen. 

Seeing a group of men and women busily erecting some sort of stage over
by a baseball diamond, I sit on a bench near the parking lot, idly 
watching them while waiting for Sandra. I'm early and should be able to 
see her drive in. 

The lot fills with vehicles, but no Sandra.  I'm beginning to think I've
missed her.  Maybe she walked in from another direction? Maybe ... 
maybe she changed her mind?  The suspense is killing me. 

"Larry?  What you doing all the way over here?  The party's about to
start."  her voice comes from behind me.  "Come on.  We've been waiting 
for you." 

I get up and follow her.  She's wearing a short green skirt and a white
blouse.  No greeting, and no smile at all. 

“Yeah.  Okay," I answer to her back, perplexed.  I didn't expect her to
jump my bones, but something at least a little more romantic. Even a 
hand-shake would do. 

Oh, no! I find all the hoopla turns out to be some sort of peace
demonstration.  Obviously she doesn't want me for romantic reasons, 
only to use in some way. 

Now, I'm no longer a "Hawk," believing in saving the world from evil
Communism, but I'm certainly not the opposite, a "Dove," advocating 
peace at any cost.  As far as I'm concerned, I want only to forget that 
war in Southeast Asia.  Disillusioned, I'm out of it now and want to 
stay the hell out of it. 

"You just hold on a minute, woman," I call out to this Sandra, stopping
her in her tracks, "I'm not getting involved in this crap." 

"Crap?  It's crap to save lives?  Crap to bring our troops home?  Out of
all peop--" 

"Cut it out.  Damned if I'm gonna turn on my buddies.  We want to win
this war, not come home with our tails between our legs." 

We're at it again, though standing this time.  Back and forth we go,
standing face to angry face.  At least she doesn't spit. 

"Hey, guys, cut it out.  You're disturbing the kids," a male voice
interrupts. 

I look around, seeing we've attracted a crowd.  The ones directly around
the two of us have stern faces, while the people on the periphery are 
grinning and laughing. 

A half-dozen small children stand together among the first group.  The
kids are wearing various styles of black pajamas, one with little red 
bunny-rabbits superimposed on hers, and wide straw hats.  That and 
playing with plastic AK-47 assault rifles. 

Two of the adults are wearing military uniform blouses, minus patches,
insignia and name-tags; one army and the other marine.  Those two 
casually hold toy M16 rifles in their hands. 

"Don't mean nothin'," I tell them, a term I learned in the Nam. "I'm on
my way out'a here." 

"Hey, come on, buddy.  Join the fun," the marine says. 

"You might like it," army, an older man, joins in. 

Sandra comes closer, finally smiling.  I can feel her breath on my face.
 Her sweet, ever so sweet, breath.  "Please, Larry," is all she says, 
somehow implying promises of rosebuds, summer evenings and tangled 
sheets. 

"You can shoot me if you want," a child's voice calls up from the
vicinity of my leg.  It's the kid wearing black pajamas with 
bunny-rabbits and a grinning freckled face with eyes hidden under a 
straw hat. "You bring any candy?  I like Mars Bars." 

I sigh. What the hey? I am already here. 

"I'll stay a little while, but don't you dare ask me to give a speech. 
You hear me?  No mother-fucking way." 

"Don't you talk like that in front of kids, you ... you marine."  Sandra
chides me, and I've never heard the word, "marine," used with that tone 
in my life. It stirs my anger to another level. 

"You don't have to respect me, woman, but you WILL respect the United
States Marines," I fairly scream at her, bending my head to get in her 
face -- just like Drill Sergeant Evens used to get into mine. I hope my 
eyes are blazing like his.  They must be, because she backs up three 
steps, pretty face whitening, mouth wide-open with nothing emerging. 
For the first time since I've known her, she's speechless. 

In the background, I can hear the other marine laughing his head off. 
It must have brought back tender memories. 

Sandra and the others turn to hurry back toward the podium, leaving me
with the two partially-uniformed men. 

"Tom Smith," army introduces himself, "and this here is John Jones.  You
must be Joe Blow?" 

We all shake hands. 

"You must be kidding, with names like that?" 

"Na.  We decided it's better not to use our own.  Even though we're out
right now, you never can tell about the FBI and the rest.  The 
government is down on guys like us, guys that tell the truth about the 
war." 

Come to think of it, I think that might be a good idea -- for them.  Me,
I'm not getting involved.  All I want is to see if I have any chance at 
all with Sandra, or even it she's worth getting mixed-up with.  Even 
her sister called her crazy ...  twice.  But then, what is that 
television commercial?  "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you 
don't." 

Tom, John, and Joe -- me -- go over to sit under a tree to watch the
others attempt to get organized. 

"Look at them idiots. No discipline at all?" John, the ex-marine, says. 

"Don't look like there's not anybody in charge," Tom adds. 

A double enten ... ontenddry or whatever? I think, trying to remember
what seems like ancient English classes. 

"What you guys doing here?  You giving speeches for these idiots?" I
ask. 

"Yeah," John answers, looking away as though embarrassed. 

"Yep," Tom answers, asking, "What turned you against the war, anyway,
Joe?" 

"I guess it was one night at the club.  I asked this one bargirl the
age-old question about what a nice girl like her was doing working at a 
place like that.  And she told me. 

"She also told me, over drinks, about visiting her sister in a village
near her own. When she walked home afterward, she had to hide as a 
bunch of Americans in civilian clothes filed down the trail, away from 
her own destination.  Frightened, she hid while they passed, followed 
by Vietnamese in strange uniforms.  When she, well ... when she got 
home, everyone was dead.  She found a notice written on the mayor's 
hut.  The girl said the message, in Vietnamese, said "This is what 
happens to people who help Imperialist bastards." 

"It's what we did," John answers softly.  "One reason I got out of the
crotch after one tour there, and why I'm here now." 

"After that, I opened my eyes, seeing how the average Vietnamese glared
at me, turned their backs, and even spit in the dirt when we drove or 
walked by,” I continue.  “Not the ones on base, or the hookers, but the 
commoners.  They were the ones not getting that good old US tax money.  
That's when I decided to live day-by-day, trying only to stay alive 
until I could get home and forget the fucking war." 

We sit in silence for a few minutes, before the army guy, Tom, takes up
where I left off. 

"As for myself," he tells us, "I worked in the personnel office in Bien
Hoa.  A nice soft job in an air-conditioned office. 

"I had a girlfriend there.  She worked as a KP in the officer's mess
hall and we'd meet in the evenings.  Her name was Dau, and she'd have 
an hour or two between finishing work and having to leave the base at 
night.  A sweet little thing, she was older than me.  Which wasn't so 
bad, in that she was also a more experienced lover. 

"We'd meet in my room, have sex, and talk.  We were very close, telling
each other our problems.  Unlike most such girls, she never asked me 
for money. 

"Well, I was there during that big Tet Offensive in January, 1968. 
Afterward, I.... Well, it turned out she was killed.  I found out she 
was a North Vietnamese Army captain and was shot in uniform while 
attacking the base. 

"I went nuts, was in a mental hospital in Da Nang for over six months. 
Finally, I received a medical discharge -- and here I am.  How evil 
could those Communists be if a woman as sweet and gentle as Dau would 
join their party?  Not only join, but care enough to die for it?  Which 
was more than I can say I'd have been willing to do for my own cause." 

I can see tears forming in his eyes.  Embarrassed, we both look at John.


"Guess it's my turn, uh?" he says, grinning.  "Funny you should mention
the hospital at Da Nang.  I was once a doctor there.  Medical school 
was, and still is, very expensive. So I joined the university Officer 
Candidate School.  In return for spending some of my spare time in 
training, they paid for a good deal of my schooling. 

"When I started, there was no war nor any hint of one.  Although part of
the agreement was for me to spend time on active duty, it seemed a safe 
bet. Danger was the furthest thing from my mind. Spending a few years 
as an officer even sounded better than a long low-paid internship in a 
civilian hospital. 

"Then, war became a reality and I was stuck, eventually ending up at Da
Nang.  It's a huge base, fairly safe as such places go.  Although 
living conditions for junior officers were sort of primitive, it wasn't 
all that bad. 

"As in civilian life as a beginner, I soon became specialized in trauma
injuries and got in plenty of practice with gunshot and shrapnel 
wounds.  The work was hard and the hours long. No big deal, since 
internship in the US would have been about the same. 

"What happened was that I had this one patient, a high-ranking South
Vietnamese officer that had been wounded during some campaign or other. 


"He had been educated in the US and spoke perfect English.  I took to
spending many of my breaks and time-off periods talking to him.  For 
reasons that will become apparent, I won't give names. 

"After awhile he began trusting me and, apparently wanting to tell
someone about it, explained a secret program the CIA had going in the 
highlands.  One where they, him and CIA contacts, paid local 
Montagnards to wipe out entire villages, like Tom was saying. I guess 
the Yards didn't mind, having warred with the Vietnamese for centuries. 


"They'd use unmarked helicopters to fly to specific areas. Dressed in
North Vietnamese Army uniforms and carrying AK-47s, they'd surround a 
village and wipe out nearly all the residents.  The killers would then 
leave a few villagers to spread the word, as well as a few items 
pointing to the NVA in order to make certain the message spread. 

"When I left him, I'd go back to my quarters and write the information
down from memory -- including the names, both South Vietnamese and 
American, he'd told me.  I have a good memory and didn't miss much. 

"One day, coming on duty, I heard the man had died during the night. 
Although not his doctor by then, I knew that was very unlikely.  I went 
directly to the colonel in charge of the hospital, laying it all out to 
him. 

"Appearing sympathetic, he told me he'd investigate.  Life went on for
several months, with no reply. 

"One day, close to the end of my tour, a strange colonel stopped me in a
hallway.  Silently, he  passed me a manila envelope, then continued 
walking.  Getting to my desk, I opened it. 

"Inside were a dozen five-by-seven photographs of my family.  One showed
them at a local beach, a newspaper headline conspicuous near the lower 
edge.  It had a date of a week before.  There was a sheet of paper at 
the bottom of the stack.  It said, in large red block-letters, 'DON'T 
DO IT.' 

"I didn't do it.  I finished my active duty and got out of the whole
damned mess." 

We sit, lost in our own thoughts. 

"Amy.  Get your butt over here, and take that damned bush off your
head."  I see another woman, slightly older but just as pretty as 
Sandra.  She storms past the three of us, to grab the girl in black 
bunny-rabbit pajamas by the arm. 

Sandra rushes over and an argument ensues.  In the resulting blast of
abuse, I manage to make out that the woman is Sandra's sister, here for 
her kid. 

"Damned crazies," she offers us, glaring as she storms back to the
parking lot with the tyke. 

I look at my companions. 

"Screw this." I suggest, "Let's go get us a beer?" 

Ignoring Sandra's cries behind us, we head for the nearest bar. 

Sitting on stools in an air-conditioned barroom, we watch the
demonstration on television. A fight starts in the back and the place 
swarms with uniformed police officers. Just before the station break, 
we see Sandra fighting with a cop. 

"Cheers,"  John says, raising his glass.  I follow suit as we watch her
being dragged away. 

The End. ================== 

No. I was never a marine, I was army.  The marine part was poetic
license. 

Modern movies and tv specials tell a different story, but I assure you
those little stories don't tell the entire story.  And I'm certain the 
same sort of thing is going on right now ... today. 

For one thing, I was in the 198th Infantry a year or so after the
infamous My Lai incident hit the papers, and the same sort of 
atrocities were still going on occasionally.  A "free-fire zone" meant 
just that.  All non-combatants were assumed to be out of the area and 
anything moving could be shot.  As we found out in the WWII Pacific 
war, women and kids can kill you just as dead as adult men. 

On my first tour in Japan, my middle-aged landlady told me about being a
small child in that war.  She and other schoolgirls were taught to 
shoot rifles.  When the Americans invaded Okinawa, she was given one 
and a handful of ammunition to kill Americans.  She said smaller 
children had fake grenades taped to their chests and were trained to 
walk up to American soldiers and hand them the pin.  That the soldier 
would give them candy.  During the invasion, real grenades were used. 

War on the ground is NOT clean and neat as portrayed in the movies. 

It's living in a constant state of fear, until that fear becomes dulled
into something similar to the background ache of a bad tooth, always 
with you, ever present. 

It's a building up of anger, doing anything you can to survive one day
at a time.  It's an occasional release of that pent-up emotion in a 
moment of extreme violence, soon changing to remorse. 

At least in the case of Vietnam, where we had damned few American women
around, it's the ultimate macho society.  I've never been sports-minded 
but in two years there I don't recall EVER seeing a sports field of any 
type, much less a game. 

Before my first tour in Nam, I'd already been stationed in several
countries, giving me an advantage over culture shock – one most new 
recruits didn't have.  They'd come over talking about their cars and 
girlfriends back home. That talk would change to killing and hardships. 
It's a living hell. 

Another time, word came down that my unit, at the time I was in the 11th
Armored Cav, was headed to Cambodia. Since I only had about a week 
before processing out of the country, I was choppered to the rear.  At 
the time, using Sheridan tanks, we'd been hunting Viet Cong in the 
jungle southwest of Saigon. 

Well, a few days later I woke to one hell of a lot of activity outside
my hooch.  It seems the convoy had been ambushed on the way.  Word was 
that the convoy of trucks, armored personnel carriers and Sheridan 
tanks had been directed down a side road by a VC in South Vietnamese 
uniform, right into an ambush.  By the time I left for my freedom 
flight, I heard that most of the troop was wiped out, dead or wounded, 
including every officer and NCO in that convoy.  If I'd have had maybe 
one more week on my tour, that might well have included myself. 

The End.


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