Welcome Home
When I came home from Vietnam nobody met me at the airport. I claimed my duffel from baggage claim and caught a taxi to my parents apartment in Manhattan. No one was awake at 11:30 at night, but the doorman was thrilled to see me, and he let me in to the apartment since my parents didn’t answer their buzzer. My family knew I was coming and when I would arrive, but my father, annoyed that I broke 4 generations of family tradition and joined the army instead of the navy, kind of disowned me. So they slept peacefully rather than welcoming me.
The following day I took the train to Philadelphia and got a car to drive out to Bryn Mawr to visit my friend, Steven Bishop. Steve had been my best friend right up till I left for the war and so I expected him to be a good friend when I got home. He answered the door, took one look, and spit on me. Calling me a baby burner, he closed the door in my face.
It was that way for a lot of the guys who came home. Granted, the most of those families were glad to see their seedling return, especially intact, but it wasn’t that way for everyone. We have always had to explain to people why we should be thought of as just as heroic as those who fought WWII –those are the men and women we call the Class of ’46 because their war ended in 1946. They returned to a heroes welcome and we returned to have parents and family blinded by the loss of pain, hate us to the core for living to return. We came home blighted as cogs in the machinery of war that no one liked or respected. I mean, thanks for the Wall and all that, but it didn’t fix anything .
As I communicate in forums with other military victims of cancer, when the conversation begins the first thing they tell me is “Welcome Home, Bob. Thank you so much for what you did.” I’ve only heard words like that from two people who were not a part of the Vietnam War. Not even my family was glad to see me.
A lot of my disenchantment with people derives from how I have been treated in my life, just like anybody else. We are a culmination of our experiences. My cancer is much harder to brook because because of the way my nation perceived me and my brothers and sisters in arms. The Myeloma killing me as I speak is a result, they presume, of my exposure to the chemicals of war. In this particular case, Agent Orange. How crappy is it for a guy dying for his nation to know the nation doesn’t appreciate his wonderful gift?
As a nation we are making the same mistake again. The Gulf war is unpopular and politically charged in negative ways. And the nation is taking it out on its veterans. Sure, people will talk of how they Support the Troops, but the truth is that they don’t. They will throw a hell of a going away party, but once gone and then returned, they are just cogs in an unpleasant to think about machine. And so a lot of veterans are not receiving the care and treatment they deserve for the wonderful and heroic thing they did.
Most of the VA facilities work under tremendous pressure. They get so little money that their level of resources suffers terribly. That inflicts a lot of pain and discomfort to veterans who need care and either don’t get it, or get too little of it. I know, it happens to me all the time. I used to complain but it does no good. America doesn’t want to support its troops, it only wishes to say it does. If soldiers did that too, Americans would surely be speaking a different language and have to learn the metric system.
So today I just wanted to speak to my younger brothers and sisters in arms. I want to tell you thank you and that I really appreciate that you experienced all of what happened to you for us here in the US.
Welcome Home!
