By Neal Pointer
As the wheels lifted off the tarmac, I uttered the words, “I will never come back to this place”; it was the same thought that every one of us was having. In silence, we flew until the captain came on the radio and announced, “Congratulations gentlemen. You are now out of the Republic of South Viet Nam.” Some clapped, some yelled, some sighed and some just sat looking blankly into space with what would become known as the thousand yard stare. Silence returned. What we believed was the end of a year-long nightmare was the beginning of years with many more to come.
I was one of the lucky ones. Harold Robbins wrote in The Carpetbaggers that Jonas Cord was unaffected by the Great Depression; he flew over it. In the years following the war, that’s how I felt; that I had ‘flown’ over it. And for the most part, I did. It’s that ‘for the most part’ that makes me question how I’ll feel when my feet hit the ground in Saigon in a few days.
Pictures on Google show the modern Tan Son Nhat Airport. I read that there is a Burger King now. And an ATM. The exchange rate is 20,800 VN Dong to the US dollar. It looks clean, well lighted and efficient. It will not be the same place I returned to from R and R in Australia in 1972. Perhaps it will offer a subtle transition before we are hit by the hot tropical air and the ubiquitous smell of diesel fuel emitted from too many motor powered vehicles.
Of the books that have been written about Viet Nam and the movies that have been made, none depict my experiences precisely. I suspect it is that way for all of us. Of the thirty two of us who will meet on April 1, I don’t know how many are veterans of what the Vietnamese call “The American War”. The one common denominator may be tears. We returned from Viet Nam to a hostile America who did not want to hear about the war. In our silence we buried a lot of ghosts; but even buried ghosts are still ghosts.
Now, forty years later it’s time to go back; this time to rebuild instead of to destroy. War, like an ill-timed insult is something that can’t be taken back. Recent headlines from Afghanistan are reminiscent of My Lai. I hope that we have learned as a nation to reserve judgment of soldiers who are thousands of miles away in environments civilians will never understand.
As an eight year veteran of building Habitat for Humanity houses, dedications have become my favorite day of the build. We often meet for the first time the young children who will be living in the homes. Every blister, every ache, every scratch, every busted thumb becomes worth it when a child takes you by the hand and says “Come see my room.” Of the phrases I’d like to learn in Vietnamese, at the top of the list is “Come see my room.”
If you would like to follow Neal’s personal blog, it’s here: http://shootingfromthehip.net/
