A DIFFERENT KIND OF BAGGAGE
Although there were
enough problems in Vietnam,
some of us brought more.
Yes, things were different
when I got home. When I left
About a month later, we left
to spend a little time in our hometown. We had a good time on this last visit
home before I left for Nam. She wanted to stay with her sister out West while I was gone, so we started
the long drive from our hometown to her sister’s home in late August. Along
the way, she was carsick almost constantly. I insisted that we stop at
So we stopped at
And then I asked the
question that I wish I had left unspoken: “When is the baby due?”
The doctor responded with the due date, I immediately calculated the date
of conception. The resultant date was about in the middle of my 6 weeks TDY to
Jungle School!
I had two days before I was
to leave for Viet Nam
– no time to do anything but talk about what had happened while I was out of
the country. So I tried to talk about it on the rest of the drive. She said I
was the father and that the doctor was wrong about the due date. From others, I
was pretty sure doctors don’t make big mistakes about due dates. If that was
the case, the baby wasn’t mine. “What had happened?” I asked. It was 1,100
miles to the end of the trip. I drove it straight through with brief stops. The
attempts to find out what happened were futile. She knew there was nothing I
could do. I knew there was nothing I could do. I might be dead soon, anyway.
I was deeply troubled when I
left on the first leg of the journey that took me to 2/9th FA a few
days later. In the field, it was immediately apparent that the men who got the
“Dear John” letters from home or had other big issues troubling them from
home, often didn’t get home in one piece…..or at all. As much as possible, I
put the pregnancy issue behind me so that I could focus on keeping the men in my
company alive. And keeping me alive, too.
In mid March, 1968, I was in
a hospital on the coast. I’m not sure why I was there but during my stay, the
Red Cross found me and told me I was a father. I remember that, deep in despair,
I left the hospital without a release. I still don’t remember where I went.
But I talked to someone who had been at Fort
A lot of stuff happened
during that year in Nam. I extended my tour because I wasn’t ready to deal with the issues that
awaited me at home. I wasn’t able to deal with the things I had seen and done
in
As individual replacements arriving in Nam, we hadn’t a clue as what we should bring with us; we received no logistical guidance whatsoever. But…even if we did…it would not have contained any guidance on emotional baggage. I was pushing the “load limits” on that one. I've carried this particular baggage for 40 years now since the Red Cross told me about the birth. Today - as I write this - I am leaving that baggage behind me and moving on without it. Maybe this is a start towards leaving the other baggage I added in Nam.