cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
Return to Dayton, August 1969
Bright blue sky, warm breeze, bees buzzing and birds chirping -- it was going to be a fine day in Kettering. I walked into the kitchen. The prodigal son's meal was spread out on the countertop in raw form, big ears of corn, wrapped tight in green leaves, tassels peeking out, lettuce, red onion, carrots, cucumbers -- waiting for Aunt Rose to arrive with the beefsteak tomatoes -- a cover of butcher wrap paper hid the inch-and-a-half thick strip steaks. I looked out at the patio, there sat the galvanized wash tub, filled with ice, a fat, dark green watermelon chilling in the middle, brown bottles of beer and a rainbow of soda pops -- for my not-quite-eighteen-years-old cousins -- surrounded the melon.
"Civies? I thought you'd wear your uniform?" said Dad. I could read the disappointment all over his face.
"I'm out, Dad. Discharged. Over. Fine (fee nay)." I answered. "As I recall you put on civies as soon as you got home."
Dad had returned from World War II in April of 1946. I was asleep when he finally reached the front porch after an all day ride on the Pennsylvania Rail Road. I woke up to be greeted by this strange man in gabardine slacks and a pale green shirt and I broke into a tear-filled pout, "You're not my dad," I insisted, "My dad 's a soldier."
I persisted until my poor father left and walked the half-block to grandmother's house, returning a few minutes later in his olive drab class As.
In recent years, most of high school and college, the only thing that my dad and I could agree on was my taking advanced ROTC and serving two years in the army. Now he wanted to show off his lieutenant son and, confused as I was about that same two years, I was not especially inclined to meet his needs. "Just like you," I smart-assed him, "I'm happy to be out of that uniform. Thank you very much."
He started to speak, but before he could get a word out, the screen door swung open and in marched Uncle Cliff, Aunt Rose, and three female cousins, carrying with them the beefsteak tomatoes my mom was waiting to add to the salad. A flurry of hugs, kisses, backslaps and hand shakes ensued and were no more than finished than in waltzed Uncle Bill, Aunt Betty and four more cousins, followed shortly by bachelor Uncle Ray, toting boxes of potato chips and pretzels.
The cousins soon had a game of croquet going; cries of "That's not fair!" and, "Cheater!" rising from the throats of the younger ones. Mom and the aunts tore into the kitchen chores, while I grabbed a cold beer and sidled up to the uncles as they watched Dad fuss with the charcoal grill. We're all veterans, more importantly, war veterans, I thought to myself as I took my place beside them.
I'd been two or three when they all arrived home. I'd inherited olive drab blankets, pup tents, ponchos, a steel helmet and helmet liner, and had a winter coat made from the extra thick wool of my dad's army overcoat. They became my heros. I sat quietly by at family gatherings as they drank beer and poured out their tales of the war: Lost in an Aleutian white out, Christmas in a foxhole, stitched by a Jap machine gun in Okinawa, crossing the Rhine in a rubber boat, guarding Goebbels and Goering in Nurenberg, seeing the Statue of Liberty, sailing beneath the Golden Gate. I knew the details of their experiences and it was that knowledge that caused me to choose to go to Vietnam when every other instinct said, "don't go."
"So what's really going on, Butch?" Uncle Bill, the lone Pacific vet in the family, asked.
"It's pretty screwed up," I began, glad to be included in the fraternity. "When we located Charlie we could really pound him. The trouble was locating him. Most of the Vietnamese just wanted to be left alone, at least where I was, and their army was worthless. They didn't want to find the enemy, when they did find him they didn't want to fight, they kept looking over their shoulder for a place to run."
"It's screwed up alright," Uncle Cliff cut me off, "Just do a Patton on 'em. Start down in Saigon, line up your armor and push their ass back to Hanoi."
"But that doesn't change the fact that there's no government, at least not one the people believe in and are willing to fight for," I insisted. "And do you want to start a land war with eight hundred million Chinese?"
"Just drop the God damn bomb on the place. Turn the whole damn thing into a parking lot," was Uncle Cliff's response.
"It's just like the Philippines and Okinawa," Uncle Bill said shaking his head, "We're losing a lot of good American boys, and for fucking what?"
When I looked at the surface of it I liked the sound of the conversation, especially the 'God damn this or that' and the 'for fucking what?' part. No teachers looking over the tops of their glasses, no moms with the cake of soap in their hands to wash your mouth out, no mothers or wives clucking their teeth, "just where do you think you are, talking like that, young man?" Man talk. Veteran talk.
It was only as I listened deeper that I realized that it was all pushed along by two sentiments: the desire/need to prove America's power and the value of American lives versus the lives of others. These were bedrock beliefs and though I was firmly against the war I had just fought in, I knew that a part of me held onto those thoughts too. I understood that they were jingoistic, nationalistic, irrational, maybe even racist, certainly elitist, but they were also compelling.
I tried to talk more about my experience, my observations and the similarities I thought existed between what they had experienced and my own adventures, but they weren't buying. "It's these kids today," Uncle Cliff continued, "God damn hippies, too lazy to serve. They think they can party all the time, day and night, and someone else will protect their ass."
"Yeah, I tell you what, pull 'em all in," Dad added. "Two years of discipline will do 'em a ton of good.
"You bet your ass, 'For the duration.' That's what we were told," Uncle Bill joined in. "Yep, 'for the duration.' When they said that you knew your ass wasn't going home till the God damn war was over. But now -- these damn politicians can't make up their mind what the hell they want to do. Shit, I say if you're going to go to war, then dammit, go to war. Go to win the God damn thing or don't go at all. Now I remember this time in the outskirts of Manilla..." they were off to the races with The War...
And there it was. Their war. The Good War. The war we won. The one that mattered. What was there to do but listen? It was true. Germany and Japan were powerful and driven by evil concepts. It was a close call and it could have gone either way as late as June of '44. The North Vietnamese did not have an Imperial Fleet to attack shipping lanes, bomb Pearl Harbor or shell Los Angeles. The NVA had no Panzer divisions to loose across the DMZ, no Luftwaffe to strafe our lines or bomb our base camps. We could lose this war and possibly lose nothing more than a bit of pride and face, but lose at Midway, or collapse at Normandy and the consequences would have been dire and long lasting.
In my heart I knew all of that, but I also knew that war is a small thing, one group of thirty against another group of thirty, sometimes one against one. My war, anyone's war, didn't need to be the hinge upon which human history swung to be a frightening, terrifyingly intimate experience. All that was needed were circumstances in which life could be distilled to "kill or be killed." A nano second in which you had to put aside "thou shall not kill," and, "love your neighbor as you love yourself," to fall back upon "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." It wasn't my fault that my war didn't match the glory of theirs. It was the fact that we, father and son, uncles and nephew, both knew the horror, had bathed in blood, had worked to bring about the death and destruction of others. It was our mutual glory and shame.
I tried a few more times to share my stories with them, but they wouldn't let me in. I look back years later and sense that they probably didn't realize what they were doing. What child doesn't see their parents as out of touch? What parent or grandparent hasn't said, "That's not the way we did it," with an attending tone of condescension? They didn't understand my war any more than I understood theirs. Something I thought would bring us together instead continued to keep us separate. I grabbed another beer and took my place as child in their world.
At last Dad had the steaks the way everyone wanted them, from Uncle Bill's 'well done' to my still squirming 'rare.' We gathered around the table, a prayer to God, for my safe return, the bounty that made this feast possible, the fellowship of family and something that used the word 'peace,' but conveyed something much more Nixonian. Passing tomato and cucumber slices, corn on the cob, butter, salad and salad dressings commenced. Salt and pepper shakers were called for and received. I looked at my brimming plate and realized something was missing. Forgetting that I was no longer in the officers' mess hall in Lai Khe, I spoke out as I would have just a few days earlier, "Pass the fucking butter, please."
You could hear the wind move, then silence and all eyes trained on me. What? I thought to myself. I looked at Mom, her mouth agape as she stared at me, still her baby boy. Dad and the uncles were struggling to keep their mouths from bursting open. What did I say? I went back over the words silently, "Pass the fucking butter..." Oh -- My -- God.
The clouds burst open. The uncles were laughing so hard, holding hands up as if to stop the traffic of laughter, coughing and choking and then roaring with more laughter. Dad had slipped off the end of the picnic bench and was writhing on the patio, face red, howling with laughter and holding his sides. Mom's face was scarlet, but she too was laughing along with the aunts. The cousins, even those too young to drink, laughed uproariously. I could feel the burn go up my neck as my face reddened. What was there to do but sit and take it?
At last the bellowing stopped and the meal continued. For the first three minutes one or the other of the uncles would snort and then try and choke back a laugh. Uncle Cliff looked down the table to me, "So, did you get the kind of butter you wanted?" And the table erupted again.
Bright blue sky, warm breeze, bees buzzing and birds chirping -- it was going to be a fine day in Kettering. I walked into the kitchen. The prodigal son's meal was spread out on the countertop in raw form, big ears of corn, wrapped tight in green leaves, tassels peeking out, lettuce, red onion, carrots, cucumbers -- waiting for Aunt Rose to arrive with the beefsteak tomatoes -- a cover of butcher wrap paper hid the inch-and-a-half thick strip steaks. I looked out at the patio, there sat the galvanized wash tub, filled with ice, a fat, dark green watermelon chilling in the middle, brown bottles of beer and a rainbow of soda pops -- for my not-quite-eighteen-years-old cousins -- surrounded the melon.
"Civies? I thought you'd wear your uniform?" said Dad. I could read the disappointment all over his face.
"I'm out, Dad. Discharged. Over. Fine (fee nay)." I answered. "As I recall you put on civies as soon as you got home."
Dad had returned from World War II in April of 1946. I was asleep when he finally reached the front porch after an all day ride on the Pennsylvania Rail Road. I woke up to be greeted by this strange man in gabardine slacks and a pale green shirt and I broke into a tear-filled pout, "You're not my dad," I insisted, "My dad 's a soldier."
I persisted until my poor father left and walked the half-block to grandmother's house, returning a few minutes later in his olive drab class As.
In recent years, most of high school and college, the only thing that my dad and I could agree on was my taking advanced ROTC and serving two years in the army. Now he wanted to show off his lieutenant son and, confused as I was about that same two years, I was not especially inclined to meet his needs. "Just like you," I smart-assed him, "I'm happy to be out of that uniform. Thank you very much."
He started to speak, but before he could get a word out, the screen door swung open and in marched Uncle Cliff, Aunt Rose, and three female cousins, carrying with them the beefsteak tomatoes my mom was waiting to add to the salad. A flurry of hugs, kisses, backslaps and hand shakes ensued and were no more than finished than in waltzed Uncle Bill, Aunt Betty and four more cousins, followed shortly by bachelor Uncle Ray, toting boxes of potato chips and pretzels.
The cousins soon had a game of croquet going; cries of "That's not fair!" and, "Cheater!" rising from the throats of the younger ones. Mom and the aunts tore into the kitchen chores, while I grabbed a cold beer and sidled up to the uncles as they watched Dad fuss with the charcoal grill. We're all veterans, more importantly, war veterans, I thought to myself as I took my place beside them.
I'd been two or three when they all arrived home. I'd inherited olive drab blankets, pup tents, ponchos, a steel helmet and helmet liner, and had a winter coat made from the extra thick wool of my dad's army overcoat. They became my heros. I sat quietly by at family gatherings as they drank beer and poured out their tales of the war: Lost in an Aleutian white out, Christmas in a foxhole, stitched by a Jap machine gun in Okinawa, crossing the Rhine in a rubber boat, guarding Goebbels and Goering in Nurenberg, seeing the Statue of Liberty, sailing beneath the Golden Gate. I knew the details of their experiences and it was that knowledge that caused me to choose to go to Vietnam when every other instinct said, "don't go."
"So what's really going on, Butch?" Uncle Bill, the lone Pacific vet in the family, asked.
"It's pretty screwed up," I began, glad to be included in the fraternity. "When we located Charlie we could really pound him. The trouble was locating him. Most of the Vietnamese just wanted to be left alone, at least where I was, and their army was worthless. They didn't want to find the enemy, when they did find him they didn't want to fight, they kept looking over their shoulder for a place to run."
"It's screwed up alright," Uncle Cliff cut me off, "Just do a Patton on 'em. Start down in Saigon, line up your armor and push their ass back to Hanoi."
"But that doesn't change the fact that there's no government, at least not one the people believe in and are willing to fight for," I insisted. "And do you want to start a land war with eight hundred million Chinese?"
"Just drop the God damn bomb on the place. Turn the whole damn thing into a parking lot," was Uncle Cliff's response.
"It's just like the Philippines and Okinawa," Uncle Bill said shaking his head, "We're losing a lot of good American boys, and for fucking what?"
When I looked at the surface of it I liked the sound of the conversation, especially the 'God damn this or that' and the 'for fucking what?' part. No teachers looking over the tops of their glasses, no moms with the cake of soap in their hands to wash your mouth out, no mothers or wives clucking their teeth, "just where do you think you are, talking like that, young man?" Man talk. Veteran talk.
It was only as I listened deeper that I realized that it was all pushed along by two sentiments: the desire/need to prove America's power and the value of American lives versus the lives of others. These were bedrock beliefs and though I was firmly against the war I had just fought in, I knew that a part of me held onto those thoughts too. I understood that they were jingoistic, nationalistic, irrational, maybe even racist, certainly elitist, but they were also compelling.
I tried to talk more about my experience, my observations and the similarities I thought existed between what they had experienced and my own adventures, but they weren't buying. "It's these kids today," Uncle Cliff continued, "God damn hippies, too lazy to serve. They think they can party all the time, day and night, and someone else will protect their ass."
"Yeah, I tell you what, pull 'em all in," Dad added. "Two years of discipline will do 'em a ton of good.
"You bet your ass, 'For the duration.' That's what we were told," Uncle Bill joined in. "Yep, 'for the duration.' When they said that you knew your ass wasn't going home till the God damn war was over. But now -- these damn politicians can't make up their mind what the hell they want to do. Shit, I say if you're going to go to war, then dammit, go to war. Go to win the God damn thing or don't go at all. Now I remember this time in the outskirts of Manilla..." they were off to the races with The War...
And there it was. Their war. The Good War. The war we won. The one that mattered. What was there to do but listen? It was true. Germany and Japan were powerful and driven by evil concepts. It was a close call and it could have gone either way as late as June of '44. The North Vietnamese did not have an Imperial Fleet to attack shipping lanes, bomb Pearl Harbor or shell Los Angeles. The NVA had no Panzer divisions to loose across the DMZ, no Luftwaffe to strafe our lines or bomb our base camps. We could lose this war and possibly lose nothing more than a bit of pride and face, but lose at Midway, or collapse at Normandy and the consequences would have been dire and long lasting.
In my heart I knew all of that, but I also knew that war is a small thing, one group of thirty against another group of thirty, sometimes one against one. My war, anyone's war, didn't need to be the hinge upon which human history swung to be a frightening, terrifyingly intimate experience. All that was needed were circumstances in which life could be distilled to "kill or be killed." A nano second in which you had to put aside "thou shall not kill," and, "love your neighbor as you love yourself," to fall back upon "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." It wasn't my fault that my war didn't match the glory of theirs. It was the fact that we, father and son, uncles and nephew, both knew the horror, had bathed in blood, had worked to bring about the death and destruction of others. It was our mutual glory and shame.
I tried a few more times to share my stories with them, but they wouldn't let me in. I look back years later and sense that they probably didn't realize what they were doing. What child doesn't see their parents as out of touch? What parent or grandparent hasn't said, "That's not the way we did it," with an attending tone of condescension? They didn't understand my war any more than I understood theirs. Something I thought would bring us together instead continued to keep us separate. I grabbed another beer and took my place as child in their world.
At last Dad had the steaks the way everyone wanted them, from Uncle Bill's 'well done' to my still squirming 'rare.' We gathered around the table, a prayer to God, for my safe return, the bounty that made this feast possible, the fellowship of family and something that used the word 'peace,' but conveyed something much more Nixonian. Passing tomato and cucumber slices, corn on the cob, butter, salad and salad dressings commenced. Salt and pepper shakers were called for and received. I looked at my brimming plate and realized something was missing. Forgetting that I was no longer in the officers' mess hall in Lai Khe, I spoke out as I would have just a few days earlier, "Pass the fucking butter, please."
You could hear the wind move, then silence and all eyes trained on me. What? I thought to myself. I looked at Mom, her mouth agape as she stared at me, still her baby boy. Dad and the uncles were struggling to keep their mouths from bursting open. What did I say? I went back over the words silently, "Pass the fucking butter..." Oh -- My -- God.
The clouds burst open. The uncles were laughing so hard, holding hands up as if to stop the traffic of laughter, coughing and choking and then roaring with more laughter. Dad had slipped off the end of the picnic bench and was writhing on the patio, face red, howling with laughter and holding his sides. Mom's face was scarlet, but she too was laughing along with the aunts. The cousins, even those too young to drink, laughed uproariously. I could feel the burn go up my neck as my face reddened. What was there to do but sit and take it?
At last the bellowing stopped and the meal continued. For the first three minutes one or the other of the uncles would snort and then try and choke back a laugh. Uncle Cliff looked down the table to me, "So, did you get the kind of butter you wanted?" And the table erupted again.
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