Anthony Wagner

Night Leaving/Arrival

There we were, two or three hundred, young combat veterans, assembled under a tin roof on the tarmac of the Bien Hoa airport. Anxious, quietly joyous, itchy, knowing that we were through with Vietnam, we were so short! We scanned the night sky trying to catch a glimpse of the jetliner that we knew would land quickly, scoop us up and away from this lousy, scary place.

It seemed like just yesterday that we landed at this very same place. Only then we were green, fresh and scared to death.

We had to walk through them and listen to their taunts about being so “short” -- no time left in country, bragging about leaving and scornfully referencing our staying. Their leaving created a power, an arrogance that intimidated us.

I remember walking off the plane, down the gangway, across the tarmac to face the men waiting to take our seats on the plane -- waiting to go home. We had to walk through them and listen to their taunts about being so “short” -- no time left in country, bragging about leaving and scornfully referencing our staying. Their leaving created a power, an arrogance that intimidated us. We were walking a weird, nighttime, eerie, for real, gauntlet -- a strange ritual.

But now it was my turn. The plane landed and a different set of new, green, fresh replacements were walking our gauntlet and, keeping the sick tradition alive, we taunted them, and bragged. (Since then, I’ve often wondered how many of them never made it back -- how many of the faces I examined and taunted that night died).

We boarded the plane and “white knuckled” it until it taxied for take-off and roared down the runway for flight. I was looking out the window, trying to catch a last memory of that wretched place when I saw it -- a large white flash, an explosion out of the starboard engine, then came the backing off of power, the return to terminal.

God can this be? After a year in combat, can it be that I’ll not leave? How ironic. Will I die in this airport as we’re leaving?

After a quick mechanic’s work, we taxied again and finally took off. Not much elation or joy though, for I could not escape the overpowering sense that the engine was still faulty-- that anytime soon we would crash.

After nearly twenty-four hours and two stops (Tokyo and Anchorage) we finally got the word that we were approaching our landing at the Seattle-Tacoma airport.

Sketch of a soldier sitting on the ground

WAITING by Vietnam Combat Artist David Fairrington, CAT VI, 1968. Source, U. S. Army Center for Military History

On landing, came a spontaneous eruption of cheers and shouts. Deep, pent-up shouts of pure elation, joy at being “home.” Next day was filled with the task of getting out of the Army. Amazing really, the process -- fourteen “stations” each dealing with some aspect of the Army’s regimen for releasing soldiers: the forms station, the venereal disease station, the pay station, the psychology station and more.

After three years, I was out, and in less than one day since leaving Vietnam, a civilian aboard a commercial jet bound for Minneapolis. No large fanfare on arriving home, two in the morning, just Marie and her Mom and Dad. I asked for it that way. No crowds, no risk of being identified as a soldier, a Vietnam veteran -- too risky knowing the mood of the country, the possibility of having to face hostile people at the airport. Wanting instead to quietly, anonymously re-enter life.

And so it was, late at night, silently, that I returned.