A Minnesota PBS Initiative
The Second Tour
It was the act of being in transit: as a soldier, being on your way somewhere to some assignment. You've been in the service, not to mention overseas and you know what it's like. It varies of course, depending where you are but it's largely the same.
You report, get yourself on some manifest and hope you'll get a flight soon. The more you do it, the more you realize that soon is enormously relative and so however long it takes becomes a secondary issue. You're in transit. You'll get there eventually. You bring something to read and look for a spot in the office or hanger where you can hear any announcement that might involve you. The more you've done it, the more you avoid those new to it. They just talk too much.
But this time you are going back. This time you know what you’re going back to and still, you’re going. You arrive in the barracks in your dress Khakis and no one pays much attention.
As always, among the thirty-five or so men, there are several conversations going on in the barracks and knowing you’re in for sixteen hours on the plane, you begin changing into your fatigues.
As you unlace your Corcoran jump boots and unbuckle your trousers you begin thinking about your leave.
Friends you had known all your lives dropped everything and rushed to see you. You are appropriately grateful: grateful to be alive certainly but grateful to have lived to experience such a moment: coming home from the war to friends and family.
Now in your jungle boots and fatigue trousers, you reach for your jungle fatigue shirt and remember the party they threw for you the night before you left.
But as you button up your shirt you realize something is wrong. It is the sudden quiet that brings you out of your reverie.
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You look up and they are all looking at you: everyone in the barracks. You look around thinking they must be looking at something else. There is nothing. It is you. A moment later one says, "That's what they look like." Then it hits you. These were men who'd never seen jungle fatigues: men who were going over for the first time.
"Oh,” you say with understanding, "You'll like these a lot better." It was a small thing but you suddenly realize that, in your polite but dismissive response, you have changed. A year earlier you might have postured a bit more. No. A year earlier you would have postured.
Moments later they call a formation and you go out and line up with the others. As a Spec 4 there’ll be the usual, “E-5 and above, fall out.” That comes before sending you and the rest on a police call to pick up cigarette butts and whatnot before letting us go back to waiting for our plane.
Somewhere in your reverie you hear it: “Specialist?” And again: Specialist?” This time you look. He’s looking at you. “Go ahead and fall out.” You do and realize at once that it’s because of your jungle fatigues, the 1st Cav patch and your Combat Infantryman Badge insignia and parachute jump wings sewed on below it: the trappings of experience in battle.
You’ve been identified and rewarded in transit and again, no posturing.
Later, on the plane, as the land of your birth disappears behind you again, you wonder about that happened. Such a strange little lesson: an illustration of a certain maturity that you had achieved somewhere along the way. And you would think of it too, for years to come. That is, if “years to come” was your fate. You’d stopped wondering about that too. There was no point to it really.
In all, you had somehow had your war already. At least, the war you always imagined: to go, to fight, to be wounded but not too badly and to come home to admiration and love. That was all of it and you had actually wanted that much. Never mind how much more that entailed and what a ridiculous notion it was. It was the imaginings of your youth.
A strange little lesson: an illustration of a certain maturity that you had achieved somewhere along the way. And you would think of it too, for years to come... if “years to come” was your fate.
These thoughts and the memories of your leave dominate the flight and sixteen or so hours later you’re back in Vietnam, back home so to speak, to friends in the Company; your life, your day to day job, even your own bunk. It's hard to imagine it being familiar but it is. You land in-country and then two or three more planes and the final helicopter ride to Bon Song and LZ English. Still you know that little incident in transit will stay with you always.
This submission is part of Stories of Gratitude.
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Biographical Details
Submitted From: MONROVIA, CA
Primary Location During Vietnam: An Khe, Vietnam 
Story Subject: Military Service
Military Branch: U.S. Army
Veteran Organization: VFW DAV Vietnam Helicopter Crewman's Assn
Unit: D Co. 229 Aviation Battalion, 1st Cavalry Div
Specialty: Doorgunner
Additional Locations During Vietnam: Bong Son, Quang Tri
Story Themes: An Khe, Army, Bong Son, Growing Up, Military Leave, Multiple Tours, Quang Tri, Read, Reflection, W. Jack Savage
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