(Cough, cough -- sounds like bullsh*t to me!)
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The post title comes from a wonderful -- though not to him, and not at the time -- reminiscence sent to me lately by a Vietnam veteran buddy, telling his sad tale of woe about linking up with an old high school friend on homecoming, and getting essentially tossed under the bus.
I'll include Pat's retelling here, because it's much better than I could do paraphrasing it, but really -- there needs to be a special circle of hell reserved for dirtbags like this guy he mentions. I wonder if anything happens to them in their later lives that would somehow even the score. Perhaps they develop some compassion, or maybe if they do, it's just too little, too late.
(In a reverse post-script added here before the text, not after, I have gone back and checked with Mother Harvard -- who practically keeps a retina scan of all of us who've ever gone there, in the vault, just in case we end up wealthy and can donate the big bux -- and the guy in question seems not even to have attended, let alone graduated from there, which only makes this story that much more painful to contemplate.)
Herewith, Pat's story about a homecoming moment that has stuck with him ever since. To set the stage, he had just finished fighting in Khe Sanh, in 1966, on his first tour with the Marine Corps, 2/9, H & S "Flames" Company:
"The C-130 took off immediately with us all tucked safely aboard on our way to the real world, The United States of America and for me; Houston, TEXAS. On the hop from Hawaii to the world, I was thinking about my mom and dad, my two brothers and two sisters, my sweetheart-Betty Jo and all of the high school friends that I had left behind and even about my coach and teachers.
I began to daydream that would get off of the plane in Houston and everyone would be there to meet me and they would all run out to me and hug me and cry. I would take Betty into my arms and kiss her and swing her around in the air as I held her close to me. We would laugh, we would cry and we would kiss. She would smell so wonderful and would be so soft and it would be all great. They would all shout and cheer and clap for me and push around me to reach out and touch my uniform. I would be appreciated.
I would go to this big homecoming party and there would be a "Welcome Home banner," eggnog, lots of hot food, every Christmas decoration ever made and everyone would be overjoyed to see me and so proud of me and elated that I had made it back alive. I would be like a real hero and the center of attention.
I would borrow my big brother Mike's 1965 red Ford Mustang and cruise by my old high school and everyone would be pumped to see me, have missed me, flock around me and want to know what I had been through. I guess I really did want to be like my dad, a real war hero. We had been deep in the bush on the verge of being overrun by a NVA Division, taking many casualties, less than 36 hours before -- and my brain could not seem to make the transition.
We finally landed at Travis Air Force Base in California, the ramp went down and mules were there to unload the caskets on. We filed off, were directed to a taxi area and caught a cab to the San Francisco Airport. And then just like that we were walking around in downtown America. I was so uncomfortable that I almost wanted to get back on the C-130 and go back to Nam...
The airport was real busy and I don’t remember much except being real uptight and anxious like I expected something to jump out and get me. There were mostly military personnel loading and unloading so I didn’t feel totally out of place with the people but just uneasy with the surroundings.
We caught our flight to Houston, TX and it was very nice. I remember smelling the perfume of the flight attendants and then the realization hit me: honest to God, I really was back in the “world”.
But it all still kind of seemed like a dream, like I would move from real time to slow motion and back and always through a haze.
I then allowed myself to let my guard down and I began to get real excited and almost cried but choked it back.
We landed and taxied into Houston Hobby Airport and my heart was pounding so fast and hard that I could feel it in my ears. I was really, really excited!!
As we came down the stair ramp I could see a crowd of people -- moms and dads, sisters and brothers, girlfriends and friends -- all running toward us and hugging the people disembarking from the plane. They were laughing, crying, and talking loudly and excitedly. I became to be overcome with emotion and my eyes completely teared up and I couldn’t see. I couldn’t wait to see all of those I had waited so long to see. As the crowd moved in small groups to the terminal I searched the area and the realization also hit me; no one was there to greet me.
I was finally back home and all alone. My breath went out of me in a gasp and a pain hit me like a bullet in the gut. I actually got dizzy. I was left standing on the tarmac by myself as the crowd of people cleared out. My heart sank to the bottom of my shoes with disappointment. In all of the rush to get home, I had forgotten to call anyone and let them know that I was even coming home. I had come from hell to paradise and no one even knew about it. Man, I really felt bad.
Even though it was my fault, I started getting really angry and went into the terminal to pick up my sea bag. Everyone was rushing every which way. I guess I thought that everyone should have known I had just returned from Nam but they all just pushed past and around me like I didn’t even exist. I wanted to shout: “Hey, I just got back from the friggin bush; I left buddies back there. I just came out of combat and was killing gooks two days ago. Doesn’t anyone give a friggin damn?!” But no one even looked at me.
As I was making my way through the crowd, I spotted a friend of mine from Memorial High School, Jim Baird. He and I had been on the high school swimming team together but he was from the upper class Memorial area and I was from the middle class Spring Branch area. I thought we were friends, though.
My heart jumped; here was my chance, someone to welcome me home and it was one of my ole swimming buddies. I moved up behind him and said: “Hey Jim, where have you been?” He turned, looked at me in my Class A’s and got a frown on his face. He said coldly: “I’m going to Harvard”. He then turned abruptly away from me. He didn’t even ask anything about me at all.
I touched him on the shoulder and said: “Hey buddy, how have you been. I’m real glad to see you again. I’ve been in Vietnam for the past year.” He said: “Why? Only losers go to Vietnam, winners go to Harvard.” And he just turned again and walked off like I wasn’t alive.
I was completely caught off guard and was actually shocked. I had never expected anything like this. To be rudely snubbed by someone I thought was a close friend. I had heard of this back “in country” but really didn’t believe it. My eyes watered up again but this time from God Damned seething anger and I hated the fucking world and everyone in it. No one really did give a tinker's damn about us or if we were there or not. I wanted to track him down and kill the son of a bitch."
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Well, Pat, I wasn't gonna offer to help you track him and kill him -- and I know that's just a figure of speech you're using ;-) -- but I figured even at this long-distant remove, that if I helped you find him -- you could at least leave him a flaming paper bag of cowsh*t on his doorstep, ring the doorbell, and hide in the bushes while you watched, with
pleasure, his attempting to stamp out the flames (in his loafers, with no socks?! It's a Harvard thing. You wouldn't understand :-).
(The flaming bag of cow poo is an age-old, country-esque revenge fantasy, conflated in my mind with the wonderful one Richard Brautigan wrote about in "The Good Work of Chickens" -- that involves dumping several tons of chickensh*t on someone's lawn who he's annoyed with, to teach them a lesson.)
But the reality is, it doesn't sound like the guy even went to Harvard, after all. So I'm not able to be of that much help.
However, Pat might be pleased to know -- in addition to his tormentor probably having been quite the BS-er himself -- than in the meantime, Harvard has developed some sensitivity towards veterans -- there's even a veterans group at Harvard, linked here. (They say that "there are thousands of living Harvard Veterans, and more than 1,200 Harvard graduates have given their lives in war." - 1,200 isn't a lot, proportional to the rest of the U.S., but it's still better than say, "none.")
According to their site:
"It is interesting to note that, on any given day, there are more than 150 members of the Armed Forces of the United States present in the classrooms and activities of Harvard University.
There are approximately 85 returning Veterans who are pursuing degrees at the Harvard Business School, while 60, mostly active duty officers , are in Master’s Degree or Executive programs at the Harvard Kennedy School. There are small numbers of Veterans at other Harvard Graduate Schools, and 35 or so students are in the ROTC program at Harvard College, which is administered through the Paul Revere Battalion at MIT."
Also, although there's some dispute about whether Thucydides could ever have said this, there IS a quote attributed to him that has inspired smart Ivy League types to also become soldiers and Marines. The quote that motivates them is this: "The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." Well, it's a catchy phrase, anyhow -- and gets its point across.
I can't remember whether that quote is one that inspired Nate Fick to become a (now a former) Marine officer -- Fick is a graduate of both Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard Business School -- he quotes a different Thucydides one in his superlative book, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer":
"We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school."
(Not sure whether that "severest school," though, is the Marine Corps, or Harvard, or both :-)
In any case, just to prove that Harvard has in fact come a long way since not sending very many of its sons and daughters off to war, I was able to be an invited guest several years ago at a celebration honoring Harvard graduates who were veterans, held at the Harvard Business School, around the time of the Marine Corps' birthday. The room was filled with all sorts of people, in uniform and out, milling around, networking, and really, it seemed like a great cross-section of graduates, from the very old to the very young, from the retired and former servicemembers to those who had just signed up.
(It also provided me with one of my Embarrassing Life Moments -- asking a smartly-dressed man*, who later turned out to be a multi-star general out of uniform, and the keynote speaker -- what his "outfit" was, because it was so "interesting" and "beautiful." To which he gamely replied, after explaining what it was, "and who, by the way, are you?!" or words to that effect. He was probably more so looking to ask, "and who let the riffraff in"?!) In any case, here's a photo or two from that event, which Nate Fick was actually emceeing. Just to prove that there are in fact, graduates of Harvard who are also veterans -- though it truly seems that Pat's tormentor, above, actually had spine enough to be neither...
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There's also an interesting OpEd piece from a recent issue of Military.com, in which another former Marine who served in Vietnam -- though later than Pat, above -- talks about the classic town v. gown disparity in who actually serves. It's called, tellingly, "The Somerville Marines," and I wish someone in the Harvard veterans community would either confirm or rebut it, because it seems to need to a response from the other side of the fence. (Somerville is one of Harvard University's poorer, working class neighbors, and the article's author, Joseph Kinney, makes the point that it sends disproportionately too many of its sons and daughters to die, versus Harvard. The article is linked here.)
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Editor's note: * My mistake, obviously, but hey, he didn't look like the guy in the published program -that guy was wearing a khaki green uniform -- and I'd never met a multi-star general before :-) (Or since, either...) Of course, it's faux pas like these that clearly explain why I blog :-) No social graces whatsoever :-)