Things are never quite the same...

"The whispered conversations in overcrowded hallways

The atmosphere as thrilling here as always...

Why, everything's as if we never said goodbye"

- Norma Desmond in 

Webber, AL: Sunset Boulevard

He couldn’t keep up with her as hard as he tried and try he did. She had burst away from him to see her son…while he shuffled along the best that he could.

The war for me was over…time in-service in that foreign land done…debt paid…life spared and back to all things familiar…if indeed things are ever truly familiar.

How this started
When I received orders for Vietnam, I reported to a base on the West Coast where I was housed with a lot of other young men headed for the same destination, in a large building full of bunk beds. Housed might not exactly be exactly correct. There is no doubt we were under roof, but there were military police at the exits, and we were…well, we were not permitted to leave until we shipped out. A precautionary tale of little doubt….a concern that some of the soldiers would slip out and go AWOL – away without leave!

A little family context…
My father had been a proponent of the war. Communism was the great enemy, and if Vietnam fell – as the domino theory went – it would then be all of Southeast Asia. I can recall many conversations and discussions he had with any number of people regarding how important it was for democracy to stop communism in the Republic of Vietnam (the South)...from Ho Chi Minh and the puppet masters in Moscow. They were, of course, the real villains.

It is said, “…it is much easier to tell someone how to climb a rope than it is to be on the rope yourself…” My Dad, like so many Americans at the time, had no real skin in the game. He was far removed from the oppressive heat and horror that was the Vietnam war. No skin…far removed…UNTIL his son – his ONLY son was drafted and was about to be sent to that far away land, where even the modest living of a minister of the Gospel was palatial, compared to the third world living conditions of Southeast Asia.

The change in my father’s politic wasn’t dramatic or quick, but if you paid attention, there was a clear shift and adaptation in his thought process. He was less apt to get into discussions about the war as you could see him confronted with the very real possibility he would lose his son and namesake.

He was a passionate, but guarded man, who metered out his feelings in the context of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was careful to protect the temper he had grown up with and other testosterone driven instincts that all men struggle with. The war, had come home to roost on his doorstep and ate away at him…he struggled mightily to keep it all in. He worked hard to act above the fray, but he labored over my impending departure…he lost sleep, and in quiet moments he wept.

Harboring powerful feelings take their toll on all of us. My profession, in later years, provided, an understanding of the devastating effect unchecked circulating hormones can have on the body…how mental stresses emerge in the most profound of ways, as the internal chemistry turns on itself attacking the weaker ramparts first; once weakened works to attack the next vulnerable spot, and the next, and the next…

Yet fathers are often bigger than life and so with the stiffest of upper lips my Mother and he hugged and kissed their only boy good-bye, bidding him that he fare well in his unknown and dangerous journey…there were no, “Go make the world safer place for democracy”…no “Whatever happens, be honorable”…no “You are making an unselfish sacrifice for your country and family”…there rather was, what had always been our custom – a small family circle, as he prayed the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob keep His hand on me.

Off to see the wizard…
There isn’t much in the memory banks about that brief stay out West, but soon I was “…leaving on a jet plane…” with a lot of other young men headed so far West, we landed in the East…the Far East! All of us were in clean and newly issued jungle fatigues, wide-eyed with NO, and I mean NO real idea what lay ahead.

After a stop at Clark Airbase in the Philippines, and Okinawa (due to some engine trouble), we arrived late in the evening at Ton Son Nhut air base in Saigon – today, Ho Chi Minh City. There was no jet-way from which to depart the plane, just a staircase sitting in an alien land with an immediate crushing humidity, and a kind of indescribable odor I have come to identify with tropical Asia. Not a bad odor, just different from the West Virginia hills to which I had been accustomed.

The aircraft did not shut down its engines, for its crew had “…promises to keep, and miles to go before [they slept]…” The shorter their time on the ground in a war zone, the better they liked it. After all they were just ferrying a new batch of ‘virgin’ soldier boys in-country, and an equal number of ‘not so virgin’ young soldier men waiting for the same stairway...out of country. These were not freshly showered GIs in clean uniforms…they looked worn and tired in the dark, moonless and dimly lit tarmac.

As we marched by them at what was our beginning and their end, there were cat-calls and more than a few comments about how we might not make the ‘going home’ line 13 months from then – mildly entertaining for them…fairly disconcerting to us.

Suddenly, we were there and they were not. In what seemed the blink of an eye, the plane was reloaded, back in the air – the sound of the jet diminishing in the distance like the last ferry to the mainland, escaping the impending storm. They were leaving us to…leaving us to…well, just leaving us.

The year was, as one might say, what it was. Adventures unknown presented themselves; memories created…many remembered…some buried never to be repeated.

It was time to leave
Thirteen months practically to the day, I found myself standing in line with a number of tired and worn soldiers, on the tarmac Ton Son Nhut airfield in Saigon waiting for another “…jet plane…” to land. This aircraft carried the exact number of arriving soldiers, but now we were waiting to get on, get out and go home. The only thought, “Let’s get on that plane and out of the airspace before anything happens.” A free floating anxiety wandering through my mind, that after an unpredictable year, something might actually happen at the last minute, preventing us from flying so far East, we would actually safely reach the West!

The flight home took me to the West Coast, then to an airfield on the East Coast where I picked up a domestic flight to go home. By now I had called to let Mum and Dad know I was safe, and let them know the time of arrival.

'Familiarity' doesn’t mean 'the same'
What I didn’t know in the year I away and unknown to me, was that my father could no longer conceal the Parkinson’s Disease that had been quietly encroaching on his life and body. What I didn’t know in the year I was gone, was that my father worried and ached for my safety everyday. What I didn’t know in the year I had been gone, was that my father would become more and more infirmed until eventually this disease would contribute to the premature ending of his life.

As the aircraft approached the regional airport in Canton, Ohio, every thing slowed down. It seemed the plane could not get to the ground fast enough. When it did, I got off and entered the terminal yearning and at the same time wondering, whether I would seem different to them.

In those days, anyone could come right up to the gate. There they were, in the distance coming my way. She saw me and ran with all she had in her. “He couldn’t keep up with her as hard as he tried, and try he did. She had burst away from him to see her son…,” to touch his hair, to kiss his face, to be assured that it was really him and not the frequently recurrent dream that he was safely home. He couldn’t keep up as she left his side, “…he shuffled along the best he could…,” the Parkinson’s in full bloom.

In spite of the excitement of the moment, I was stunned to see this invincible man, this bigger than life personality, struggling to move – for that is the curse of Parkinson’s; the difficulty of voluntary movement. As we embraced, all holding fast in each other’s arms, I could feel the tremors and toll this disease had taken from him in a little over a year.

Yet the prayer had been answered. I had fared reasonably well and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had kept me in His hand. More importantly, in spite of my father’s infirmity, and the unspoken drain on my mother’s life, we were together safely in one another’s arms.

We were not the same people who had prayed together and said good-bye. As it turns out, we had all been at war that year…all of us had lost a little something. And yet, words cannot express the feelings of that moment…the strength of love, the gift humanity has to carry thought and people with us no matter where we are…the ability to nurture and grow feelings, even in the most strenuous of absence. In that moment, whatever had happened in that year meant nothing, for we had the most coveted gift any human being can ask for…each other.

- ted