COMING HOME TO THE CIVILIAN WORKPLACE/THOUGHTS OF A RETURNING SOLDIER

COMING HOME TO THE CIVILIAN WORKPLACE
Thoughts of a Returning Soldier
Spring 1969

I appreciate the time you are affording me to interview for a job that I need to get back to normalcy and civilian life and to be a financial contributor to a new marriage.  But, it is really depressing that you could be any one of the dozen other talking faces that have interviewed me already.  

No work you say?  Not enough experience?  Or maybe you could find something for a few hours a week?

Can’t you at least act as if I am not disrupting your day and time?  

How can anyone with a brain and heart not appreciate the value of a soldier returning to civilian life from responsibilities in a war?  You cannot compare what your life has taught you, revealed to you, challenged you, to that person if you have not lived and experienced it, too.  We do not know how to fail, because to do so has meant forfeit of life and purpose, our own and those that depended upon us.  Duty, honor, and teamwork are ingrained and a part of who we are as much as the color of our skin and eyes or the God we worship.

Just a few weeks ago I was holding scores of lives in my hands, dependent upon my decisions, my skills, my devotion to perfection. I was briefing a general and his Command staff on the information they needed to make tactical and strategic maneuvers and deploy resources and men. At times I was leading men on patrol, success or failure, their life or death in my hands, invested in my ability and judgement.  

Others, not me but like me were maintaining the equipment required for the war effort, with reverent care, expertise and attention to the most minute detail because to not do so meant a brother or sister would have to suffer for their inadequacy.  Others yet were risking their  life every day in a convoy, dodging mines and small arms to provision the war effort.  

Commitment and responsibility are things we understand.

Can you understand our confusion? Our anger?  Our hurt at your insensitivity?  

You do not owe me a job or work.  You do not need to treat me as a hero. I am not and please don’t.  Not that I have seen any signs of it from you.

But, you cannot look into my eyes, not that you seem inclined to, and refuse to consider my worth or dismiss me as too young or inexperienced.  Hard work and long hours are recent companions.  I have a diploma for overcoming obstacles and achieving results. If not so, I would not be here.

I have some baggage, some issues that will take some time to resolve. They are my issues, and I will deal with them.  They will be not be apparent to you. I will do everything in my power to insure that.  The more I am engaged in helping you be successful, the less time I have to be alone with my thoughts.

I have been taught that my own needs are second to those that rely on me to get the job done.  When I commit to you, I commit to your success with all that I am.

You think you know me?  You think I am the same as the part-timer in the stockroom or the young 20 somethings you observe every day on your street or place of business?  How much real responsibility have they ever known?

You think you know me because you knew me before? Before I put on a uniform and shipped off to war?  Is that how you are judging me, remembering me?  Can’t you look into my eyes and tell the difference?  Recognize the difference in my demeanor and now serious nature?

I am not the boy or man you once knew, not the son, not the brother, not the lover or friend.  I am not the boy you played baseball with or sat in Algebra class with.  I am not your schoolmate.  I am none of those things anymore.  I know it.  But you are blind to it.  Insensitive to it.

Give me a chance to earn your respect by respecting the uniform I have worn and the sacrifices and lessons that went with them.  Challenge me.  I need it.  I thrive on it.  

But, understand please, that whatever I do, wherever I go, no matter how long I live, I have been---will always be--- a soldier, too. There should be value in that.  

My name is Keith Wayne Ragan.  For the last two years I have been a soldier, wearing the uniform of my country, fighting in a foreign war.  I need work.  I need a career.  Do you have anything for me?
--------------------------------------------------------------

Written in despair in the Spring of 1969. Certainly, thoughts have mellowed with advancing years.  But, this was written at a time when the "wounds" and memories were fresh as today's rain.  The words and thoughts capture sentiments that could not have been adequately recalled after the passage of time.  So, I thought that I would give them light. Those too young to remember the mood and sentiments of the citizenry towards soldiers returning from a very unpopular war at that time, may not understand the frustration and resentment that I was dealing with and expressed in this memoir.

One of the many interviews I vividly still recall was from a hardware store in downtown Paducah, Ky on Broadway.  The elderly gentleman interviewing me, asked me my recent work experience, and after presenting my work history, concluding with my service in the U.S. Army, he closed his notebook and abruptly told me that I didn't have enough work experience.  Several interviews stretching over the ensuing weeks finally landed me a job with SEARS at 1500 Broadway.  I began cutting up boxes on the back dock for the first couple of weeks and an hourly job in the T.V. department in sales soon after. The chance they took on hiring me led to an almost 40 year career all over the Southeast U.S. and Puerto Rico for Sears..  I am now and forever grateful. 

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