THE DI AN DIARY--MEMOIRS FROM THE VIETNAM WAR: PART EIGHT--The Freedom Bird, The Devil's Brigade, and Home Sweet Home

A couple of months before my time elapsed in Vietnam, Colonel John Terrell Carley left as Brigade Commander and he was promoted to a position in Saigon as Brigadier General. I remember him as tough as nails, methodical, and tremendously dedicated. A master tactician. Yet he noticed me, recognized my contributions and made me feel important and I will always feel honored to have served under him. His departure culminated in the dissolution of the Brigade  Headquarters Recon Team and reassignment of its remaining members to other units. The new Brigade Commander was a Lieutenant Colonel, younger, and though very committed, he did not bond with many of the NCO’s.  His commitment to the war effort was clear, though his seemingly unwillingness to communicate did not make the NCO’s feel as integral to the success of the Operations team. I will not mention his name, as I do not wish to go on record as being less than respectful to my commanding officer.

The new Brigade Commander (L) reviewing the day's ambushes with Captain Moore (R).

Sometime in the last month before my time in-country was due to expire, Captain Roberts, the XO of Operations, stopped me at the end of a shift and asked me to have a seat in front of his desk.  I admired him, and he was a man I trusted.  It was his job to seek my interest in re-upping at that moment and he informed me that they would like me to stay on as an Operator…..after a  leave stateside of course.  He said the Colonel had signed off on another promotion to E-6, a Staff Sergeant should I extend my service, and that they would write letters of recommendation for my admission to Officer Candidate School if it was something I wanted to pursue.  I knew I was not ready to handle another tour so quickly, but I had been recognized often and knew I had a career path in the military if I wanted it.

Thoughts of Sandy, home and family, and time to unwind overcame everything else that spoke to my re-enlistment.  I came back a few days later after my conversation with the Captain, and notified him of my intent to become a civilian after my tour.  He smiled and shook my hand.

Many times in my life, I have wondered, regretted even, my decision to not make the U.S. Army a career. 

As my time became “short” some of the guys from my old team and some from the T.O.C. got together for one last time. We made a real party of it. There was plenty to drink, and all shared every single “care-package” from home. Unlike many of our comrades departing before us, we made a solemn vow. One we have kept until this day. We knew the life expectancy was not favorable for the guys being reassigned to other LRRP teams or infantry units. They were “expectants” or number 4’s, in a position not favorable to surviving. Most would not have sufficient security clearances or training to be chosen to end their field service and be assigned to the Operations Team in Brigade Headquarters.. I was lucky in that regard. Some would not make it back to family. So, we simply vowed that we would remember each other sharing a bottle of Jack Daniels, laughing and scarfing down Twinkies, homemade cookies, and beanie-weenies between gulps. I still and forever recall their laughing faces. We had very little in common. We had everything in common.

L-R: Me, Frank, Kiki, Bunky, Ralph, Tyrone (kneeling). 

I’m not sure if my family yet understands my reluctance to view the Vietnam Memorial. But, to me, it would be a desecration of my vow to find one of those names there of the laughing men I said goodbye to inside the sand-bagged perimeter of the Di An base camp those many years ago; someday, perhaps. When it won’t matter any more in the grand scheme of things. But, somehow I just don’t think so.

Finally I was eligible for DEROS and received my orders to return home. I had a seat on a Freedom Bird. I was accorded an honor usually reserved for the officers and given a jeep ride by the TOC clerk to Long Binh 90th Replacement Battalion on 4 May, 1969, passing by hamlets and hooches that I had had occasion to be intimately familiar with during my time on the LRRP team. This was not a pleasant journey, things being what they were. Human nature took over and I studied every single structure for an assassin, and constantly scanned the road ahead in dread of a mine.

While waiting to board the plane I stood in line with others strangely subdued.  I was holding an SKS carbine that I had salvaged from a recon.  We were allowed to bring one weapon home as long as it was not automatic.  An air force guy waiting on his own flight stateside, approached me and asked if I wanted to sell it for $15.  I initially replied “no”, but a few minutes later I changed my mind, ready to leave everything of the war behind.  He was ecstatic.  I have regretted it ever since.

At Long Binh I would fly out of Bien Hoa Airport to be out-processed at Ft. Ord, Oakland, California to return to non-active duty in Kentucky. Upon take-off, I again feared a strike that would preclude my journey home. We seemed to be very vulnerable. I breathed easier as I watched the landscape of South Vietnam shrink and disappear. There were cheers of joy and applause, yet surprisingly, I recall very little emotion other than relief. 

They flew us home on "Flying Tigers" airplanes and the air turbulence ruined what should have been a wild party of celebration. We would suddenly drop, God knows how many feet, recover, and drop again. Over and Over. We were sick. We were all sick. We were all really sick.

It was a bumpy 24 hour ride but we finally made it. As we de-planed we had to walk into a building or terminal some several hundred yards distant. Our course of travel would take us in the general vicinity of a chain link fence behind which was a large number of anti-war protestors. They were waving V.C. flags and shouting obscenities and on our most proximate approach a hail of rocks greeted us. This prompted intervention by the local officials to cease and restrain their activity.

As I walked into the building, images raced through my mind of the ticker tape parades for our World War II veterans and our Korean War veterans I had watched on T.V, while growing up. And I wondered, amid my confusion and hurt, "if I knew I would be coming home to such resentment, would I have volunteered to fight in such a terrible war in such a terrible place with so little support from the media, my government and its citizens?" It took me but a second to know the answer. The reasons would not be obvious to those who did not serve or bleed there, watch their brothers in arms bleed and die in the mud of those distant killing fields. But, the answer was "yes". Absolutely, “yes”.

I had packed my few civies (civilian clothes) in my checked duffle bag. I received advice that this was not a good idea too late to pay due diligence to the warning. In full dress greens I made my way home through several plane changes.  Not one single time--not once--did anyone shake my hand or welcome me home. They did everything they could to not make eye contact, looking past me if my eyes went in their direction. I could not have felt more despised if I had worn a swastika on my sleeve. It made absolutely no sense to me. And I could feel the anger building.

It was crazy how I kept worrying about the plane crashing or some other calamity on my flight to Paducah and home to Sandy. But, I did make it, and only God knows the joy in my heart at seeing Barkley Field on that approach; And ultimately the sweet face of my beloved Sandy. 

The war technically did not register as over for me until the next day when I went to the home of my parents, the home from which I had departed to fight in a foreign land on a day that seemed so very long ago. On that long ago day, I received hugs and kisses from my mother, and my dad fell on his knees on the hill next to his garden to pray to the Lord to bring me safely home. 

On this day, a year later, as my dad saw me get out of the car he was trimming rose bushes in front of the house, and he came with tears in his eyes to hug me and fall on his knees yet again in the rough, red gravel of our driveway to thank the Lord for answering his prayers and bringing me home. Mother came to the door and began to tremble with excitement, love, and happiness and kissed me so many times that it would be impossible to recall the count. The physical part of the war was over for me then. The emotional, mental-- whatever you want to call it--end of the war would be a long time coming.

If my body and mind were a cup of coffee, there were not even dregs left in the bottom.  My cup was empty.

I was 22 years old and my life was forever changed. I could not sleep for years without the bedroom door being closed and a loaded shotgun nearby. I have remained a very light sleeper for the rest of my life. I probably drank too much for a number of years, and I was inexplicably angry for a long time. I was not good company, and always having enjoyed many friendships previous to my time in South Vietnam, now cherished solitude and sought few close friendships.   I had become a perfectionist, expecting it of others, but with myself to a fault.

How Sandy dealt with all this is hard to fathom. But, she stood by me when it would have been easy to leave. In writing these memoirs I am as close to peace as I have ever been. I had times in Vietnam when my life could have ended, should have ended maybe. But, instead I have had a long full life. Almost 60,000 of my American brothers did not, but perished there, fighting for a country whose anti-war sentiment had transformed the populace from people impatient for the war to end to people who were ambivalent, unappreciative, and even antagonistic towards those who served and died there.

Not a Memorial or Veteran’s Day has passed through all these years that I haven’t reverently placed the boot string necklace of dog tags around my neck. I always reflect on the DNA of the 22 year old Keith, the residues of monsoons, rivers, mud, blood, and sweat embedded in the olive bootlace, fused there, a veritable time capsule of both horror and survival. I think of Vietnam on those days of remembrance, and memories of the good times and bad that I experienced there, and of the men that shared most of that year of my life occupy my mind and emotions. It was both a horrible and wonderful adventure. It was my “wander quest” into manhood.

To all my Brothers in Arms in the Vietnam War, may God bless you and keep you and may He reward you for your honor and your sacrifice and your intent of purpose on those far away battlefields of our youth. Ralph, Griff, Sarge, Kiki, Tyrone, David, Spanky, Terry, Barry, Bunky, and Gary---you are not forgotten. Those closest to us couldn't understand what we want to tell them, and we can't tell them for fear of forever losing what remains of our true selves. We were just young men and we did what our country told us needed to be done. And we did it with honor and without acclaim. We were, above all else, true to each other.

In the light of day it was so long ago. In the blackness of our nights it will always be yesterday.

Keith Wayne Ragan

May 16, 2007