Wapinski twisted his neck, stretched it left then right. Again he checked his reflection. The image was too faint to see details. “Good job, Wap,” he whispered to the glass. The tiredness seemed to vanish, to be replaced by a momentary flash of energy exploding in his chest, from his heart. He wanted to run. His plodding changed to a quick, light step. In Viet Nam he felt he had had a responsibility to his grandfather, his mother and Stacy, owed them his return. He had seriously considered re-upping, staying in Viet Nam. Now he was certain he’d made the right choice.
On Third Street he passed Old Pete’s Barbershop. The sign was down, the window hazed over with glass cleaner on the inside. Through scratches in the haze he could see the place was empty. No mirrors, no barber’s chairs. Even the old linoleum had been removed. The only thing that remained was a cardboard poster that said BARBER SHOP: ASK FOR WILDROOT. He did not stop, did not wonder what had happened to old Pete who had cut his hair ever since he could remember.
Half a block up, across Boyd Drive, there was a new 7-Eleven. Lights were burning in the parking lot and inside. He approached cautiously. Two doors before the store a tabby cat, crouched on the sidewalk, startled and leapt away. Wapinski startled in response, immediately brought his attention back to the store. He stopped. The store was not yet open. There were no cars in the lot, no one to be seen through the storefront. Wapinski turned, looked over his shoulder. No one. He lightly slapped his hand to his right hip. Nothing there. He stood very still. Two blocks from his mother’s house, from home, he backed up. Quickly he walked south on Boyd Drive to Second Street where Morris’ Mill Creek Grocery was still dark, then east to Callars Drive and north back to Third. He glanced west toward the 7-Eleven, half a block away. Jessie Taynor, a big, heavy, mentally impaired girl who Mill Creekers thought of as their village idiot, was shaking the glass doors, banging on the jambs.
Wapinski shook his head. He turned east, looked up Third Street to where it T’d into Crooked Road. Across the intersection, behind a low hedge and two small Japanese maples, was his mother’s house. It wasn’t yet six o’clock.
At six, the morning of 31 May 1969, Captain Robert J. Wapinski slid down against a wall on the floor of an out-processing building at Cam Ranh Bay. He sat amongst six enlisted men. His year was over. He had arrived the night before and filled out the standard forms. Now he sat and waited for the processing to be completed. Replacement Station clerks smiled awkwardly, cynically. Another grunt officer in the wrong place, he suspected them of thinking. Wapinski couldn’t give a shit. He did not care about medals, either. They had given him two Silver Stars, one for a minor operation outside of Cu Chi early in his tour and one for Dong Ap Bia, plus a Bronze Star for Go Dau Ha, an Air Medal, a CIB—that he cared about, the Combat Infantryman’s Badge—and an assortment of what sailors call geedunks, candy.
He was tired. He had begun his out-processing on the 26th, six days after the final assault on Dong Ap Bia. Much has been said about American soldiers being pulled from jungle battles, flown to America, discharged, and returned home within thirty-six hours. There probably exist a few for whom these events happened so quickly; for most the process of clearing company, battalion, division, and finally country lasted days. Moreover, few—except the battle-wounded who were evacuated from country and the KIAs—were in battle their last moments in the field.
Wapinski cleared company and battalion. He visited the casualties in the field hospital from his last battle. He dragged out clearing division until the 30th, wanting to avoid waiting at Cam Ranh, wanting to spend his last energy in Viet Nam consoling and supporting the wounded men he’d fought beside. Dragging out out-processing increased the weariness still on him from the A Shau Valley operation.
Captains weren’t supposed to have to wait with enlisted men but he had been with two of these six men during the past month. They were not his men. He had not commanded them, although at times he had commanded other boonie rats, grunts, but he knew two of the men and he did not want to sit alone, nor did he want to drink with the desk officers with whom he had come to the replacement center.
Wapinski had no war souvenirs that needed clearing. He had already gotten his hair cut. He did not want to talk but he wanted to listen to grunts talk. The big PX, the city atmosphere, the people milling around chattering so loudly—it was almost frightening. Why? He could not get the question out of his mind nor could he bring it into focus. Out of all the men leaving or coming or working here, he thought, these six know what it’s been about. There were two or three other small groups, squads, sitting against walls, amongst two hundred or three hundred men. But, he thought, then that makes sense in a war in which eight of ten are support troops.
The more the clerks laughed, the more people milled around, the more speeches he heard from “commanders” telling them how important their job had been, how well they had served, how proud he was and they should be; the more he sat against that wall with those six, an informal patrol, perimeter, keeping others away, always one awake. For two days they sat, he would think later, without communicating. If one rose to defecate, two rose to walk his slack. If they talked, he did not remember, would never remember. They may have chatted the hours away, but he did not think so.
And then onto the buses, to the plane, segregated by rank. What happened to those six he would never know. He did not see them in Japan during the short stopover. Nor did he see them at Seattle/Tacoma or Ft. Lewis.
As the Freedom Bird touched down on 3 June small cheers sounded about the cabin. Some thought they had landed at Anchorage, expected a refueling delay before the last leg to Ft. Lewis. When the pilot announced his “Welcome home. The temperature here in Tacoma ...” the cabin erupted with applause. But the celebration was short. Everyone was tired from the flight and Seattle/Tacoma was anticlimactic. It wasn’t leaving the war zone; it wasn’t yet home. Further dampening spirits were two cold-turkey soldiers who had tried to make the flight without their fix. Men around them had attempted to take care of them, hold them, keep the authorities from detecting them. At first the two were restless, then buzzing, agitated, irritable, finally convulsive. A medic and doctor shot them up with sedatives. They were the first off the plane, strapped down to stretchers, carried out under MP escort.
Officers deplaned next. It was midmorning. Several small groups had gathered to greet a few of the returnees, though most men had not known exactly when they would return, had not sent word to relatives. Much of the terminal was restricted. Wapinski and a small group of officers followed a guide through the terminal toward customs and the never ending in/out processing procedures. He was dressed in a summer khaki uniform that he’d received at Cam Ranh Bay. His pant legs were bloused over jump boots, on his cap there was an airborne patch, a Screaming Eagle patch on his shoulder, a substantial patchwork of ribbons on his chest. As the returnees walked through the terminal they passed enlisted men with bare uniforms—soldiers possibly just having finished basic training. The EM stared at the returning officers singling out Wapinski. Wapinski smiled inwardly as one of them said, “Geez, look at that. And he’s a captain, too.” And another said, “That’s a Silver Star isn’t it?” And a third, “Look at his eyes, Man! I wouldn’t mess with him fer nothin.”
Seattle/Tacoma, buses, Ft. Lewis. For ten days Captain Robert Janos Wapinski struggled with military bureaucrats. They offered him a regular commission, they paid him, they processed form after form, and they examined him.
“Captain,” an apathetic technician told him, “your ear tests indicate a loss of hearing in both ears to very low frequency sound and in your right ear a diminished capacity to hear midfrequency tones at relatively high volume.”
“So what’s that mean?” Wapinski asked.
“Sir”—the enlisted man stared him in the eyes, shook his head, shrugged—“it means if you sign these papers sayin it’s okay, you’re outa here. You’re outa the Green Machine tonight. If you don’t sign, we keep you here for a few weeks. Run some tests. Shit l
ike that.”
“A few weeks, Specialist?” Wapinski asked. He did not like the boy’s attitude.
“Yes Sir. Then they put you before a review panel and offer you a disability. For this, maybe ten percent.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Well, Sir,” the technician groaned, irritated, “it means they send you maybe thirty bucks in the mail every month for the rest of your life. It means you gotta keep havin yer ears rechecked to make sure they’re still bad. Look, what it comes down to is cigarette money. You can stay here for the next couple of weeks to guarantee you’re in cigarette money for the rest of yer life, or you can sign these papers waiving any claims about yer ears and you’re home free.”
“Um.” Snot-nosed Spec. 4, Wapinski thought.
“Sir, this is the only thing keepin you from bein discharged, isn’t it?” Wapinski didn’t answer. The technician repeated the question, a bit louder, aiming his voice toward Wapinski’s left ear. Still Wapinski didn’t answer. “Come on, Sir,” the technician pleaded.
“Sign em for me,” Wapinski said.
“What?” The technician was astounded.
“Is your hearing bad, Specialist?”
“No Sir.”
“Then sign the papers for me and tell me where I get a ticket to Philadelphia.”
At eight o’clock in the morning, Pacific Daylight Saving Time, Friday 13 June, Robert Wapinski called home. He had called the day he arrived, had spoken briefly with his mother. “Hi. I’m in Seattle,” he had said. “Oh,” his mother answered. “That’s good.” He had sighed. Talking to his mother was never satisfying. “I’m going to be here a few days,” he told her. “I’ll call when I know my discharge date. When I’m coming back.” “You do that,” she had said. “Mom, ah, don’t call Stacy, okay? I want to surprise her.” “I won’t,” she had answered.
Their conversation on the 13th was no more rewarding, and after having spent nearly an hour waiting for a phone that wasn’t so jammed with coins that it could operate, he was angry.
“Three one five four,” his mother answered with the ending digits of her phone number.
“Hi,” he said. “It’s me. I’ve got a ten-fifteen flight out of here that gets me into Philly at 7:05, your time.”
“Rob,” his mother said, “see if you can get a flight to Williamsport, okay?”
“I thought maybe Brian could pick me up in Philly. Have you talked to Stacy?”
“You know I never see that girl,” she said. Then she added, “My stomach’s been acting up.”
At the gate to the flight to Philadelphia Robert Wapinski did a curious thing. He was dressed in summer-weight class-A greens, bedecked with ribbons, pants bloused, jump boots spitshined. He believed it would be the last time he would ever wear a military uniform and he wanted to wear it properly, proudly, this one last time. And yet, perhaps because he was alone amongst civilians preparing to board the flight and he wished to hide, perhaps because he had just been discharged from an institution that had owned him for the past thirty-four months and the freedom was producing an identity crisis, or perhaps because he just wished to be left alone with his own thoughts, shortly before boarding he went to the airport shop and purchased a pair of mirrored sunglasses. He had never owned sunglasses, had resisted buying a pair of aviator glasses while in-country partly because so many rear-echelon officers wore them and he despised their clique. He put the glasses on, adjusted them at the nose and behind the ears, boarded.
He took a window seat. The plane was nearly full yet both seats beside him remained vacant. The plane taxied, waited, taxied, thundered down and was airborne.
In the aisle seat one row up from him a man, perhaps in his early fifties, turned and looked back. Wapinski tensed. He turned his head as if looking out the window but cocked his eyes toward the stranger. The man was skimming through a news magazine. Every few pages he stopped, turned around, looked at Wapinski.
What’s your story, Jack? Wapinski thought. Still he pretended not to notice the man. What’s he lookin at me for? The man put his magazine down, stared at Wapinski. What the hell’s goin on? Wapinski tried to take in every detail. He was a large man, over six feet, at least two hundred pounds. His suit was well made, looked expensive. His tie was conservatively striped, his shoes were heavy wingtips, good for walking. Wapinski decided he must be a salesman. But his unshaven face was not a salesman’s face. I bet he’s queer, Wapinski thought.
The man stood, crossed the aisle, came back toward Wapinski. Wapinski searched the clouds below looking for a break to the ground.
“Mind if I sit down?” the man asked.
“Go ahead.” Wapinski choked on the words. He cleared his throat, continued to search the clouds. If this guy puts his hand on my leg I’ll kill him.
The man motioned for the stewardess. When she came he ordered two small bottles of scotch. “Bring two glasses,” he said to the stewardess. “With ice, please.”
From behind his sunglasses, out of the corner of his eye, Wapinski watched the man. The flight attendant set the bottles and glasses on the man’s fold-down table. He opened both bottles, poured one into each glass. “You just got back from Vet Naam, huh?”
Vet Naam, Wapinski said to himself. Christ, we’ve been there a decade and Americans still can’t pronounce the name of the country. “Yeah,” he answered. “Why?”
“Naw, naw, naw. Here. How bout a drink?”
“I never drink scotch.”
“Never? An army captain who doesn’t drink scotch!”
“Nope,” Wapinski said. “Beer. A little vodka. I don’t drink much hard stuff. Never scotch straight.”
“Well, you know, you’re a man now, right?”
“I guess I am.”
“Aw, you can drink it. Don’t worry about it. It won’t do nothin to ya. Besides, you look like you need a stiff drink.”
“Okay,” Wapinski said. He took the glass, tasted it, tilted his head back, gulped. The man did the same. Then he ordered two more. They each downed another drink without talking and the man ordered two more. Wapinski downed that one and removed his sunglasses.
The man smiled. He downed his drink, loosened his tie, ordered two more, finally said, “Well, what was it like over there?”
“It was all right,” Wapinski answered. “It was okay.”
“You see a lot of action?”
“I’m infantry,” Wapinski answered.
“So was I,” the man said.
“Hm?”
“World War Two. Europe. Marched north from Anzio all the way to Germany. We were in some nasty places.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
For the next hour he recounted battles all over Europe in which he had participated twenty-five years earlier.
“Wow! That sounds like it was hell!” Wapinski said. He was impressed with the details of the man’s stories, the comparisons he drew to Viet Nam. “Our battles were a lot smaller,” Wapinski said. “At Dong Ap Bia we had fifty percent casualties in one battalion but the overall numbers don’t compare with what you’re talking about.”
“Son,” the man said very respectfully, “every man’s got his own hell. You just finished with yours.”
“Yeah,” Wapinski answered. They were into their fifth or sixth drink.
“Never let em get to your mind,” the man said.
“Um.”
“You know what that means?”
“I guess.”
“It means when everyone else is saying this is the way things were, and you know that is not the way things were, don’t let em convince you that you don’t know your own mind. That happens. Happens all the time. They make you doubt yourself, doubt what you been through, what you know and what you accomplished. They’ll try to make you believe you’re crazy.
“I know what you guys have gone through,” the salesman continued. “Or I think I know. You guys have been terrific. Don’t ever let em make you believe different. And don’t ever let em paint it up li
ke roses either. Never let em get to your mind cause they just don’t understand. How bout one more?”
The plane landed twenty minutes early. Wapinski snapped awake. His sunglasses were on the seat beside him. Most of the passengers had deplaned, the line in the aisle at the door was only five or six people.
“Hey,” Wapinski shouted. He stood up, grabbed his small bag and started for the exit. “Hey, what happened to that guy?” he blurted at a stewardess. She looked at him blankly. “The guy that bought me all those drinks,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” the stewardess answered. “I’ve been in the forward cabin.”
“Damn.” Wapinski gritted his teeth. “I didn’t even get his name.”
“Sir,” a flight attendant addressed him from behind, “you left your glasses on your seat.”
During the hour and a half layover before his departure for Williamsport, Robert Wapinski shuffled about restlessly. He called home. His mother had not asked his brother to pick him up in Philadelphia. “Call when you get to Williamsport,” she said. He bought a coffee. He watched people staring at him in his gung-ho, airborne-all-the-way, ribbon-bedecked class-A uniform, and he felt self-conscious.
He sat in a lime-green fiberglass seat, stared out the terminal windows at the activity, the seeming random motion of planes, trucks, people scurrying. He winced, grabbed a magazine from the table beside him. Casually he flipped pages, then flipped back to the cover: Newsweek, June 9, 1969. In the “Periscope” section he found a short paragraph about the North Viet Namese using Russian-made helicopters to airlift troops and supplies within Cambodia and Laos and “occasionally across the border into Vietnam.” He did not doubt that was true. He looked up. The turmoil irritated him, made him tense. He glanced at the “War in Vietnam” section.
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