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Coming Home – A Ramble
April 11, 2011
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Been coming home for a long while, now. Started out
way back in 1967 when I got aboard that old ‘Freedom
Bird.' A few days before that, I'd packed my gear
and took a last long look around what I'd been
calling home for a year. Then I climbed aboard the
Six-By headed for Tay Ninh and a flight to Saigon.
The memory's kinda blurred now, but I'm pretty sure
I didn't look back as the compound that was Trai
Trang-Sup disappeared behind the trees. |
Trang Sup: Photo
Copyright 2001 by Thurman P. Woodfork |
| If I had glanced back, it
damned sure wouldn't have been with anything
approaching regret. Goodbye, Vietnam; ain't been
nice knowin' ya.
Even then I didn't go
straight home. The civilian one where I grew up,
I mean. Instead, I went directly to my next
permanent duty station – 5th Tac on Clark AFB in
the Philippine Islands – without taking a leave.
Why the PI? Earlon Jones, AKA ‘Fat Daddies', had
regaled me with stories of his tour in the PI
when I was in Montana. It sounded like as good a
place as any to land after Vietnam. ‘Daddies'
was an old buddy from Cut Bank Air Force Station
back in ‘The Big Sky Country'. |
No sense in rushing back to the old world of
friends I'd gradually grown away from during
my years in the Air Force. The assistant
scoutmaster I'd once been was pretty much
washed away by wine, San Miguel beer, and
some truly imaginative libations like the
Pani Special – which could stop a charging
moose dead in its tracks – and an innocent
looking but lethal concoction known as a
Pink Mother-f****r. Smooth, sweet, and
deadly, it looked a lot like pink lemonade.
Hah! A lot of scotch and bourbon had been
added to that other stuff over the years, as
well.
And to think, I didn't drink,
smoke, curse, or fornicate when I joined up
with Uncle Sam. I had entered the Air Force
a dewy-eyed virgin. But that didn't last
long, though I probably hung on longer than
most, considering where I came from. The
nature of the beast I'd cast my future with
proved irresistible, and I soon succumbed. I
retired from the Air Force a foul-mouthed,
dirty old man, in mind if not in body.
That trusting, na�ve, church-going kid
gradually turned into the gently cynical,
increasingly disillusioned character I
became after a little more than a decade
perambulating about the world in the service
of God and Country. I learned early on, with
some surprise and disappointment, that I may
have possessed more native intelligence than
most of the people I dealt with on a
day-to-day basis, but it didn't matter. On
average, they were far more cunning than I
could ever be. Besides, there were a lot
more of them, and I still had years to go
before retirement.
Somewhere, way
down deep inside, though it was beginning to
gasp just a tad for survival, I still
carried the stubborn belief that every man
possessed some commendable qualities worth
redeeming. Vietnam didn't do much to keep
that attitude alive, though. About the only
things I still retained from the old
Scoutmaster days were an ingrained
obligation to give proper value for a day's
pay, and a pretty good chunk of honesty and
empathy.
But truly, after Vietnam, I
just didn't care as much, and it was
beginning to show. Though not yet fully
ready to accept that I had found the enemy,
I was starting to suspect he just might be
me with my sometimes-unrealistic visions of
the way things should be. And the enemy was
also growing thirsty. Adapt or die.
I
still looked and acted pretty much the same,
but I'd travelled a long way from home over
the years, spiritually as well as
physically, and I wasn't trying all that
hard to get back. Down where the real me
lived, a light that had burned pretty
brightly for years began to dim, all but
unnoticed. I wasn't paying attention to
refueling it, or I just didn't care anymore.
The old Give-a-Shit factor was gearing
down, but it wasn't readily apparent. Guys I
didn't know still stopped me on the street
to ask if they could go with me on the next
‘package' I took out. I'd lived the
industrious good guy role for so long I
still went through the motions without much
effort through pure reflex. Nobody noticed
my heart wasn't fully there anymore.
Invisible goblins lurked around the corner,
biding their time.
Did Vietnam do all
that to me? I didn't think about it at all
while I was in Southeast Asia, or for many
years after I returned to the States. As a
matter of fact, I don't know to this day how
much or in exactly what ways my sojourn in
Vietnam changed me. I always knew I could
influence those around me if I played the
personality game. I simply was not
interested in trying. TTFN – maybe more
later. |
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 By
Thurman P. Woodfork
Copyright 2009
About
Author...
Thurman P. Woodfork (Woody) spent his
Air Force career as a radar repairman in places as disparate as
Biloxi, Mississippi; Cut Bank, Montana; Tin City, Alaska; Rosas,
Spain and Tay Ninh, Vietnam. In Vietnam, he was assigned to
Detachment 7 of the 619th Tactical Control Squadron, a Forward Air
Command Post located on Trai Trang Sup. Trang Sup was an Army
Special Forces camp situated about fifty miles northwest of Saigon
in Tay Ninh province, close to the Cambodian border.
After Vietnam, Woody remained in the Air Force for nine more years.
Visit
Thurman P. Woodfork's site for more information |
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