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I was furious, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that. As I was about to speak, we heard the chopper, and we knew that would also alert the enemy as to where we were.
I signaled for the boys to gather their things because it was time to leave.
“It’s not over, Logan.” Wayde’s bitter words found me. “You didn’t win this.”
I turned around a few feet away and chuckled with sadness. “At what point did you ever think we would win this?”
Two more months came and went, and we managed to free over thirty more Americans. We learned from each rescue, and each one tested our ability to find new ways to trick the enemy and sharpen our skills. Each day came and went. The sun came up, and the sun went down. We did what we did best until the day we were told to report to a base that was relieving men of their duties.
By the time we set foot in that place, we were different men than when we arrived in Nam. After thirteen months in hell, we had become ruthless killers. We had built a name for ourselves here, and talk of our rescue missions had spread throughout the camps. We were unaware of any of it until we were greeted with a job well done by a well-known commanding officer. I figured we were just doing our job. It wasn’t what we had been trained for, but it was what we had learned, and our unit had been damn good at it.
On the sixth day, we got the news we’d been waiting for. With what little we had in our possession, we sat out on some water barrels and waited for the helicopter to arrive to take us out of here. We were going home.
“I don’t know if I know how to go back to normal living. You think we can?” Jimmy puffed on a cig as he looked up at the gray sky that hugged the jungle’s treetops.
“I don’t know what normal is anymore.” Zack rested his head in his hands while I fought sleep. I hadn’t closed my eyes in forever.
“Normal is not having anyone shooting at us, I guess,” I chimed in. “Hey, Ray, you okay?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, “just the idea of going back home wasn’t something I thought I’d ever be doing. You know? I thought we were goners after what went down with Young’s unit.”
I fought back the horrific images. Young’s entire unit had been slaughtered right in front of us. We’d been delayed and had arrived too late to save them, and we had to witness their deaths. Truckloads of Viet Cong had arrived just before we did. They stood the guys in a line and shot them one by one. They just dropped to the ground like stuffed dolls as we lay silent in the jungle, helpless to do anything for them. Our guys would never get over being too late in our attempt to rescue them. I knew we all had a lot of stuff to get over, if we ever could.
The blades of the chopper could be heard in the distance, and the jolt of adrenaline that lived deep inside the center of my nervous system pushed my fatigue away. Just as the chopper landed, the sky opened up to another downpour, and we grabbed our stuff and raced to the door. It was finally our time to go home.
As my brothers climbed inside and I lifted my foot to leave this land behind, I looked down at the water that pooled at my feet. I imagined it mixed with a heavy red. It didn’t rain water in this god-forsaken place; it rained blood from the fallen.
It took over twenty-four hours to get back into the United States, and as we stepped out onto the cool tarmac in Washington DC, it almost felt surreal.
Unlike World War Two, there were no flags being waved, no cheers of loved ones, no cameras in our faces to congratulate us for our service. This was a war like no other, and we were not welcomed home.
What the hell happened?
“There’s my son.” My mother’s voice found me as she wrapped me in one of her famous hugs, and I relished her tight hold. “Thank you, Lord, for bringing my boy home.” Her eyes were full of happy tears.
“Hey, Mom,” I nuzzled in closer. I had forgotten just how much I needed her warmth. I pulled back and was greeted with a smack on the shoulder.
“I never doubted for a second that you would come home.” My dad pulled me in close and patted my back as he gave me a bear hug.
“Is that why you haven’t slept through a night since he left?” Mom teased, and my father gave an unsure laugh as he looked around. I bet they were worried I would feel like the world had changed since we’d left. I sensed their tenseness with the greeting we’d had, or rather hadn’t had.
“Hey.” Zack’s voice had me turning around. “You okay?”
I gave him a nod. “Best I’ve been yet.”
“Come here, Zack.” My mom and dad took turns checking out their second son, making sure he’d arrived back in one piece, too.
“See you soon.” Zack pointed to me as his own mother grabbed him in a hug. “Real soon, okay?” Zack’s mom threw a teary smile and a wave at us as we walked by.
The drive home felt strange. Mom and Dad tried to fill the silence while I watched the faces on the sidewalks as we drove. I wondered if they had any clue of the hell we soldiers had been through while they went on with their daily lives. Of course, they didn’t. How could they? Any who did know would turn their own haunted eyes away and pretend they were fine. I doubted any would want to talk about it, and fewer still would want to hear about it.
How could a place I called home seem so different to me now? Nothing had changed here, only me. I felt like a stranger in my own skin. I ran my thumb gently over the flag on my rucksack and closed my eyes as I pushed back the disappointment that I didn’t feel better about being home.
“Hungry?” Dad found my gaze in the rearview mirror.
“Not really.”
“I bet a good night’s sleep will help.” Mom looked back at me, and I forced a smile. “Back in your room, in your own bed, safe and sound,” she said more to herself, and Dad reached over and squeezed her hand. It didn’t take much to see they were worried about me. I was concerned about my own mental state, so I completely understood where they were coming from.
