We tend to think of soldiers as big, tough, fighting men who can prevail against anything. The reality in Vietnam was most of us were scared 18 and 19 year old kids who were away from home for the first time.
At the height of the Vietnam War the United States was losing about 200 men a week killed in action and the Army still relied heavily on a growingly unpopular military draft to meet manpower needs.
The Army worked hard to retain good soldiers. After one year of service they were offered the option of extending their enlistment for an additional year. For extending another year, known as “taking a short” soldiers qualified for retraining in another specialty and most importantly to me, an immediate thirty day leave.
A soldier preparing for Christmas in Vietnam, near Saigon. The original caption read “Orville Painter, 22, of Modesto, Calif., leans out of his bunker at Ka Tum, 50 miles northwest of Saigon, to hang his Christmas stocking. He jokingly pointed to the sky and said, “Santa Claus will assault from there.” Painter is with C Company, 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division.” Photo John Olson. Courtesy Stars and Stripes.
I was deployed in I Corps [most northern section of South Vietnam] as part of Charlie Company 2/501 of the famous 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile.) We joked the “airmobile” designation meant we got to watch helicopters as we walked.
My first year in the Army ended on December 12, 1969 and I was told I could be home by Christmas if I extended my enlistment another year. That sounded great to me. I was 19 and had never been away from home at Christmas in my life. I wanted to see my Mamma, so I signed up for retraining as a Military Policeman and kissed the Infantry goodbye.
Less than two weeks later on December 23, 1969 I was sitting in the civilian air terminal at Tan Son Nhat international airport with orders authorizing me thirty days leave and the right to travel free on military transports on a space available basis. I was one among hundreds of US military personnel similarly situated and the prospects of getting out of Saigon before Christmas did not look promising.
All our names went on a roster in chronological order. When your name got to the top of the list, you were on the next flight home, provided you were standing there when your name was called. Miss the call and your name went to the bottom of the waiting list.
We slept, what little we were able, on the wooden benches in the terminal. We had a restroom but no showers. After two days in the terminal many of us did not believe we were going to get home before Christmas. We decided to go into Saigon, buy a Christmas tree, and put it up in the civilian terminal at Tan Son Nhat. So we did.
The only thing we could find to decorate our five foot tree with was pull tabs off beer cans, we decked the tree in pull tabs. Around sundown the Major with the roster called us all together. He had a C-141 cargo plane going from Saigon to Okinawa that would get fourteen of us almost half way home. He said we had the right to turn this ride down and wait for a civilian airliner and he would not put anyone on the bottom of the list for refusing this ride.
“Sir, why would anyone turn down a ride home on Christmas eve?” The Major explained the “cargo” for this flight was human remains being returned home and we might not want to ride along. Nobody turned down the flight.
The flight was six and a half hours. There were no movies, meals or magazines. We sat quietly in webbed seats down the sides of the aircraft facing the center. Nobody spoke a word for those six and a half hours. Nobody slept much either.
The thoughts that went through my mind were that could be me going home that way; and, those families are going to have a crappy Christmas this year. At the tender age of 19, I had never spent much time thinking about death… over the next 50 years, I would never forget it, at least not at Christmas time.
US troops celebrate Christmas far away from home in Vietnam, 1969. Photo courtesy Stripes.com
When we arrived in Okinawa, just inside the terminal there was a very beautiful young lady, just a few years older than me, sitting behind a folding card table. She was recruiting members for VFW Post 9732. We were still in jungle fatigues and boots covered with the red mud of Vietnam. We each needed a haircut, shave and shower, not necessarily in that order.
The cute girl behind the table asked me if I was a veteran? Being young, dumb and… less than knowledgeable at the time, I truthfully told her I did not know. She frowned and asked “Didn’t you just get off an airplane from Vietnam?” I assured her I did. “Well then, you are a veteran.” That made me feel important. The process for joining the Veterans of Foreign Wars was to fill out a form, pay her $10 and I was now a member of the largest VFW Post in the world. She gave me a pocket knife with the Cross of Malta and VFW Post 9732 embossed on it. (Try passing out knives in an airport today!)
Click the Swiss Army Pocket Knife image for more.
Years later, as a VFW Post Commander myself, I would carefully inspect the DD-214 of prospective members, have our membership vote on them and then go through a detailed ceremony that concludes with the member once again taking an oath to the US constitution.
On that hot afternoon in 1969, the only necessary formality was to fill out a form with your address (I gave my parents) and give a pretty girl ten dollars. I was proud to learn I was a veteran. I did not know it at the time, but I had also just joined the world’s largest and America’s oldest, organization of veterans.
After about six hours on the ground at Okinawa, Japan, we were loaded into a chartered DC-9 civilian airliner. One with round eyed stewardesses and free champagne. They were still Stewardesses in 1969 and would not become “flight attendants” till many years later.
This flight was much more raucous. As soon as we were wheels-up the cabin broke into spontaneous applause. Shortly thereafter the stewardesses were popping champagne corks and moving up and down the aisle pouring free drinks. Private First Class, Dean Allen had an aisle seat. [I had actually been promoted to SP-4 but my orders would not catch up with me for two months.] Every time a girl walked past me with another bottle of bubbly, I held forth my plastic cup and received a refill.
The champagne was sweet and went down easy. For the first time in my life, I was a bit drunk when we touched down at LAX. I was also sleep deprived getting just a few hours a day for many days, and more upset than I realized by the fact so many American families were getting a flag draped casket for Christmas.
Popular singing groups like Creedence Clearwater Revival sang of the Vietnam War with songs like “Fortunate Son,” “Green River,” “Bad Moon Rising,” and others. You can listen to and purchase many of these at the link here.
Inside the terminal at LAX, once again I saw a very pretty girl. This one was a hippie in jeans, a T-shirt and clearly not wearing any bra, in spite of being well endowed. She was passing out handbills for the Socialist Workers Party of California, a communist front. In those days, it was still permissible for anyone to go into crowded airport terminals and pass out literature on any subject. Years later the practice would be banned as it is now. The handbill in question said American soldiers were “baby killers.”
I remembered how my flight had started. The longer I stared at the words “baby killers” the madder I got. I went back to the hippie girl and let her see me wad up the handbill and throw it away. I do not remember what she said but my instant reaction was to slap her face as hard as I have ever slapped anyone in my life.
Three policemen materialized from nowhere. Two of the nice officers helped me move rapidly through the terminal, while a third officer trailed, carrying my duffel bag for me. They took me to a small room where another policeman sat behind a desk and parked my butt in a folding chair. One officer left and the others said nary a word.
In a few minutes the door opened and ten or twelve more police officers pushed into the small room. One of them looked around and asked nobody in particular “Is this him?” to which a couple of others said “That’s him.”
I assumed I was about to get my butt kicked but I did not care.
The big officer stuck out his hand and shook mine, saying “Thanks kid, we have been wanting to slap her for the last six months.” I was in that room over an hour, before the bus came to take soldiers to a nearby Army base. While I waited, one of the cops bought me a coke after I turned down a cup of coffee and every law enforcement officer in the vicinity dropped by to shake my hand and welcome me back to the USA. No more mention was made of the hippie girl from the Socialist Workers Party. Two officers then escorted me to the door of my bus, while once again a third officer carried my duffel bag.
That was my welcome home to the USA on Christmas Eve. [I had crossed the international date line and it was still Christmas Eve when I got to California after 18 hours in an airplane.] Yes, I made it home to Texas for Christmas with my parents the next day.
Much is made of the leftists who opposed the war and bad things people did, and said, to returning Vietnam veterans. My own example is typical. Yes, I was met at the airport by a communist agitator, but I had also been accepted into the ranks of my comrades by other veterans; and given genuine respect, and in fact VIP treatment, by a bunch of patriotic cops who really appreciated my service. From that day to this, acts of kindness and tokens of appreciation have far outweighed the few who have treated me poorly. There have been plenty of hugs, handshakes, job offers and even lots of prayers in my behalf I did not even know about at the time. Serving our country in uniform has been one of the greatest privileges of my life and I served with the best men and women in the world.
Dean Allen is a decorated Vietnam veteran, author of the book Rattlesnake Revolution and a regular contributor to The Standard.
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