Sparrowhawk
08-31-02, 09:27 AM
August 30, 1967 ~ In the Real World
Isn't it funny how most of the time in the movies the returning warrior gets the girl!
The women was faithful and waiting at home for her warrior to return. Sure there were Marines in Nam who received Dear John letters like in other wars, but for the most part, the girlfriend, wife remained faithful.
Yesterday 35 years ago, my son was born. The Red Cross had notified my unit of his birth and I was ordered to call home. The order came because I hadn't been writing home. I would write home about the war, and the Marines I served with, but my wife (ex-wife now), didn't want to hear about that. So, I stopped writing.
She had been unfaithful right from the start so there was no real love there, I was young and she was older. She was experienced and knew what she was doing. Sort of like the war, we were young, innocent and in-experienced, and war took advantage of us, our minds and spirits. Our youth and our happiness. It all changed, almost overnight and the world we lived in at that time in Vietnam was a different world, then the world we knew back home. Isn’t that what we used to say? "In the real world?"
I spoke to my son, yesterday and he was glad to hear from me. Invited me to visit with him at his new home. It took over 20 years before we began to establish a relationship. Once he turned 18 and was on his own, we began to talk, and he found out about his mom.
Its like that with the world around us today, as more and more Vietnam veterans began to speak about their war experiences, the world is waking up and seeing it all differently than what has been written in the history books.
The honorable warrior story has yet to be told.
SF, Marines
Cook
Isn't it funny how most of the time in the movies the returning warrior gets the girl!
The women was faithful and waiting at home for her warrior to return. Sure there were Marines in Nam who received Dear John letters like in other wars, but for the most part, the girlfriend, wife remained faithful.
Yesterday 35 years ago, my son was born. The Red Cross had notified my unit of his birth and I was ordered to call home. The order came because I hadn't been writing home. I would write home about the war, and the Marines I served with, but my wife (ex-wife now), didn't want to hear about that. So, I stopped writing.
She had been unfaithful right from the start so there was no real love there, I was young and she was older. She was experienced and knew what she was doing. Sort of like the war, we were young, innocent and in-experienced, and war took advantage of us, our minds and spirits. Our youth and our happiness. It all changed, almost overnight and the world we lived in at that time in Vietnam was a different world, then the world we knew back home. Isn’t that what we used to say? "In the real world?"
I spoke to my son, yesterday and he was glad to hear from me. Invited me to visit with him at his new home. It took over 20 years before we began to establish a relationship. Once he turned 18 and was on his own, we began to talk, and he found out about his mom.
Its like that with the world around us today, as more and more Vietnam veterans began to speak about their war experiences, the world is waking up and seeing it all differently than what has been written in the history books.
The honorable warrior story has yet to be told.
SF, Marines
Cook