thedrifter
08-17-06, 06:33 AM
Laura Berman:
Vietnam War finally ends for Southfield man, comrades
B ob Citron, who once served in the Marines, wrapped up the Vietnam War on Saturday in the Novi Sheraton.
After it was over, he wondered why he hadn't shut it down sooner.
Citron was a teenager with dreams of military heroism when he enlisted a few days after his 1967 graduation from Henry Ford High School in Detroit. Less than three years later, he discovered himself back at home, a veteran of a war so loathed that even some American Legion branches refused Vietnam vets as members.
On the Wayne State campus, where he briefly enrolled, the anti-soldier sentiment proved, in its way, as traumatic to him as the incoming missiles during the siege of Khe Sanh.
Guilt, anger raged
Even 15 years later, married, with two children and a stable job as a mail carrier, a personal war was still raging. He nursed enough guilt and anger that, in a 1982 published poem, he described his feelings as "a private hell."
Last weekend, though, Citron staged a long-delayed, true homecoming, for himself and 23 of his Marine comrades from 14 states.
It was a reunion, a celebration, and, also, a release.
Now I'm in Bob Citron's comfortable Southfield living room, and he's gregarious and open, welcoming the flood of memory he for so long held back.
"I've never heard my father talk this much before," says Stephanie Citron, his 25-year-old daughter, who was learning for the first time that her silent, stoic father was someone quite different than the man she thought she knew.
The reunion of Lima Company (3d Battalion, 9th Marine regiment) took Citron almost two years to organize. His journey began at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., where he responded to a message looking for friends of Carl "Doc" Nitch.
"How do you find a guy when the only name you remember for him is 'Animal'?" Citron asks with a grin.
The lean, crew-cut, heroic officer he remembered as Capt. T.A. Scheib is now a Wisconsin reindeer farmer with a lavish white beard that would impress any department store Santa.
'Why did we wait so long?'
Some, who couldn't come, were ill or dying. Others are already gone. The pressure of time kept him working, advertising, reaching out to members of Lima 3/9, including one other Michigan man, Roger Mangerman of Pontiac.
For 48 hours, the men talked and ate and talked some more, drinking Diet Coke instead of beer. They compared physical battle scars and emotional ones: Some have Agent Orange-related problems. Many have been in therapy.
Many of the men had never really talked before. As Marines in battle, they avoided friendship -- losing friends is another hazard of war.
And they had avoided each other until Saturday.
"The guys asked, "Why did we wait so long?" says Citron, with a pause. He knows the answer to that question. Until now, they -- and he -- had not been ready.
Laura Berman's column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in Metro. You can reach her at (248) 647-7221 or lberman@detnews.com.
Ellie
Vietnam War finally ends for Southfield man, comrades
B ob Citron, who once served in the Marines, wrapped up the Vietnam War on Saturday in the Novi Sheraton.
After it was over, he wondered why he hadn't shut it down sooner.
Citron was a teenager with dreams of military heroism when he enlisted a few days after his 1967 graduation from Henry Ford High School in Detroit. Less than three years later, he discovered himself back at home, a veteran of a war so loathed that even some American Legion branches refused Vietnam vets as members.
On the Wayne State campus, where he briefly enrolled, the anti-soldier sentiment proved, in its way, as traumatic to him as the incoming missiles during the siege of Khe Sanh.
Guilt, anger raged
Even 15 years later, married, with two children and a stable job as a mail carrier, a personal war was still raging. He nursed enough guilt and anger that, in a 1982 published poem, he described his feelings as "a private hell."
Last weekend, though, Citron staged a long-delayed, true homecoming, for himself and 23 of his Marine comrades from 14 states.
It was a reunion, a celebration, and, also, a release.
Now I'm in Bob Citron's comfortable Southfield living room, and he's gregarious and open, welcoming the flood of memory he for so long held back.
"I've never heard my father talk this much before," says Stephanie Citron, his 25-year-old daughter, who was learning for the first time that her silent, stoic father was someone quite different than the man she thought she knew.
The reunion of Lima Company (3d Battalion, 9th Marine regiment) took Citron almost two years to organize. His journey began at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., where he responded to a message looking for friends of Carl "Doc" Nitch.
"How do you find a guy when the only name you remember for him is 'Animal'?" Citron asks with a grin.
The lean, crew-cut, heroic officer he remembered as Capt. T.A. Scheib is now a Wisconsin reindeer farmer with a lavish white beard that would impress any department store Santa.
'Why did we wait so long?'
Some, who couldn't come, were ill or dying. Others are already gone. The pressure of time kept him working, advertising, reaching out to members of Lima 3/9, including one other Michigan man, Roger Mangerman of Pontiac.
For 48 hours, the men talked and ate and talked some more, drinking Diet Coke instead of beer. They compared physical battle scars and emotional ones: Some have Agent Orange-related problems. Many have been in therapy.
Many of the men had never really talked before. As Marines in battle, they avoided friendship -- losing friends is another hazard of war.
And they had avoided each other until Saturday.
"The guys asked, "Why did we wait so long?" says Citron, with a pause. He knows the answer to that question. Until now, they -- and he -- had not been ready.
Laura Berman's column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in Metro. You can reach her at (248) 647-7221 or lberman@detnews.com.
Ellie