HOMECOMING

My big, beefy G.I. was so skinny when we met for R&R. Making his way thru the jungle with an eighty pound pack on his back, not liking C rations (I hear there was some competition for the beanie-weanies), and being sick as a result of drinking the water when his canteens ran out had taken their toll. He was certainly fit, though, while I was struggling with leftover baby fat.

We took off on different planes for opposite sides of the world on Sept. 9, 1970; now we faced a much shorter time apart as he was due to come home on Jan. 20, 1971. It was sad but not as unbearable as before because my heart refused to believe anything would happen to him now. I was so torn between wanting to be with him and needing to go home to our daughter. Laurie had grown seven days older while I was gone - all of five weeks old now - and I was filled with guilt...guilt not to be with Garry and guilt not to be with Laurie, yet there was no way for the three of us to be together just yet.

Time seemed to go faster now. Laurie continued to have colic so days and nights blurred as we rocked and walked the floor. She learned to eat cereal, fruit and veggies with no problem at all, but she cried a lot and still needed to be held constantly.

As mentioned before, my dad was a school teacher for nine months of the year; in the summer he painted houses. In August he had fallen from a high ladder, breaking both a wrist and an ankle. To give me a break, he would semi-sit/lie on the sofa, holding Laurie on a pillow on his lap. She liked to look at the pine trees outside the picture window beside them, and Dad's patience with her was incredible. He claimed to have gone through the exact same thing with me! Mom was a gem, helping ALL the time. My brother Bob took to sleeping out in the camper to avoid the noisy baby, and my last grandpa died that summer. My sister's daughter Tammy was born twelve days after Laurie. It had been quite a year.

The news was beginning to sound promising: There was a downsizing of the troops in Vietnam, accomplished in part by giving some of the guys "drops" (being sent home about a month early), and our hopes were running very high.

Garry called a few times by MARS, which was a method of communication involving a bunch of good guys in white hats who owned ham radios and set up a line all the way from Nam to home, completely voluntary and free of charge. How wonderful they were to devote their time and radios to doing this! We could only talk for three minutes at a time, had to remember to say "Over" so the other could speak (I wasted a lot of time forgetting to say that and wondering why Garry wasn't talking to me!), and we couldn't help but be aware that all these "hammies" were being forced to listen in so they could flip switches when we did say "Over". Still, since the calls always came in the middle of the night for me, Garry was able to hear his daughter screaming her lungs out or practicing for the opera...whichever.

By the first of December, most of Garry's closest and original buddies had finished their tours or gotten drops; we were hoping and praying that he'd be able to come home early, too. The Christmas tree was up, causing Laurie absolute delight. She was growing like a weed, and Grandpa Bruckner had bought her a Johnny Jump-Up, a springy baby seat which hung from the ceiling and allowed her to jump like crazy - which she did! It's a toss- up who loved it most - her or her two grandfathers. Whenever we went to see the inlaws, that was taken along so that Grandpa Bruckner could clap his hands and keep exclaiming, "Look at her go!!". She certainly could make that thing move, laughing and giggling all the while. 

Click on photos to enlarge.

At the end of the first week of December Garry got tentative word of getting a drop. We were so excited, yet afraid of being disappointed; however, things moved very quickly, and it got to look like a sure enough thing that I rented a mobile home on Crystal Lake from a friend Garry's dad, for a month. We finally got definite word that he'd be leaving for home on Dec. 14 and arriving on the same day, due to the International Date Line, and he was moved from the field to the rear. The relief in that alone! And he'd be home for Christmas!

Family helped me move clothes and crib to the trailer on the 13th. The snow was very deep, making it difficult to carry things down the hill there, but I felt that I could move mountains.

I was to meet Garry at Kent Co. Airport around 8:00 P.M. on the 14th, so I got myself fancied up, dressed Laurie in pink ruffles from head to toe and had a long talk with her concerning going to get "Daddy!" and being on her best behavior. She knew something was up, whoever this Daddy guy was. I would drive the 35 miles to the Kmart on the outskirts of Grand Rapids, where Garry's brother Brian would meet me to drive the ten or fifteen miles on to the airport since I didn't know the way and wasn't familiar with freeway driving. We left way too early, which was good since it was pitch dark and snowing like mad. Laurie was in the car seat beside me and being good as gold.

We pulled into the Kmart parking lot and waited beneath some Christmas lights, which kept the baby fascinated. It seemed to take Brian forever to arrive, but , of course, that wasn't true, and he brought his wife Mary along. We transferred to their car for the ride to the airport. Laurie was extremely interested in this big, bustling building, too, having never seen anything like it, while I was thrilled to discover that Garry's flight was coming in AHEAD of schedule. There was only a short wait before the plane was announced, and we watched it land, not being allowed to go down to the gate but having to wait at the top of the ramp.

I honestly do not recall seeing another soul come up the ramp, although there must have been other people on the plane. But I sure saw him come running up it, in his dress green uniform with a duffle bag over one shoulder and a teddy bear in the other hand. He had a mustache (!!) and was the most wonderful sight I'd ever seen in my life! I was holding Laurie,  and he grabbed us both in a huge, tight hug and kissed me while Brian and Mary pretended to whistle and be interested in other things. He held the bear out to Laurie, which she smiled at, and then I gave her to him. As he was smiling and saying "Hello" to her, she was pulling back, looking him over very carefully, her expression plainly saying, "And who the heck is this???".

Garry drove us to the trailer, the first time he'd driven a car in almost a year. We were so excited and could not stop laughing and talking . Praise the Lord, we had made it! It was after 10:00 by the time we arrived, and Garry wanted to go to bed, but he had Daddy lessons to learn immediately. Laurie had never slept in another place, was very aware of all the emotion, and was used to being rocked to sleep. I attempted to explain this, so he went in to bed while I turned off most of the lights, heated a bottle and started to rock and sing. She was lying very quietly, drinking her bottle, but would not go to sleep! Every time I looked down, her eyes were wide open, staring at me. Garry would call out every few minutes, "Is she asleep yet?" to which I'd reply, "No. Sssshhhh.".

At long last Dreamland arrived, allowing me to gently put her in her crib, cover her up, and go jump on my husband. We didn't sleep all night...for the obvious reason, yes, but also because Garry made the mistake of telling me a long, little-bit-nasty joke with the funniest punch line. I'd go into fits of giggles every few minutes just thinking of it, which would make him laugh at my laughing; neither of us could stop.

Laurie was up to stay at her usual very early hour and proceeded to immediately begin teaching her dad what it was like to be the parent of a baby. She needed to be changed, clothed and fed. Garry needed to be shown where I'd put his civilian clothes and fed. He was pulling all the stuff out of his duffle bag (you would not believe how much they can cram into one of those things) to show me. She wanted to play with Mama, as per usual. I wanted to see all the baby pictures I'd taken and sent to him, but he'd had to dump them in Nam because the Army said to throw all photos away before they could get on their Freedom Bird (didn't want them bringing dirty or "security sensitive" pictures home). Garry wasn't used to sharing me, and Laurie wasn't used to sharing me; it was an omen of things to come, which we hadn't considered. Same with the fact that I was unused to anyone making decisions concerning the baby but me. 

We'd been married for nearly 1 1/2 years, but we'd never really lived together and had certainly never been a family together. Funny, isn't it? So many others then were living together first and maybe getting married later, while we did it just the opposite. We had to begin making all the adjustments that couples make in the first year and do so with a baby on the scene.

We were home for three weeks before having to pack every single thing we could into and on the top of the car to go live at Fort Hood, Texas, to finish up Garry's final eight months in the Army. This was not the end of Vietnam's influence on us, not by a long shot. Maybe it will never be completely resolved, but we have come a long way and are still very happily together after nearly thirty years of marriage.

Perhaps later we can tell together some of the short and long term effects it had.

I'd like to end this by paying tribute to those who weren't as fortunate as we. Many men and women (let's never forgot those women who served in Vietnam!) did not come home. Many came home seriously wounded in mind and/or body. Many didn't have loved ones waiting for them or discovered that those loved ones had NOT waited. To all those who lost your guy or gal, my heart will always ache for you. May God richly bless you.

And if no one said it then, "Welcome Home!!"

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