R&R

I took R&R in early 72. I really wanted to go to Australia, but I guess you guys before me had had too much fun, as the ports were closed down. No dice. Pick another place, I was told. Shit, I didn't want to go anywhere else. In 72, one could come home on R&R. (Shrug) why not? I came home.

My brother, being in college, wanted to hear war stories… hell, everyone did. Kill any one? What's it like to kill someone? You shoot at anyone? The endless, same question was posed to me, day after day, just the faces changed. Mom and Dad were just glad to have me home.

My brother wanted me to go with him to a concert, in nearby Alburn, Alabama. T Rex was playing... bang a gong. My brother took me around, like so much of a war trophy: "Be afraid, here's my brother, the killer door gunner, fresh back from Nam. And he is going back." People didn't know how to talk to me, or rather, I didn't know how to talk to them. It was a very lonely R&R.

Little did I know; it foretold of a life to come. Vietnam veterans, for some strange reason, have found their way into my life as friends, way more than others.