Charlie Company's Journey Home by Andrew Wiest

Author:Andrew Wiest
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781472827487
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

WAR’S END AND HOMECOMING

I knew that Jose was coming back, because Belinda [their infant daughter] had her little arms wide open waiting for him. So I really believed that. I tried to show her pictures of him while he was away. I got a letter telling me that he was coming home. But when he got home she was very angry at him. Here is this strange man kissing me in front of her, and she didn’t like that. He was a stranger to her. I told her, “He’s your daddy!” Jose moved in with us with my mom and my dad. And then the nightmares began. I didn’t even know what was going on. My mother was in the kitchen and she dropped a whole bunch of pots and pans. I looked back and Jose was on the floor. He would hit me in the middle of the night. I would wake up with bruises on my face and on my arms. I didn’t know why these things were happening, and he didn’t want to talk about it. We went to San Antonio to ask for help from the VA, but they turned him down. He had an appointment and they told him that he was okay. You can go home. This was as soon as he got out of the army. I really didn’t understand what was going on, but I knew that he had some kind of a problem.

Noemi Sauceda

Gregory knew that his daddy was gone. I would talk about Lynn and read his letters to him, and I would say “It won’t be long until daddy comes home.” He would just say, “I want my daddy; I want my daddy.” It was hard, especially around Christmas. The protests bothered Lynn. He wrote in a letter saying. “If someone spits on me, I won’t make it back. And you will just have to take care of Gregory. Because I will kill them.” It was big talk, but he was just so mad that they could treat his guys this way. We went to pick him up at the airport, and since he was still in the military we went down to Fort Knox. We stayed there until he retired in 1973. Lynn would have nightmares and talk about Vietnam in his sleep. But he never would talk about it; he just kept it all in. And I think that is worse. We bought a farm right after he got home to get ready for when he wasn’t in the military anymore. One of his friends asked him, “Why are you buying a farm? You got into the army to get off of a farm.” Lynn said, “Well, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.” Lynn retired and went farming. We had about 500 acres and raised cattle. He worked long, hard days. But he was a good farmer and loved it.

Norma Crockett

Charlie Company had arrived in Vietnam as green as grass. Some

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