Project Airborne by Johnson Cassandra

Author:Johnson, Cassandra [Johnson, Cassandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Zombies
Publisher: Cassandra Johnson
Published: 2020-03-03T05:00:00+00:00

14.

“Y’see son, when I came home from Vietnam in nineteen seventy-three, I wasn’t a hero. Not like a lott’a you Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans are now days. Even the boys who made it home from Desert Storm were heroes, but not us, not those of us who made it back home from Vietnam.” A seventy-four-year-old Sam Burgess said to Brian, leaning against the podium where Brian’s desk sat, a small fan whirling to keep the air circulating in the stuffy space between the entrance and the elevators.

“How do you mean?” Brian asked, not sure what Sam was getting at. It was his first day here as a security agent with the Changes Recovery Center and Sam immediately recognized the young man as ex-military, it was something that the two men, despite the gap in their ages, immediately bonded over.

“Son, back then a whole new world was opening up to us, people didn’t like something they’d march in the streets, we were discovering that instead of just saying, ‘Well, that’s the way it is’ we actually had the power to do something about it, to fight injustices, to right wrongs from our past as a country. The war had no clear goals that helped the people back home understand why we were there.” Sam took a tissue from his pocket and wiped at the corner of his mouth. “No communist had led attacks on American soil, and thousands of us were drafted into that war, we didn’t just enlist, our own government picked us up out of our day-to-day lives and good ole Uncle Sam said, ‘Son, you’re going to war,’ and we went, or we ran.” Sam’s wizened face was a shocking contrast to the paralleled features of his younger counterpart. “I remember one of my commanding officers telling me not to go through the Airport in my uniform because people were protesting American soldiers coming home from Vietnam. I was spat at, called a baby killer, a warmonger and all because I was doing what I thought was the right thing to do for my country. Now, officers are applauded in US airports, shaken hands with, they’re greeted with honor and respect but, I can’t entirely say that I blame anyone for the way they felt when we came home from Vietnam. If I’d known what I would find when I went there?” Sam snorted, phlegm getting caught in his throat causing the older man to go into a coughing fit and the tissue from his pocket appeared again as he spit the snot and saliva out into the Kleenex and chucked it towards the waste can nearby. “Draft dodger is the least horrible thing I can imagine being called when I remember the alternative.”

It was only Brian’s first day and he’d already broken up two fights that started when the female patients came down from therapy to smoke, so the conversation with Sam was very much welcomed, only he hadn’t expected they would be talking about the Vietnam war.

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