Death follows me.
I raised my camera and snapped pictures as the Huey’s blades thumped and the chopper lifted off. I kept waiting for it to get hit, for the Huey to pitch and roll and crash, but we departed, and the Huey flew me to Da Nang. The minute it touched down, the air base was shelled, just like when I arrived. God was not about to let me go that easily. He was mocking me.
Do you hear me now, William? Do you believe in me now? Too late. You’re too late.
I would not make it to the rear.
I got off the helicopter, but I was not taken to Captain Martinez. I was processed quickly, though not for the clerk’s job. I was processed home. I was handed my final pay. I was too stunned to tell the processing sergeant I still had about three more months. I didn’t say anything. I turned in my Pentax. They told me they would deliver it to the lab. I turned in my M-16, my .45, my helmet, and my flak jacket, though I kept the Tiger Chewing Tobacco tin with my journal. I would have given the tin to someone in my platoon, paid forward the good luck, but it was too late for that now. I was given clean utilities and told to quickly change. The sergeant told me that normally he’d have a lot of paperwork for me to process out, but there had been a lull in the shelling, a window to take off, and if I wanted to leave, I had to do so now. I didn’t have my photographs or my ditty bag. They were with my squad. The sergeant processing me handed me the forms to fill out on the plane, and I was rushed outside with another marine.
My legs were leaden. I was trying to run but I could hardly move them. I didn’t believe I’d make it to the stairs. I expected to get blown up by a mortar.
When I reached the bottom of the ramp, I was so tired I could barely climb. I’d humped for miles with eighty pounds on my back, but it felt as if I’d used every ounce of adrenaline. I had nothing left in reserve. My legs had ceased to function. I was helped up the ramp stairs by two marines. I expected to get hit. Even when I was on board, strapped into a seat, I didn’t believe the plane’s wheels would leave the ground. A shell would hit the plane and I would die on board.
Death follows me.
The pilot wasted no time. We barreled down the runway and I felt the wheels leave the ground. We ascended, nearly vertical, to get out of antiaircraft range. I waited to hear an explosion, expected to see one of the engines out my window burst into flames, to feel the plane jolt violently, and for Vietnam to pull me back, refusing to release her grip.
But there was no jolt.
There were no flames.
The plane ascended, and soon, through the rain, I saw the blurry South China Sea. I realized it was not raining. I was crying. I looked around the plane. It was maybe half-full with guys who looked like me—dark skin, dirty hair, beards. Everyone on the plane was crying. Tears of joy. Tears of sorrow. Tears of disbelief.
It hit me: all the guys not on this flight. Kenny, Forecheck, EZ, Victor Cruz, and a dozen others, a thousand others, tens of thousands.
I felt guilty to be going home, to have lived.
There were no stewardesses. No hot dogs. No Cokes.
Nobody talked. Nobody said a word.
I cried until I fell asleep.
Chapter 24
August 23, 2016
Elizabeth remained active to keep her tears at bay. She pulled new sheets over the blue twin mattress—a simple task made more difficult because our son had elevated his dorm room bed six feet off the ground. Beneath it we had positioned Beau’s desk and a compact refrigerator Elizabeth bought so Beau could keep food in his dorm room. I suspected it would be used more for beer, though I didn’t say this thought out loud. I said the arrangement provided more floor space, which was at a premium.
I grabbed a sheet corner to assist with the task and noticed how soft and luxurious it felt. I checked the tag. “Egyptian cotton? We don’t even have Egyptian cotton on our bed at home,” I said to Beau, who smiled.
Elizabeth had spared no expense at this parting of the ways, not that the luxuries had dulled her pain or mine any. She snapped the sheets over the mattress as if it had offended her, and she beat the two goose-down pillows like punching bags to fluff them. Her blonde hair fluttered with the rhythmic oscillating fan she had placed near an open window, but the breeze did little to alleviate the heat and stuffiness. The temperature had been the first thing to hit us when we stepped into the room, the smell a close second. It smelled like someone had spilled a gallon of lemon-scented Lysol. We left the door open to air out the room, and we could hear excited freshmen celebrating this beginning, their first year out from under the parental thumb. Adults.
They had no idea.