Photo of author Bill McDonald holding a future US President
His grandson: Spencer Patrick McDonald
THERE WAS NO BAND PLAYING
Returning back to the world after "tour of duty"
The whole plane seemed to get very quiet those last few hours in the air. No one was talking much at all as we got closer to California. I guess we were all into our own world of thoughts. Then the announcement came over the intercom that we would be landing soon. I thought perhaps we would get a small crowd of people cheering us home. I even thought that maybe the Army would have a band playing for us when we left the plane. I was wrong on all my assumptions. When we walked down the ramp some of the guys including me, stopped to kiss the ground. There was no band playing and no one to greet us. There instead, were MPs waiting to march us off into a hanger to be searched for drugs and weapons. They were not friendly at all and even patted down some of the guys. We were not happy about this treatment. Some of us got pissed off at the treatment and began to complain about it. The MPs got real nasty with us and began to look like they might use force to get our cooperation. I thought for a while that we might have some kind of small riot between the returning heroes and the military police. It was an ugly welcome and I was greatly disappointed by it. The MPs then herded us all onto buses heading to the Oakland Army Base.
It was a really quiet in the bus now. We were already pissed off, dirty, tired, and hungry. We looked out the windows and saw people giving us the finger and dirty stares from the passing cars on the freeway. It just did not seem right that these returning heroes should be afforded such treatment. I thought that perhaps if they knew what we had just gone through that they would treat us better or at least different.
When we were unloaded at the Oakland Army Base the treatment was not much better. It was a cold and foggy day. We were not used to the colder weather having just come from the hot rain forests of Nam. We were herded around like cattle. They never interviewed anyone to see how they felt. No one asked if any of us were having troubles emotionally, or physically. They just issued everyone a new uniform to wear. It did not matter if you had orders, or were getting discharged, we were all treated the same. In other words, once you got your papers you were on your own. There were no buses provided for transportation to any airport, or bus station. There was no tickets for fights, or directions on how to go about getting them for the guys needing to get home. They offered us a free streak dinner in the mess hall and said good bye. I do not believe anyone went to get the free dinner steak. Mike and I walked to the front gate where Karen and Donna had left us off the year before. We found a waiting cab and piled in for a ride across the Bay Bridge. There were no special rates for GI’s, or returning veterans. I remember that he charged us a bundle to cross over the bridge. I had the cab drop me off at my aunt’s house in San Francisco. That was because my mother was staying there since she split up with Eng. Mike and his buddy went on to Sunnyvale to stay with Donna’s folks. I wish I had gone with them.
I knocked on my aunts door and finally someone answered it after some time waiting. I was looking forward to this moment when I was to be hugged and greeted upon my return from the war. However, the moment never lived up to my imagined expectations. I was quickly hugged and after a few minutes it got rather uneasy. No one really knew what to say to each other. I wanted to tell them about what happened to me and how I felt. I wanted to share some of my experiences so they would understand. I took out my slides from Nam. I put them in the projector to show them what it looked like over there. It what could of been only perhaps than 10 minutes, my aunt and mother said that they were tired and were going to bed. I had only been there less then an hour. It had only just gotten dark outside and I assumed that most families were still at the dinner tables. They said that they were both too tried to stay up with me and talk.
I felt rejected and pissed off. I walked out of the house after getting a key for my return. I took a bus down to Broadway to go to some clubs and see the city at night. I just did not want to spend my first night back from Nam all alone. I wanted to share what I was feeling and there was no one that wanted to listen to me. No one to was there to hold me and hug me and tell me that they cared about me. It just felt like no one even gave a damn about what had happened to me over there.
One mistake that I made that first night home was in wearing my uniform around the city. I found out that was not a good idea and felt uncomfortable everywhere I went. I was berated by a group of young unwashed hippies standing on a corner. They yelled out to me asking me how many babies I had killed. One nice looking young women came up to me and spit on my uniform. It took all my inner will not to kick that group of hippies butts. They had no idea in the world what it had been like. They were judging me like I had just pulled duty for the devil. I could understand them being against the war. However, I could not understand why people were so cruel and mean spirited to us GIs. We were victims of a policy we could not change. We did not declare war on anyone.
I had a difficult time that night. I was lonely and wanted to go someplace to cry alone. I went to a bunch of clubs and wandered around for perhaps a couple of hours. I didn’t even get drunk. I only had a drink or two. I finally got a cab and took a ride back to my aunt's place. The cab diver heard my tale about the hippies and gave me a discount price on the ride. I got out of the cab and stood in the cold San Francisco night just unsure of what I wanted to do. My big night out on the town was a bust. Spending my first night in America alone was not what I had planned on.
I went to bed that night in clean sheets, with no fears about being attacked by the VC but it was not a good nights sleep. I was upset about the way the whole return home reunion had turned out. I just couldn’t handle all this unexpected rejection. I began to question my whole relationship with my family. I wanted to be appreciated so much. Yet I got so little back from them. I felt like an empty pocket with nothing but my own cold hands inside them. It all hurt me more than I could ever show anyone. I couldn’t cry. I didn’t show any anger either. My emotions seemed to have died. I was without outward expression at all. I was an actor just reading the proper lines at the right times. The emotional me was not alive. I looked forward only to leaving once again.
The next day I told my mother and aunt that I was going to Sunnyvale to stay with my sister and her husband. That way I could visit old friends and be back in the old home town. I thought that might make me feel better about things. My mother did not show any disappointment at my leaving less then 18 hours after coming home to visit her. She may have felt something within herself, but she kept it a secret from me. My aunt didn’t offer me a ride in her big caddie, so I left on a bus for Sunnyvale that morning.
I had to walk from the bus stop with my bag to my sister’s place about 5 miles across town. I had learned that no one really wanted to hear my story about the Nam, or details about the war, so I said little about it. I realized real quick that no one really gave a damn at all.
I was introduced to my new nephew, Billy, who was named after me. He was a beautiful baby and looked healthy and happy. It was an honor that my sister had named her first born after me. I relaxed at her apartment. The bed I was using she had gotten from our older sister. It had bugs in it that caused me to have a massive bites all over my body. There was something living in the mattress. I had to go to the medical unit at Moffett Navel Air Field while on leave to find out about it and get some medication. I had went all that time in Nam living in bad conditions only to come home and get my whole body infected by some kind of bed bugs from my older sister's hand me down mattress.
Most all of my friends were away at college or had moved away. I really had few people to visit. I did go to Berkeley to visit Carol at her apartment. It was not a very good visit. I felt out of place and awkward being there. I think she was happy to see me leave. She was no doubt concerned that I might say something like I loved her. There was a wall between us and it hurt. I left feeling more blue and lonely then before.
I was only home a few days and I just wanted to get away from my family and friends. Even though I had 30 days scheduled leave to take I wanted to leave before Thanksgiving Day. I just could not leave fast enough, as far as I was concerned. I felt so much pain that I needed to get distance between me and this world I no longer belonged to, nor understood.
I purchased a used 1964 Mustang convertible. I did not have much money for the trip back as I had used most of it for the down payment. I pulled an ad off a community bulletin board in San Francisco from a young man seeking a ride back to home to Florida. The add said he would help pay for gas. I picked him up at his place in the city. It turns out that he was only 17 years old and had a friend with him that was about the same age as himself. They piled in the back of my car. I hesitated about taking them. They were dirty looking with long hair and wore tie die shirts with love beads. I was going to tell them to get out of the car when they told me that they were runaways and wanted to return back home to Florida. They had come to San Francisco for all that free love stuff going on in the summer of 67 and now they were stuck there. I felt sorry for them. It was too late to get someone else to help with gas money.
I began to drive south on US 101 when I got to thinking that maybe I should check these guys out. I pulled into a gas station and told them if they had any kind of drugs on them that I wanted them to throw it in the toilet and flush it down. I made them go through all their stuff. They did end up pulling out several joints of pot. I then asked them for gas money and they told me they only had five dollars between them. They got pissed off because they not only had no gas money, but also no money for food, or a place to sleep. They also had lied to me about the money when I had answered the ad. I took there money from them for gas. They were not making friends with me at all and I had a feeling that bad times were ahead for them and myself.
I was making good time on old Route 66 just moving along across the country. When I got to Texas I slowed down. I was very cautious about my driving because of my past troubles with Texas law enforcement people. When we hit the town of Pacos, I was going five miles below the speed limit. I cruised down the main street of town. I noticed that people were looking at my car with it’s California plates and two long hair hippies sitting in it. I began to feel real uneasy about this town. All I wanted to do was drive though it and get out of there. I had to stop at a light at the far end of the town. When I did some cowboy types got out of the pick up behind me. They walked around and in front of my car. They were carrying rifles that they had taken from a gun rack in the back window of their pick-up. They motioned me to pull over to the side of the road. I did not like what was happening. Since all this was happening in broad daylight, I felt the police would be called soon and I would be rescued.
I looked in my mirror and saw a police car coming up the street. I sat inside my Mustang and waited. The policeman had a cowboy hat on with his uniform and wore cowboy boots. He walked up next to my car window with his gun in his hand. I started to get out of my car and he kicked the door shut on my foot and arm. I got pissed off. I asked him what in the hell he was doing. He called me "boy" and told me to shut my mouth and slowly get out of the car. He had me put my hands on the hood of the car and asked me who I was. I told him I had just got back from Nam and was taking these hitch hikers home to their parents. He had me lay on the hot street with my arms stretched out over my head. He kicked me a few times and got a big laugh from the crowd of Texans, now all gathered around my car watching the entertainment. The policeman then grabbed one of the kids sitting in the front seat by his very long hair and pulled him out of the car. He threw him onto the ground and called him "girl". He made a bunch of remarks about those two young hippies. He was calling them queers and fags and trash like that. He pulled the other kid out too. He had all three of us laying on the hot street. He kicked and worked over the two hippies with a night stick. He then took all the stuff out the car. He threw it all out on the street to look for, I assume, drugs or weapons. He found nothing. I was very glad that I had already done a search on these two young kids, otherwise they would be in a Texas jail forever. The law in Texas was 20 to life for drugs.
I started to protest all this. I was told to get myself out of there and to not look back or even ask any questions. He was keeping the hippies and letting me go. He said it was because he saw my uniform with all its medals and awards on it. He wanted to treat me right since I was a hero. I gathered up my stuff very quickly and jumped into my car. I drove off looking in my rear view mirror to see that crowd really getting mean looking. I looked up and saw a billboard on the way down the road that said "SUPPORT OUR BOYS IN VIETNAM." Now I know the kind of support Texans give their "Boys" and I was never so grateful to leave a state in my life. I fear to think, or wonder what the fate of those boys was that I left behind with a mob of red necks. There was nothing I could do. Who was I going call - the police?
It was Thanksgiving Day 1967 and I was lonely for company and someone to share a meal with. I saw a man hitch hiking along the highway, so I picked him up. He was out of work and had been looking for jobs out of state. He was now trying to get home for the holidays. He was still several hundred miles from home. We pulled into a dinner for a lunch. I wanted to buy him a Thanksgiving meal but this place only had chicken. I bought him that. We had a great meal and we each were happy about spending the time with someone other then ourselves. I took him as far as I could and we said good bye. I knew my family was having a meal back in California with all the right stuff. However, I had enjoyed that meal at the dinner as well as the company. I did miss the family. However, I did not want the pain of being with them. I finished up the trip and reported in early to Fort Benning, Georgia for duty.
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