Aug. 2, 1964 - Aircraft from USS Ticonderoga (CVA 14) drove off North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats attacking the destroyer USS Maddox, patrolling international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Welcome Home
There it is the Golden Gate Bridge, just peeking over the horizon - Home. I have been in the Navy for two years and this is the end of my second tour to Vietnam. My wife Jeanne will be in San Francisco to greet me upon my arrival. My Mother, Father, Aunt and Uncle will be there as well. They saw me off before the first tour so it is nice that they will be here when I come home. I stay on the flight deck until we dock. It's a time to think and reflect on the times that have passed during the past two years. Times containing laughter and fun, but not over shadowing the episodes of death and pain. It's 1962, my senior year in High School. Mrs. Snider (my teacher) asks the class where Vietnam is on the map. She looks at me and asks me to point out the country on the map, but I can't. Mrs. Snider looks at us and says; "You boys better find it, because you will be going there." What the hell does she know? I'm going to college, get a job and hope to live to a ripe old age. That was the first time I heard of Vietnam; but it would not be my last. In 1966 while on vacation with my wife and 9 month old daughter we got a phone call from my sister. Her fiancé, a Marine, had been killed in Vietnam. The war had gotten closer. I had been in the Navy for a year on inactive duty but my time to go was imminent. The news on TV did not paint a very reassuring picture for my wife. I said, "What could happen on an Aircraft Carrier." A few weeks' later 134 sailors were killed on the flight deck of the USS Forrestal. I can see the bridge clearer now, as well as the surrounding land. You just don't know how good it feels to see America. The USS Coral Sea had been adopted by the City of San Francisco two years before. Last year the City put on a nice homecoming for us. I hope they do the same this time; it really means a lot to us. This has been a bad tour of duty in some respects, one of the ships crew was killed on the day we left San Francisco and we lost three crewmembers in a plane crash on the last day of combat operations in Vietnam. They were the last plane to have landed but they missed the cable on the landing attempt and shortly after that they crashed into the sea, there were no survivors. We lost 10 people this tour and several more were injured in accidents on the flight deck. The bridge is getting closer now; I can see people waving to us. Last year they had a sign that said "Welcome Home" and they dropped flowers from the bridge. Why have I survived? What did I do any different than the guy a few feet from me who was killed or the guy five feet behind me who was sucked into the jet intake? Why did the "Prince of Death" take them and not me? Was I smarter, wiser or just luckier? We are passing under the bridge now. The people are shouting obscenities and are dumping garbage on us. A sign unfolds; it says "MURDERERS". A terrible void fills my heart as if someone just kicked me in the chest. My country asked me to go. I went. I did what was expected of me as an American. I did not run away from my duty. I fought for what I believed in, freedom. Was I wrong? The people of this great nation had turned its back on its sons. Somewhere in their anger and fear they forgot that we were their brothers, sons and fathers that they had sent off to war.
Michael L. Murphy
Attack Squadron 153, Ordnance
USS Coral Sea
Vietnam 1967, 68, 69
Previous Story Back to Calendar Next Story