For Honor, Not Glory (An Original Short Story)

It was pouring rain when the C130 cargo plane touched down on the runway at Dover Air Force base in Delaware. It was two o'clock in the morning. Sgt Byron Jackson was returning from his second tour of duty in the Kontum province of south Viet Nam. He was a green beret and a combat medic assigned to the fifth special forces group. He was now twenty three years old, and tomorrow he would officially become a civilian again.
He had seen enough death to last him three lifetimes during his time in country. Now, as he stood inside looking out the large plate glass window, he watched as a group of military servicemen stood at attention in the pouring rain. They did not move a muscle, rain pouring off the brim of their caps, as they waited for the rear ramp to open up. Inside the C130 there were thirty six flag draped caskets line up in rows. As the airmen started to unload them one by one and place them on the tram that would take them inside to the morgue, several members stood at attention saluting as the caskets went by them. Sgt Jackson saluted as well.

When the last of them was placed on the tram , Byron Jackson dropped his salute, turned and walked away. He was anxious to put the war behind him. He had enrolled in the pre -med program at a college near his home town in upstate New York and was excited about getting started. He had direction. He had purpose.
Byron soon found out that college campuses in 1971 were not the ideal place for a Viet Nam veteran to be. He was spit on. He was called baby killer. He had joined the army to serve his country, as his Father and Grandfather had done before him. The homecoming that he longed for was different than that of soldiers from previous wars.
He walked off campus one day, gathered his belongings in a ruck sack and headed into the wilderness. There he lived alone for three years. There he found quiet solitude. There he found his escape from society. However, he could not find peace. He could not escape the war, or himself. In three years all he could attempt to do was to forget. But forgetting was not healing. And, at the end of those three years, he was no closer to forgetting.

His homecoming from Viet Nam did not bring the healing he had anticipated. It did not bring him a sense of closure to the horrors he had experienced in war, as he believed it did for his Father and Grandfather during their previous homecomings. There were no ticker tape parades. There were no understanding ears to listen . There was only disdain, and disrespect. There was only hatred and anger. People took out their political views and opinions about the validity of the war on the soldiers who fought it. Soldiers who were, for the most part just doing what they perceived as their duty. Soldiers who, rightfully so, just answered their nation's call to arms. It was a patriots duty to serve as needed, to serve as ordered. Not to question the motives or legitimacy of their nations call. For probably the first time in our nations history that service was not honored and appreciated. For the first time in our nation's history, it's citizens let down the men and women who served on their behalf with honor and dignity. Byron Jackson would spend the rest of his life searching for that closure.

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