I’m in Garden City Beach, South Carolina, just down the
coast from Myrtle Beach ensconced in a fabulous bayside villa. It’s late
October. The season is over. The crowds are gone. The days are spectacularly
beautiful; the moonlit evenings are as pleasant as can be.
I’m here to reunite once again with Bill, Joel and Frank. We
four met over fifty years ago when we were all on active Army duty assigned to
the same unit at Fort Benning, Georgia. And we all had the same fortune to be
swept up in 1965 in what is known now as
“the buildup.” Twenty thousand of us in the newly redesignated 1st
Cavalry Airmobile loaded on ships, sailed through the Panama Cannel and
disembarked in Viet Nam. And for the next year we worked together, eat
together, slept together in support of that benighted incursion.
In the summer of 1966 our tour was over. Separately each of
us headed home. In the first years afterwards Bill’s and my paths crossed a
coupla times. And then we all went our, as it turned out, very separate ways.
Until one sunny Sunday afternoon when the phone rang. I
answered.
Me: Hello
Texas Inflected Voice: Is this Jack Dumpert?
Me: Yes
TIV: Is this Jack Dumpert who went to Canisius College?
Me: Yes
TIV: Is this Jack Dumpert who was platoon leader of the
second forward platoon?
Me: Who is this?
TIV: Who was platoon leader of the third forward platoon?
Me: Bill Hill?
TIV: Hey, buddy, how are you?
Bill was calling to arrange a reunion which subsequently
took place in San Antonio. A second took place a few years later when we
gathered at Bill’s home in Killeen Texas, traveled to Frank’s Carlsbad, New
Mexico home and then on to El Paso, Texas to visit yet another of us. The trip
to Joel’s home state, South Carolina, was our third reunion.
Upon arrival one of us gifted the others with shirts with
our names embroidered on them. A First Calvary Patch was on one shoulder:
a small American flag was velcroed to the other. And emblazoned on the back was
the slogan “Viet Nam Veteran and damn proud of it.” Not exactly a sentiment I endorse.
If I were forced to propose slogan it would be more like “Viet Nam Veteran,
complicit in the death of thousands.”
When someone learns that you’re a veteran there’s a recent
trend to thank you for your service. I’ve never been comfortable with that. I’d
rather not get thanked for an episode in my life that, had I to do it over, I would
have assiduously avoided. After some reflection I devised a reply to employ if
it was ever said to me. Not that that’s likely. I don’t boast about it. Very
few know about my time in the service and those that do have the courtesy not
to bring it up. And besides there’s no way anyone could look at me and know.
Unless I was somehow advertising it.
The next morning we all went out to breakfast. The uniform
of the day was, of course, the shirt. A proponent of going along to get along,
I pulled mine on.
While we were dining another patron came over to our table.
“Thank you for your service,” he said.
I was prepared for this.
“You’re welcome,” I replied, “but it was fucked up.”
If there were surveillance cameras in the restaurant they
would have recorded the look of shock and consternation on his face. He stood
seemingly stunned for a moment and then without another word he fled. Later
when we asked for our check we were told that someone had picked up our tab. Likely,
it was the very same dude.
Upon further reflection, I see now that my response was
rude. That’s not something I aspire to. There’s no way I can excuse my
behavior. At best I’m chagrined. Here I am a half century later still affected
and not in any positive way. Clearly it won’t ever end.
