Surely it hasn’t been almost 40 years since I returned from Vietnam. Surely the intervening years didn’t disappear like smoke from a summer campfire. Surely the very real events of my youth haven’t already been relegated to the unreality of history. Surely not, yet I have in my hands a piece of paper that suggests otherwise. This week I received an invitation to another Red Cross Donut Dolly reunion.
The term “re-union” is particularly appropriate in this case because, as Red Cross recreation workers in a war zone, we were very much united in spirit and in purpose. We were a team. We were there for each other. We cared and we were welded together by a once-in-a-lifetime experience that could never be forgotten. At any given time there were about 125 of us in Vietnam, with more stationed in Korea. We were between the ages of 21 and 25, were college graduates and had never been married. We came from all over the United States and bonded as if we had grown up next door to each other. We signed up for a year’s tour and were usually stationed at at least two bases.
My year began at II Field Force, near Bien Hoa (where I had flown in troops as a stewardess). After four months I was transferred to Pleiku in the Central Highlands, and then to An Khe, where we ran a center in addition to our duties of traveling to forward units in the field. I also spent two weeks TDY at Cam Rahn Bay.
It is reminiscent of our returns to “The World” during the 60’s and 70’s that no one particularly wants to hear our war stories. That, combined with getting on with our lives, meant that, for the most part, long ago we stopped trying to recite them. Still, a reunion with each other will be a totally different thing.
Not only will we be with people who are interested in what we want to recall, they will want to hear. They will understand. With so many intervening years, it’s as if our connections have become torn and frayed with age, leaving a gaping hole in the tapestry of our lives. At reunions we can fill in the blanks between Then and Now, and the threads of our lives are once again tightly interwoven.
Thank you for your service! (Better late than never). I applaud your patriotism, your care for the servicepeople,and your courage. I’d love to hear some stories! I hope you will all have a wonderful reunion.