Young men were getting their draft notices; but Steve had joined voluntarily. He had done everything right towards the goal of becoming a pilot. Air force did not accept the draftees for their pilot program. Steve had joined before he got his draft notice; he got his BS, had gone through hard training! He had devoted his entire time for the last six years completely to his goal until he met Helen! He had to in order to become a pilot, unaware that meeting Helen and marrying her, would change everything! He was madly in love with her; therefore he could not understand her indifference. She never told him the story of her life!
In 1961, the Air force increased its existence in Vietnam. The first combat unit carried in Bien Hao near the end of 1961. This unit's specification was somewhat inaccurate and deceptive. It carried out designated operation besides training South Vietnamese pilots. Soon the American Air force added the numbers of its men for support personnel like construction of airfields, barracks, and also helping South to gather intelligence.
American Pilots sprayed Herbicides on jungles. This killed the undergrowth and foliage; therefore disallowed enemy the cover they were using in heavily filled grove.
Shortly after Steve arrived in Vietnam on February seven, the Vietcong attacked Camp Holloway. Eight Americans were killed! A series of strikes against North Vietnam was ordered by President Nixon. But what Made Steve a commander of his unit was his bravery in the "OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER". This began on March the second, 1965. Rolling Thunder was the first verified bombing campaigns against North Vietnam. It went on for three years. Steve came home in 1968 as a hero! But before that, he had come home for a month every year for R and R.
Each time he saw Helen, she was less attentive to him. He knew that something had changed and made her even worse and more indifferent! He knew that she could not wait for him to go back!
But when he came back in 1968 as a hero, yet all broken emotionally and physically, what he saw was so shocking that he forgot about all his unendurable pains. Helen was pregnant! There was no way that the baby was his! He had not seen her for a year! She was five months pregnant!
His Purple Heart and other medals for valor and courage under fire did not mean anything to him any more! He was a broken man; a man, who had seen the horror of war; a man who had come home to see unwelcoming American people, who hated the service men of Vietnam. They called him, "The baby killer"; a man that no one walked to him and shook his hand and said: "Thank you brother for your service!" No one treated him the way a broken soldier needed to be treated. One of the greatest actress of the time, Jane Fonda, demonstrated the war on the tank of the North Vietnamese, the enemy! Most American were against the Vietnam war. But the problem was that they were even against the service men! There was this So called hero, who served Navy, John Kerry, who returned and began protesting the war he had fought and tore or pretended to tear all his papers from Navy and threw out or acted as throwing out his medals! People never considered that most of these men were draftees. They had to do what they were ordered to do!
The world that he came back to was not what he had left! The woman he loved so much that it hurt him, was still aloof and would not answer him about her pregnancy! She would not tell him who the father of the baby was!
People outside of his home treated him with disrespect, called him names, like baby killer, and ...; and the one person he hoped to solace him was unapproachable, uninterested, and unfeeling! But he still loved her, loved her too much; loved her to the degree that wanted either to kill her or himself or both!
He was a Broken Veteran!!
To Be Continued
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