Heywood Fetcher

  ~The Freedom Bird

  Heywood couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t heard any of those most unpleasant war noises in over a month. All of that nastiness was supposed to be up country. He had moved so close to Saigon that he could look across the valley from the hillside compound he now called home and watch all those pretty airplanes that carried the troops in and out of Vietnam arrive and depart daily. He especially enjoyed watching the planes depart. Planes departing with soldiers going home were called Freedom Birds. He could even visualize all the guys slapping each other on the back as the planes gained altitude and headed for the coastline, officially ending their tour of duty in the Republic of Vietnam.

  Unfortunately, some of those bowlegged little twits in the black pajama outfits fired some of those rockets with the unpronounceable Russian names towards his compound. He wondered what the hell they were trying to destroy. Was it the swimming pool? Movie theater? Maybe it was that evil PX where the GIs were supplied with all those candy bars, soda pops, girly magazines, and cigarettes?

  If you were one of the locals who had built a cardboard and stick dwelling as close to the compound’s fortified perimeter as possible, for your own protection, and the rockets fell short, one hell of a bloody mess occurred among the squalor many locals called home only yards from where Heywood temporarily resided.

  Just like thousands of soldiers that came and went before him, Heywood was probably more nervous than he had been in months. He was within days of going across the valley and hopping on one of those Freedom Birds. So many times he’d thought the day would never come. But it was real close now, and his sphincter was so tight he had a hard time passing soup. Every loud noise caused him to react. Every trip offsite to take care of some part of the official “getting out of Dodge” process was nerve-racking. Every Oriental that came close to him might be carrying a bomb.

  Finally all the Army crap had been turned in, all the forms signed, all the farewells said. He had those most wonderful pieces of paper in hand that officially said, your tour of duty in bat shit crazy land is over! All he had left was the wake up. All during his year in country, he heard over and over from every soldier going home that they had thirty days and a wake up, then ten days and a wake up, until finally their wake up day came, and they were out of there. All he had to do in the morning was get up, take a crap, put on the only set of jungle fatigues he’d not thrown away, find a driver who wasn’t smoking dope to take him to the replacement battalion right down the road, and his skinny butt would soon be on a plane heading back to the world.

  The morning he loaded onto a vehicle for the journey across the valley to catch his own Freedom Bird, Heywood’s eyes were shooting darts. Nothing escaped his inspection. Those few miles to Bien Hoa Air Base were the longest he’d ever traveled. He also began to understand why they took weapons away from soldiers well before they actually got on the plane. It seemed there were so many suspicious looking Oriental people possibly waiting to ambush him.

  Of course, he had to wait for hours for the plane which was doing nothing as far as Heywood could see before they would allow him and all the other, by now, marginally paranoid troops to get on the damn thing. Then it took them another half hour to back the plane and get it pointed in the right direction. What the hell is taking these people so damn long? Heywood thought over and over.

  Then the roar started, indicating the huge jet made up of thousands of riveted together metal pieces, built by the lowest bidder from parts made who knew where, was beginning its journey back to the world.

  If someone had taken Heywood’s photo right then all they would have captured on the negative was grinning lips and teeth. Seconds later, right as the plane’s wheels left the runway, there came such a noise from the ecstatic passengers overcome with joy of having finally put their Vietnam experience in the rearview mirror that a tear actually formed in the corner of one of his eyes.

  Heywood reclined in his window seat to look out the left side of the plane to catch one last glimpse of the terrain he expected to never have to see again. What he saw somehow seemed so appropriate. Huge bomb craters, most likely a B-52 ARC light raid, the likes of which Heywood had witnessed on so many occasions being dropped a few klicks out from the perimeter during the time he was at Lai Khe.

  Within minutes the plane was over the ocean and Vietnam was truly behind him, forever. For what? he wondered. So many good men lost, and for what? Heywood closed his eyes. Within minutes he was sound asleep.

  To the best of his recollection, the flight, with more stops at several islands spread out over the width of the Pacific Ocean, was uneventful. It seemed to Heywood that his sphincter became less tight with every air mile traveled. By the time they arrived at an Air Force base in California, just a few miles from the Oakland Army Terminal, his heart rate must have been reduced by twenty points. Probably the only thing that disappointed him during the ride from the airport was the trash alongside the highways. Admittedly it was not even remotely comparable to the mounds of wretched human waste littering the roads around Saigon, but still, the image he’d conjured up of spotless clean American soil was marred. What else, he wondered, is mostly a product of my imagination?

  What transpired over the next twenty hours was not totally unexpected. It seemed they were intent upon being as thorough with all things related to his mind and body as he was getting out of the Army as they were when he came in.

  They poked, peered, prodded, and pried into every nook and cranny of his physical and mental person. It occurred to Heywood that they didn’t put that much work in to it when he came into the Army, before they gave him a gun. Still he went along with everything as he did not want to say or do anything that had the potential of keeping him from taking that last plane ride from across the bay in San Francisco.

  It, therefore, came as a shock when an Army doctor informed Heywood that, unfortunately, he was not going to get to go home just yet. He failed the hearing test he’d taken only a few hours before, one of many poking and prodding procedures he’d undergone since arriving.

  Heywood was speechless. This was not part of the plan. The plan was for him to sign all the papers and get the hell out of the Army. The weary-looking doctor, medic, maniac, or whatever he was, was adamant that Heywood needed to be sent to some Army hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, to check this out. So sorry, but the Army did not discharge individuals with unattended war injuries.

  Heywood admitted to spending most of the past year within yards of a battery of eight inch howitzers that often fired night and day. But he was certain he could hear every word spoken. This did not make any sense, he told the seemingly disinterested individual presently sitting across from him destroying all the beautiful castles Heywood had built in the air all along his journey home.

  This back and forth went on for some time until Heywood, with his voice breaking, informed the individual sitting across from him, who was seemingly intent upon destroying what small amount of civility Heywood yet possessed, that he was about thirty seconds from going Section 8 right then and there. He had to get away from all the Army bullshit right that instant.

  Minutes later he sat quietly perusing forms that released the Army, forever, of any responsibility for his future medical problems, due to his loss of hearing, most likely the result of his tour of duty in Vietnam.

  Heywood picked up the pen and provided his signature, with a flourish, to the document in front of him. That was it. He was finished. All he had to do was get a ride to the airport and, soon, this prolonged farce would be over.

  By the time Heywood got to the airport it was the wee hours of the morning. He didn’t care as he was getting closer and closer to home. He sat there reading parts of the local paper some other soul had left behind. Heywood admitted that most of the items he perused were of seemingly little consequence. Do people really give a crap about all this nonsense? he wondered.

  As Heywood sat patiently, only yards away from the loading gate that was going to take him away
from all the insanity he’d participated in for the last year, he overheard a couple of new Army recruits, who looked to be freshly out of basic training, comment on all the medals and ribbons displayed upon his brand new OD green dress uniform he was wearing for the first and last time.

  He knew exactly what they were thinking and how they were feeling. They were him only a year earlier as he too had gazed with envy at all the returning soldiers decked out in their medal adorned new uniforms boarding planes to go home where they would try to make some sense out of what they had been involved in for the last, violence-filled year.

  Possibly the only thing that bothered Heywood was that no one other than the two soldiers gave him, or any of the other returning Vietnam Vets, even the time of day. Heywood understood the reason why. They did not approve of the war, like most sane people didn’t. Many had tried to convince the government to quit all the nonsense and bring the troops home. But after years of protesting, most had stopped marching in the streets to return to minding their own business, especially, if they had no family members involved.

  Heywood was not surprised, nor offended, as he was alive and sucking air. In a few hours when he got off the plane, he would reread one little book he’d been given by a pot smoker on the day that soldier got on a chopper to begin his journey back to the world.

  The book was written a long time ago by a guy named Voltaire. The title of the book was Candide. It is about a young man who traveled the world and finally came to the conclusion that he needed to find a place where he could live in peace, stake it out, and then, “tend his own garden.”

  That made about as much sense as all the other stuff he had been told to do. He determined to do just that. But then an academician at the college Heywood attended, and ultimately graduated from, said Heywood’s war experience, which had become part of his moral compass, was merely a metaphor, supporting Darwin’s thesis that evolution is all about the survival of the fittest.

  Heywood assured him his survival was purely the result of him jumping into a hole that did not receive a direct hit or not getting caught out in the open when the rounds came in. In other words it was pure luck that he survived when others did not. Then Heywood asked him if a metaphor was also something you could stick up your ass because that’s what Heywood told him to do with it. The little book worked for Heywood. If he wanted to ‘tend his own garden’ then doggone it, he would!