On our return to the United States, I ran into some rather unexpected reaction to the War . . . soldiers . . . the uniform. As I re- read my comments which I’ll reproduce here, I understand the bitterness felt by the Viet Nam veterans who came back from a horrendous, bloody, unwinnable war to be greeted with derison, scorn, and unconcealed distaste. By comparison, our reception was relatively congenial. But, at the time, it was hard to digest. Here, then, is a description of the way it was:
‘‘ When the devil are you going to take those damn clothes off. I feel a revulsion every time I see a uniform, ’’ an old friend greeted me.
I had stepped off the gangplank of the USS Veltervreden on 4 December after three and a half years of stiff combat overseas. On the 5th I bought some officer’s woolen clothes, the first I had ever worn since I was commissioned overseas. With pride I tried on the coat, pinned on my ribbons (the first I had ever put on), and polished my major’s insignia.
On the 6th, I walked in on this old friend and was greeted, in all seriousness by a man who, I have since found out, was merely symptomatic of the revulsion, the in difference, the apathy, and the damn short memories of the American Public.
As mentioned above, my ship docked at 7: 00 P. M., 4 December, at San Pedro, California. This ship carried the remnant of the 148th Infantry Regiment of the 37th Division, the most decorated Regiment of the most decorated Army Division in the Pacific. In the 148 was T Sergeant Cleto Rodriguez who killed eighty Japanese with a BAR in Manila four months ago. There were Bly and Brown; Marok and Gall; Downey and Josephs, and hundreds of others who, during the past 42 months had stoically accepted hero’s role of a dozen times from New Georgia to Bougainville to Manila to Baguio to Balete Pass.
Men like these walked down the gangplank, greeted by two civilian photographers, one white- haired, flagwaving spectator, and a small GI band bored with the proceedings. The war had been over for three months, and the public no longer gave a damn. Each day a few thousand men docked at these ports, and the law of diminishing utility had immediately affected the market for heroes. The royal welcome was kingly only in its complete and exclusive isolation.
The man who had a revulsion for uniforms was replicated each hour of each day. As the busloads full of homecoming GI’s rolled toward camp, one face smiled and one hand waved on the thirty mile route. She was a prostitute, undoubtedly, because when the bus sped on by she quickly closed her mouth and dropped her hand. Poor business prospects.
The cross country trip was a revelation. At one stop, the men jumped out to snatch some sandwiches. As one of the soldiers fumbled in his watch pocket for change, the counterman snapped, ‘‘ War’s over, soldier. You’re not on the gravy train any longer. Better come up with the cash. ’’ This gravy train GI wore the Purple Heart with two clusters and the Silver Star.
America was fed up with its heroes, and its heroes sensed this apathy and hastened into civilian clothes, where possible. The USO’s were closing down or slowing down. The famed Canteens were shutting up shop. The newspapermen didn’t bother with Joe anymore, even if the quiet Joe who came home late had fought four times as hard and as long as headline Joe who came home early. All of which was all right. But what hurt was public indifference: the smile, the handshake, the clap on the back, the well- meaning questions, and interest and the look of admiration. America had once shown these things to her heroes. But her sense of timing was bad. She had been kind and heroic and helpful while the war was on. She had heaped her spiritual wealth and her cheers on the soldiers who were home, soldiers who came in two categories: (1) Men back from overseas who were ashamed of cheers because their greatest gift, they knew, was in being home while their buddies were still fighting and (2) men training to fight who hadn’t heard a shot fired in anger and who should have been even more ashamed at the free drinks and the tinsel.
Now, the war over, the buddies of category 1 are coming back, entitled to their share of the nation’s gratitude and the men who were only training are coming back after having earned that acclaim, only to learn the irony of America’s sense of timing. America in her hustle and strikes and short memories doesn’t know the hurt she is doing. Her welcome is bitter and inadequate when most deserved.
One of my corporals, wearing a DSC, met a cop who was writing him out a ticket for parking too long in one spot. ‘‘ Have a heart, officer, ’’ my man said. ‘‘ I just got back from overseas. Give me a break. ’’ The cop had heard this before: ‘‘ Too damn many crybaby heroes around this place for me. You know the war’s over don’t you? If you don’t, this’ll learn ya. ’’
One of our most heroic platoon leaders, a 1st Lt. from Bronxville, New York who had received a battlefield commission for leadership wrote me this: ‘‘ I bought myself the spiffiest looking officer’s uniform I could find . . . just one since I had about 100 days terminal leave and then would have to put it away for good. I dolled up in all of my medals, and then called on my gal. She threw her arms around me and then stepped back and said: ‘You poor kid. Let’s go down right now and buy you something decent to wear. ’ Decent, I said? Listen, Mary, I feel awfully decent in the uniform of a U. S. Army officer, and right now I’d feel indecent in anything else. Well, we went round and round, and it ended when she started to bawl and handed me my ring back and told me, ‘You can come back with that ring as soon as you get rid of your war nerves. ’ I give up. ’’
I don’t think these latecomers resent the inadequacy of the present- day veteran’s job- finding organizations or the red tape of the G. I. Bill. The men realize that these aids are something new, that they are growing, and that the veteran must be patient. What he does resent is this atmosphere of business- as- usual vacuum which pervades the restaurants, the streets, the bars, the basketball games, the shops, places which must have expended so much good will on ill- deserving or reluctant soldiers during the war that now while the returnee is both deserving and willing, they have none of the stuff left.
I saw a staff sergeant limp up to a ticket window in Columbus, Ohio, the other night. He put down a quarter for a ticket and was told off by a gum chewing ticket salesgirl: ‘‘ We cut that service rate out a month ago, buddy. Where have you been? ’’ The Sergeant reached into his pocket for a second quarter and casually apologized: ‘‘ I’m sorry. I’ve been at Camp Pendleton being fitted for a wooden leg. ’’
Then it might work in reverse. My Technical Sergeant, assisting me on my present job of drafting the Division History, told me this one: ‘‘ He called up an exclusive nightclub at the edge of town to reserve a table for four. He reserved it in his name: Technical Sergeant Jack Ehlinger. The voice at the other end commented: ‘You’re lucky the war’s over. Before that we never accepted reservations from enlisted men, only officers. Now there ain’t quite as many so we’ll hold a place for you. ’ ’’
I had lunch with one of my platoon sergeants the other day. Overseas I censored his mail, and got an insight into his romantic life. He told me that his wife- to- be wrote him at the end of each letter: ‘‘ All I want is you. If you get back, I’ll never want anything anymore. ’’ He got back, and they were immediately married. In our conversation, he laughingly told me that he throws that quotation up to his wife whenever they squabble, and she, no damn fool, has a pat reply: ‘‘ You know I didn’t mean that. I only wrote it to keep up your morale so you would feel like fighting and protecting us back here. ’’
A soldier now getting off a transport after one, two or three years in the foxholes and pillboxes must have that feeling about America. The cheers and radio bravadoes and gracious letters from acquaintances and the chummy notes from the boss . . . were these things merely a means to an end, merely a hypocritical, cowardly gesture to keep him fit mentally for the contortions ahead. Now that the end was accomplished, did America in her heart still know and appreciate his sacrifice? Or had America washed her hands, set up professional veteran aid groups as a sop to the soldier’s political strength and dismissed Johnny Doughboy as a good whose necessity has gone . . . and therefore whose sacrifices can be paid for out of taxes instead of out of the heart.
Another civilian sitting at a bar offered a cigarette to his friend sitting next to him. The friend took the smoke, and jerked his head in the direction of the soldier sitting on the other side, as if to say: ‘‘ Why don’t you offer him one, too? ’’ The civilian jammed the package in his pocket and said in a stage whisper: ‘‘ Why the hell should I give him anything, I’ve got a brother in the service. ’’
That attitude, too, is common. People with brothers, sisters, fathers, sons, daughters, mothers, and even nephew in the service agree that the serviceman should be well treated, but should be well treated by George . . . let George do it . . . because George hasn’t got a relative in the service . . . he doesn’t suffer because a loved one is in danger . . . so George should go all out for helpfulness. The sad part is that there are damn few Georges
. . . and everyone has someone close who is just out of the service, but that fact does not confer the inalienable right to sublimate yourself in your brother’s GI shoes and thus slough off the courtesies which you believe are shown to your brother (and you).
Maybe my little niece summed it all up. I proudly pinned on seven year old Ann a combat inf. badge, my proudest war medal.
She looked at it for a few seconds, then tried to tear it off her sweater. ‘‘ What’s the matter, Ann, you used to like my medals? ’’ Uninhibited Ann shot back: ‘‘ I don’t want yer ole medals, anymore. Why dontcha get me a wristwatch like Billy’s uncle got him? ’’
Another GI with a chestful of ribbons, a combat infantry badge, and four overseas stripes, left a ten cent tip for a waiter in a medium priced, New York restaurant. The waiter muttered to me, half in anger and half in warning that I better not be so stingy: ‘‘ The lousy bastard. Just because he’d done a little free sightseein’, he thinks we enjoy doin’ things for him, for nothin’. When are those lousy heroes goin’ to wise up? ’’ That GI, by the way, wore the insignia of the 32nd Infantry Division, and he had seen the entrancing jungles of New Guinea and the sights of the treacherous Villa Verde Trail in Luzon.
At the Golden Gloves the other night, a black corporal from the 93rd Division which had fought on Bougainville and New Guinea, stood rigidly at attention while the Star Spangled Banner was playing. ‘‘ Look at the nigger showin’ off, ’’ the civilian next to me snapped out in the middle of ‘‘ through the perilous fight. ’’ Then, at ‘‘ the land of the free’’ he went on: ‘‘ Give a nigger or a Jew a uniform and right away they begin to strut worse than Storm Troopers. ’’ This democrat, of course, merely poured a little of his vitriol of intolerance on his revulsion for uniforms.
Maybe now is the time to sponsor ‘‘ Be Kind to Soldier Week. ’’ There are still millions in uniform and millions to come back from overseas. I don’t think the soldier is going to ask for a thousand dollar bonus or a new home or a free meal or even a beer on the house. Not yet, that is although he might be driven to get his material reward what he failed to get in plain, ordinary friendliness. What he would like to have is: ‘‘ Your Division had a brilliant record. ’’ ‘‘ The air corps (or the navy or the infantry or whatever force the guy represents) made one of the greatest contributions to the war effort. ’’ Or ‘‘ That Silver Star you’re wearing didn’t come cheap. That much I know. ’’
A man in the streetcar wryly read the caption to a picture of pickets, noting that fifteen ex- servicemen, in their discharge uniforms, were walking with placards. Probably most of them wore their uniforms for the effect; a few might not have been able to get ‘‘ decent’’ wool clothes.
‘‘ Look at the sons of bitches, ’’ groused the man in the streetcar. ‘‘ Usin’ that sympathy gag. As if it would do them any good. Anybody with sense nowadays knows that no one cares a rap about a soldier suit. Those things went out of style in September. ’’
A sergeant working in the reenlistment section, Fort Hayes, told me this: ‘‘ It’s a funny thing, but lots of the soldiers who join up ask me if they can be sent someplace away from their home towns. I think they are ashamed of being in uniform where their friends can see them. ’’
An officer in this same section explained to me that the enlistment offers every possible advantage for a young man: security, stimulating work, travel, good living. But the major obstacle to many reenlistments, one which can’t be reduced by the enlistment board, is the prevailing animosity of civilians toward anyone in a serviceman’s uniform. ‘‘ It’s as if the civilian has always been conscience stricken on seeing soldiers. During the war, many of them masked this in gushing hospitality and generosity. Now, with no war pushing them, they react just the opposite, as if the man were walking around in a uniform just to aggravate them. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen. ’’