No Home for A
Soldier (Baby Killer)
Charles went to the war from someplace down in Alabama. I’ve kept a picture of him which shows him and me among his other colleagues and veterans (from back in 1977). All of us wearing exactly the same green colored fatigues, and hats, just us four having different heights, and body shapes, and color. He enlisted in the Army back in 1964, and spent much of his time overseas, a few tours of duty in Vietnam, during the war-years, and in particular, in West Germany, during the 70s and 80s.
This picture shows him and me, and a few other fellow soldiers, sergeants, in West Germany, down in Darmstadt one afternoon. The German city is not all that beautiful, compared to other German cities—but it has a nice park. But the park does not show in the picture.
I remember him saying, exactly what I was complaining about, when I first came home from the War in Vietnam, to Minnesota (that afternoon), that: the greeting of heroes was old, if not dried-up news when he came back from each and every tour of duty he had in Vietnam. In most cases like mine, it never even happened in the first place for anyone in my state called, Minnesota. It wasn’t because we came home late, it was simply because there wasn’t any reason to have one, and we were not considered heroes.
SFC Charles T. Hightower, like me, had been drafted, like most every soldier back in the ‘60s. There had been a great deal of controversy about this war, if not a maddening frenzy for a number of years. Now the reaction was stale, to near numbness. No one cared any longer. Actually, people got to thinking it all was way too long, a joke, if not ridiculous: years and years and years of war, for what? Over What! No one knew.
At first, when I knew Charles, from our duty station at the 545th Ordnance Company, with its attachment of 9th Military Police, at the nuclear site—both stationed there, he did not want to talk about the war at all. Later on, when we got to be more than side to side working personnel, but rather friends, he felt the need to talk some on the matter, because he said, “…no one any longer wants to hear about it.” Perhaps his townsfolk had heard enough—surely the country did, and there were many atrocity stories in the magazines, and coming on television, others coming from, coming home soldiers to thrill the public’s appetite, and demand for entertainment now.
And I suppose somewhere along the line, he, like me and our other army veteran friends, all had to lie a bit, to keep that high voltage alive in those curious ones, who never made it to Vietnam, who had a negative reaction to the war, saying it in the most distasteful terms, but now, since it was entertainment for $3.50 a movie ticket, they could endure it. You got it all in one package for the price of Hotdog and coke. And got to set in a cool theater; the times for calling us ‘baby killer’ was over, the only thing left to do was find a ride home after the show.
All in all, the public’s out cry was really unimportant to us, we had a war to fight and now in Darmstadt, a career to mend. We done and heard it all.
What was good among us four was we didn’t have to exaggerate, we took an easy pose with one another, we didn’t sound sickeningly fed up with it. In this way, we could—during this time, sleep well in bed, drink well in the afternoons, read and eat as we wanted to off-duty. Even play the guitar in the evenings.
I remember Sergeant Wolf saying, back in Basic Training, what perhaps Charles and the other two sergeants were thinking: “When my time is up in the Army, which will be soon, how does one get use to living among the masses?”
I told Sergeant Wolf, “It will be hard for you,” and I wasn’t telling any lies, but I forgot to tell myself that, because after eight-years I got out, and I didn’t know which way was which.
We’ll, I guess looking at it now, Charles, who had nineteen-years in the Army, at the age of forty-one, died the way he lived, never being at home much, in a little German town, it was 1983, struck by a car. It seems too simple a death for such a considerable soldier, but also seems quiet fitting.
No: 559 (1-3-2009)
Dedicated to C.T. Hightower
Soldier (Baby Killer)
Charles went to the war from someplace down in Alabama. I’ve kept a picture of him which shows him and me among his other colleagues and veterans (from back in 1977). All of us wearing exactly the same green colored fatigues, and hats, just us four having different heights, and body shapes, and color. He enlisted in the Army back in 1964, and spent much of his time overseas, a few tours of duty in Vietnam, during the war-years, and in particular, in West Germany, during the 70s and 80s.
This picture shows him and me, and a few other fellow soldiers, sergeants, in West Germany, down in Darmstadt one afternoon. The German city is not all that beautiful, compared to other German cities—but it has a nice park. But the park does not show in the picture.
I remember him saying, exactly what I was complaining about, when I first came home from the War in Vietnam, to Minnesota (that afternoon), that: the greeting of heroes was old, if not dried-up news when he came back from each and every tour of duty he had in Vietnam. In most cases like mine, it never even happened in the first place for anyone in my state called, Minnesota. It wasn’t because we came home late, it was simply because there wasn’t any reason to have one, and we were not considered heroes.
SFC Charles T. Hightower, like me, had been drafted, like most every soldier back in the ‘60s. There had been a great deal of controversy about this war, if not a maddening frenzy for a number of years. Now the reaction was stale, to near numbness. No one cared any longer. Actually, people got to thinking it all was way too long, a joke, if not ridiculous: years and years and years of war, for what? Over What! No one knew.
At first, when I knew Charles, from our duty station at the 545th Ordnance Company, with its attachment of 9th Military Police, at the nuclear site—both stationed there, he did not want to talk about the war at all. Later on, when we got to be more than side to side working personnel, but rather friends, he felt the need to talk some on the matter, because he said, “…no one any longer wants to hear about it.” Perhaps his townsfolk had heard enough—surely the country did, and there were many atrocity stories in the magazines, and coming on television, others coming from, coming home soldiers to thrill the public’s appetite, and demand for entertainment now.
And I suppose somewhere along the line, he, like me and our other army veteran friends, all had to lie a bit, to keep that high voltage alive in those curious ones, who never made it to Vietnam, who had a negative reaction to the war, saying it in the most distasteful terms, but now, since it was entertainment for $3.50 a movie ticket, they could endure it. You got it all in one package for the price of Hotdog and coke. And got to set in a cool theater; the times for calling us ‘baby killer’ was over, the only thing left to do was find a ride home after the show.
All in all, the public’s out cry was really unimportant to us, we had a war to fight and now in Darmstadt, a career to mend. We done and heard it all.
What was good among us four was we didn’t have to exaggerate, we took an easy pose with one another, we didn’t sound sickeningly fed up with it. In this way, we could—during this time, sleep well in bed, drink well in the afternoons, read and eat as we wanted to off-duty. Even play the guitar in the evenings.
I remember Sergeant Wolf saying, back in Basic Training, what perhaps Charles and the other two sergeants were thinking: “When my time is up in the Army, which will be soon, how does one get use to living among the masses?”
I told Sergeant Wolf, “It will be hard for you,” and I wasn’t telling any lies, but I forgot to tell myself that, because after eight-years I got out, and I didn’t know which way was which.
We’ll, I guess looking at it now, Charles, who had nineteen-years in the Army, at the age of forty-one, died the way he lived, never being at home much, in a little German town, it was 1983, struck by a car. It seems too simple a death for such a considerable soldier, but also seems quiet fitting.
No: 559 (1-3-2009)
Dedicated to C.T. Hightower
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