Carry Me Home

1: Wapinski-3

“I know what you guys have gone through,” the salesman continued. “Or I think I know. You guys have been terrific. Don’t ever let em make you believe different. And don’t ever let em paint it up like roses either. Never let em get to your mind cause they just don’t understand. How bout one more?”

The plane landed twenty minutes early. Wapinski snapped awake. His sunglasses were on the seat beside him. Most of the passengers had deplaned, the line in the aisle at the door was only five or six people.

“Hey,” Wapinski shouted. He stood up, grabbed his small bag and started for the exit. “Hey, what happened to that guy?” he blurted at a stewardess. She looked at him blankly. “The guy that bought me all those drinks,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” the stewardess answered. “I’ve been in the forward cabin.”

“Damn.” Wapinski gritted his teeth. “I didn’t even get his name.”

“Sir,” a flight attendant addressed him from behind, “you left your glasses on your seat.”

During the hour and a half layover before his departure for Williamsport, Robert Wapinski shuffled about restlessly. He called home. His mother had not asked his brother to pick him up in Philadelphia. “Call when you get to Williamsport,” she said. He bought a coffee. He watched people staring at him in his gung-ho, airborne-all-the-way, ribbon-bedecked class-A uniform, and he felt self-conscious.

He sat in a lime-green fiberglass seat, stared out the terminal windows at the activity, the seeming random motion of planes, trucks, people scurrying. He winced, grabbed a magazine from the table beside him. Casually he flipped pages, then flipped back to the cover: Newsweek, June 9, 1969. In the “Periscope” section he found a short paragraph about the North Viet Namese using Russian-made helicopters to airlift troops and supplies within Cambodia and Laos and “occasionally across the border into Vietnam.” He did not doubt that was true. He looked up. The turmoil irritated him, made him tense. He glanced at the “War in Vietnam” section.

There was his last battle! Chills ran up his back, neck. “The Battle of Ap Bia Mountain.” He bit his lip. Couldn’t, he thought, they refer to it as Dong Ap Bia like we did? Under the accompanying photo he read, “Hamburger Hill: Was the slaughter really necessary?”

The Nixon Administration, rattled by Congressional criticism over the battle, sought last week to disclaim responsibility for stepping up the pace of the war.... To disclaim responsibility! What the—? White House aides insisted to reporters that there had been no escalation of military operations by U.S. forces since President Nixon took office on Jan. 20....

NEW TACTICS: As with many arguments about the Vietnamese war, the truth in this case seemed to be more elusive than was indicated by Washington’s statistics. Undoubtedly, Hanoi’s policy is to maximize U.S. casualties in South Vietnam in hopes of making an impact on American public opinion and improving its bargaining position at the Paris peace talks.... Which is exactly our policy also. To inflict enough hurt on them to make them stop invading the south. Cautioned by North Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh that they must “economize human and material resources,” the Communists this time are avoiding human-wave assaults. Instead it appears they have opted for radically different tactics that combine mortar and rocket attacks with hit-and-run raids by small, elite sapper squads.... What’s radically different about that? That’s been going on for years. What the hell are these guys ...

When he halted the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam last November, President Johnson also approved a policy of exerting “maximum pressure” on the enemy in South Vietnam. The Nixon Administration has never thought fit to alter that policy.... Why the hell should it? What are we supposed to do, exert minimum pressure? They’d simply fill in the voids. They’d be in the population centers. These people don’t understand.

U.S. military men defend this “maximum pressure” strategy as the only one that can prevent large-scale Communist ground attacks on South Vietnam’s major cities. “The idea of pulling back and letting the enemy have the jungles because it would cut down on American casualties is a military fallacy,” said a high-ranking U.S. officer.... “If we let them back in, it would increase casualties, not lower them.” That may be so. May be? But in the meantime, as the latest weekly casualty list showed (265 American dead, 1,863 wounded), both sides seem intent on using military force to crystalize their political position.

Wapinski stopped reading. The cacophony of sounds, the buzz of fluorescent lights, the click of high heels on tile floors, the broken and static announcements, the roar of takeoffs, a baby crying, and the asinine perspective of the article tore at him. He closed his eyes, tight, opened them, took a deep breath. If we didn’t, he said to himself, do they think the NVA’d stop? Do you think they’d just go away? It is a war over there. These people don’t understand. They just don’t fuckin understand.

He flipped further into the magazine. There was a lengthy article about the military-industrial complex, a reiteration of President Eisenhower’s 1961 warning that the nation “must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence” by the MIC, and an assessment of congressional moves to exert control over the Pentagon.

Wapinski flipped back to the Viet Nam section. “Disclaim responsibility,” he read again. He almost threw the magazine across the waiting room. He ground his teeth, lit a cigarette, flipped back to the photo of the 101st Airborne troops on Dong Ap Bia. He searched the faces to see if he knew the men. Sure, he thought, he recognized one. Again the chill. He looked about, checked his watch. Why wasn’t the Williamsport plane at the gate? He flipped to the back of the magazine, to the Stewart Alsop column entitled “No Disguised Defeat?” He could not read it.

“It means—” he heard a voice, glanced left, right, “when everyone is saying this is the way it was—” another takeoff roar, another static announcement, another flyover vibrating his damaged eardrums, no one near him, yet the voice, “don’t let em convince you ...”

Wapinski stared at the column. He shook his head imperceptibly. The articles gave a different dimension to the Southeast Asia he had been dealing with for the past year. He knew the North Viet Namese had suffered seriously during his tour, that intrinsic South Viet Namese resistance had been tremendously reduced, the result of massive losses during Tet of ’68 and the abandonment of their cause by so many due to the barbarity displayed by the northern Communist leadership while they held Hue ...

Wapinski inhaled, slowly exhaled attempting to release his tiredness, his tension. He looked up. The baby had stopped crying, the flyovers and takeoffs didn’t seem so loud. He unzipped his AWOL bag, stuffed in the Newsweek. He decided he would follow the story, the developments, closely. He would find out what was happening politically. He would speak out about what he had seen, what he knew, what he believed. But not now, not yet. Then he told himself, they won’t ever get to my mind.

Wapinski arrived in Williamsport at ten o’clock. Again he called home.

“Rob, I’m not feeling too good,” his mother said. “And your brother’s not home. I forgot to call him when he came in from work. Maybe you could get a bus to Laporte and Doug could pick you up there?”

Jesus, he thought. Nothing like putting yourself out a little. “Okay,” he answered. “I’ll get in however.”

“Oh, that’s good,” she said. “I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

“No, don’t worry. I’m a big boy.”

At ten P.M. there were no buses going north, although there was one that ran to Montoursville, Hughesville, Red Rock, and Wilkes-Barre. He took it to the Hughesville depot, then walked the half mile to the junction of 220, 405 and 118 and began to hitchhike. Almost immediately he was picked up by a farmer in a battered, red Chevy pickup who brought him to Muncy Valley. There he waited for an hour, finally caught a four-mile ride that took him toward Eagles Mere. A third ride brought him past the small lake, over the mountain, down and halfway up to World’s End State Park. From there he walked.

The cool night air felt clean. He felt happy. Confused, numb, tired, too tired to think anymore, but happy. The sun blisters and jungle rot on his arms and legs had mostly scabbed over and cleaned up. His grunt tan—arms and neck only—had faded. Most of the pimples on his face had cleared and even though he still didn’t feel completely clean, he felt strong. He was happy to be on the familiar road, at night, without a person about, without a light to be seen except for the stars, without a sound except the peepers and crickets, the lovely voices of the creeks, the squeak of bats and the silent flyby of an owl. Tomorrow, he thought, no, today he would see his mother and her boyfriend, his brother and sister, and he would surprise Stacy.

Quietly Robert Wapinski tried the screen door to the front porch. It was latched. He walked around to the back door. It too was locked. He hesitated, tried to hear if anyone was up. He looked through the kitchen window. The room was mostly dark, the door to the dining room closed. Gray light fell across the table. Miriam Wapinski hated mornings. For as many years as he could recall she had set the table for breakfast immediately after removing the dinner dishes. No one sat around her table after meals. The table was set for two.

Wapinski returned to the front of the house, picked a twig from the Japanese maple and used it to unlatch the screen door. He put his AWOL bag down on the small table and tried the front door. It was latched and bolted. Flash image in his mind—he calling out cheerfully, “Hey, I’m home,” as in a normal family and then, doors swinging open, parents and siblings cascading down the steep Victorian stairs, flowing out onto the porch, surrounding him, hugging him, falling over themselves to treasure him returned to them. He looked through the beveled glass into the hall, halfway up the stairs, through the arch into the parlor. Dark grayness, stillness, polished dark oak flooring, a new large-screen TV, knickknacks in perfect order. He moved to the nylon-webbed chaise longue, slowly sat, not making a sound, not creaking a floorboard. He lifted his feet, sat back, closed his eyes. A hazy shroud of blackness seemed to envelop him, closing down his ears to sound, dulling his skin to feeling, descending over his forehead to seal his eyes and slacken his taut skin. Someplace in the distance a car, rubber tires whining on concrete, the sound soothing like that of ocean waves to beach dwellers, smooth, relaxing, home, really home.

The shroud receded. Wapinski opened his eyes. It was light. He looked at his watch. Seven ten. Without moving he took in the street, the sounds of new-day activities, cars starting nearby, old Mrs. Franklin down Third Street sweeping her sidewalk. He swung his legs to the floor. They were stiff, sore from walking and resting and sitting in airplanes. He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, exhaled, stood up. Doug unlatched and unbolted the front door. “Rob! When did you get here?”

“Hi Doug. About an hour ago.”

“Let me get Miriam. She’s upstairs.” He went back in. Wapinski shook his head again. Not even a handshake. He grabbed his AWOL bag, stepped into the house. The moment he entered peaceful reentry ended. The whirlwinds began.

“Oh, Robbie,” his mother said from the stairs. “I’m glad you’re home. Leave that bag on the porch, please.” She descended to the foyer. “Have you lost weight?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Brian’s home. I don’t know what time that brother of yours came in last night, but I heard the car when I was in bed. You can go over and see him and Cheryl while I clean up, okay?”