Return home

Now like all wars it took its way with most of us. We left boys and came home men.
Some left part of us in those jungles of Nam. We all met another world of people we had only read about. For me it was all new. My high school love was at home and with the old morals and honor I respected her in my mind. For some what happens here stays here. The taste of drinking like a fool to forget the blood we saw came easy. The bar girls in port did not remind us of our sisters by a long shot. The nights were always slept lightly never knowing when the next attack may come. Jungle patrols were to keep alert and alive. But that was war. For most we only want to forget. Others could not. Our streets now are full of Vets who lost more than most in that war.
Comming home was the ultimate shock. I left a world that can only be remembered.
I left Kansas with Rock n Roll and Country Western music and returned to Jimi Hendrix
Jefferson Airplane. I left with modesty and returned to a new world of free love and topless dancers. The country had killed 4 in Ohio in protest against the war I came from. My high school love sent me the Dear John and I was now let loose on a new quest of life. Hippies and free Love was the word. Sex Drugs and Rock n Roll was the word of the day. No one noticed the pain we felt from what we had seen and done.
So I too put aside the blood and pain for the feeling of haze of the parties. Home in Kansas too had changed. Drugs were just starting to become the thing to do. Pot was the drug of choice then and it was easy to find. Introduced in the war it was easy to accept too. Women now and not girls gave love freely and life seemed good again. But like they said the going up was not worth the comming down. Be a Easy Rider and be free. The movies were wilder and more sex every where. All that mattered was to forget what you had done and where you had been. Parents were proud of you comming home but afraid of what you may of become. Some of us kept it inside and could not face the new world, many ended it on their own or slid deeper into drugs and booze. The VA hospitals began to fill with a new kind of paitients. Women were filling the wards too by numbers never heard of. The streets were full of men doing the thorizine shuffle. Druged up to keep them calm. As in the past we sought to find a purpose in life to hold on to. For me it was party on....I did so with abandoned lust for life and quest of love. No matter who or when I was ready to go.
And at home my parents worried again for me. Not from the war but from now the peace I sought to find....Home had changed or was it me.