My father retired from the Marines after 21 years of service. He served two year-long tours of Viet Nam; first in ’65 and then in ’68. I was eight and a proud “my father is a Marine” son in ’65. However, as the war dragged on and the body counts kept mounting, by ’68 I was of age when I started to question what I saw on television and read in the papers. It was a socially and politically tumultuous time in ’68. For me personally, one memory stands out still after all these years.
We were dining as a family at a Howard Johnson restaurant in Jacksonville, NC. I watched a young black couple come in and sat at a table close to ours. The young man was impeccably dressed in his Marine uniform; the wife was wearing a white dress; and I believe they had a newborn in a basket with them. Soon a white male arrived at their table, leaned forward and said something. The next thing I knew the young black couple were leaving the restaurant and got into their car and left.
I sat there in a state of puzzlement, not knowing what was said but observing racism and the ways of the old south. And this was done to a US Marine.
As time moved on, I became more politically aware of the situation in Viet Nam and it caused much strife between my father and I. The war, the assassinations, civil rights and race riots, Nixon, made life at home with a Marine father, contentious and bellicose.
Viet Nam helped define us as a family, as siblings and as citizens of this country.