We had planned to leave home at 0300 on Thursday but I couldn’t sleep, so we pulled out at 0030 and stopped 6 times between there and New Orleans; the longest stop was for about 45 minutes.  I remember when I could work a 10-hour shift and drive 12 hours after getting off duty, headed for a 3-day weekend elsewhere.  I definitely can’t do that anymore and haven’t been able to for a long time, I guess. 

Despite brief periods of rain during the latter half of the trip we got in at 1030 local, 1130 back home time.  So, all in all, we made good time in spite of the weather and the multitude of break stops.

The troop train odyssey was over.

No, it wasn’t really a troop train as there were a lot of civilians who had been on board and had wished they could have flown to their destinations too, but the large number of us in military uniform lent an overwhelming flavor to the mix and the conditions we all endured, both military and civilian alike, were those I imagine a troop train may have been in earlier days.

August, 1966

The tour in Vietnam began with mixed omens.

First was the bad omen.

There was an airline strike going on when it was time for me to leave home, where I’d been on leave for a few weeks prior to the move between Carswell and Vietnam.

So, despite being a member of a railroad family and having spent my fair share of enjoying free train rides between New Orleans and Lafayette, I was now facing a train ride of a totally different character – cross country, not an empty seat, and in an era when my father swore the railroads, at least the one he worked for, were trying everything they could to dump passenger service because it wasn’t nearly as profitable as hauling freight.

Prelude 

May God, if such a being exists, have absolutely no mercy on Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Robert S. McNamara, nor on their lesser cohorts.

On a daily basis over a very long time, they knowingly caused the death, capture, and maiming of many of my generation, not as a result of the inevitable losses of war but as a result of playing political games with our country’s future.

To begin this chapter, to understand the enormity of the loss, the willful squandering of human life, before discussing anything else, this is what it was all about, and still is, with many of us.