Many of the young men and women who volunteered for Vietnam were answering President Kennedy's call to national service. Lynda Van Devanter, fresh out of nursing school, believed that going to Vietnam was the right thing to do. During her time "in country," Van Devanter saw her views change dramatically: she came to resent President Nixon and the American policymakers who promoted the war; detested the "Saigon warriors" who pushed papers in the safety of their offices but never entered the field of fire; and hated the
'1ily-livered" South Vietnamese troops who gave too little support to the American forces. But what hurt her most was the reception she received on her return home to "the world." Van Devanter discovered that many Americans did not want to be reminded of the war:
When the soldiers of World War II came home, they were met by brass bands, ticker-tape parades, and people so thankful for their service that even those who had never heard a shot fired in anger were treated with respect. It was a time when words like honor, glory, and duty held some value, a time when a returning GI was viewed with esteem so high it bordered on awe. To be a veteran was to be seen as a person of courage, a champion of democracy, an ideal against which all citizens could measure themselves. If you had answered your country's call, you were a hero. And in those days, heroes were plentiful.
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But somewhere between 1945 and 1970, words like bravery, sacrifice, and valor had gone out of vogue ....
When I returned to my country in June of
1970, I began to learn a very bitter le~son. The values with which I had been raised had changed; in the eyes of most Americans, the military services had no more heroes, m~rely babykillers, misfits, and fools. I was certain that I was neither a babykiller nor a misfit. Maybe I was a fool. ...
Perhaps if I hadn't expected anything at all when I returned to the States,
I would not have been disappointed.
Maybe I would have been contented simply to be on American soil. Maybe all of us who arrived at Travis Air Force
Base on June 16 had unrealistic expectations.
But we didn't ask for a brass band. We didn't ask for a parade. We didn't even ask for much of a thank you. All we wanted was some transportation to
San Francisco International Airport so we could hop connecting flights to get home to our families. We gave the Army a year of our lives, a year with more difficulties than most Americans face in fifty years. The least the Army could have done was to give us a ride.
At Travis we were herded onto buses and driven to the Oakland Army
Terminal where they dumped us around 5 A.M.
with a "so long, suckers" from the driver and a feeling th'at we were no more than warm bodies who had outlived their usefulness. Unfortunately, San Francisco International was at least twenty miles away. Since most of us had to get flights from there, wouldn't it have been logical to drop us at the airport? Or was t expecting too much out, of the Army when I asked it to be logical?
I checked into commercial buses and taxis, but none were running. There was a transit strike on, and it was nearly impossible to get public transportation of any kind. So I hung one of my suitcases from my left shoulder, hefted my duffel bag onto my right shoulder, grabbed my overnight case with my left hand and my purse with my right, and struggling under the weight, walked out to the highway, where I stuck out my thumb and waited. I was no stranger to hitchhiking. It was the only way to get around in Vietnam. Back in 'Nam,
I would usually stand on the flight line in my fatigues, combat boots, jungle hat, pigtails, and a smile. Getting a ride there was a cinch. In fact, planes would sometimes reach the end of the runway; then return to offer me a lift.
But hitchhiking in the real world, I was quickly finding out, was nowhere near as easy-especially if you were wearing a uniform. The cars whizzed past me during rush hour, while I patiently waited for a good Samarit'!l1 to stop. A few drivers gave me the finger. I tried to ignore them. Some slowed long enough to yell obscenities.
One threw a carton of trash and another, nearly hit me with a half-empty can of soda. Finally, two guys stopped in a red and yellow Volkswagen bus. The one on the passenger side opened rus door.
I ran to the car, dragging the duffel bag and other luggage behind me. I was hot, tired, and dirty.
"Going anywhere near the airport?" I asked.

~ LJV.L
"Sure am," the guy said. He 'had long brown hair, blue eyes framed by wire-rimmed glasses, and a full curly beard. There was patches on his jeans and a peace sign on his T-shirt. His relaxed, easy smile was deceptive.
I smiled back and lifted my duffel bag to put it inside the van. But the guy slammed the door shut. 'We're going past the airport, sucker, but we don't take Army pigs." He spit on me, I was stunned ....
[The driver] floored the accelerator and they both laughed uncontrollably as the VW spun its wheels for a few seconds, throwing dirt and stones back at me before it roared away. The drivers of other passing cars also laughed.
I looked down at my chest. On top of my nametag sat a big glob of brownish-colored saliva. I couldn't touch it. I didn't have the energy to wipe it away. Instead, I watched as it ran down my name tag and over a button before it was absorbed into the green material of my uniform.
I wasn't angry, just confused. I wanted to know why. Why would he spit on me? What had I done to him? To either of them? It might have been simple to say I had gone to war and they blamed me for killing innocent people, but didn't they understand that I didn't want this war any more than the most vocal of peace marchers? Didn't they realize that those of us who had seen the war firsthand were probably more antiwar than they were? That we had seen friends suffer and die? That we had seen children destroyed? That we had seen futures crushed?
Were they that naive?
Or were they merely insensitive creeps who used the excuse of my uniform to vent their hostility toward all people?
I waited a few more hours, holding my thumb out until I thought my arm would fall off. After awhile, I stopped watching people as they hurled their insults. I had begun noticing the people who didn't scream as they drove by. I soon realized they all had something in common. It was what I eventually came to refer to as "the look." It was a combination of surprise at seeing a woman in uniform, and hatred for what they assumed I represented.
Most of them never bothered to try to conceal it. "The look" would start around the eyes, as if they were peering right through me. Their faces would harden into stone. I was a pariah, a nonperson so low that they believed they could squash me underfoot. ...
While I stood there alone, I almost wished I was back in 'Nam. At least there you expected some people to hate you. That was a war. But here, in the
United States, I guess I wanted everything to be wonderful. I thought that life would be different; that there would be no more pain. No more death. No more sorrow. It was all going to be good again. It had to be good again. I had had enough of fighting, and hatred, and bitterness.
Around 10:30 A.M., when I had given up hope and was sitting on my duf-.
fel bag ... an old black man in a beat up '58 Chevy stopped and got out of his car. He walked with a limp and leaned forward as ifhe couldn't stand straight.
292 Vietnam and America 1954-1975
His clothes were frayed and his face deeply lined. He ran his bony fingers through his gray-black hair, then shook his head and smiled. "I don't know where you're going, little girl," he said. "But I been by here four times since early morning and you ain't got a ride yet. I can't let you' spend your whole life on this road." He was only headed for the other side of Oaldand, but he said he'd rather go out of his way than see me stranded. He even carried my duffel bag to the trunk. As we drove south on 101, I didn't say much other than thank you, but my disillusionment was obvious.
"People ain't all bad, little girl," he said. "It's just some folks are crazy mixed up these days. You keep in mind that it's gotta get better, cause it can't get any worse."
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