![\"Upsala](\"http:\/\/www.theliberalspirit.com\/lrrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Upsala-map.gif\" "\\"Upsala")
<\/a>I also remember well the Memorial Day parades down main street of small town America in the days of Ike and Elvis and my dad\u2019s snappy new Chevy Impala with air-conditioning and a continental kit on the trunk.\u00a0 The American Legion led the way, bearing arms and carrying the flag, and there was my dad.\u00a0 A church had a big patch of grassy lawn right next to the general store, and that\u2019s where the Legion ended up for a twenty-one gun salute.<\/p>\n\u201cReady, arms!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cReady, aim!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cReady, fire!\u201d<\/p>\n
Three times the squad fired blanks into the sky over the roof of the general store.\u00a0 As soon as the Legionnaires would march away, the young boys, including my brother and me, would rush onto the lawn to claim the spent shell casings.\u00a0 One of those boys I grew up with would later became a Major General.<\/p>\n
I ended up a buck sergeant, E-5, and I spent Memorial Day 1970 in base camp near An Khe in the central highlands of Vietnam, waiting impatiently for the last couple days to pass before my return to Minnesota at the completion of my tour of duty.\u00a0 There would be plenty of friendly faces to greet my return: my fianc\u00e9 (we\u2019ll celebrate our 40th anniversary in a few weeks), Mom and Dad, my two younger sisters, but not my brother who was embarking on his own tour of duty in Vietnam.\u00a0 Our reunion would come later.<\/p>\n
I remember my arrival in Fort Lewis, Washington, and the call home.\u00a0 Mom couldn\u2019t talk, she just sobbed.\u00a0 After preliminary processing, I went to the 24-hour steak house and ate my welcome-home steak alone.\u00a0 After more processing, I was finally on my way to Sea-Tac airport and a standby ticket on a Northwest jet to Minneapolis.\u00a0 The plane was barely half-full, and a young woman asked to sit next to me although she could have sat anywhere.\u00a0 She bought me a drink and thanked me for my service and listened to my stories until I drifted off to sleep.<\/p>\n
Readjustment was not difficult for me, but jet lag was.\u00a0 I remember waking up about 4 am and riding a bike around the deserted streets of Hopkins, Mn where I was staying with my fianc\u00e9 who lived with her sister.\u00a0 The sunrise was glorious as the neighborhood came alive.\u00a0 But I was angry later when we visited a Sears store, and I saw plastic guns, replica M-16s, in the toy department.\u00a0 War was not a game for kids to play.<\/p>\n
I also remember two events back home in Upsala.\u00a0 Dad took me to a regular meeting of his Lion\u2019s Club.\u00a0 When I was introduced, they gave me a standing ovation.\u00a0 Bud, the small-town grocer, was the first to stand.\u00a0 I gave the eulogy at Bud\u2019s funeral a couple of years ago.\u00a0 Two guys from Upsala died in the Vietnam war.\u00a0 The funeral for Jerry Kalis occurred that June while I was home on leave, and I attended in my dress uniform.\u00a0 I had attended the funeral for Jim Theisen before I entered the service.<\/p>\n
Thanks for listening to my memories.\u00a0 Click here for a prior post about Memorial Day<\/a>\u00a0and here for more info about my service as\u00a0\u00a0a Ranger (LRRP)<\/a> and the short stories I have been writing the past couple of months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Allow a post of personal privilege. My Dad was a Navy vet of WWII, a \u201cTin Can Sailor\u201d who served aboard a destroyer in the Pacific.\u00a0 His ship narrowly avoided diving kamikaze aircraft off Okinawa and later sailed into Tokyo … Continue reading