SAND BAGS
So, there I was a Sergeant of Police
at the LAPD Wilshire Division on the roof looking North toward
Hollywood and crying my eyes out! I was so mad, sad, and upset.
The real kicker was that I had absolutely NO CONTROL of the
situation. I was in full uniform, the supervisor of 40 some
field officers possessing the powers granted to a sworn police
officer of the LAPD and yet there I was on the roof of the
station, crying! It was 1992 and 4 F-16s were swooping
down over a Gulf I parade which was in progress down Hollywood
blvd. Oh, and get this, they were allowing Westmoreland and
Vietnam vets to march in the parade, at the rear, but none
the less in THEIR PARADE. God I was beside myself. Do I have
to explain to you that FEELING?
The FEELING actually started when the Flying
Tiger 707 bringing me back to the world had to make an
emergency landing at Seattle-Tacoma airport (SETAC) because
of a blown main gear tire whose pieces were picked up on the
runway back a Yakota AFB, Japan. Well we landed and no one
got seriously killed so off we went to a "no steak" dinner
(McCord AFB or Fort Lewis, I can't remember who
told us that one) homecoming. Because of the diversion to SETAC
we would be starting our 30 day leaves 2 hours earlier. Before
we could initiate the task of getting a military stand-by flight
home, we found ourselves in a "debriefing" room
with an Army guy telling us to keep a "low profile." Well
I understood that! Getting shot at a few of times at the beach
gate on Phan Rang's
North East perimeter makes a believer of filling those sand
bags to the max and then "low profiling behind the bulging,
blessed things! But I digress. He went on to tell us how unpopular
we were in this part of the world (home?) and how we should
not display any war ribbons or acknowledge the fact that we
had been in the NAM. That was my welcome home from war. Hooray
for our side!
I got a ride on a United
727 to Los Angeles and found myself
at a window seat separated from a middle aged female passenger
by the empty middle seat. After about 20 minutes in the air
I ordered a scotch and soda, I turned 21 in the Nam, but got
asked for ID anyway. Not having eaten for a while the go-juice
hit me like it was meant to do. The lady was talking to the
stewardess but my mind was on seeing my family at Los Angeles
International Airport (LAX). The stewardess got my attention
when she plunked another plastic cup of go- juice on my tray.
Before I could say anything she nodded toward my air companion
and then left. The woman asked if I was coming back from the
war but before I could answer her, I saw the sand
bags going up in the empty middle seat. Heck, she looked
innocent enough and there was something in her eyes that said, "Please
answer the question," so I told her "Yes." She
lifted her glass of red something and asked that I join her
in toasting her son, who was "NOT" coming back.
My
mind raced back to the night at LAX when I left for the Nam.
An Army guy walked off the plane as we were boarding the TWA
flight to SETAC and told an older man and a teenage girl, "I'm
not going." I still don't know why, but the image
played in my head for a couple of seconds.
I did not know what
to say, so I just took a long drink from the cup. She said, "Thank
you" and until we said "good by" at LAX,
we did not speak again.
A substantial number of family members
met me as I walked from the plane and they had a big sign that
read, "WELCOME
HOME SERGEANT DIAZ." Holy smokes didn't they know
that we were deep in Indian country and they were blowing my no ribbons shut my mouth cover? Throw them some sand bags!
Little did I know that 22 years later THAT sign,
my family, the Air Force and two police departments would be
the only ones who positively acknowledged my return from the
NAM. I was being assigned to the 63 rd Military Airlift Wing,
SPS, at Norton AFB in San Bernardino, California. I was home,
but not the same home I had left. The FEELING started to run
deep the more I ventured around in, "the world." I
went to an apartment complex in the city of Upland, about 22
miles from Norton, to apply for an apartment and found myself
sitting next to a guy who had short hair too. He looked military so
I figured I was going to have competition for the one available
apartment. He asked if I was military and I said, "Air
Force." He asked if I had returned from the war and not
seeing any sand bags I told him that I had. I asked him and
he said "Navy, back from North Korea." I was talking
to a U.S.S. Pueblo guy, don't know which one and don't
even know if he was telling me the truth. I never found out,
but I just put the application back on the manager's
desk and humbly left the place.
The next apartment manager was not real nice.
He didn't
like the military in any form and said so. Vietnam veterans
were out of control, crazy, drug addicted and on short fuses.
He said other things, but this is what I related to my father,
a WWII veteran who served in the Pacific. The "WELCOME
HOME FROM THE GREATEST WAR" veteran who was proud to
have served, and still removed tags from anything "made
in Japan" said what I began to truly believe, "Just
because you served in Vietnam doesn't mean life or anyone
owes you a living." I can talk about his parenting ways,
but I am, after all preaching to the choir, the children of
the depression era kids, you know. So I shut up like all the
other guys at Norton and did not talk about the Nam to anyone
but them.
In November 1971, three months after my discharge, I joined
the Ontario Police Department. I got "extra points" for
being a veteran and Hispanic and got hired with 6 other guys
beating out 350+ applicants. Ain't bragging, its' just
part of my story. In 1973 I was eye balling the LAPD, took
the test, got the same "extra points" and joined
the" Marine Corps" of Law Enforcement. About 90%
of the class was Nam vets and we quietly talked about the war.
No one cried telling stories of the bad stuff, we were young.
The same stories today are probably slightly distorted because
of the distance from the events and we do cry, just take a
look at Randy Cunningham, the first Navy Ace of the war. When
he was young and telling his story, he used his hands like
aviators do and he displayed a lot of the John Wayne, "do
or die" syndrome. Today the same stories bring tears
to the man's eyes.
In 1975 I was assigned to Central Division, (down
town) and was walking a foot beat with a classmate of mine.
Steve was an ex Army Nam LRRP and as tuff as they come. We
got to interact with the first Vietnam refugees who had been
displaced from the South and it was very interesting. One incident
that stands out in my mind was a Vietnamese gentleman who approached
us and said that he had been duped by a store advertising an
item, but had been given another item of lesser value, boxed
in the container that showed the advertised item. All was going
well until the "victim" told us that he was not
to be treated this way because he was a "high classed" Vietnamese.
Steve picked the guy up by his shirt and the guy grabbed Steve's
wrist to hang on for the ride up to eye level. I won't
repeat what Steve told him, but what would you have said? Did
I mention that Steve was tough? That was the last time that
I can remember the NAM being "up front" in my mind,
like most of you, I put it in a closet somewhere. Remember
what my dad said?
Please fast forward to 1991. So now Gulf
War I commanders are talking, "no Vietnam this" and "no
Vietnam that", remember? They actually wanted to win
this one. Well, they did, they were allowed to and there was
no Johnson or McNamara to hand them a bite of the poop sandwich.
Then they came home (welcomed) in uniform, with ribbons, folks
waving at them with all their fingers, no sand bags and now
they get a parade, with "us" allowed to march in
the back. Heck, if I was going
to march behind as an "afterthought." Oh we have
a legacy, we showed them how NOT to fight a war. The anti war
protesters learned something too.
Please fast forward to Gulf War II, 2002. I
am now assigned to Hollywood Division where we get our share
of protests, marches and the like. So I am working a major
protest as the Adjutant to the Divisional Commanding Officer
and can pretty much go where we want. We were at the corner
of Hollywood and Highland; they held the Academy awards there
on the 28th of February, 2005. But I digress again. I see
a female with gray hair, maybe my age holding up a sign and
taking pictures. She was dressed, almost like she must have
looked in the sixties as a protester. Now I am a 55 year old "Sergeant
Pig" but she doesn't
say that, she "looks that." I figure what
the heck and say the following; "You know this is quite
unique to me." She says, "What is?" So I
tell here where I was when this sort of thing was going on
in the sixties. By the way, I missed the sixties, I graduated
high school in 1966 and then went into the USAF in 1967, do
the math. She says, and I quote because the words went right
through me, vest and all, she says, "We did that wrong
back then, we attacked you guys, not the war like we should
have. We are doing that now." So, let me get this straight;
a generation of military men and women were sacrificed by the
government and the "folks back home" took it out
on them, remember "baby killers" and the
jerk apartment manager? But today, they are attacking the war/government
and leaving the troops alone. I told you about our legacy and
the protesters learning something. Who paid the price? We are
an exclusive club of "brothers in arms." I recently
heard a talk show where serving in the military was the subject.
Some guy called in and started lamenting the fact that "someone
had to take my place" during the NAM war and that "someone" might
have gotten killed, HELLO!!
I'll finish with this; I have been in
uniform since I was 19. I have carried a weapon every day of
my adult working life; I will be 57 this year. I am in the
twilight of my Law Enforcement career with retirement just
three years away. When several incidents on the LAPD caused
us to go through periods of really bad press, guys would ask
me, "You don't
have to be here, are you going to retire?" My response
was, "When I left Vietnam, we were winning and we lost
that one. I ain't leaving here until we are winning again.
My late aunt, God rests her soul, used to tell me in Spanish. "You
are always looking for trouble or something wrong, that is
your job, but what will you do when it is over, if you survive?" I
/ we are survivors. We are brothers, sons and friends who in
my opinion are the second greatest generation who took up arms,
WWII being the greatest. We will never have full closure; we
will never get our home coming parade and not everyone will
agree why we went there in the first place. We meet on the
street and say, "welcome home" to each other. We
see a NAM decal on the back of a guy's car and if he
looks old enough, we give each other the thumbs up. Some of
us have gone back to the NAM to revisit our youth, 58,000 never
made it home physically and some mentally.
How will our NAM experiences come back to us
in our minds and hearts now that we are retiring and
have the time to really think this through? When I hear a NAM
vet say, "I've
been back 30 something years, what is he really saying, what
did he leave there, what is missing?" Most vets from
other wars don't make that statement, why? I can still
smell the country, the war. I can dream it in color—don't
tell me no. When the sun hits me just right I am at the beach
gate or the main gate with the Korean MPs. I can go back there
anytime I want. I can't remember where the car keys are,
or why I left the Watch Commander's office and went to
the front desk, but I remember the Nam and the 20 year old
kid who went there. Do I feel sorry for him, admire him, mourn
him or try and comfort him? I'll know soon because that
Army briefer and his words of caution "DON'T MEAN
NOTHING" now. And I don't give a darn about the
SAND BAGS.
When we who served are all gone, to a man and
woman, what will generations of military and civilians say
about us?
I am no writer, and the only time I put pin to paper is when
I have to write a report so please be easy on the grammar,
punctuation and structure. WELCOME HOME!
Michael Diaz, (56)
SERGEANT, Los Angeles Police Department, 17APR73-Present
Hollywood
Division.
Michael Diaz, (20)
SERGENT,
35th TFW, 35th SPS
Phan Rang A.B. 22APR69-23APR70
RVN
