The war in Vietnam was a lonely war. It is a well known fact that most of the men and women who fought and died there did so alone. We did not lend ourselves to the ties that bind. Close bonds were too dangerous. You arrived alone, you left alone. On a daily basis the 'Movers and Shakers' at M.A.C.V. would reshuffle the in-country deck of personnel.

You made a friend. The next day he was gone or dead. This sense of loneliness, surrounded by death, combined with the daily effort to remain alive so that you could survive and leave alone only added to the insanity that we call war.

Death is a very private act. When destiny calls you die alone. There are no reunions, homecomings or parades after death. If anything, you have a reunion with a staff obituary writer from your hometown newspaper which is not really a reunion; more like a post mortem appointment.

I can't remember the names of the countless numbers of men that I met, tried to save, lost or laughed with in Vietnam. We fought together, ate slept next to each other and protected each other. Each day someone you didn't know, that you had spent months with was gone, replaced by someone you didn't know the following day.

Battalions of strangers came and went alive or dead or wounded. It was a daily experience. You surrendered your name. You were either renamed 'Cherry' or 'Short-timer'. There were no middle names. No middle initial. Your identity was lost to the insanity in an exorcise to remain alive. I retreated from friendships, huddling in my flak-jacket like a frightened turtle retreating into his shell.

By the middle of July 1967 I was leaving Vietnam. I had survived somehow. Someone whom I had known for ten months shouted, "Hey! ‘Short-timer’!" I looked up at him, I can't remember his name but he asked me if my service number was correct. I checked my ‘dog-tags’ the number matched his list of numbers. My lucky number was there. I’d won! He said, "Your outta here!"

I grabbed my gear and hitched a ride down to the Mag-fields at Chu-Lai and caught a Caribou to Da Nang. After an hour long wait I boarded a civilian Jet filled with strangers and left Vietnam on the ‘Freedom Bird’. I don’t remember what they called the flights in-bound to Da Nang.

We were a plane full of survivors. A gathering. No one knew anyone else. The flight to CONUS was not a reunion of victory. It was no different than catching a commercial flight today. You wait until your flight is called and you board the aircraft, take your seat and fly off with a plane load of people with no names.

I looked at the man on my left. He was 'Row 9-seat 2-C’. He was heading home. Soon he would be with his wife or girlfriend. I had never met her but I knew her name...Ms. ‘Row-9 seat 2-C’.

I was put out to pasture in 1992 by the Veterans Administration. We met. I don't remember their names back then, but they called me ‘0319’. It was a VA code name for ‘Cherry’. I joined the D.A.V. They sent me a form. I put my name and address on the form along with all the other information they required and after processing the application they notified me saying, “Dear Member: This is to inform you that you are number ‘56007L02024’. I made a mental note to request more space in the block reserved for 'Name' on my birth certificate.

I began receiving monthly issues of veterans magazines. All of them were back paged with several columns reserved for reunion notifications. I scanned each issue that I found stuffed in my mailbox. Hundreds of reunions were listed. None applied to me. It occurred to me after a few years that there never would be an announcement requesting my presence at a reunion. Each week I would go to the Post Office. The clerk would call me over, “Here you go ‘Cart-Sort’, more magazines.”

I served alone. It made sense. There would be no reunion unless I hosted a one-man reunion in honor of myself. I could invite a bunch of strangers and drink a toast to people I did not know. Everyone would have name tags that identified them as ‘Member’. Fate was eavesdropping on my thoughts and decided to blind-side me. I was invited to a reunion.

I contacted the man I had never met and whom I never served with and told him I would attend. He was elated. I climbed on board with a flight full of strangers and flew to Washington, D.C. The hotel was filled with strangers. It was their 30th reunion. I disappeared into a mob of people I had never met, drank and conversed with a brotherhood of people who had known each other for over 32 years and was not surprised that they did not recognize me as not being one of them. I was nondescript. I would not have been missed had I not been there. I was not greeted with handshakes and the camaraderie of warriors together again.

It was their reunion, not mine, I was un-united. I was united in marriage, although my wife had no interest in my Vietnamese past, but did ask why, after scanning the D.A.V. magazines, I had not attended any reunions. In our everyday lives we join groups, sign up and belong to unions but never hold reunions. Besides there was nothing to celebrate beyond the minutes of the last meeting and the announcement of the annual dues quota.

I was invited to attend my high school reunion but declined. I was a stranger to them then and even more so now. I did not feel the need to spend a couple of grand to fly to a place I fought to escape and reunite over a diploma and engage in inane conversation with people I never liked or knew personally, besides I had forgotten their names.

At the 30th annual Khe-Sanh veterans reunion in Washington, D.C., I was among strangers. For me it was not a reunion. It was a long flight to a strange city. I met several people whom I would soon forget unless they stayed in touch. There lay the remote basis for a possible future reunion. The idea of meeting people I never knew every two years was exciting. Updates addressed to ‘Cart-Sort’ began to pour in.

Eventually I had to face the task of making my first pilgrimage to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. A reunion with the dead. It struck me that there were the names of over 58,000 people who also had no reunions to attend. I was not alone. The trip to Arlington National Cemetery was no different. There were more grave makers than the eye could see. It was the largest reunion devoted to the dead I had ever seen. No one spoke. It was a quiet, if not solemn gathering, not quite within the definition of a reunion. I was alone. There were literally millions of soldiers without reunions to attend. They had an excuse. They were dead. I was not. I had no excuse. I also had no reunions on my horizon.

Ka'u, Hawaii

Attending someone else's reunion is not unlike the feeling of crashing a wedding party for free food. It's like standing outside, looking in through the frosted glass paned window, at a large gathering of friends and family during the Christmas season.

I returned from Washington arriving at Keahole airport on the last United flight of the day. My wife was waiting to pick me up. We were reunited. Two people do not constitute a reunion. In any case I was in no mood to celebrate jet lag.

As usual, a few days later I made my weekly trip to my favorite watering hole. The place is open for business. The staff was scurrying around frantically waiting on tables to stay ahead of the lunch crowd. No one is at the bar but me. The bartender is standing directly in front of me, but does not acknowledge my presence. It is as though he can't see me. I lit a cigarette and watched him polish glassware. I said nothing.

Eventually another patron entered the bar and took the bar stool next to me. The bartender addressed him immediately and asked him what he wanted to drink. The patron announced his order and was served. Almost as an after thought, or perhaps it was instinct attempting to core drill down and punch through his untapped psychic ability, the bartender realized I was sitting there and asked me what I wanted to drink.

I was served. He took my money and I was forgotten. Perhaps I did not exist. I was a ghost from the past, an apparition. From the perspective of the bartender there was one patron. Next to him was a bottle of beer but no one there. A frown creased the bartender’s forehead and he picked up my bar check. I was check number: 00012764. He laid it back down, proof that he had indeed served someone.

Perhaps this was the reason I had no reunions. I didn't exist, or maybe I appeared and disappeared popping in and out of the fabric of time when it was convenient. Beer has been known to manifest itself just in time for a paranormal binge. Time is funny stuff. Yesterday is history; the present is gone before you realize it and the future is just a concept.

If the battery in your watch dies at least your on time twice a day. One week out of every month chickens around the world bark at the Sun and Moon three times a day. Astronauts orbiting the planet get up and go to bed 16 times a day. Orbital chickens will crow themselves into insanity. Three dimensional reunions are as rare as hen’s teeth and there are no reunions in the fourth dimension.

I have tentatively planned on attending the Pop-A-Smoke reunion, in the year 2002 in Pensacola. I have a ‘Cart-Sort’ invitation. Perhaps I do not have to wait. Perhaps my ephemeral being can transcend time and attend the reunion tomorrow. In any case at any reunion what would be the burden of a few extra ghosts. We’re cost effective; we keep the bartenders confused and the hotel’s auditor is left with a mountain of unpaid bar tabs; job security!

At Vietnam veteran reunions, the ghosts in attendance outnumber the living. Just look around. You’ll see us everywhere. If your missing a drink; it’s us. If your cigarettes disappear...it’s us. If your girlfriend leaves you for another guy...it’s that other ghost. If your meat entree is rancid that’s not us; you’ve just accidentally ordered a ‘Corn-Dog’. Welcome Home!

SEMPER FIDELIS