Disquieting and Foreboding, June 1969

Every muscle in my body was screaming, Get off this plane! After only a few hours of flight, the long metal bench that spanned each side of the huge aircraft had already taken its toll on my weary bones. There was row after row of seating for soldiers in the middle of the airplane, yet there wasn't one empty seat. It wasn't so much the hard, cold surface or the continuous vibration of the giant C-10 military aircraft as it gnawed its way through the atmosphere at thirty thousand feet. Nor was it the unrelenting whine of the four enormous jet engines that prevented all but rudimentary conversation. The seat that held me tightly and firmly felt like a trap. Looking over my shoulder and out the window, I could see nothing but blue. The sky appeared to touch the Pacific Ocean; it seemed to be one continuous, unending entity.

We had to be about halfway between Hawaii and the Philippines; it had been several hours since the departure from Hickam Field in Hawaii. The interior of the plane was cold, dark, and cavernous. The other three hundred or so men packed on this flight must have been fighting similar circumstances; my whole body felt numb. The engine noise and vibrations made hearing and participating in normal conversation all but impossible. Our immediate destination was Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. My best guess was that most of these men were headed into a war zone in South Vietnam. Their facial expressions made it evident that many of them were not having an easy time on this flight; fear, numbing pain, despair, air sickness, and homesickness were all close to the surface for these men.

As one of the oldest men on the flight, twenty-six that month, I had orders to report to the commanding officer, dental department, the USS Kitty Hawk, CVA-63, no later than June 24, 1969. The orders contained not even the slightest hint of the nightmare and terror that would slowly evolve.

The orders were not very specific for the location of the ship, perhaps because of the need for secrecy. All I knew was that the orders meant western Pacific because of the Westpac designation.

While I was watching the face of an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old man on the opposite side of the aircraft, it occurred to me that it was not only physical discomfort he was feeling, but bone-numbing acquiescence. The face that stared back through the din had dark skin stretched tightly over a firm, handsome skeletal frame. The dark shining eyes said it all. They were cold, penetrating, and full of resentment. There was no hint of fear, pain, or even despair. It was abject resignation.

The casualty rates in Vietnam had been increasing monthly; how many of these men worried about getting home in one piece? The cold, boxed, somewhat stale bologna sandwich that served as lunch did nothing for our disposition. If anything, it furthered everyone's belief that upcoming circumstances were going to be completely beyond our control. Sheer exhaustion finally took over, and I succumbed to sleep. My thoughts drifted back to time with family and friends during my childhood. As I dozed off, dreams of early family life seemed pleasant. I remembered that my father was also about my age when he was in the US Army Air Force flying sorties over Germany, first in the Eighth Air Force based in England, then in the Fifteenth Air Force based in the Mediterranean. Dad's missions frequently took him over the mountains of northern Italy. I fell into a deep slumber, remembering my childhood.

* * *

My earliest memories were quite humbling. The product of a woman with one semester of secretarial training and a father who was a high school dropout, I had very modest beginnings. My parents and I had always lived with relatives until around age six. You might say our family was dirt poor, even though it never felt that way growing up. After my brother Jonathan was born in 1946, my grandfather thought the family should move out from living with relatives and someday have our own home.

My granddad was quiet and reserved; he owned a small business selling specialty food items. The House of Herbs in Connecticut was one of his typical accounts. He worked hard growing his small enterprise and lived alone in a small one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a walk-up in Medford, Massachusetts. His wife had passed away from cancer the previous year. Our family's one source of joy and pride was a farm my grandfather had inherited along with a small antique family home in the town of Sudbury, Massachusetts. This sixty-acre farm in Sudbury was taken by eminent domain in the early 1950s so the town could build a new high school. Granddad got so little money for the farm that most of the family complained. But he was philosophical and claimed, "Our ancestors probably took this land from the Indians for nothing."

After World War II, in 1949, Granddad said to his daughter, "It's time you folks had your own home." He then loaned my parents the $500 down payment on a very modest $4,900 house in Reading, Massachusetts. In addition, on several occasions, he had to make the $39 monthly mortgage payment.

My father, Phil, although not a high school graduate, had good practical skills. He had left school in 1932 at age sixteen in order to work and financially help support his family during the Depression. He worked at an entry-level position for Liberty Mutual Insurance Company in Boston and volunteered for duty in the US Army Air Force when America was thrust into World War II on December 7, 1941.

By 1942 rationing was in high gear in the United States. At first it was all rubber and petroleum products; then the ration list included coffee and sugar. At the time of my birth in June 1943, rationing had been extended to include canned soups and juices, meat, fish, and dairy products. Approximately twenty million "victory gardens" sprung up from nowhere; these gardens supplied almost one-third of all the vegetables consumed in America. My grandfather's farm in Sudbury helped supply some of those vegetables.

So many American men had gone off to aid in the war effort that millions of women and teenagers ages twelve to seventeen had volunteered to fill their ranks in the workforce. Unemployment was eliminated; the Depression was over, and "Rosie the Riveter" (illustrated by Norman Rockwell) made the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in May 1943.

The Imperial Japanese Army had conquered most of Asia and were conducting bombing raids on Australia. The first and largest raid on the city of Darwin commenced on January 19, 1942, and included 242 Japanese aircraft in a surprise attack. The Japanese bombed ships in the harbor, shore-based military installations, and the city's two airfields. The objective was to prevent the Allies from staging raids on the Japanese-held islands of Timor and Java. The city was only lightly defended, and the Japanese inflicted heavy losses with little damage to their own aircraft. It was a dark period of time for Australia and America and a difficult time to bring a child into the world.

My father and I met for the first time when he was released from active duty, after World War II, near my third birthday. Before age three, my mom, Phyllis, her twin sister Barbara, and Barbara's daughter Sandy were all the family I knew. Sandy was two years older, but she always felt more like a sister than a cousin. During the war years, we were very...