Less than twelve hours back in the States after thirteen months in Vietnam, December 1970, sitting in the backseat of my parents’ car, sixty minutes from the Columbus airport to Lexington, Ohio. In ten days I would turn twentyone.
Cold in the backseat, vinyl stiff and unyielding. A day earlier, Da Nang had been seventy-eight degrees and sticky. I wiped my hands on my pants, uniform wrinkled from my flight—didn’t matter, last time I’d wear it. My parents were saying how everyone at church would be happy to see me.
