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1st Battalion, 1st Marines
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I’ve never been to a 1/1 Reunion (why should I go to this one?) Every year new guys ask me about going to their first reunion. Here's my story. I had always been a former Marine and Vietnam veteran, but it didn’t come up much. For 29 years I had been busy with family, career and regular neighborhood guy stuff. I didn’t have any PTSD or nightmares or any problems related to Vietnam. I didn’t have any close friends, but got along with everyone that I met. A lot of the time I didn’t understand why they thought the way they did and they sure didn’t understand the way I thought about things. Basically, everything was going reasonably well for a guy slightly out of step with the world. One Sunday morning in the summer of 1999, I woke up riding in a Mighty Mite on my way from 1/1 CP to 2/1 CP riding shotgun for my S-1 Lieutenant. I’d been on Route 4 before and didn’t like it, besides, the 2/1 people did not like strangers inside their wire… It only lasted a couple of minutes, but in 1999, I was living that ride from a moment in 1969. When I fully woke up, I thought that was pretty weird. From time to time in the past I would think about people left behind and what happened after I left, but nothing serious. I had had no contact with anybody for almost 30 years and here I wake up riding in a Mighty Mite. I started researching on the internet and found the C 1/1 site. There was going to be a reunion in Detroit in a few months. That might be interesting. The closer it got, the more apprehensive I got. Would I know anybody? Would there be crazy people there? Would I fit in? and a thousand other questions. I had tickets and a hotel reservation for myself and my wife. I told her that if it was weird or spooky in any way, we would just blow it off and have a romantic get-away weekend. I still wasn’t sure that I was going until we actually got on the plane. I thought I knew what Vietnam veterans were like and I wasn’t like them. It was a life-changing event. The absolutely stunning thing was that almost everybody was a regular guy and I was like them. I’m a fairly even keel type person, never too happy or too sad. Not much emotion about anything. Meeting these guys was very emotional, the good kind. I didn’t find anybody that I knew in the RVN and only one guy remembered me at that first reunion. That didn’t really matter. Here were all these people from different backgrounds, all sharing the common bond of walking the same ground and a long time ago; we did something different than the people that we see every day. It was just all good. I’ve been to five reunions now. I’ve made great friends and found people that I served with. The only down side is that nobody looks like you remember them. Some got old<g>. If you are having doubts about coming, I encourage you to come. Worst case, you will have some time in a fun city. It turns out that Marines are good to hang out with. 1/1 Marines are especially good to hang out with. ~Dan King H&S 1/1 S-1 |
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