The train ride to Frankfurt was much like any other trip I’d taken.  The difference this time I was in full Class A uniform, which I wore very little.  I was in a coach with an older German couple.  We talked as much as we could through the language barrier.  I’d learned to explain myself and understand even when words weren’t decipherable.  The lady was commenting on my badges and ribbons and I’d smile and illustrate what they were for.  For instance I was wearing an Expert Rifleman badge.  I would point like holding a rifle and “shoot”, to which she approvingly nodded say yes in German.  The conversation was good anyway.  They were very cordial and engaging.  That’s what I liked about the people.  They were for the most part accepting of me at least. 

The train arrived in Frankfurt in about two hours and I had to hustle on over to the Rhine-Mien Air Force Base where my flight would be leaving from.  Once there I found a good number of others gathering for the flight and ran into two or three of the guys I trained with at Fort Sill.  It was a family reunion of sorts.  They had been sent to Sergeant Missile units to train the NATO forces to use it in the transition.  They showed me pictures of where they were stationed.  I so wished I would have been able to stayed in my MOS with these guys, but I wouldn’t trade for a minute my time right where I’d been for the last fifteen and a half months. 

Someone in charge came in and gathered us together and checked our orders and had us check in our bags and instructed us where we’d be boarding.  He also told us the flight would be a bit later than originally told.  We’d now leave around seven in the evening.  Now in Germany the days can be rather long for some reason.  I’m talking daylight hours.  Even in March the sun didn’t set till close to eight thirty or so.  I’d gotten used to it even though most winter days were overcast.  So we set out to get something to eat and talk.  We came back later and checked through to the waiting area and sat waiting for boarding.  The plane was with a commercial carrier and there were some two hundred fifty of us.  It was a full plane.

Once boarded further realization I was no longer on German soil, at least for all intents and purposes.  I was on an American base. 

The flight took off and I sat there watching the sun setting in front of us.  In fact I watch the sun set for about five hours.  We were flying into the sun, so we followed it for this whole time and finally it disappeared about two hours before we arrived at McGuire AFB next to Ft Dix, I believe.  These two bases are co-joined.  The flight itself was filled with anticipation to get back home, yet some, like myself, still had wants to remain and see more of the country.  For me, it was my home country.  Still, I had Julie and my family on my mind first and foremost.  I had their numbers tucked away so I could call them when I got on the ground in the “world”. 

Once we got our bags we were whisked into buses and taken to barracks on Ft Dix and they checked us in and gave us rooms.  Now, talk about jet lag.  We left Germany at seven thirty European time.  We were on the plane for seven and a half hours and we landed in McGuire at nine thirty in the same evening.  Two hours had elapsed time wise in that seven hours to us.  Our minds were calculating time as something like three in the morning.  So we all settled into our rooms and slept, but we did have one advantage.  Most of us did sleep on the flight so we weren’t completely dog tired.

Then came morning came with something that most all of us had long missed.  I dressed in civvies and walked down to the rec room where a bunch of the guys had already gathered.  They were watching Saturday morning cartoons.  Man, I sat right down like a kid with a new toy.  TV with English speaking characters was like a miracle.  I remember watching The Three Stooges one day on German TV.  Take it from me.  The Three Stooges speaking German wasn’t quite as funny.  So, we all sat there enthralled with Bugs Bunny and Foghorn Leghorn for the morning.  Then we went out and got a big American style lunch.  German food was great and I will get some any chance I get, but still, real American food hadn’t been so good as having been away from it for over a year. 

Walking around I realized how quickly things changed in that fifteen month.  A whole new year model of cars had come out for one thing.  The muscle car era was dying, yet so many remained on the road.  I guess cars were my main focus.  Sorry.  I still wanted that Corvette.

After lunch I called Julie and mom and dad and let them know I was in the U.S. and would start out-processing on Monday.  I didn’t know how long this would take.  There were a lot of us and quite a few of them were ahead of us.

When Monday came around we found ourselves looking at a backlog of about three days, so we didn’t have anything to do except goof off, watch TV or just sleep. I didn’t want to leave the base.  I wanted to go home.  I probably called home.  I would think I did although now I can’t say for sure.

Thursday morning arrived and we were brought to the out-processing section and began the paperwork and we were told this and that, but the thing I remember the Staff Sergeant telling us.  He said he knew some of us had not gone to Viet Nam, but having been a part of the military during this time made us Veteran’s of the Viet Nam era.  Whether we went or not that much counted, because at any moment, those of us who didn’t go could have gotten orders to go.  That I knew, but was thankful I didn’t have to.  Another thing I was told was that according to my contract I was due for two years active duty, two years active reserves and two years inactive reserves, but with so many draftees getting out and so many who joined the reserves in hopes of not being activated that the reserves had no openings for exiting active duty members.  So I was placed on inactive reserve status, which was absolutely fine with me.  At the end of the session I was given my papers, one of which I was happy to take in hand and that was my DD214.  I was also told to register this document with my local register of deeds in the county where I lived.  This I did not long after I got home.  I was home one Friday and I took it over to the Beaufort County Register of Deeds and if anyone in my family is looking for it this is where it is.

When all was said and done we were given plane tickets home and ferried out to waiting vehicles to take us to the airports where we would be leaving out of.  I had time to call home and told Julie I was supposed to be in New Hanover County around ten thirty that evening.  She was so excited.  She said she’d be there along with my dad and a couple of twin girls she knew who was waiting for one of their boyfriend.  I was leaving out or Philadelphia along with an airport limo full of other guys.  So we were on our way home finally.  The drive seemed to go on forever, but we made it on time for our flights.  I was ready.  I got my duffle bag checked and carried on my other couple of items and boarded quickly.  I was headed for DC to catch my connection there to Wilmington.  But something happened along the way.  It must have been a head wind or something making us fifteen minutes late getting in to Dulles, in DC.  I missed my connecting flight because of it.  I called Julie’s house and her mom said she was at the airport, but she would have to wait till she got home to tell her the news as to why I wasn’t there on my flight.  I hated this more than anything.  I was smart enough to have put five hundred of my money in traveler’s checks and kept back a couple of hundred in cash.  I could have gone to a motel, but I wasn’t into paying for it, so I slept in a TV chair with my duffle bag stashed under my seat and my other two bags in hand or very close to me at least.  By midnight the airport was strangely empty anyway except for security guards and some employees.  I suppose they kind of watched out for me.  It wasn’t unusual to see military guys in the airport in full uniform.  My flight was leaving at nine in the morning, so I got some shut eye.

I was awakened around seven by the building hustle and bustle of people beginning to scurry from one point to another.  Flights were beginning to pick up for the day and I was ready to get out of there. 

I did find one thing interesting and I didn’t have any problem resisting.  A woman, to me at the time, probably mid to late thirties came and sat beside me.  She started coming on to me.  She was well dressed in a business like outfit.  Nothing trampy, so I wasn’t sure what the deal was, but I was determined I wasn’t going to miss my flight.  So I dismissed myself politely and went to my gate and checked in.  This time I was on my flight to Wilmington and would be home before noon. 

When we landed in Wilmington, I wasn’t sure what I would encounter and I almost did something stupid.  Of all the people coming out to meet those of us on the plane was a girl who looked like Julie except she was a bit cheekier and her skin was a bit blemished.  At a distance my heart leaped but the closer she got so I could see her better I realized it wasn’t her and my heart dropped.  As she passed me she put a hug on someone else behind me, but I didn’t have time to think about this incident.  As I walked inside the building the twins, who I knew nothing about approached me in tandem and totally caught me off guard.  I was in uniform and my name tag was still in place.  As they walked up to me they both said in stereo that I must be Larry.  Huh?!  What’s this, I thought?  Then they told me about being there the night before and seeing Julie and their boyfriend nor I being on our scheduled flight so Julie went to work and asked them to take me to her mom’s.  Oh well.  I got my duffle bag and waited, but the twin’s boyfriend apparently still hadn’t gotten in, so they took me to Julie’s home and dropped me off.  I never saw these two girls ever again.  Isn’t it funny how life works?  Julie’s mom greeted me at the door with a great big hug and I dragged my stuff inside.  It was Friday noon by now.  It wasn’t long and Julie came in from work for lunch and walked right by me, not speaking a word.  Left me totally stunned.  When she came back she then hugged me and told me how much she had cried the evening before when she was expecting me in and I didn’t show.  Well, after all it wasn’t my fault.  I can’t make flight hold up for me.  I’m just one guy.  I maybe should have been pissed, because after all this time all I got was a hug and a story.  But the excitement of being home was overwhelming.  I had traveled the world since I’d seen her last and before this could go somewhere my dad showed up.  It was his short day and he was heading home.  We sat and talked for a while and then agreed I’d go home buy a car and come right back the next day, Sunday at the latest.  So off dad and I went for home.  On the way home I pulled out a cigarette and lit it and dad about had a stroke.  His oldest son had taken up smoking?!  Well, yeah, but I wasn’t going to tell him about the drinking.  Oh no.  He’d always told me beer was bad for me and besides it tasted like horse piss.  You know to this day I wondered how he knew what horse piss tasted like.  He said he never drank.  Now that leaves ME scratching MY head.

My mom and brother’s were so glad to see me.  It was a special dinner night at the Rowe house.  And for the life of me I can’t tell you for sure what it was, but I’d be willing to bet is was two fried chickens, mashed potatoes and string beans with homemade biscuits.  Does that sound realistic?

I went out before dinner to New Bern and looked for a car and mom directed me away from what I wanted.  There was a ’69 two door hard top Chevelle sitting over in the corner.  Mom convinced me I was going to be a family man in a short while and I needed a four door car, so I bought a 1966 Dodge Polara.  It was a big car and the previous owner bought it with fender skirts on it.  His wife drove it most of the time and it had only sixteen thousand miles on it.  This car was six years old mind you.  The car had been driven only less than 2700 miles a year.  Okay, that meant the car was in good shape.  So I picked it up Saturday and drove back to Wilmington and Julie and I spent the afternoon at Radio Shack getting my Marantz amp converted to U.S. voltage.  I didn’t know how.  They worked on it, but said they didn’t know what to do either, so I took it back to her house and packed it back in the box.  There’s more to this later.

We spend the day getting back on track and then I went to a motel in Castle Hayne that evening and checked in and called Billy’s mom and she said come on over.  When I got there she asked me where I was staying the night and I said in the local motel.  She said she wouldn’t hear of it and called the motel and told the owner to give me my money back, because I was staying at her home that weekend.  Well that was twenty dollars saved.  

The weekend was about up and dad said I had a job to report to on Monday morning and afterward he had a place for me to look at.  I was finally home and getting back into the swing of things.