by Jack McLean
By the end of 1968, there was nothing at all pleasing about being identified as a veteran of the Vietnam War—even among family. We veterans had become the physical symbols of our nation’s gross military misfortune. Our returning status was the polar opposite to that of our fathers, a brief twenty-three years before, who had returned from Europe and the Pacific to universal adulation and appreciation.
It was relatively easy for me to push Vietnam out of my mind—school started, I had books to read, papers to write, and I began to very awkwardly socialize with friends and girls. There was nothing in Brookline or Cambridge to trigger even the vaguest memory of my previous year—no military bases, no marines, no jeeps, no jets, no incoming artillery, not even any short hair. Most important, perhaps, it was hard to even find anybody who cared that I or any other American serviceman had served his country in harm’s way. If I didn’t bring up the subject, the subject didn’t come up.
I didn’t bring up the subject.
As long as I could stay away from the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, Vietnam existed only as the object of increasingly passionate protest rallies on and around American college campuses.
I could not, however, push Sid MacLeod out of my mind.
Day and night his memory haunted me—as it does to this day.
Sid.
I just didn’t know what the hell to do.
I found his old address and wrote a clumsy note to his mother and father. I didn’t know what to say. Here I was, alive and safely in college—exactly where he had been three years before when he’d gotten the bright idea to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. What made it a conundrum was that, like me, he’d enlisted voluntarily. Unlike me, however, he had really wanted to serve in Vietnam, and now he was dead.
Dammit.
McLean, VA
December 2, 1968 (Friday)
Letter from Lillie and Sid MacLeod
Dear Jack,
We wanted you to know how much we appreciated your letter. I fully intended to write sooner but kept putting it off; I still find it quite difficult to write about Sid.
He did mention you to me several times and told me what a good friend you were. I’m sure he admired you as much as you did him.
We have only the fondest and loving memories of Sid. He was an inspiration to us, his parents, as well as to others. We could not have asked for a finer son.
We hope all is well with you and that you are now back to the routine of civilian life again.
Thanks again for taking the time to write. I know how difficult it must have been for you.
We wish you the best of luck in the New Year.
Sincerely,
Mrs. S. MacLeod
EPILOGUE
MY TRANSITION INTO ACADEMIC LIFE WAS NEARLY seamless. I had a number of classmates from Andover who were now juniors and were able to give me a good base of support and guidance where appropriate. (Stay away from Econ 201, whatever you do.)
I lived at home for the first semester, so I was able to study with few distractions. I quietly slid back into family life as well. Activity around the Brookline household returned to what I knew as normal. There was little, if any, talk about the previous year. By November, I had without fanfare or ceremony taken down the map of Vietnam that had hung on the downstairs bathroom wall.
In the late afternoon when I got home from classes, Barby and Mom would be sitting in the parlor having their daily “Tea and Beav,” that is, watching Leave It to Beaver on TV while having afternoon tea. Sometimes when Mom picked up the mail from under the mail slot in the vestibule, she would quietly sing to herself the refrain, “Oh, dear. No mail from John today.”
To me these were mere words. To Barby and, of course, Mom, they were echoes back to a year of awful afternoons and wrenching weeklong silences cut by the relief—the enormous relief on those days when a letter came in—of knowing that I had at least been well five days before. I have no earthly idea what that must have been like for the three of them back in Brookline and can no more imagine their experience than they could mine. To them, the clang of the vestibule mail slot was akin to a sniper’s single rifle shot.
Every day.
By June, I had finished a successful freshman year, moved onto campus, and felt the strange relief that came from knowing that every boy that I had served with in Vietnam was now either safely home or dead.
On a raw late March New England day three and a half years later, a thin manila envelope addressed to me arrived through the vestibule mail slot in Brookline. The return address was the Department of the Navy in Washington, D.C. My mother picked it up along with the other mail, sorted out what applied to her, and put the rest in the gold tray on the front hall table. I would come by, perhaps, over the weekend, for a home-cooked meal and a break from my studies.
It was spring term of my senior year at Harvard University. This time the thin envelope contained good news. On March 29, 1972, my six-year obligation (two on active duty and four in the inactive reserves) was complete. I was honorably discharged, at the rank of corporal, from the United States Marine Corps.
In the meantime, I had quietly morphed into one of those Columbia University types that had evoked such visceral reactions from my Charlie Company buddies years earlier.
To the world I now appeared to be just another “long-haired, privileged little shit-fuck draft-dodging motherfucker.”
Except for the draft-dodging part, of course.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book emerged from more than one hundred letters home that I wrote during my two years in the United States Marine Corps from 1966 to 1968. My mother saved the letters and often encouraged me to “do something with them.” Thirty-five years later, my second wife, Karen, discovered the letters, as deeply buried among my possessions as my Vietnam War experience was buried inside of me. Karen echoed my mother’s earlier encouragement.
I began writing.
Thank you, Karen, from all of us.
Through fellow author, marine, and Vietnam veteran Bob Timberg, I met my agent, Flip Brophy of Sterling Lord Literistic. Flip introduced me to my editor, Katie Hall. Katie’s remarkable talent washes unseen over every word on every page. Flip also encouraged Ryan Doherty of Random House to bring the work to life. There would be no Loon without each of them. Thank you.
While writing, I received encouragement and support from family, friends, neighbors, professional colleagues, and fellow Charlie Company survivors in an abundance that I continue to regard with awe. Terry and Nancy Tillery kept me focused by providing food, love, and unlimited access to their beach house in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. In Georgetown, Vera and Dandy Dickie were my daily visitors, keeping me sane with an encouraging word and a welcome wag. Thank you.
Former Charlie Company commander Bill Negron was a font of information. Many technical details are from his memory, and several of the better stories were borrowed with his blessing from his own writings. Bill, a uniquely American character, was a remarkable marine, and a dear friend to all of us. Thanks, Skipper.
Among Charlie Company veterans, I thank Dan Burton, Mac Mecham, Jack McQuade, Robert Rodriguez, Benny Lerma, Buck Willingham, Doug McPhail, Clabie Edmonds, Neil Downey, Wayne Wood, and Gaylord Flippen. Semper Fi, brothers.
For support in Washington, I thank former marines Peter McCarthy and John Miller, as well as John Shlaes, Tad Howard, Tom Coleman, Peter Van Allen, David Mitchell, and author David Maraniss. Andover classmate Ray Healey was a steady cheerleader. Ray never served in the military, but has dedicated his life to veteran advocacy. Thanks from all of us, Ray.
My three daughters and three siblings were unconditionally supportive rocks throughout the entire process. Thank you Sarah, Martha, Sylvia, Don, Ruth, and Barbara.
Present in spirit and never to be forgotten are the forty-three grand young sons of Charlie and Delta companies, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division who breathed their last on LZ Loon during those three horrific days i
n June 1968.
Rest in peace, brothers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The third of four children, Jack McLean was born in Huntington, New York, on May 26, 1947. He was brought up in Summit, New Jersey, where he lived until admittance to Phillips Academy, Andover, at age fourteen. Upon graduation, McLean enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. After boot camp and a year of stateside duty, he served in Vietnam with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.
McLean returned to enter Harvard University in the fall of 1968 as the college’s first Vietnam veteran. After graduation, he held marketing positions in New York, Boston, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C.
McLean is the father of three daughters and is currently the Tsien Writer in Residence, Fort Lee, New Jersey.
While all of the incidents in Loon are real, certain dialogue has been
reconstructed, and some of the names and personal characteristics of
the individuals have been changed. Any resulting resemblance to persons
living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.
Copyright © 2009 by Jack McLean
Title-page photograph copyright © 2009 by AP Images
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Presidio Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
PRESIDIO PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Oakfield Avenue Music and
John Cale Music, Inc., for permission to reprint lyrics from “I Believe,”
written by Lou Reed and John Cale. Copyright © Oakfield Avenue Music and
John Cale Music. Copyright © Metal Machine Music and John Cale Music, Inc.
U.S. and Canadian rights for Oakfield Avenue Music administered
and controlled by Spirit One Music (BMI). World excluding
U.S. and Canadian rights controlled and administered by EMI Music Publishing,
Ltd. International copyright secured. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51535-3
www.presidiopress.com
v3.0_r1