On the drive up to the Jersey Shore to see Parlor Mob debut their second album, we listened to an interview on NPR of a Harvard Psych and Public Policy Professor. Paula Caplan wrote When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home and her message on this weekend was to speak to a Vet about his war experience. Allowing them the space to talk, and listening with an open mind and heart, can do more than any therapist or drug regimen combined could do to help them cope with life after war.
So when we arrived at my in-Laws, I asked Hudson if he had seen combat on his ship, the Zaniah, during WWII. He told us he was up on the deck one morning in Okinawa, when he saw a plane coming low, straight toward him. He thought it was “…one of ours,” there was no “general quarters” alarm. At the last minute, it swerved and crashed into another ship. He looked at me with such wisdom, and it made me think of my brother Jim’s story. About being in Saigon at the Officer’s Club and the siren’s blowing and this guy who left and took cover under his bunk and was killed by a stray bullet.
That may be the hardest existential question of all. Why did I survive, when other good men and women perished? And each Johnny and Jane has to answer that for themselves. At our Wedding, in my kitchen, my step-brother Eric and Jim talked for the very first time about their Vietnam experience. Jim was an Intelligence Officer, Eric a med-evac helicopter pilot. My teenage self thought Eric would be safe with a big Red Cross on the side of his Huey; later he told me they were targets for the VC. He was one of very few pilots to survive.
Jim and Eric on Right
To all our veterans, and active-duty service men and women, today and every day in every part of the world, thank you.
MountainMornings 
Chris
Thank you for your post. Yes, the medical markings were a special target but every helicopter was a target. I was not one of few to survive, just one of the few not to get a purple heart, one way or the other. Luck brought me home with only a few physical scratches at worst. Not enough to justify a purple heart. It is nice thta the country has finally come around to honoring my generation of warriors.
In fact, NJ has the only VN Veterans Memorial and Museum in the country! You don’t need a purple heart Eric, what you did took more heart and courage than most of us can muster. Landing a helicopter in a jungle in the best of circumstances takes a special skill. Jess enjoys her time at the VA now and Matt will be the Vanderbilt VA Chief next year.