Coming Home
Freddie Delgado, Infantry
9th Mechanized Unit, 101st Airborne
Tour of Duty: April 1970 to March 1971
I felt good, and I felt sad when I was leaving for home because I was leaving a lot of good buddies. I felt bad leaving them behind. The night before I left we threw a big party. I looked back to the first month I was there. You see all of the guys who are going home, and you think to yourself, "I wish it was me." Then it was my turn to get out, and I thought I had done my time. It felt good to be out.
I remember before I left the Oakland army depot that there were vatos (dudes) who were just back from Nam. The guys who came back from Vietnam are served a steak dinner. I got picked for KP even though I was going to Vietnam. I was there doing KP in the dining hall when someone told me, "You going to Vietnam?" I said, "Yep." He said, "Well, good luck, take care of yourself." Then he left.
When I was coming back from Vietnam, I was eating a steak. This new guy at the door told me, "You going to Vietnam?" I said, "No, are you going over there, ese (you)?" Then I told the vato, "Take care." I tripped out because I was in the same position a year ago. I extended a couple weeks in Nam in order to get an early out from the army.
They discharged me from Fort Lewis, Washington. The gave me my papers saying, "You, as of now, are a free man." We got there about midnight, and they paid us about three in the morning. When I left Fort Lewis, I had $600 in my pocket.
The first thing I experienced when I got back to the world was that people looked more healthy, more gordos (fat). They weren't as small. I said to myself, "Boy, are they feeding you people right over here."
There was an incident that happened at my sister's house. We were watching TV when I got up to change the station. At the same time a jet plane was flying over and made a sonic boom. It rattled the window and s---. I hit the ground automatically. When I got up, I felt embarrassed. My sister and my little brother didn't think it was funny. They realized what was happening to me. After a little bit we started to laugh it off.
One time I was asleep and my dad was sleeping there in the same room when all of a sudden, I gave a big, old grunt. My father told me, "Estas aquí. Ya no estas allá" ("you are here now, you are not there anymore.") That happened the first night I was there. I woke up relieved. I got used to it fast. There was a time people were really talking about the Vietnam War, but I didn't talk about it. Even if I would have told them what happened, they wouldn't have believed me. So I decided not to say anything about it when people would ask me questions about Vietnam.
When I came home, I saw some guys with long hair. I was pissed off at them because they didn't go where I went. I guess most of the guys were caught in the middle of the war because we were drafted. After I was home for a few months, I let my hair grow long.