Millikan High School
By:Don Poss
Long Beach, California
(Copyright ©, 1998 )
My Welcome Home story, which follows, was prompted by the below email:
Subject: Just saying hello
Hi Don, my name is Matteson and I study acting at a very unique school
called Playhouse West, located in Los Angeles. I wanted to tell you
about a wonderful project that I've been involved with for the last year.
Playhouse West is the home of a play called "Welcome Home, Soldier."
It is 3 and a half hours of true stories about how the Vets were treated
when they came home from 'Nam and about the struggles they still endure. To
say that being involved in this play has changed my life is an
understatement. You see, I was only an infant when the war was being fought,
so I (and most other people I know who are my age) feel that you guys were
fighting for the freedoms I now enjoy so that I could grow up safe and free.
And I am so very grateful for all you guys did for us. And I am so very
sorry for how horribly you were treated.
Hello, Matteson. My first class at Long Beach City College was "Acting is
Believing." I needed one more class to qualify for the G.I. Bill's education
benefits at that time. My wise professor kindly suggested that I "not quit
my day job." He was so right about that! One of my brothers, Ray, was the
real pilot for the movie and T.V. series M*A*S*H, which ran for so many
years.
Millikan High School, Long Beach, California - 1967
Years later I would occasionally return to Millikan High School, as a police
officer, and notice the Memorial Bulletin Board's growing list of alumni
killed in action in Vietnam. The war was still roaring along, with years to
go, and the stories of Vietnam veterans being spit on and cursed were common
knowledge. I would remember my Veterans' Day talk, and recognize it for what
it really was . . .
From:Matteson
"Welcome Home Soldier" gives us a chance to say "Thank You!!!!!" to Vets
who have never been acknowledged for the sacrifices they made and the
wonderful job they did. If you are in Los Angeles, I hope you will come and
check us out. The play runs the first Saturday of every month and people
come from all over the country to see it (we have Vets who have been coming
all seven years that the play has been running). All shows are free, with
donations going to Task Force Omega, to benefit the Vets.
I was really glad to see your website. Thank you for putting it
together for people to see.
With warm regards, Matteson
One comment I would have in question about presentation of how Vietvets were
treated upon return: Due to time constraints, I'm sure you must present a
"generic" version which probably represents the worst "welcome home"
incidents. In reality, the early year or two (1965-1966), the Welcome Home
(at least for me) was not hostile. Indifference was common and included
"where have you been--what war--where's that?" Others were anxious about "what's it really
like over there?" because their friends and relatives were likely to be sent
"there" or were already "there." I want to tell you about my Welcome Home.
My high school called me on the phone and asked if I would address the
school's Veterans' Day Assemblies (2,500 students), in uniform (I was
already discharged from a four years USAF enlistment). I agreed.
A few days later I had parked my car in familiar old-stomping-grounds
in one of the high school parking lots. I couldn't believe I had agreed to
such an idiotic request, and was grumbling to myself while walking toward
the auditorium. I didn't have clue-one what I would say, and this was merely
the first-assembly with a second-assembly to go! So basically I
planned to respond to the Principal's (WWII vet) questions, and somehow
get through it.
We stood at the podium as the Principal quieted the assembly who pointed and
stared at him and the guy in a blue Air Force uniform. I listened as he
introduced me as a graduate of Millikan High School. Memories of Vietnam
were extremely vivid at that time, and, standing at center-stage I looked
out at the too-young faces setting in the large auditorium, all quiet and
attentive.
The Principal began asking short questions, which I gave clipped answers to.
The audience, it seemed to me, was embarrassed that I was not at ease and
with my too-quiet and too-brief replies. And they were right, my attention
was drifting to recent memories. I then ignored a question, and turned from
the Principal to the students directly, and I spoke at length of my friend, James B. Jones, who was killed in action at age 19.
The jokes we played on each other . . . the trouble we would have gotten
into if only the sergeants had found out "who did that!" . . . the heat . .
. the rain and mud and bugs . . . the bodybags . . . and the last night of
J.B.'s life at Danang Vietnam. Total silence.
I told of how the next morning, still wearing my flack-jacket and helmet and
carrying my M-16 weapon, I entered the dispensary where J.B. was carried only
hours earlier. Two medics came out of a back room . . . is that
where he is?---"I want to see J.B.'s body." But he was not there, and
had already begun his final journey home.
I tried to make eye contact with those in the front rows, as I told of a letter from Jim's mother, and the pain she and
his father felt. Was any of what I was saying making sense? I could
see that some of the girls were actually crying. The guys were setting on
seats' edges and listening intently . . . as I remembered Vietnam.
I asked the "young men" in the auditorium what they would consider important
in their lives today, if they "knew their lives could end within a year from
today." I told them that Vietnam was "not a place you would want to go," but
at the same time was not a place I regretted going to---and yet it was
impossible to explain what that meant or convey "what it was really
like"---but that Vietnam had a life-changing impact on me, in that I could
never go back to those days-of-innocence I knew at Millikan High School.
The bell rang signaling end-of-assembly, and usually the teenagers would
charge out of the auditorium, as I had done years before, . . . but they
remained seated, and quiet. The Principal, who had sat down on a folding
chair stood up, shook my hand and thanked me with a quick embrace and pat on
the back. My God . . . did the Principal that used to threatened to skin
me alive just hug me? The students had not begun to stir, and I
noticed the second-assembly students were peeking in the doors to see why
they could not yet enter. I walked from the podium toward the wings, and
after a few steps the students began to rise, and applaud . . . then
amazingly, cheer and whistle and the cheering became loud as if Millikan's
football team had just won the State Championship. I stopped, totally
surprise---shocked really, and turned to face them. The noise and shouting
tapered off to a ripple. I was too choked up to say anything---and what had
I said anyway?---so I just simply popped a salute and walked off stage. The
cheering started a new.
After second-assembly, some of my old high school teachers came backstage
and shook my hand. Some were worried about "the war getting serious." As I
left the building through a side door, several students from first and
second assemblies were waiting. Some said they had brothers or fathers in
Vietnam. One teary eyed girl said that her brother had died in
Vietnam, and wanted to know if I had known him there.
The students and staff at Millikan High remember and honor their Veterans,
and still do to this day with the Alumni Memorial posted at the campus'
main entrance.