Subject: Just saying hello
From: Matteson
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.
"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
Hello, Matteson. My first class at Long Beach
City College was "Acting is Believing." I needed one more
class to qualify for the GI 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 TV series M*A*S*H, which ran for so
many years.
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.
Millikan High School, Long Beach, California
- 1967
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 (WW11 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 Đà Nẵng 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.
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 ...
My Welcome Home, 1967.
The students and staff at Millikan High
School remembered and honored their Veterans...and still do to this day
with the Alumni Memorial posted at the campus' main entrance.
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