Thanks for your service

GUEST OPINION

COLUMN

As you drive into Newport from the west, you may notice a sign partially obscured by cottonwood saplings that says, “This Community Supports our Troops.” As a military retiree, I frequently have people I don’t know thank me for my service.

Local businesses also participate. I get a military discount at the hardware store.

It is not the money as much as it is the sentiment. I feel appreciated. But it wasn’t always like that.

When I graduated from high school, the Military Academy at West Point needed a football player, and I needed a college education.

Four years later I graduated, was commissioned in the Air Force, and was married all on the same day.

I was in flight school on our first anniversary. I had a training flight, but was able to spend at least part of the day at home. After earning my wings, I was assigned to Fairchild AFB in Spokane and began routine deployments to South East Asia. I was overseas for my second, third, fourth, and fifth anniversaries.

The Viet Nam war was hard on marriages. The iconic West Point Chapel was the site of over fifty marriages on graduation day and the next. Of those who were married that day, I know of only four that outlasted the war. During that time career soldiers were either gone or preparing to deploy. My wife raised our two kids, a cat, and large bird dog with little help from a part time husband. As the war became less and less popular, she had to contend with the silent disapproval of our non-military friends and relatives as well as with news reporters who refused to honor her right to privacy.

There should be medals for faithful wives.

All my deployments to the war zone had been air to air refueling of the bombers and fighters who dodged antiaircraft fire to attack the enemy. Air refueling was essential, but I was relatively safe; while many of my classmates were fighting and dying. Survivor’s guilt led me to volunteer for Special Air Operations, and I spent all of 1970 in places no one ever heard of flying AC119 gunships. When we supported allied ground troops in Cambodia, we worked in French. I was fluent enough to coordinate over the radio with friendly ground units, so I kept very busy flying my regular missions and with other crews as an interpreter. I returned home confident that I had served my country and honored the memory of those who didn’t make it back.

I didn’t expect a hero’s welcome, but neither did I expect the hostility of an ungrateful nation. We isolated ourselves with other military families. We were afraid to wear our uniforms off-base, and were generally shunned by the civilian community.

The animosity of our neighbors slowly decreased, then turned around until some began to thank us for our service. I can’t forget the hostility I felt when I returned from the war, but I can, and do, appreciate the sign out on the highway and the current gratitude of community. Thank you for your support.

FRANK WATSON IS A RETIRED AIR FORCE COLONEL AND LONG-TIME RESIDENT OF EASTERN WASHINGTON. HE HAS BEEN A FREE-LANCE COLUMNIST FOR OVER 20 YEARS.