Some people can put war behind them and get on with their lives. I’m one of those who could. Others never get over it. We have a term for them: “vetted out.” Harry Smiley was vetted out.
My squad leader, Tom Eichler, organized a parade for Vietnam veterans on June 13, 1986, in Chicago. He’s the guy who held live grenades to stay awake on watch. I pissed in his helmet by accident. Him. But he wasn’t vetted out. He became a Chicago police officer and a big veterans organizer.
A year before, on May 7, 1985, New York City had held a parade for Vietnam veterans, and I was lit up that day.
“Man, they’re acknowledging us for the first time.” I was so proud, happy and excited that I couldn’t work. “Fuck it, man! This is my day! They are honoring not just me but all the Viet vets!”
The parade started on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge. I was so psyched that I got up early and started walking to the bus terminal to get into the city for the parade. I needed to get one bus into Manhattan, then another one to Brooklyn.
It was 6:30 in the morning, and I didn’t have to be there until 8 or 9, but I was anxious and wanted to be a part of everything. When I made it to the corner of Bardonia and 304th, I just stuck my hand out to try to hitch a ride. Fuck public transportation. I was wearing my business suit.
“Anybody going to Brooklyn?”
Sure enough, a guy stopped at the light and offered me a lift. I was still psyched. “I’m a Viet vet and they’re having a parade for us,” I said. I figured it would reassure the guy that I wasn’t just a loser with a suit on hitchhiking. He took me exactly where I needed to go. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Vietnam vets were already at the staging area when I got there. The press was all over the place. It was a big deal.
Everyone was getting organized. Army Airborne people were looking for Army Airborne, then their unit, Cavalry for Cavalry, Marines First Division for First Division, Fifth Division for Fifth Division and so on like that. People were holding up signs saying who they were with.
Finally, I saw Khe Sanh veterans. That was me! There were several of us, and I was hoping I would see someone from my company. Sure enough, I saw Harry Smiley, Echo Company. We hooked right up. “I did this; I did that.” Just shooting the shit.
Now, Harry Smiley is a great guy, but he was all vetted out. He was heavy set, muscular, wearing combat gear, his front teeth were missing … just vetted out.
“What the fuck’s with you? No front four teeth?”
“Oh, I get in fights all the time,” he told me. “Last Friday night, I got slugged with a pool stick.” Another time,he was working pumping gas and said something to a customer, and the guy bashed him in the mouth with a tire iron. “I decided I’m not putting my teeth on.”
“That’s good, Harry,” I said. “I agree with you.” ‘Cause he gets in all these jams, right?
We marched together that day and bonded again. We went over the bridge and down Wall Street. Office workers threw confetti from the buildings. It was the first time that our country had thanked us for fighting in Vietnam. Harry and I kept in touch with each other.
The Chicago parade was on June 13, 1986. A few weeks before it, Tom, my old squad leader, called me. He was planning a get-together at his house with Khe Sanh veterans the night before the parade and wanted me to come. I invited Harry Smiley. I had money and he didn’t, so I offered to pay. I was excited and I wanted him to be there. Harry kept thanking me.
We left New York on a Friday, and Harry met me at my office in the Empire State Building. It was a normal, conservative office. Everyone wore business clothes.
I was just working like usual when one of my secretaries ran in with a panicked look on her face.
“There’s a madman out there and he says he knows you!”
I looked out and saw Harry. He was wearing combat fatigues with combat boots, a floppy hat, no teeth. I could almost see camouflage paint on his face.
The women in the office couldn’t believe that I in my business suits could have a friend like Harry.
“He’s fine, absolutely fine,” I assured them.
Our flight was on PeopleExpress Airlines, that no-frills, low-budget carrier that Continental bought out in 1987. We were a little late arriving and we ended up with seats on the second to last row.
I was by isle. Harry was next to me and this poor kid who was maybe 20 years old was stuck by the window. I looked like a businessman. Harry looked like he’d just walked out of the jungle with no teeth.
We hadn’t been in the air long and I was half-dozing when Harry pulled out this big fucking pipe. It looked like one of those old fetish Indian pipes, and he started packing it with marijuana.
You could smoke cigarettes in the backs of planes in those days, but this was different. I just watched him. “I don’t fucking believe what’s happening here,” I thought.
In Harry’s mind, he was a Vietnam vet and sort of above the law. I didn’t want to say anything. I just watched him pack the pipe with pot, then he lit it.
“Oh fuck!” I thought. “There’s no way that I’m going jail with this guy. There’s fucking no way.”
I didn’t say to him, “Are you out of your fucking mind?” I just told myself, “You know what? He’s a big boy and whatever goes down is doing down.”
I got up and walked to the front of the plane where they had the magazine racks. Harry was maybe 6-foot-2, 270 pounds, and that kid was still pinned between him and the window when Harry fired up the pipe.
This cloud of pot smoke rose from the back of the plane. The more Harry puffed, the more smoke drifted toward the front. The cabin was stinking bad.
I could see the passengers start sniffing, like, “What the fuck is that?!” Then they would turn around and see Harry, this big fucking madman wearing combat gear on no teeth and smoking away on this big Indian pipe filled with weed.
The stewardesses wouldn’t even walk back there. They looked at him, and, holy shit, he didn’t look normal. They were afraid he’d chop their heads off. The poor kid next to him slumped as low into his seat as he could and pretended he was asleep.
I stayed up front for a good half an hour until Harry finished getting stoned. I imagine all the people around him were pretty high, too. The plane was a big stink bomb, but everyone was too scared by Harry’s appearance to do anything.
I still didn’t say anything, but I was pretty sure that cops were going to storm the plane when we landed in Chicago. I was ready to tell anyone who would listen that I had nothing to do with him.
But nothing happened. We all tiptoed off the plane, but the only cop waiting at the airport for us was Tom. He and a few other guys were there to greet us, give us a ride.
“You won’t believe this,” I told Tom. “The whole way over here, this guy was fucking smoking pot. You’re a cop, man! He didn’t get arrested?! They didn’t call in the fucking call in the federal agents?”
“Naw, nothing,” Tom said.
“Holy fucking shit! Jesus Christ almighty!”
We all broke down laughing. How the fuck can you smoke pot in a fucking airplane in front of everybody and get away with it?
Harry couldn’t have given a flying fuck. You know what? He’s at a stage in life where he’s like, “Done this, done that. So they fucking put me jail? I’ve been to jail. You know what? I have nothing to give back and nothing to lose.”
That was his attitude.
