The Freedom Bus and the Freedom Bird

My Last Beer, My Last Prayer, and the Day I Finally Left Vietnam

This article is part of Brothers In Arms, a collection of stories about military service, Vietnam, veterans, the VA, and the brothers we remember.

There are places in Vietnam I remember because bad things happened there.

Hill 327 isn’t one of them.

I remember Hill 327 because it meant freedom.

In fact, that’s what we called it—Freedom Hill.

It sat outside Da Nang, and by 1969 and 1970 it had become one of those strange little pieces of America dropped into the middle of a war. There was a large PX complex where servicemen could buy cameras, stereos, records, civilian clothes and all kinds of things that had absolutely nothing to do with staying alive in Vietnam.

You could even order a car and have it waiting for you when you got back to the States.

There was food.

There was beer.

There were thousands of American servicemen passing through.

And for a few hours, you could almost forget where you were.

Almost.

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Bob Hope Came to Freedom Hill

Freedom Hill already held one hell of a memory for me.

In December 1969, I was there when Bob Hope brought his Christmas USO show to Da Nang.

The show was held in a huge open-air amphitheater carved into the red dirt hillside. Thousands of us packed the place.

Bob Hope was already a legend to American servicemen. He had been entertaining troops for decades, and there he was in Vietnam trying to make a bunch of young men forget the war for a little while.

Entertainment and music could give us a temporary escape from the war, and as I wrote in The Soundtrack of Vietnam, the music we heard over there became permanently attached to the memories we brought home.

That alone would have made the day unforgettable.

But there was another guest that year.

Neil Armstrong.

Just months earlier, the man had walked on the moon.

Think about that.

There I was in Vietnam, a Marine surrounded by red dirt and a war, watching a man who had recently stood on another world.

Vietnam could be a very strange place.

I had no idea at the time that I would eventually return to Freedom Hill for a much more personal reason.

I would go there to leave Vietnam.

There was another reason seeing Neil Armstrong that day hit me harder than it probably did most of the Marines around me.

On July 20, 1969, I was home with my girlfriend on the last day of my leave before heading to Vietnam. Like millions of Americans, we sat in front of the television and watched Apollo 11 land on the moon.

I watched Neil Armstrong climb down that ladder and become the first human being to walk on another world.

The next day, I left home with orders for Vietnam.

Think about that sequence.

July 20: I’m sitting safely at home with my family watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.

July 21: I’m on my way to Vietnam.

Then, five months later, I’m standing on a red-dirt hillside at Freedom Hill in Da Nang watching Neil Armstrong himself walk onto Bob Hope’s stage.

The place erupted.

He got one hell of a cheer from thousands of servicemen, and I was certainly one of them.

I couldn’t have imagined back in July, sitting in front of that television with my family, that the next time I saw the first man to walk on the moon, I’d be watching him in person from a hillside in Vietnam.

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Why We Called It Freedom Hill

For Marines finishing their tours, Freedom Hill had another meaning.

It was part of the process of getting the hell out of Vietnam.

After thirteen months in-country, my turn finally came.

Those thirteen months included experiences I would carry for the rest of my life, including what happened when I stumbled into the theft ring operating around my unit and discovered that sometimes the danger in Vietnam wasn’t coming from the other side.

There was a beer garden at Freedom Hill, and before I left, two people came to see me.

One was Richard Miskanis, my best buddy from boot camp.

Richard and I had started this whole Marine Corps adventure together back in the States. Somehow, both of us eventually wound up serving in the Da Nang area.

His uncle Jim was there too.

Jim was a Marine E-6.

The problem was that Richard and Jim weren’t leaving.

I was.

They still had months remaining on their tours.

But they came to Freedom Hill anyway to see me off.

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One Last Beer

We sat together in the beer garden.

Three Marines.

We drank beer and ate burgers.

I don’t remember making any grand speeches.

There wasn’t some Hollywood moment where dramatic music started playing and everybody suddenly found the perfect words.

We were Marines.

We drank our beer.

We ate our burgers.

And eventually somebody had to look at the time.

My bus was coming.

The Freedom bus.

It would take me from Freedom Hill to the Da Nang airfield, where I would begin the trip back to the world.

That was when the emotions started getting complicated.

I had waited thirteen months for this.

I was going home.

I should have been nothing but happy.

But my best buddy wasn’t coming with me.

Neither was Jim.

They were staying behind in the same war I was escaping.

When it was finally time, I said goodbye and boarded the bus.

As it pulled away, I looked back and said a silent prayer.

Please let Richard and Jim make it home too.

Then Freedom Hill disappeared behind me.

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Hurry Up and Wait

When we reached the Da Nang airfield, the Marine Corps gave us one final reminder that it was still in charge.

Hurry up and wait.

Any Marine reading this knows exactly what I mean.

You hurry like hell to get somewhere and then sit around waiting for somebody to tell you what happens next.

Eventually, though, our airplane was ready.

And this wasn’t just another airplane.

To us, it was the Freedom Bird.

Our flight was aboard a chartered Flying Tiger Line Douglas DC-8.

That airplane was packed with Marines.

Dirty Marines.

Tired Marines.

Happy Marines.

Men who had counted the days, then the hours, and were finally sitting inside an airplane that was supposed to take them away from Vietnam.

You might think everybody started celebrating the moment we climbed aboard.

Not quite.

Vietnam had one last reminder for us.

We weren’t safe yet.

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Assume the Crash Position

After we boarded, we were instructed to assume crash positions during takeoff.

We had to remain that way until the aircraft was safely out of range of enemy sniper fire and over the South China Sea.

Think about the psychology of that for a moment.

You’ve survived your tour.

You’ve turned in whatever needed turning in.

You’ve gone through processing.

You’ve said goodbye to your buddies.

You’ve boarded the Freedom Bird.

You’re finally going home.

And somebody tells you:

Get in the crash position because the enemy can still get you.

Nobody needed to explain it twice.

We bent forward.

And waited.

The engines roared.

The DC-8 accelerated down the runway.

Then we were airborne.

But there wasn’t any cheering yet.

Not that I remember.

What I remember were the sounds.

The roar of those jet engines.

And muttered prayers.

A planeload of Marines who had survived Vietnam were asking God for about ten more minutes.

Just get us over the water.

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The Longest Ten Minutes

It probably took only about ten minutes.

It felt a hell of a lot longer.

Until then, Vietnam still had one last chance at us.

I don’t know how many men aboard that airplane were religious.

It didn’t matter.

There are times when even a man who hasn’t talked to God lately suddenly remembers the address.

Then the captain came over the intercom.

We had reached the South China Sea.

We were out of range.

We were safe.

The airplane exploded.

Not literally, thank God.

It exploded with cheering.

A huge roar went through that cabin.

Men yelled.

Men laughed.

The tension disappeared almost instantly.

After thirteen months, Vietnam couldn’t reach me anymore.

At least that’s what I believed then. Years later, I would learn that living with PTSD meant Vietnam had found another way to come home with me.

I had made it.

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Next Stop: Okinawa

Our next stop was Okinawa, Japan.

Eventually there would be more airplanes, more processing and finally America.

But I’ve always thought that my Vietnam tour really ended somewhere over the South China Sea.

Not when I got on the Freedom bus.

Not when I reached the Da Nang airfield.

Not even when the wheels of that DC-8 left the runway.

It ended when the captain told us we were over water and safe.

Ten minutes earlier, we were still Marines leaving a war zone.

Now we were a planeload of dirty, tired young men going home.

But I was still thinking about two Marines who weren’t on that airplane.

Richard and Jim.

I had escaped.

They still had months to go.

I could only hope that someday soon they would sit where I was sitting, hear those same engines, cross that same stretch of water and hear some captain tell them:

You’re safe now.

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Freedom Hill

It’s funny how the meaning of a place can change.

The first time I went to Freedom Hill, I went to see Bob Hope.

The last time, I was hoping to hell I’d never see Vietnam again.

I remember the beer garden.

I remember the burgers.

I remember Richard.

I remember Jim.

I remember that bus pulling away.

I remember bending forward inside that DC-8.

I remember the prayers.

And I remember that cheer when we reached the South China Sea.

More than half a century later, I can still hear it.

We called that airplane the Freedom Bird.

For once, the nickname wasn’t bullshit.

It was taking me home.

Semper Fi.

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