When we emerged from the storm there were only about one third of the ships left in the convoy and we wondered what had happened to all the rest. We later learned that they had turned off for other ports. The guys from the South were heading for southern ports and those of us from the Northeast were going to New Jersey ports. As we neared the U.S. the seas were much calmer and for a couple of days we enjoyed sitting on deck and watching the porpoises swim around the ship. We landed in New Jersey and were taken to Camp Dix from which we had departed a year and a half before. It was late May and we were looking forward to being home by Memorial Day.

Chapter 13

Home Again
When we arrived at Camp Dix the first thing we did was go single file through a room for a medical checkup. A doctor was standing there and asked "how do you feel?" I said 'Okay' and he said "Next". That was the extent of the medical checkup we got and of course no one complained about anything because all they wanted to do was to get home again. We were afraid that if we told of any problems they would put us in the hospital and keep us for weeks. We didn't want that to happen......even John Brady with the ruptured appendix went through the line quickly.

The next step was to go into a room where a sergeant made out our income tax and gave us some of our back pay so we had money to get home. They took out 188.00 to pay the income tax on my salary for the year I was in prison camp. I don't know how they had the nerve to do that after what we had been through. They talk about how badly the Vietnam veterans were treated when they came back, but I think what happened to us was just as bad. We didn't have any crowds to meet our ship or parades to welcome us back either. We later discovered that we should have insisted on more medical help and reported our health problems so they would have been in our medical records. A few years later when I needed treatment for my back, there was no way to prove that it was service connected. When I did try a few years later to get some compensation at Buffalo and Rochester VA centers for stomach and back problems all I got was a runaround.

I sent a telegram to my wife and told her I would let her know when to come to Rochester, then I sent a message to my father to tell him of my return to the country. I went to the PX one day and drank a half glass of beer. I discovered I wasn't in very good shape yet and had to go back to my bunk to lie down for several hours to recuperate from the drink. After all I had been through I weighed 124 lbs. only two pounds less than when I entered the service, however. I had at least a half dozen Army blankets and I mailed two of them home and later wished I had mailed a lot more as they were nice blankets and I sti11 have one.

When it came time to find out where we were going next we lined up in front, of the desk of an officer who was giving out papers to report to a large recreation club in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. It was one of those fancy places with tennis, golf, swimming and horseback riding for two weeks of rest and relaxation. The line got shorter and the man ahead of me got his papers. It was my turn at last. The officer stood up, announced that the resort was filled up and the rest of us were to go home for two weeks then report to Atlantic City for reassignment or discharge. I was so disappointed as this would have been such a nice honeymoon for Lettie and I. Another example of how things worked for me in the service.

We made preparations to go home and soon it was time to say good-by to Bruce. It was a very hard thing to do after the two years we had spent together and all that we had been through. We agreed to write often and get together when we could.

I met another man, Jim Smith, the nephew of Ray Smith who worked in the Canandaigua post office and we decided to come home together. He lived in Newark and I decided to take the train there with him. We were none too neat traveling on the train as we were still wearing our old dirty uniforms from prison camp. At Newark I took a bus to Canandaigua as I had not notified anyone that I was coming. I wanted to make it a surprise so I got off the bus at Main Street and didn't even take a taxi home. I had all, my belongings in a bag which I threw over my shoulder as I walked home up Chapin Street. I didn't even see anyone I knew along way home. When my father got home from work I was in the bathroom shaving and I walked out and said 'hello'.

Two days later Lettie arrived in Rochester and I borrowed my father's car to go pick her up. We stayed with my father several days and then decided we would leave as it was difficult to get along with my stepmother. We rented a room at Lowes Tavern on South Main Street which was a combination tourist home with room and board. We spent the next two months at different places like Niagara Falls, Hill Cumorah and around the lake. We were entertained at dinner parties by all the friends I had before entering the service. I bought a used Chevrolet coupe with the back pay that I received so we had transportation.

During these first few weeks at home I began to realize what three and a half years in service had cost me in terms of my position in life. Here I was at 29 with no job, a little money and a car. All the friends who had escaped being drafted, some legally and some not, had really prospered. Most had made a lot of money working in defense jobs, had new cars and homes of their own. After giving up three and a half years of your life for your country, the reasons others didn't go and their prosperity was always on one's mind. I wouldn't have done it any other way, however, as the good times had in the service far outweighed the bad and those memories will always be with me. I was lucky to have had the chance to fly those airplanes and make so many wonderful friends not to mention the exciting experiences.