Honorbound Tracy Hughes "Century of American Romance - The 1970s" Harlequin American Romance #381 February 1, 1991 ISBN: 0373163819 This book is for all of those who experienced the Vietnam war- those who fought, those who fled... those who survived, those who didn't... those who suffered ridicule and hatred for their choices, and those who tucked their memories into a dusty chamber of their minds and closed the door. It is for all the loved ones who waited behind, those who cried out against the war and those who, like me, were molded by the changes it brought about. This child of the seventies salutes you all. Chapter One August 1973 The duffel bag lying on the musty bed was almost full, its contents carefully selected from the excess baggage Johnny Malone had brought with him from the airport a week ago. In it, he'd rolled his frayed bell-bottoms that he'd bought three years ago before enlisting, a pair of Keds that he'd bought at a mall in Hawaii on his way home, and an embroidered chambray shirt that wasn't really his, but that Hollinger had mixed up with his stuff when they'd shipped out. He would give it back, he thought, if he ever saw him again. But that wasn't likely. Smoke burned his eyes from the cigarette between his lips, and he took it between his finger and thumb, tapped the ashes onto the planked floor and blew out a slow white cloud that faded into the air. He propped a bare foot on the frame of the bed and tangled his fingers in the silver chain that held his dog tags. Bob Dylan's untrained voice asking where his "blue-eyed son" had been droned from the speakers of the transistor radio. Feeling as though the work had been written for him, Johnny looked around at his family's dusty lake house. It seemed more of a transitional station from one life to another than a resting place for his bruised and battered spirit before he was inducted back into "the world." But he couldn't stay here forever, he thought. He had to get home, wherever the hell that was. The foreboding lyrics of Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" forced him to the closet, where he'd left his fatigues, the boots that had taken him miles through the mud-sucking jungle, and the other uniforms and gear that he didn't plan on needing again, because there was no going back where he'd been. He'd leave it here, he thought, along with the memories that tore at his scarred gut and the regrets that kept him hanging on to those memories. But he couldn't leave it all. His hand closed around his dog tags again, and he decided that he'd wear them a little longer-just until his discharge papers came and his freedom from the Marines was something he could see, something that didn't seem like a foggy dream from which he would awake to mortar fire and more casualties. He glanced at the dress blues lying freshly pressed on the bed and remembered the day he'd gotten his officer's commission and worn them for the first time, fully adorned with the lieutenant's braid, white gloves and all the cocky pride that the Marine Corps had instilled in him. Despite the lessons he'd learned since that day, he wasn't ready to wear them for the last time. Despite all those regrets and haunting memories, he couldn't escape the fact that he'd spent his whole childhood dreaming of being a Marine. Stubbing out his cigarette, he stepped out of his cutoff shorts, tossed them into the duffel bag and began putting on his uniform. He'd wasted enough time, he thought, and Meg's feelings would be hurt if he wasted any more. Stranger or not, she was his sister, the only family he had left since his mother died while he was gone. She would have wanted them to bond together. The changes would have to be dealt with sooner or later, he thought. Might as well be today. He buttoned the last brass button on his coat and picked up his hat, and let his eyes stray to the closet where his past was stored like a Pandora's box of sleeping ghosts. No time for looking back, he thought. From now on, he would only look ahead. Instead of doubting, he would learn to hope. In place of fear, he would cultivate security. And if there wasn't a home here for him anymore, he would build one. But as for now, he had a blind date with reality. And like it or not, it was time to keep it. THE CROWD SWELLED in the Georgia State football stadium as the local rock band blared out its own rendition of "Maggie May," though the lead vocalist's voice couldn't be mistaken for the raspy signature of Rod Stewart. Above the band a banner flapped in the hot August breeze, declaring the event a Ceasefire Celebration, a self-proclaimed victory for Carrie Hunter's group, the American Reform Movement, which had spent the last six years organizing protest rallies, petition drives and countrywide demonstrations to end the Vietnam War, among other things. The end had finally come, but the victory was bittersweet, for it had come much too late-fifty-eight thousand dead American soldiers too late. And now the membership in the ARM had dropped off and nobody cared much about reform anymore. Nixon could break as many laws as he wanted and hide securely behind executive privilege, Congress could turn their heads to the new problems the war had created, and the college students who filled the campuses today were more interested in partying and getting high than in making any changes. Nobody really gave a damn. But Carrie wasn't prepared to give up. That was why the ARM had sponsored this concert on campus today. She hoped that at intermission, when she stood up to address the apathy-laden students who had come to rock to the music, she could raise their consciousness enough to recruit a few new members. There were still battles to be fought, more battles than a ranting minority could win alone. The band ended the Rod Stewart song and picked up with the shrieking lyrics of Eric Clapton's "Layla," and the crowd roared its approval. Stooping down, for her Dacron skirt was too short for her to bend, Carrie salvaged a trampled ARM flier from the ground and dusted it off. It was the one that called for amnesty for all of the conscientious objectors who had left the country during the war, but instead of making someone think, it had been thoughtlessly dropped to the ground and stepped on. She wondered if it had even been read. Trying to keep her spirits from plunging, Carrie tried to tune in to the music, telling herself that, at twenty-four, she wasn't old enough to feel removed from this generation. She could still make a difference as one of them. Threading through the crowd, Carrie went back to her recruiting table and waited until it was time for her to speak. She'd turn them around if it was in her power, she thought. She had come too far-lost too much-to stop fighting now. THE ATLANTA STREETS HADN'T changed that much in two years, Johnny noticed with a little relief as the cab wove through town. Even the people looked much the same as when he had left, though he would feel out of place until his hair grew out again. The song on the radio ended, and a nasally DJ began reading off the hourly news. "Justice Department officials report that there has still been no compliance on the part of President Nixon to relinquish the subpoenaed White House tapes. Meanwhile, on this first day of the cease-fire in Laos and Cambodia, American troops-" "Damn news." The cab driver cut off his radio and tossed Johnny a look over his shoulder, grinning like a next-door neighbor trying to be cordial. "How many'd you kill in Nam?" Though the question took him by surprise, Johnny didn't show it. Instead, he only stared back, his blue eyes a contrasting mixture of resentment and abysmal weariness-the same dull, battle-fatigued stare the cabbie saw in most of the GIs he drove home on their first day back to their hometown. "I mean, any little kids, like that My Lai thing?" "Pull over." Johnny's voice was quiet but held the firm confidence of a man accustomed to having his orders obeyed. The ponytailed cabby met his eyes in the rearview mirror and saw their whiplash glare. "Right here?" he asked, looking back over his shoulder. "You can't get out here. That's the college campus." "Just pull the hell over," Johnny said again. "I'll walk the rest of the way." The driver swayed to the curb, shifted into park and waited as Johnny dug into his pocket, pulled out a ten dollar bill and thrust it over the seat as he got out. The wind whipped through his short-cropped black hair, but bucking the sudden thrust of freedom, he put his hat on. "Hey, man, are you crazy? You can't walk through a college campus in uniform. They'll know you been to Vietnam." The soldier swung around and peered back through the car door, that volatile glare blanching his icy blue eyes again. "I'm not ashamed of where I've been," he said. "Yeah, well, you'll feel different after you've been home a coupla days." The cab driver stuffed the ten-dollar bill into his pocket. "You're in America now." He'd been warned, Johnny reminded himself as he watched the cab pull out of sight. One didn't sweat out the last two official years of the unofficial war and not know that back home, people still had staunch opinions about the fighting going on there. He could take it, he thought. Just like he'd taken the mud swallowing his boots, and the mosquitoes swarming around his ears, and his buddies dropping like confetti. He was home. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he started up the sidewalk, squinting against the sun at the street sign a block away, mentally measuring the distance to his sister's apartment just off campus. He was in no hurry to get there, he thought, only to be doused in the face with th...
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