Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
The wives launched their own Operation Homecoming by readying their homes, going to the beauty salon, gathering families close, painting welcome-home banners. Children were lined up and spit-polished; many were told stories of the fathers they’d never met.
On this February afternoon, the League of Families San Diego office was decorated for a party, with banners hung on the walls, painted with slogans like NEVER FORGOTTEN and WE DID IT. There was a buzzing, nervous energy in the room.
Frankie felt the women’s pride and fear.
She overheard several of them talking about the preparedness briefing the Navy had given the POW wives, who had been told not to expect too much from their husbands.
They’d been given a flyer: We don’t know what shape the men will be in, physically or emotionally.
As you know, there have been reports of torture.
For these reasons, we suggest you plan your reunions carefully, keep your husband in a quiet setting until he tells you he’s ready for more.
No big parties, no magazine or television interviews, no loud noises or big expectations.
Some of these men, as you well know, have lived in captivity, in harsh conditions, for up to eight years.
This will have taken an extreme toll on their minds and bodies.
Do not expect them to be themselves right away.
We expect them to be sexually impotent and prone to hostility toward those they love.
Torture. Captivity. Prone to hostility.
How could men come home after years of such treatment and be anything but hostile?
Frankie listened to the wives as they expressed their nervousness— I’ve gained weight, lost my spark, not as young —and wondered aloud if the men they’d married would still love them.
She listened to their plans to attend the return of the first group arriving in San Diego—on Valentine’s Day—and felt a strong sense of pride.
But, as proud as she was of her service to the league, it was over now. She didn’t belong in this room full of wives. She put down her empty cake plate and headed for the door.
“Frankie!”
She stopped, turned to see Joan moving toward her. The two women hadn’t seen each other in months, but there was no mistaking the joy in the woman’s eyes.
“I just wanted to say thank you,” Joan said, touching her arm. “Your help meant so much.”
Frankie smiled. “Thanks, Joanie. I’m glad your husband is coming home.”
It was the perfect goodbye.
One chapter in her life closing—Vietnam—and another opening up. Marriage and motherhood.
On the day the first group of POWs was scheduled to land in Manila, Frankie poured herself an iced tea and sat on the sofa watching TV.
Walter Cronkite was saying: There have been stories of torture, as we know.
The men in the Hanoi Hilton, mostly pilots, devised an ingenious way of communicating with each other.
Today, one hundred and eight of them will land in Manila, the first stop on their way home…
“Hey, babe,” Henry said, scooting in beside her.
“It’s starting.” Frankie felt almost as anxious as the wives must be right now. This was really it, the end of the war.
Grainy color images of the war filled the screen, then changed to images of Navy wife Sybil Stockdale speaking to the Senate, to audiences, to Henry Kissinger.
Walter Cronkite narrated it all: The League of Families worked tirelessly to bring these American heroes home from their ordeal.
Moments from now, a plane full of POWs will touch down at Clark Air Force Base.
In two days, they will step on American soil for the first time in years.
And then: It’s here. The jet has landed at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, ladies and gentlemen.
Frankie leaned forward.
On-screen, a jet rolled down the runway. Lights blared on the scene. The jet came to a slow, bumping stop. Images of a cheering, jostling crowd: men and women, straining at a barricade to keep them back. The camera focused on a sign that read HOMECOMING 1973. WE LOVE YOU, JOHN!
The jet door opened.
All but one of these men who flew to freedom were shot down during some of the fiercest fighting of the war. Here is Navy Commander Benjamin E. Strahan, shot down in September of 1967 … and Air Force Major Jorge Alvarez, shot down in October 1968 …
Men emerged one at a time from the plane, saluted, and walked down the ramp. They looked skinny, but their hair was regulation-short and they stood tall. A few limped.
A man stepped out of the plane, saluted to the crowd gathered on the tarmac.
Navy Lieutenant Commander Joseph Ryerson Walsh, shot down in March of 1969, presumed dead until a year ago…
Frankie straightened.
Rye shuffled down the ramp, holding on tightly to the yellow railing. The way he walked was uneven, a limp maybe, and he held one arm in close to his body.
At the bottom of the ramp, he saluted again.
The camera closed in on Rye’s gaunt, smiling face.
Frankie stood up, stared at the television, at Rye. The thudding of her heart was so loud she couldn’t hear anything else.
“Babe?” Henry said. “Frankie? What’s wrong?”
“I’m not feeling well. Nausea.” An excuse that always worked for a pregnant woman. “I’m going to take a bath.”
Henry stood. “I’ll start it for—”
“No.”
Had she shouted it? Was she crying? She wiped her eyes, felt tears.
She looked at him. “No,” she said more gently, as gently as she could, anyway, when all she wanted to do was get away.
“Stay. Watch the broadcast. I’ll go… calm down and relax in a nice hot bath.
” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek—almost a headbutt, because she was off-balance—and lurched toward the kitchen.
He’s alive.
Those two words shifted the world off its axis, upset the precarious balance she’d found in the last year .
The phone on the kitchen counter rang.
“I’ll get it,” Henry said.
“I’ve got it,” Frankie shouted, diving forward to pick up the phone. “Hello?”
Barb said, “Frankie?”
“You saw him?” Frankie whispered.
“I saw him,” Barb said. “Are you okay?”
“Okay?” Frankie said, dragging the phone as far as she could, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I’m pregnant, my wedding is this weekend, and the love of my life just came back from the dead. How could I be okay?”
She heard Barb’s sigh slip through the line. “What the hell are you supposed to do now? I mean, engaged is one thing. Pregnant is another.”
“I know, but… it’s Rye,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
“I have to see him, at least,” Frankie said. As she said the words, she knew they were a half-truth. She wanted more than just to see him. She wanted the future that belonged to them. “I have to be on the airfield in San Diego when he lands.”
There was a long silence. Then Barb said, “I’m calling Ethel. We’ll catch a red-eye.”
All the next day, Frankie was so nervous, she couldn’t sit still, not even when Barb and Ethel showed up to rally around her. All she could think about was Rye… landing in San Diego… being alive.
“You should tell Henry,” Barb said. They were in the bungalow’s living room, she and Frankie and Ethel. Frankie’s new wedding dress—a lacy white prairie-style gown—hung from a hanger on a kitchen cupboard hook, reminding them all of the wedding scheduled for Saturday.
“I can’t,” Frankie said. She knew it would break Henry’s heart to learn that Joseph Ryerson Walsh, recently returned POW, was the Rye whom Frankie had loved.
Still loved.
She glanced nervously at the kitchen clock.
It was 8:10 A.M. The plane full of POWs was scheduled to land in San Diego at 9:28.
Frankie had called Anne Jenkins and gotten permission to be there.
It had been easy to do on a day when Anne was busy with a thousand other details.
“Sure,” she’d said. “Of course. Thanks again for all your help, Frankie.”
Frankie twirled her engagement ring on her finger, staring down at it, and then slowly took it off. She didn’t want Rye to see it until she had time to explain.
“If we’re going, we should go,” Ethel said.
They piled into Frankie’s Mustang and drove off the island and onto the mainland and arrived at the gates of the Air Station Miramar at 8:45.
There was already a crowd of people and reporters on the tarmac. Women, children, men, all holding up welcome-home signs. Wives and family and reporters were in front, friends and service personnel in the back.
“I forgot to make a sign,” Frankie said. She was so nervous, she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t stand still. In the front of the line, reporters held out microphones, threw out questions. Barb and Ethel stood on either side of her like bodyguards, giving her time to collect herself.
Would Rye forgive her for Henry, for being weak enough to say yes? For carrying another man’s child? While he’d been held and tortured, she’d been having a relationship with someone else. How could she make him believe she’d never stopped loving him?
“It’s landing,” Barb said.
Frankie glanced up, felt fear and joy in equal measure.
Would he still love her—a different version of him meeting a different version of her?
The C-141 medical evacuation jet descended, touched down on the runway, came to a stop.
Reporters ran forward, stretching out microphones and video cameras, clamoring with questions, but were stopped by a barrier from getting too close to the plane.
The three women were jostled by the crowd; a yellow line held all of the families back, but the wives and children strained against it, signs upheld, each jockeying to be in front.
At the plane, sailors moved the exit ramp into place. A naval officer stood at the bottom of the ramp, holding the reporters and families at bay.
The jet door opened and the first POW emerged, wearing khakis that were too big for him.
Commander James, shot down in 1967. He paused at the top of the ramp, blinked in the harsh sunlight, and made his way down to the tarmac.
At the bottom, he saluted the officer in front of him and was helped to a podium, set up in front of a phalanx of reporters.
He looked out at the crowd, searching for his family. “Thank you, America. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to serve our country, and grateful that our country has brought us home.”
His wife broke free, pushed past the reporters, ducked under the yellow tape, and rushed toward her husband, throwing herself into his arms. The crowd spread out, families clumped together.
Frankie saw Anne Jenkins, standing with her children, and Joan and her daughter, and several of the other wives she’d met along the way.
They all looked anxious, didn’t even wave to each other.
A commander emerged from the jet next. His wife and sons—and a man who was probably his father—moved forward to greet him.
And then there he was—Rye—standing at the top of the ramp, blinking as the others had, wearing freshly pressed khakis that were too big, a belt cinched tight at his waist. He limped down the ramp, clutching the rail with one hand.
Everything else fell away; the world around him blurred.
Frankie saw the smear of camouflage-colored paint that was the jet, and a blob of reporters vying for comments, and heard the sound of sobbing all around her.
She needed to push her way through the people in front of her, to get to the yellow tape, but she could hardly move.
She was crying too hard to see. “Rye,” she whispered.
He limped forward, searching the crowd. Not seeing her, he veered left, toward the group of waiting wives.
“Rye!” she yelled, but her voice was lost in the sound of cheering. “I’m here!”
He headed for a tall, curvy woman with a cascade of curly blond hair who stood to one side, holding on to a little girl’s hand. The child held up a sign that read WELCOME HOME, DADDY!
He ran the last few steps forward, pulled the woman into his arms, and kissed her. Deeply.
Then he bent down to kiss the little girl with the WELCOME HOME, DADDY! sign. He swept her up into his arms. The woman wrapped her arms around both of them; all three were crying.
“He’s married,” Ethel said softly. “Son of a bitch.”
“Oh my God,” Frankie whispered, feeling everything inside of her start to crumble.