Col. Robin Olds' Farewell

 I recently came across this on Bob Wheatley's  Viet-REMF. That was the first I'd every experienced it. It should have been printed on a hand bill and given to every departing GI in SEA! It may have given us pause to consider what we were about to experience. We were so high for going home we couldn't imagine what we were to face 72 hrs. after departing SEA.  I hope after reading this blog some of you do.

 "'Now, I won't say good-bye to you. You know we have had some time over here together and I am not going to say good-bye because I know I will see you again. But I just want you to think of something. You have changed! You are not the same young guy that walked onto this base. Things have happened to you inside and you will never be the same for the rest of your life. It's going to take you a while to realize this and it's going to be awfully tough on you when you get home because that little wife that waved good-bye to you is not going to recognize you when you walk back through that front door. She is going to sense immediately that you have changed. And she is going to want to know how you have changed because she wants to know where she stands with this stranger that just walked into the house. So I guarantee you, within the first ten days home, you are going to have a fight. Then you are probably going to go to a party or two in your home town, where they are going to sort of half-ass welcome you back and your best friend from high school or college is going to walk up and tell you what a dumb shit you are for having been there fighting that stupid war. Then you are going to fly off the handle at him. Or you are going to want to tell him or someone what it was all about, and you are going to realize that nobody gives a goddamn.'

Colonel Robin Olds, Commander, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing
In His 1967 Farewell Address to 'The Wolf Pack', Ubon, Thailand"