"When Father Was Gone": Cousin Cathy's account

Associated Press photo: U.S. troops during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

While still very young, cousin Cathy Miller wrote this stark, beautiful true account of the Miller family's Vietnam experience. Needless to say, "Father" is dear old Dad/Uncle Bill, who served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam in 1967-68.

When Father Was Gone

By MARY CATHERINE "CHATS" MILLER NORTHRUP

Grandmother [Maria Augustine Sprick] was baking bread that day, her white bread that crackles when the knife breaks through its thick crust and steams a little as each slice is cut off the loaf. My brother and sister and I were staying with her while Mother took Father to the airport.

Father [William Alton Miller] was going to Vietnam.

When they left Grandmother's house, Father gave me a big hug. He was wearing his dress uniform, and my cheek scratched against the cold metal buttons and bars on it. He held me for a long time, and when he let me go, he told me to be good and he would be back soon. I said okay. It seemed simple enough to me.

Mother was crying, though. Mother never cried.

After they left, my brother and sister and I went back to our game of Monopoly. My brother kept stealing money from the bank, and my sister yelled at him. Grandmother told them to behave and gave us each a piece of warm bread with a thick layer of homemade grape jam on it.

Mother was quiet when she came to take us home.

At breakfast the next morning, my sister and I were arguing over the puzzle ring in the Lucky Charms cereal box when my brother spit out a mouthful of milk. He said it tasted like the air in his schoolroom after the teacher pounded the chalk powder from the big blackboard erasers. Mother said the milk was dry milk, and we had better get used to it. She said we were going to be cutting corners until Father came back, and we all had to help. My brother said the milk still tasted like chalk powder.

When we came home from school that day, Mother was mowing the lawn. Mother never mowed the lawn.

Every day after supper, Mother would call us into the living room and have us sit down in the giant, soft company chairs. The curtains would be drawn, and the thick carpeting on the floor would absorb all the sounds except Mother's voice as she read a letter from Father. The light from the lamp on the end table would cast shadows on her face.

The letters always sounded about the same. Father said he missed us and told us to be good. Mother never read us all of the letter, though. She would stop after a while and tell us the rest was for her.

But sometimes we would get our own postcards from Father with a note only to us. One time I got one with a picture of a pale-skinned girl with shiny black hair paddling a boat down a dirty river with huge jungle plants on either side of her.

I imagined what it would be like to be paddling a boat down a dirty river with huge jungle plants on either side of me. I decided I liked sliding down the snow-covered hill by our house better.

Sometimes when we had been watching "Tom and Jerry" cartoons after school, the news would come on and Mother would make us be quiet. The man on TV would look very serious, and there would be films like John Wayne movies -- only no John Wayne. Mother would get a funny look on her face and start ironing clothes. Supper would not be on time.

One week, Mother didn't call us into the living room at all. When we asked why, she said that Father was very busy and couldn't write. My brother asked her why he was busy, and she said that in Vietnam, the people we were fighting against had made a strong attack called the Tet Offensive right where Father was. She was sure he would write soon.

My older sister, who was 9 [actually, Pamela Marian Miller was 11], got scared and ran into her room. I heard her screaming that Father was going to die.

The next week, Mother called us into the living room again. Father had written that many of his men who were out on missions gathering information for our side had not returned, and he felt terrible. He did not say he missed us or remind us to be good.

First grade was terrible, too. I got one-hundreds on my spelling and arithmetic tests, but every day at lunch, I felt sick and would have to come home. The doctor gave me a purple lollipop and said I was fine, but I still couldn't make myself drink my carton of milk and eat my peanut butter sandwich and apple.

One day after she had brought me home at lunch, Mother sat me down at our kitchen table and asked me if I missed Father. I said sure, of course I did. Mother said that she did, too, but she just kept remembering that he would be home soon and everything would be all right. She stroked my short blond hair and smiled at me.

I spent all of the next day in school.

Some nights, though, I would have bad dreams. It was usually the same one: Mother and Father would be taking us to the zoo and somehow, my brother and sister and I would get lost. I would always be alone, and the zoo would become a jungle of ugly monsters, laughing and grabbing at me. I would wake up crying and go into Mother and Father's room to sleep with Mother.

One afternoon after I had started second grade, I went into Mother and Father's room to find Mother sewing. She was humming, and I asked her what she was making. She said that my sister and I were going to have matching dresses for when Father came home. She said she was going to get her hair fixed, too, and have a rinse to hide the gray in it.

A few weeks later, Mother called us into the living room, but she didn't read a letter. Instead, she told us Father was coming home next week. She said we were going to stay at Aunt Marion and Uncle Wally's house near the [Minneapolis-St. Paul International] airport that week because Father wasn't sure exactly what plane he could ride home or when he would arrive.

My brother and sister and I were excited because we could play with our cousins [Dan and Sam Broberg] there all week. It didn't matter to me what day Father was coming home, really; I was kind of scared to see him again. I was afraid he wouldn't recognize me. I hoped my matching dress would help.

That week, my uncle [Wallace Broberg] bought a red carpet to roll out for Father at the airport. He said it was a great honor, but I didn't understand why. My cousins and my brother and sister and I made signs for Father with Magic Markers and tagboard. They said things like "Welcome home!" and "We love you!"

A couple of days later, the phone rang and someone told Mother that Father would arrive at the airport at 10:30 the next morning. Mother hugged Aunt Marion and kissed me.

In the morning, Mother dressed my sister and me in our matching dresses, and she scrubbed my brother's ears red. We packed the carpet and the signs in Uncle Wally's station wagon and drove to the airport.

As we waited at the gate where Father's plane would be landing, people asked us about our signs. My aunt and uncle explained while Mother inspected my brother's ears over and over.

A loud voice announced that Father's plane was landing, so we crowded around the big windows to see it come down the runway. I asked Mother some questions, but she didn't seem to hear me. Aunt Marion took my hand and spoke to me softly.

People started coming in the door of the gateway. Now I was afraid I would not recognize Father, either. I imagined a stranger coming up to me and calling me his daughter.

Then someone walked through the doorway and Mother let out a cry. She ran to Father, reaching him even before Uncle Wally's red carpet did, and she hugged him for a long time. I watched Father whirl her around in the air, and I was still afraid. I handed my sign to my cousin.

Mother and Father stopped hugging, and Father came toward my brother and sister and me. He was wearing his same dress uniform, but his face and hands were a dark brown. My sister told him he sure did have a good tan, and my brother blabbed that Mother had dyed her hair. He laughed a long, loud laugh, and then he bent on one knee and told us to come over to him.

Shy at first, we went to him, and he put his arms around all three of us. My head was on his shoulder and as I felt his arms surround us, I knew this was Father. There was a certain smell he always had about him, a mixture of his aftershave and the outside and himself, and, close to him, I remembered it.

Father was home.