A Soldier's Return--1970

My senior year of high school was 1969-1970. I turned 17 in December of 1969 and began the most eventful year of my life up to that point and maybe since!

Ken had gone to Viet Nam in June of 1969, so there was always the concern for his safety. We wrote nearly every day. In the fall of that year, Nora Colby and Naomi Nichlson had Gospel Meetings in Johnsonburg in the old post office building. Ruby Westbrook and Bessie Black came to those meetings and made a start. My dad's old friend Claude Zimmerman came to lots of them, too, but he was in a drunken stupor a good bit of the time.

Then in January, we experienced my father's sudden death and all the aftermath of that. It was a cold, dark winter. My mother, in the interest of saving money, even cancelled our outside dusk to dawn light, which made the winter evenings at home even more gloomy. (We got the light going again after a few months when she felt more assured of her finances). It seemed like the sun never shone.

Sometime in March, I was hired to work at a bank in St. Marys. I was to begin after I graduated from high school in June.

The grandest thing to look forward to, though, was Ken's expected return from Viet Nam in June. He would be discharged from his two years of army obligation when he returned. President Richard Nixon had begun pulling out troops a few months prior. Unbeknownst to us back home, Ken was to be a part of that early withdrawal, and was discharged about a month early!

Ken kept writing letters to all of us and never breathed a word of his earlier return. He arrived in the country a day or two before he arrived at home on April 30, 1970. He processed out in California, and arrived at the DuBois Airport (about 2 miles from where we live now!) in the afternoon sometime. He called his brother Don and asked him to come pick him up without telling anybody. They walked in the door at their parent's house, completely surprising them! I don't know any details of that situation, but I remember my own reaction a few hours later!

We so much looked forward to the time when Ken would be back from VN and we could be together again! We had secret plans to work and save money for a year and then get married in the spring of 1971.

April 30 fell on a Thursday that year, same as this year of 2009. There was a concert at the school on Wednesday (I wasn't in it) and we had decided to have our Bible study that week on Thursday night instead of Wednesday. I went to the concert with my cousin Gertie. I remember a girl singing a solo of "I'll Never Find Another You" and that song was to become the theme song of the next few years in our courtship and marriage.

To get ready for his return, I had sewn some new clothes. I decided I would wear them once, wash them, and then keep them in readiness for our first few dates after his return. On that Thursday, April 30th, I had worn one of my dresses to school and since we were planning to have Bible study that night, I just left it on. I was in the kitchen when Ken came. I think we must have been around the table, eating supper, when he knocked on the door. I turned around to see who was there and nearly fainted with surprise! Talk about a wonderful hug and kiss! I didn't even care that my mother was watching!!!!

Ken did not know that we were to have Bible study that night up at my Aunt Bertha's. I said to my mom, "Ah, Mom, do I have to go to meeting?" And she said, no, she guessed it would be all right if I didn't! I think that may be the only time in my life that I have deliberately skipped meeting. Ken and I went out for a ride in his navy blue Mustang (he was glad to be reunited with it, too!). I think we went up to Elk State Park, and place where there was a nice lake that we had been to before and taken pictures. Then we came back to the house for a while. Oh, the joy of being together and having him safely home from the war!

Nowadays, I say that I really don't like surprises. Somehow I have managed to find out about some surprises and wondered what was going on, and why I wasn't in on it, etc., etc. But that surprise of Ken coming home like that was probably the grandest surprise of my life!! I have been glad for the years that we have had together and the life that we enjoy.

Maybe I can remember some of that song that I mentioned:

There's a new world somewhere
They call the promised land.
And I'll be there someday
If you will hold my hand.
I still need you here beside me
No matter what I do
For I know I'll never find
Another you.

There is always someone
For each of us, they say,
And you'll be my someone
Forever and a day.
I could search the whole world over
Until my life is through
And I know I'll never find
Another you.

Chorus:

It's a long, long journey
So stay by my side
When I walk through the storm
You'll be my guide.
They could give me a fortune
My pleasure would be small
I could lose it all tomorrow
And never mind at all.
But if I should lose your love, dear,
I don't know what I'd do.
For I know I'd never find
Another you.

So, now if I have managed to make all the romantics who read this tear up a bit, I will have achieved my goal of sharing the feeling of one of the grandest days of our courtship!