It Was More Than No Parades: The Other Prodigal Sons in Bloomington, MN

"In Vietnam your tour ended in the sweltering heat or the constant soaking rain of a tropical monsoon season where you understood that your life could end at any second, and then one day, maybe a Tuesday, in a plane ride you were home, still sweating salt from your last meal in Vietnam.
"Your mind never got to prepare itself for a country who didn't want to have to put up with your return.
"When you return, you are no longer young. Everyone notices that you've changed.
"There is no happiness like the feeling of stepping onto American soil after having spent a year or more in combat, and there is no depression stronger than the guilt you feel for being happy when others are dead. There is no anger that is stronger than knowing most of the people you met in your own country wouldn't have cared all that much if you hadn't made it home at all.
"This whole feeling is multiplied when you realize they forgot to tell you that you might feel guilty about killing other people. Whether you are feeling it for those you killed or for those you couldn't keep from being killed, or just because you survived, and others didn't, you feel it constantly."
Richard's knees began to shake, and he sat back down. But just as the editor decided to take back the floor, Richard continued.
"And it is multiplied by itself every day you are involved. It is amazing to me that so many soldiers return whole."
The problems encountered by Vietnam returnees were much more than no parades.