The Plane Ride Home, June 1972
In Nam, there was one thing I always looked forward to: going home. But the thing about leaving a place filled with hate, spontaneous violence, and constant air raids is that there must be some kind of transition when you leave it. It's incredibly difficult to go from the jungles of Nam to the suburbs of New York. So, as a writer, I felt the best way to get a small bit of the jungle out of my brain was to write down my thoughts and worries in a letter to my future self, just to get all of the pent up emotions out. And that's what I wrote on the plane ride home in 1972, and have included here.
Addendum: I opened the letter June 1982, ten years after writing it.
Addendum: I opened the letter June 1982, ten years after writing it.