First homecoming at Bangor, Maine.

After the war, we flew back via commercial carrier, stopping briefly in Athens to refuel, where we weren't allowed off the plane, and the plane itself sat on the runway so far from the airport we couldn't even see it; then in Madrid, where we could deplane to shower at the airbase we landed at, but couldn't leave the immediate area; and next in Dublin, where we were allowed to leave the plane and enter the terminal as long as we stayed behind the security checkpoint. It was night there and the shops were all closed except one pub kiosk, so I drank a Guinness draught just to say I had drank one once in Dublin.

In Dublin, we were told our next stop would be in Bangor, Maine, in just about nine hours, and we would be allowed to deplane there and enter the terminal. By coincidence, my ex-wife had moved to a town about an hour from Bangor the year before, so I called her from a payphone at the Dublin airport — collect — and told her bring my son Steven and meet me at the airport. She did, thankfully, and I got to see Steven for the first time in more than a year before resuming our journey to Ft. Campbell.

Many of the citizens of Bangor were also there to greet us with hugs and flowers and yellow ribbons, a memory I'll never part with.