The Long March Home

Mike Jackson never met Gary Chapman and Ray Santana, yet they share an unbreakable bond. The bond was forged in combat and tempered by a nation's neglect.

All three men served in Vietnam, each in a different branch of the service. All three were wounded in action and have wrestled with the on-going physical challenges of their injuries. Each returned from combat to build a purpose-driven, meaningful life. And, like so many other Vietnam veterans, each man wishes that politics and cultural upheaval had not marred this long-ago homecoming. 

 "You got home and there was no real welcome. You were just greeted by protest signs and taunts," Chapman said. "It was a bad time. It's not like today. I'm glad to see our troops are getting a proper welcome now."

On Veterans Day 2006, the three men – who represent the Army, Marines and Air Force – will meet for the first time in the Antelope Valley of California, where they will share a deeply personal moment. The day marks the end of one long journey home and the completion of a shorter one that started on Veterans Day 2005 –though none of them knew it at the time. 

 Back in 2002 Mike Jackson first decided the time had come to stop regretting the past and do something to reframe it, forever. At the time Jackson, then Executive Director of the National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) in Dayton, OH, was working on his Vietnam memoir, Naked In Da Nang (Zenith Press, 2004) and was "retracing both my own history and that of so many guys I served with."

The retired combat pilot and Air Force officer had long dreamed of writing a combat story that captured not simply his experiences and perspectives, but those of anyone who has ever left home to fight a war.

As Jackson worked to craft a humorous and life-affirming story, "I realized that it had no ending," he recalled. "The epilogue was titled We Never Got Our Parade, and it really bothered me to end it like that. We wanted to write a book that could change America's perspective of Vietnam veterans. But I realized that we Vietnam veterans also had to change how we felt about ourselves, largely due to the homecoming we didn't receive, and the way we've been portrayed in the media ever since."

And that's when the question that launched a thousand press releases was asked.

"Was too late to make that parade happen. At first I said it was – that America wasn't ready for it – even now, so many years later. But the more we talked about it, the more I thought it could and should happen, and the more I wanted it to happen. This was something that could reframe America's perception of us, and, much more important, our perception of ourselves," Jackson said.

Jackson began contacting friends, business associates – and more than a few total strangers – to try and gain support for a day of nationwide welcome-home parades across America. When the city of Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base offered to co-host a four-day Operation Welcome Home over Veterans Day weekend 2005, Jackson left his job at the NAHF to serve as National Chairman, promoting the celebration to anyone who would listen.

The event exceeded his expectations, despite a limited budget for nationwide promotion. Jackson, a 1997 inductee into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame for his efforts on behalf of unemployed veterans, poured much of his own money into press packets, speaking junkets and media events. Combined with publicity generated by Las Vegas, the effort paid off in support from actress Ann-Margret, the Pentagon, radio talk-show host G. Gordon Liddy and the America Supports You program, as well as advance coverage by Fox News, the Associated Press, Paul Harvey, MSNBC, CNN and many more media outlets.

Jackson urged communities across America to hold their own Operation Welcome Home event, or to designate a local "veteran ambassador" to march in the Vegas parade. The mayors of Palmdale and Lancaster, California endorsed Gary Chapman and his Marine Corps pal, Ray Santana, as parade participants. Neither man knew what to expect; both were overwhelmed by the reception that greeted them.