The Marine Who Came Home 14 Years Later

This is the best thing you'll read this week.

By Henry Allen

April 17, 1979

Style, Washington Post

ADAMS, Ind.

One sullen afternoon in April, a plump little girl walking a dog spots Pfc. Robert Garwood, USMC, who is just home from Vietnam. She's heard all about that.

Garwood is smoking a cigarette in front of his daddy's trailer, his eyes winced up, his shoulders hunched inside a blue-gray vinyl jacket as if a cold wind were blowing, as if the air itself were acid.

"That was the grocery store, across the street there," he is telling a companion. "The Pepsi sign is still on the wall around the corner. The whole town used to congregate here on summer evenings. . ."

Beyond the Vietnamese accent whi…