She was beautiful—waist-length sun-bleached brown hair, ankle length skirt, sandals, broad brimmed hat emblazoned with a flowered hatband, white shirt, leather vest and strings of beads around her neck—the quintessential southern California flower child of the ‘60s. It was a look that was in vogue for many young ladies of the day, a look I had become accustomed to before I joined the Marines. It was the look of my teenage generation, and I found it to be very attractive and sexy. And she was staring at me.

I had been in Vietnam for the previous 13 months, stationed a few miles below the DMZ, an existence devoid of any Western women. My rotation home started at Dong Ha with a flight to Da Nang, then a civilian airplane to a two-night layover on Okinawa, and then on to Anchorage, Alaska, and another flight to Los Angeles, where I would catch a plane to Boston and then a short car ride home. It couldn’t have been much more than 72 hours from dirt and barbed wire to being back in the United States, and the excitement of being around women was beginning to dominate my thoughts.

I was one of the first passengers off the plane at LAX. I was wearing my Marine dress greens and I noticed her standing there looking at me as I walked away from the gate area. She continued staring at me as I got closer, as if she were waiting for me, and then she started walking toward me. There was something exhilarating about someone so appealing approaching me after 13 months in Vietnam, and my youthful ego was getting in the way of any semblance of common sense as I wondered what was about to happen.

I had been so transfixed by her stare that I hadn’t noticed that she was holding something in her hand until she got right up to me. Then she removed a single flower from the bunch she had and held it out to me. “We forgive you,” she said, and then she turned away. My eyes followed her as she proceeded to greet the next serviceman exiting the plane and hand him a flower. At the time I didn’t know what to make of it, didn’t know what to say or do as I continued walking down the concourse. Suddenly, the meaning of her gesture sank in. I paused and admired the beauty and aroma of the flower, and then I deposited it in the first waste receptacle I came to.

I was never spat on, had garbage or feces thrown at me, been called a baby killer or subjected to some of the other unjustified indignities that came to symbolize the antiwar sentiment that so many had bought into at that time. Later, when I talked to other vets who experienced terrible treatment upon their return, or heard or read about it on the news, my memory would always go back to my experience at LAX. I guess I was lucky not to have gone through the experiences that so many other vets had to endure upon their return, or maybe mine was just as bad.

As time passed and I recalled the experience more often, I started to feel anger over this individual handing me a flower and forgiving me. Who was the “we” she was representing when she forgave me, and what exactly was she forgiving me for? I had proudly and honorably served my country as a U.S. Marine.

I don’t have memories of who met me at the airport in Boston, my first hug from my mother, a greeting from my dad or my siblings. The years have erased them all. But I do vividly remember the flower child who greeted me in Los Angeles. In a way, she robbed me of those other memories, and I find it troubling that she had managed to get in my head and stay there all this time.

If I could meet her again, if I could be granted that wish, I’d hand her a small American flag and say “I forgive you.”