In 1969, when Sergeant E-5 William Hirschfield came home, he felt a great sense of relief, but he felt somewhat “out of it.” It wasn’t just the jet lag after the flight from South Korea, where he had completed a thirteen-month combat tour of duty.

Other soldiers often talked about looking forward to returning to “the Real World.” “The Real World’ was the United States, their home town, where their family and friends were. For others, “the Real World” was also being a civilian again, because, in the 1960s, nothing about being in the Army seemed real.

In spite of the Korean Armistice Agreement signed in 1953, there was some kind of war still going on in Korea. Some called it a “low intensity conflict,’ in contrast to the very high intensity conflict occurring in Vietnam. Hirschfield’s first sergeant called it “the Second Korean War.”

After arriving back in St. Louis County, Hirsch, as he was known to his Army and civilian friends, felt that the whole experience of returning home was unreal, and he wondered if he had ever really had a home.

He had two weeks leave before his next assignment. He spent much of it trying without success to avoid thinking of Korea. He spent time remembering his life as a civilian, particularly his childhood and his family and friends. He reached the conclusion that he had grown up in a dysfunctional family and then been assigned to a dysfunctional Army unit.