USS MULLINNIX DD-944

27 October
Home At Last!!!





   

The Virginian-Pilot

Biddle Returns From Vietnam

By JOHN STEVENSON
Virginian-Pilot Staff Writer

Friday, October 27, 1972 - NORFOLK - (Most of this article talks about the accomplishments of the USS Biddle)

The Mullinnix had been scheduled to return with the Biddle Thursday, but it was delayed for refueling in Central America.

Nicknamed the "Mighty Mux," the destroyer left for Vietnam April 12 under short notice. It served three gun-line periods off South (paper said "NORTH") Vietnam, expending 15,000 rounds, and won the Navy’s Combat Action Award for receiving return fire from 130-millimeter Communist shore batteries.

A huge banner on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel will greet the Mullinnix with the words: "Welcome Home. Mighty Mux." Another sign will say, "You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby."

The Mullinnix is scheduled to enter Norfolk Naval Shipyard in mid-December for repairs, sources said.


Cruiser-Destroyerman Article - Feb 1973 (PDF)
Written by and Contributed by Rick Arvonio


The Mullinnix arrived home in Norfolk on 27 October, 1972. Treated like oddities if not pariahs, flying the “Virginia is for Lovers” flag, the ship was greeted by our beloved CO “Boom Boom” Cannon, the sound of a Navy band, Ronald McDonald, the welcoming tears of friends and relatives, and protestors.

Other than those protesters, no one was on the pier to welcome me home.

Spit on, called “Baby Killers”, and threatened with bodily harm, make you feel real warm and fuzzy inside. 50 years later? Let’s just say - it stays with you for a very, very long time...

I still pay a heavy price. Still ridden with dreams from Vietnam. If I’m lucky, I sleep like the dead.


Crew Member’s Awards
Backrow L to R: Zimmerman; unknown; unknown; unknown; Jerry Brinkley
Frontrow L to R: unknown, Vernon Eubanks; Bob Houghton; unknown; unknown


Picture from Mullinnix pulling into D&S Piers
Courtesy Dennis Wenske


Almost there...
Courtesy Dennis Wenske


Local Welcoming Celebs
Courtesy Dennis Wenske


Here Comes the Families!
Courtesy Dennis Wenske


Our former CO, "Boom Boom" James Cannon met us on the Pier! WOW!!!
Courtesy Dennis Wenske


No Caption Necessary
Courtesy Dennis Wenske


Keeping Track of the Damage Done to the Enemy by Mullinnix (a Navy Tradition)
Courtesy Dennis Wenske


A Much Needed Paint Job!
Courtesy Dennis Wenske


Welcome Home!!!
Courtesy Dennis Wenske



















To survive a war defending the country you love, only to die 4 days later is a bitter pill to swallow. Rest easy shipmate, we've got the watch!


D&S Piers, Norfolk, VA - Early 70's. Picture taken from Mullinnix

As Americans we are a peculiar breed. We believe in liberty and the right to defend that liberty, but we also believe that wars are fought by a separate class of people, one that has nothing to do with our own lives. (Or, the world of reasonable behavior and mutual respect to which we belong). As a consequence, many people, particularly in higher income brackets, think of sailors as rural maintenance personnel who should be treated somewhat politely but whose social importance is one cut above that of their gardeners. We had a saying in the oil field – f-ck’em!!!

The Vietnam War didn’t have a Hollywood ending. Plain and simple, it wasn’t our fault.




PFC (Proud Fuck'in Civilian!)


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