When George Lindoff returned to the U.S. in 1971 after fighting for his country in Vietnam, he was not met with a warm welcome. Instead, there were anti-war protestors.
“First time we landed in San Francisco, they were cussing at us, spitting at us, carrying signs that said baby killer,” said Lindoff, a Hoonah resident.
And there weren’t just protesters at the San Francisco airport where they landed. Police were there, too.
“In California, the police looked at us like we were going to attack the protestors,” he said.
Lindoff may have physically left Vietnam and the war, but the war never left him. His brother James Lindoff – who died in 2024 – was also drafted and sent to Vietnam. The war had a lasting impact on both of them.
“You try to forget what happened over there. Because you were not raised to go out and kill people,” Lindoff said.
More than half a century after he returned from Vietnam, Lindoff had the opportunity to revisit that chapter in his life – this time, with a goal of healing.
In April, Lindoff joined a group of veterans – mostly Vietnam veterans and a couple from the Korean War – from all over the state to visit Washington, D.C. through an organization called Last Frontier Honor Flight. The volunteer nonprofit sends veterans to the nation’s capital to visit monuments and memorials built in their honor at no cost to the veterans.
While in D.C. though, Lindoff had a mild stroke and had to be hospitalized. He missed most of the trip, as well as a big welcome home in Anchorage. That’s an important part of the Honor Flight trip – to give the veterans the welcome home they never received.
So Lindoff’s niece, Shannon Bible, made sure he still got one.
“He’s my uncle. My mom’s brother. She would’ve done it if she was here. He didn’t get the welcome home when he came back from Vietnam, so (we’re) giving him something he deserves,” Bible said.
Bible organized a welcome in Juneau, where Lindoff landed before continuing on to Hoonah. She didn’t have a lot of time to prepare.
“I put a post in Facebook that I wanted to pull something like this off,” she said. “With the power of having Hoonah people here in Juneau, we were able to pull this together.”
About 40 people gathered outside the security doors on the second floor of the Juneau International Airport. Family was there, community members, friends, members of the Alaska National Guard, even local police officers. His grandniece Cassandra Cropley was there with her dance group.
They started drumming and singing as Lindoff appeared through the security doors. A Last Frontier Honor Flight volunteer pushed Lindoff in his wheelchair, accompanied by his son-in-law Auther Campbell, who went on the trip. As he came through the doors, the crowd applauded. Lindoff’s right foot immediately started tapping to the singing and drumming, his fingers braided together on his lap. He looked content.
After the drumming and singing ended, people went up to Lindoff to shake his hand, welcome him home and say thank you.
“I’m real happy that he’s getting some recognition. He’s real bashful but I’m glad to see this,” said long-time friend Norval Nelson. He knew Lindoff and others from Hoonah who fought in Vietnam, before they left and after they came home.
“It was pretty hard on all of them who went over there. They were in the front lines because they knew how to hunt and track,” he said, adding that when Lindoff returned from war, he was quieter, less talkative, more jumpy.
Part of Lindoff’s story, as well as other Hoonah veterans, is documented in the 2016 film Hunting in Wartime.
After the crowd dispersed, Lindoff and a handful of others moved to the departure area for his flight to Hoonah.
There, Lindoff said he was surprised that so many people showed up. He knew some people would be there, but he didn’t expect the drumming and singing, the big production – the type of welcome-home, many think, a decorated veteran like him deserves.
