Higgins: Did did you feel like you had changed during your time in the war and it was difficult to relate to your family?
Magnusen: I was totally. In fact, they didn't even recognize me. I went over there way in 220 [pounds]. I came back way in 150. My parents didn't even recognize me when I got off the plane. Eventually, I stayed there for 10 months. I got discharged while I was there in Okinawa, but to fly back to California again, I had to put on a uniform again. I put on a uniform and flew back to California to Oakland there. I remember getting off the plane at Oakland thinking Sam, there's the terminal. I get to walk through a terminal where there's real people. There's real civilization. It's different. I get to do this. No, they drop the tail gate of the plane we get off the plane at the back end. They put us on a bus, and then the bus takes 20, 30 minutes, goes around the entire airport goes around all the way around to the back gate leading out towards the fort I guess. We pull up to this back gate, and we stop. The bus driver gets out. He opens up the gate. You remember, we just finished flying across the ocean and I'm pretty tired. He opens up the back gate. Gets back in the bus. Drives through the gate, gets out, closes the gate. In the meantime, there's about 100 protesters there throwing things there, calling us baby killers. They have, signs the shouting and yelling, and I'm thinking ‘no I'm on your side. I'm one of you guys,’ but that was coming back.
Higgins: Did that feel like a betrayal to you?
Magnusen: No, I understood their passion. No, I felt the same passion. It didn't feel like a betrayal. I was for those guys. I didn't want the war the war sucked, and yes people were killing babies. All that stuff is true and even more so. They were speaking my voice. I felt just a little bombarded with information. I guess. Look, I'm not sure if bombarded is the right word. I just felt like man, they are throwing stuff at me. Most of these guys I don't even know if most of these guys deserved it. I just know that it wasn't me, and I didn't mind them doing it.