Another Awakening

In mid-1995 my sister and her family moved to Colorado, just north of Colorado Springs. Later that year I visited for a week and fell in love with the state and moved here less than 60 days later. For the first year I felt I was constantly on vacation and couldn't get over the fact I didn't have to go back to L.A. except to visit.

(Note: I still visit several times a year as my 91 year young mother is still there as well as the rest of my family, including sis and family who lasted through 5 years of dry summers and arctic winters before going back to California)

I have always been a reader and collector of books of interest. My current library includes a couple hundred volumes of pre-1900 literature, about 100 books on shipwrecks and maritime history, a bunch on California and Journalism history, several hundred on self-help and new age philosophy and spirituality, lots and lots of fiction and about a hundred and fifty about Vietnam and the war.

After reading many of the books about the war I began to develop a play about 1965...a subject for another blog post...and wanted to flesh out a female character. I'm no stranger to the fact of women in the military. My mother was a WAVE during WWII although she never got closer to the front than Pearl Harbor well after the attack. Coincidental that her birthday happens to be Dec. 7th?

Somehow I was put in touch with JoLynne, a nurse who served in Vietnam and spent several hours worth of Q&A. Among the things I learned from her:

...MASH hardly depicted the reality of their daily carnage quotient.

...her previous training as a nurse barely prepared her for her tour in country

...her experience under fire and under intense pressure had no value to hospital administrators upon her return

...there were approximately 20,000 women in total, in capacities as varied as medical staff, entertainers, aid workers and charities, and flight attendants who spent time in Vietnam through the course of the war.

She introduced me to a remarkable book entitled A Piece of my Heart, a compilation of essays from about 35 women who served, about the female experience in Vietnam. It'll break your heart. And I recommend it unreservedly.

The most memorable essay (at least for me) was by a nurse who met and eventually married a LRRP. Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols were the ones that crawled along the jungle floor in advance of their platoon through all the muck, rotting vegetation and Agent Orange on a daily basis. According to her, the Agent Orange had little, if any, effect on them, but their child was visited by plagues of tumors and other infirmities while very young. I still read every day on my Face book page about another veteran being ravaged by A.O. more than 40 years later.

Spirituality and compassion rear their heads in the next installment.

The Game...

Sometime around 1990, a new couple moved into my condo complex. I thought I recognized the guy but wasn't sure. This was, after all, L.A. where almost everyone looked like someone. Turns out I did recognize him as one of the principal actors in an iconic '70's cop show.

Not long after, I was invited to sit in on one of his Friday night poker games when there was an empty seat. Until I moved to Denver in 1996, I virtually never left. It was a great game, with other accomplished actors as regulars, and one of the highlights of my social life for nearly five years.

One of the regulars was a former Special Forces officer-turned-actor Tucker Smallwood. We called him Boomer. He was a lot of things...hard drinker, chain smoker, hypervigilant and intense, and hard to get to know for quite a while. Over the years, he has become one of my go-to friends every time I venture back to L.A. and I feel privileged to know him and have him as a friend.

Tucker had a near death experience in 'Nam and still wears the scars to prove it. Still not sure how his serious neck wound didn't bleed him out, he considers September 14th to be his "born again" date and colors several aspects of his life today. His intensity is legendary to his friends and shows in his work. My favorite of his many roles is as the mission director late in the movie "Contact" with Jody Foster. He was born to play that role and it is perfect.

Tucker and I had many discussions about Vietnam in those days, not so many now, but it became one of the foundation stones in our long-time relationship. Hard to believe we've known each other for about 20 years now. The experience of Tucker was another building block in the foundation of my growing consciousness of the aftermath of Vietnam and its effects on us all.

Next time: Women in Vietnam.

The First Stirrings

The year was 1992...out on a date...one of many...the usual dinner and a movie at her place (VHS was all the rage about 20 years ago) and we picked up a Bruce Willis movie, "In Country." Now, I've always liked Bruce Willis but it was the first time he ever made me cry. This simple story of a Vietnam vet, about 17 years after his return to "The World," and the effects of the war on himself, his friends, family and entire rural Kentucky community, was a watershed moment in my own post service life of almost 25 years.

Shortly after that night, the mortgage company for which I worked conducted a sales contest...winner to receive a round-trip flight anywhere in the country and $500 in cash for expenses. I won. I decided to go to Washington D. C. and see "The Wall."

My visit to the memorial was pretty amazing. Looking back at the photos I shot and those that others graciously took of me, of me, I'm amazed at how much younger I was just a little while ago...thinner, taller and with more hair. But I digress.

It was a pretty dismal day...low grey clouds overhead, persistent drizzle, standing water on the ground...a little cool. As I got closer I passed other landmarks, statues, memorials and tourists. Not many obvious veterans but I'm sure they were there.

Then...there it was. A grassy knoll morphed into a long, low line of granite ambushed me, stretching impossibly long into the distance. I was immediately struck by the scope and simplicity of the design...something I had heard about, read about, but found myself still underprepared for the sight. Coincidentally, at that exact moment the mist let up clearing my line of sight and brightening the scene just a little.

Slowly I started down the descending path, watching the level of the granite slabs rise at my side and feeling the names scribed on the wall seep into my consciousness. I hugged the wall, sidestepping flowers and other artifacts and mementos left behind on the low berm, detouring around visitors standing nose to stone, lost in their own thoughts, reflections and heartache.

A specific self set task was to find a few names I knew would be there. Clifford, a high school friend killed in his second tour; Robert, a college roommate shot down while piloting a chopper. George, a shipmate, who died from an on board accident while in the combat zone. Dale, a former shipmate sent back for a second tour only to die in a swift boat.

I had help. There was a wonderful person stationed at the wall with the big book of names and locations. Today that information is available from countless sources but, 20 years ago you needed the book. She found the panels and lines marking the names I was after, helped me get the paper and charcoal I needed to do the rubbings, and cut me loose to do my thing.

The mist, which was still abated, had served to moisten the surface of the black marble enabling stark reflections from the wall. I could see myself there in great detail. It chilled me to the bone to think that I could have been in/on that wall in any way...then again, why not? I did come home...more than 58,000 sons, daughters, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts did not.

At some point I must have sunk down on the berm, lost in my own thoughts for just a few minutes. About two hours later I felt a hand on my shoulder as the Park Service worker who assisted me with the names, was rousting me back to the present. She was worried about me, sitting there, head down, silently sobbing, and definitely someplace else in my mind.

With a pull, she got me to my feet and spent I don't know how much time walking me back and forth, talking, soothing, bringing me back, all the while lugging that 20 pound volume in her other hand. She was an angel.

Thinking of her, I have often wondered how she could do that job day in, day out, the people she would meet, the stories she had to hear, the depth of pain, sorrow, grief and devastation she must witness, and the depths of compassion she had to have to survive and thrive in that position. Yes, I think of her often and thank her from the bottom of my heart.

My visit ended after about four hours. As I walked away from the memorial, as if on cue, the mist returned.

Next time...the game.

Day One

Day One seems like so long ago but it has actually only been a little more than a year since I began this tour in earnest. For the six or so months leading up to Day One it had been a thought rambling through my consciousness, building steam with each new contact, each new discovery and each new layer of training and experience. Or, perhaps it was born out of my own experience in and off country back in 1967. I’ll try to lay out the chronology in some detail:

February, 1965…I was doing poorly in college the first time around and seeing the writing on the wall, I enlisted in the Navy thinking it was by best chance to serve yet stay out of the fray. A couple buddies, John and Gary, decided to wait for the draft and take their chances. Following boot camp and technical school I got a Destroyer out of Norfolk, Virginia. It was literally the next best thing to an automatic pass on the war. Pacific fleet for sure, east coasters, never.  They did get drafted, Army bound and pliant. As fate would have it, they went to Germany and I wound up in Vietnam anyway. Go figure.

2 September, 1967…first day on station for Operation Sea dragon, just north of the DMZ, tasked to interdict shore traffic and shell strategic coastal targets. A typical day would have reveille at 0600 for those not already on watch, spending the hours from 0800-1600 working in the engine room (at about 150 degrees Fahrenheit in that tropical setting, a little free time after evening meal  and back to our bunks for some fitful sleep. Several times each day we would hear the klaxon calling us out to battle stations at any hour of the day or night. Way too frequently in the middle of the night.

 13 September, 1967, took enemy fire. Two direct hits with enough damage to send us back to Olongapo City in the Philippines for three weeks of repairs. If you've never experienced Olongapo City, there is no need to tell you here. If you have, you’ll never forget it.

Back to ‘Nam and a short trip up the Mekong Delta for some river operations (tricky in a 391 foot long tin can), back to the DMZ, and back to “the World" in January of 1968.

It could have been a lot worse. While it was a lot of work, uncomfortable, intense and unpredictable, it was nothing like the daily grind of the average grunt in country with none of the psychic baggage that so many brought home with them. My memories weren’t so much repressed as they were just irrelevant, and remained in the  background for a very long time. Then something happened and there was a shift, small at first but significant, eventually taking me beyond anywhere I thought I would go. More next time.