Bob Thomas Writes

An Introduction

I owned a Fine Art & Craft gallery and sold Ken’s work for 10 years. He is the consummate professional and a great friend.

This is Ken’s recollections of his time inViet Nam. Like all veterans, Ken deserves our Thanks for his time there.

Be sure to visit his web site at: http://www.originaldesignsinglass.com/

Ken Curtiss

Ken was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area with the influence of the wonderful museums and galleries there. After the Marines and Viet Nam borrowed a few years of his life, he was lucky enough to get a job making high accuracy lab equipment out of glass: Each piece measured in thousandths of an inch. Trained in the scientific methods of blowing glass, he felt the call to more artistic endeavors and went back to school to earn a BFA in Sculpture. But the real testing and trainings started when he went to Art and Craft shows to demonstrate his skill and sell his wares. The joy on a child’s or collectors face as he made their favorite animal or object right before their eyes was the best reward.

After over 30 years Ken feels he can make anything he wants within the limits of his equipment. Flamework or Lampwork, as it is traditionally called is a method of playing with molten liquid glass in mid- air and having it turn into a work of sense and beauty. A lot of his work has been created in his own mind and is done freehand. It’s fascinating to watch Ken at shows as one child asks for a Kitten and another asks for a Dragon or horse and Ken sculpts them in mid-air using only molten glass and his vivid imagination.

Memories of Viet Nam

By: Ken Curtiss

The Plateau

                  The base we returned to was called the Plateau. It was a flat area on top of a small mountain, with a view of theHorseShoeMountainsto the north, and rolling hills in other directions. We had 175mm artillery guns we were protecting, that could fire at targets several miles away. They were so powerful that heat tabs we used to warm c-rations would go out when they fired. We were an obvious target for the NVA, and we had incoming rockets fired at us often. We had large tents to sleep in, with trenches dug all around them to jump in during incoming fire. During one rocket attack, I jumped in the trench and scraped my leg badly on a tent stake. The medic who treated it said I could get a purple heart for it, but I said no. I had to medivac wounded marines, far worse than I was, and felt it wasn’t really a wound, earned in combat. Later I found out that 3 purple hearts would get you out of the war and sent home. That would have been my first of three. I could have come home early and never gone back.  If I had only known.

                  There was a rumor that the NVA were moving Russian jets close to the DMZ, and they might fly missions against us. To protect us, we were given big anti-aircraft guns that could shoot a whole bunch of exploding rounds, fast. We thought we spotted an enemy on the closest mountain and sighted one of the guns that way to test it. It fired several rounds at once then repeated, and blew a large hole in the jungle. Our new toy was fun and deadly. We never saw an airplane that wasn’t ours, but had a lot of fun shooting at anything we could.  One night we were hit by mortars and rockets that kept exploding around us for almost an hour. I hid in a trench and watched the light show as we returned fire and lit up the night. It was better than the 4^th of July, well, except for the fact we might get killed. In the morning, we could see a lot of jungle missing from the mountains. “Easier to do patrols out there now, and we can see those MFers better when they are shooting at our sorry asses.” said the colonel. We only had a few wounded from that night.  And supply gave us more big exploding ammo.

                   We ran frequent patrols out into the surrounding hills, sneaking through heavy jungle at night, and setting ambushes during the day. We hid near creeks or rivers with paths used to carry water to the NVA.  Then one night on a patrol back into theHorseShoeMountains, we ran into an NVA patrol, and started a huge firefight that lit up the night. We had dug small holes for fox holes, but the ground was hard and we only had a few inches dug before the fight started. I radioed for air support, and tried to get as low as possible as mortars exploded around us. A small Piper Cub spotter plane arrived first, and tried to see what was happening. He couldn’t see our positions and when armed helicopters came in, he asked me to turn on a strobe light. See, I had this little light used to give your position to rescue aircraft, but it was so bright it could be seen for miles and would blind you at night. It also made you a big bright target. We were pinned down by fire and couldn’t move.  I pulled out my little beacon, curled into a circle around it so much of the light would go straight up, and let it blink once.  I yelled “close your eyes!” right before I set it off, as it totally ruined night vision. It was as bright as a lightning bolt. Mad bees, bullets, whizzed over my head, as I said “45 degrees, 75 yards” to the radio, to give the pilot the position of the attackers.  I heard the helicopters coming in so low, it sounded like they were on top of us. Then several whooshes as the rockets fired from beneath them. Immediately there were explosions at the point I had given them.  We heard yelling in Vietnamese and the sound of running, and the firing stopped. Like most encounters in our war, we never saw the enemy.

                   The next day, we searched the area, but found no bodies, blood, or other signs of war, except shredded bushes. We did find an ammo pack with opium wafers in it. Eating one of these can make you fearless and feel no pain. There was no glory in finding blood or bodies. It was always sad to know someone is taken from life and family, even your enemy. They believed in their cause, were intelligent, and we respected that.

 

The Rock Pile 1, 2, 3

Rock Pile 1   This was an old abandoned village, right underneath a huge boulder we called the Rock Pile. It was several hundred feet high and inaccessible except by helicopter. The rock apes, some kind of monkey, managed to climb it, but we couldn’t. We had a four man fire team on lookout on top, and the choppers would take stuff up there every couple of days. Bunkers had been built by the previous occupants. The foundations of the Vietnamese’s huts were dug a couple of feet down, so people could get below ground level in an attack. Sandbags had been built up with a view of the barbwire surrounding the area and tops made to stop mortars. Perimeter duty was sitting in these bunkers with a buddy all night long and staring out in the dark, listening. As a forward air controller/ radio operator, I had to do the duty every fourth night. The grunts did it every night.  It was rather spooky even when the moon was out and some shapes could be seen.

  One night I was watching a shadowy movement toward the bunker next to us. It was about 50 feet away. I assumed it was a rock ape, as it was about 2 ½ feet tall, and managed to get through barbwire a mouse would barely fit through. They were good at that stuff. A few minutes later I heard yelling from that bunker, ran over with my rifle locked and loaded and found a marine all beaten up, with a bleeding face and a broken arm. As I yelled for a medic and tried to help the young marine, his buddy said, “He gave that fucking ape some date pudding from the C-rations and I don’t think it liked it.” I had to land a helicopter to medivac the kid in the middle of the night. Flying at night is very dangerous, so I had to convince the colonel who sends them out we weren’t taking enemy fire. But when you tell someone on a static filled radio, a monkey beat up a Marine; it doesn’t come across too well. After an interesting yell fest, they sent me a chopper for the poor guy.

The Rock Pile 2.

The Rock Pile looked like the Rock of Gibraltar. It was an impressive view and we felt a little safer here for some reason. Of course we were scared kids, in a very hostile country, but there was wildlife, a view, and even some leftover edible plants from the village that had been here. Three of us were the FAC’s (forward air controllers) and had a bunker big enough for three cots, with mosquito nets. It was deep enough to sit on the cots, but not enough to stand up. But any place you could take your helmet off and relax was home. We had put pallets on the floor to stay dry when the monsoon rains came. One day we were sitting on the cots, playing poker on an ammo box we used for a table, when I saw movement in the corner of the bunker. I looked over and saw a hooded head rising between the slats of a pallet. “Cobra!” I yelled and we ran out of the bunker. AROK, aRepublicofKoreasoldier, who was attached to our unit, came over and said “Eat!” and grinned. We threw a CS grenade, tear gas, into the bunker and the 6 foot snake slowly came out the entrance. TheROKchopped the head off the snake and proceeded to skin it. Then he stuck it on a stick like a shish kabob and roasted it on a nearby fire. Since mostly we ate C rations, we tried some of the snake and it was very good.

   Behind the bunker, a small bush was growing with what looked like small round berries on it. It looked like one of the pepper plants my mother had grown in her little gardens when I was young. I asked one of the ROKs about it as they seemed more familiar with Asian plants than we were. He said it was a hot pepper and picked some to use in the C rations. So I picked about 20 of them and put them on top of the bunker to dry. After picking them, I licked my hand and burned the crap out of my mouth. They were the hottest thing I had ever tasted. And they were tiny.

   Later I was warming up some “ham and motherfuckers”, ham and lima beans for those of you who have never had the dubious pleasure of eating C rations. I put one tiny pepper in the can, some cheese from another can, stirred it up good and tasted my new creation. It took several tastes before the heat hit. Delayed reaction peppers! Damn it was hot, but good because it was different. C rations came in 12 meals, 3 cans to a meal, so could be combined in various ways. You can get pretty creative in combinations, but in a couple of months, everything that can be tried, has been done. I was gathering my dried peppers, when a new, young, gung-ho lieutenant came over and asked me what they were. Did I mention that new, gung-ho officers weren’t liked much in the field? I told him they were peppers from the bush behind me. He said he liked hot food too. So I mentioned that they were small and not very hot, so a lot of them were needed to spice the C rations. Two hours later, here comes the lieutenant with my CO Colonel Smythe. The lieutenant seemed to have blisters all over his mouth, and was saying something about being tricked into eating poisonous berries. The CO asked me about the peppers. I said they were just peppers, and since I grew up around Mexican families inOakland, maybe I was a little more used to hot food. The lieutenant acted like I should be court-martialed, but my CO asked if he could pick some. “Sure “I told him, “But they aren’t too hot, so get plenty of them.” “Thanks,” he said as he winked at me.

 

The Rock Pile 3

The Rock Pile was one of the quietest places I had the pleasure of being inViet Nam. It was also the last. For a short while I went from “The Pile” to Khe Sahn on convoys. Before we settled in at “The Pile” my whole battalion, 4 companies of marines, had been sent to Khe Sahn for an operation to clear Hills 881 North and South.  These were two hills covered with jungle and rocks, just north of Khe Sahn. They were rather steep, as the whole DMZ area inland, consisted of hills and steep small mountains. The base at Khe Sahn was getting hit constantly with mortars and rockets from these hills. A mortar is a rocket shaped round with fins. It is dropped down a tube which sets it off in a very high arc. It whistles as it comes down, and the louder the whistle, the closer it will hit. I still cringe when somebody whistles loudly. Khe Sahn was near the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The North Vietnamese could bring troops, supplies, and ammo down the trail fromChinaandNorth Viet Nam.  It went intoCambodiaa ways and we had even heard of small tanks being brought in. The year was 1967 and the Tet Offensive was in the near future. Tet was to be one of the toughest fights in the history of that war. The NVA were bringing everything they could south, to start Tet. This is the Vietnamese New Year.

   A battalion of marines starts with a fire team of 4 men, a squad of 3 fire teams and maybe a machine gunner with an ammo carrier. A platoon is supposed to have 4 squads and 4 platoons make a company. We were rarely at this strength. A company of grunts, about 80, were sent to start up the hill, and came under heavy fire. There were machine guns and RPG’s shooting at them. An RPG is a rocket propelled grenade, a self- propelled round that comes out of a shoulder-held tube that goes very straight, and can penetrate the armor on smaller tanks. They slowly crawled up the hill, hiding behind bushes, and rocks. I was with the second company, with a ground-to-air radio to call in air support. It was like having a big target on my back. The radio was large and obvious. But we had used it to save our butts many times by then and I loved that radio. I talked directly to pilots of jets and helicopters, and they would send horrific destruction at our enemy. This was a lot of power for an 18 year old kid, but a lot of responsibility too. Napalm and bombs could kill us too. No mistakes allowed!  I also was able to save lives, bringing in medivac choppers and supplies. This kept me a little saner than some vets.

   We dropped enough explosives on Hill 881 to make it Hill 771. The number means altitude in meters. But we were still getting fired at. They were really good at digging in. Since we had caught up with the first company, we hunkered down and waited. I told the Hueys to come in low and try to get their rockets at a better angle. They were nervous about hitting “friendlies,” so I said I would throw a smoke grenade in front of us to mark our position. I ran up about 30 feet, about 20 feet behind the forward grunts and lobbed a smoke grenade as far as I could. It happened to be red smoke, so I ran back to the radio and said, “Mark north. Color?” This gave them the starting point to shoot rockets at and move them north from that spot. I wanted them to tell me the color of the smoke so I would know they saw the right smoke, not another that the NVA might set off to confuse the pilots. “Red as the head on the dick of a dog.” came the answer. My partner yelled “Down!” at the grunts and in came 2 helicopters blasting the ground in front of us. The incoming fire lightened up some and the grunts started moving back up the hill. As the forward elements neared the top, the fire turned fierce again. Since we couldn’t see what was happening, we didn’t try air support, just slowly crept up, trying to back up the boys up there. I was about 100 yards from the top and waited in a small depression behind a rock. The firefight suddenly stopped and it grew quiet. We listened for the yells for medics or the moans of the wounded, but didn’t hear much at all. All of a sudden, a woman with a photographer comes walking up the hill. It was a French reporter, we had seen once before. She was smiling and in fatigues, but had on bright, red lipstick. The company CO, a young captain, yelled at her to get down. She just kept walking up the hill. “They may be all dead up there!” he yelled. She waved and kept going. I don’t know if she didn’t understand English, or was another “fearless” newshound, a short-lived type. Shortly after she went by, the firefight on top started up again. We worked our way up, knowing we had marines up there in trouble. Right below the crest, lay the beautiful woman with a few holes in her. We lost several marines that day, but she was the only casualty that made a headline.

   This was the only woman I had seen in weeks. We didn’t use women in the field at all. Not as drivers on convoys, medics, or anything else. And all I could think of was, “Why would anyone paint a bright, red target on their face? Hell, mine was painted green.

   

 When I arrived in Viet Nam, I was aboard a commercial jet liner with gorgeous stewardesses. It landed in Da Nang, a city where the marines were headquartered. I thought it would be like landing in an airport like Oakland, but it was a landing strip surrounded by tents and the ladder to get off the plane was rickety and had splinters. The stewardesses stayed on board for some strange reason. I was put on an old troop carrier truck with my sea bag and rode out muddy roads to a small compound that was battalion HQ for 3^rd Battalion 9^th Marines, or 3/9. When I jumped off the truck, I sank up to my knees in mud. There were tents with trenches dug around them, and bunkers with radio antennas on top. What a change, from civilization to a war zone in a couple of hours. I was issued a helmet and flak jacket, and received a Colt 45 military pistol. I had just turned 18 and was not quite ready for such an abrupt change. I soon learned that our 4 companies were at outposts, patrolling an area surrounding DaNang. I was told that as a radio operator I would be with the Forward Air Control team, and would learn on-the-job.

   This meant I had no idea of what my duties were, and would learn as I did whatever it was that I did. This isn’t an ideal way to learn, especially in combat. The unit I had joined had seen some bitter battles before I came, and was under-manned. We were given “easy” duty until replacements, like me, strengthened our ranks. Staying up all night listening to the companies check in every hour was the first duty I had. The third night I was there, K Company called to say they had spotted movement and were checking it out. I told the watch officer and he said to keep contact up. Then I heard gun shots and mortars exploding in the distance. The radio operator at K called and said they had made contact with a patrol of VC, and were engaged in a firefight. The watch officer didn’t seem too worried and said to ask if we had taken casualties. All the noise quieted soon, and the radio operator called and said it was all secure. Apparently the VC had run off and the only person who was concerned was a scared 18 year old “newbie”, who was only on his second watch inViet Nam.

   Christmas came and we all got drunk on whiskey with a faint scent of kerosene. We had some interesting food sent to us from the states, but a lot of it had taken a long, rough journey, and wasn’t in very good shape. We ate most of it anyway. 2 month old cookies, slightly soggy and mostly crumbs, still tasted better than our food. We did put up some decorations in a bush next to our tent, consisting of cutouts from cards and anything else we could find, that even faintly resembled Christmas colors.

   A few days after Christmas, we were told to saddle up. We were moving out in 2 hours. We hurried up and loaded all our muddy things into trucks, leaving most of our equipment for the next marines to use. We were driven down to a port and put aboard a ship going toOkinawa. Beautiful, tropical, peacefulOkinawa. No war,Okinawa. A place with restaurants, mess halls, stores and more, away from jungles and mud and people who actually wanted to kill us. We just had to endure 5 days on a ship with 1200 marines hanging over the side rails, in rough seas, losing everything we’d eaten for the last week. But that’s another story.  

    Okinawais a beautiful semi-tropical island, with coral reefs, parks, and a lot of American military bases. The south end had big towns with lots of electronic stores, restaurants, bars, whore houses, bases, and a place called Suicide Cliffs. The north end was rural, small towns and parks and few English speakers. It was paradise after the mud pits of DaNang. Because my mother had taught me to use chopsticks when I was young, I got along well with the locals who had a dim view of Americans, but made a living off of them. Since I was only there a month, I didn’t have much time to get to know the place, but a few years later I would come back for the best year I spent in the marines. I got acquainted with a couple of girls who worked in a local bar, and they helped me buy some things to send home, at very low prices. They could go to a store and buy my mother a silk kimono for half what I would have paid. And of course, they had better taste than I did. Bar girls weren’t prostitutes. They would sit with a G.I. and talk and flirt if they were bought drinks. The drinks they had were generally tea in a small glass. It was a dollar a drink and they got half. It was worth a dollar to have the company of a lovely young lady for a while. If they enjoyed the company, they would sip slowly. If a G.I. was fresh and aggressive they would drink fast and move on. This was an honorable profession comparable to a geisha girl. I was 18 and didn’t drink much, so the chopsticks got me over with them. When the 2 girls I knew weren’t busy, they would talk to me, and knowing I was heading back toViet Nam, they were sympathetic.

  They invited me to a party of Okinawans, at the bar one night. I went thinking there might be good food and I was interested in local culture. There were only Okinawans there, but I had a great time and was introduced to sushi. It was large slabs of various raw fish and 8 or 9 sauces to dip them in. They were very surprised that I tried them. Hell, after c-rations I’d eat anything. When I went back to the barracks, my fellow marines seemed to think I had been out with several women having an orgy or something and never believed the truth. I had status for a while.

   One of the girls asked me if I would like to go to a movie about the American invasion ofOkinawain WWII. She said it was the Okinawan version, much different than the Japanese and American versions. Okinawans didn’t like the Japanese much and I found out why. When the Japanese were onOkinawain WWII, they ruled with an iron fist. When the Americans were about to invade, the Japanese left, giving the Okinawans old rifles and little ammo, to defend themselves. They told the locals that Americans would come and eat their babies, and kill them all. The Okinawans being mostly poor and uneducated villagers, believed the Japanese, and sent young soldiers to small dugout positions around the cliffs and shores. As the Americans came ashore, many Okinawans would take their family under a blanket and set off a grenade, rather than be caught by the horrible baby eaters. At the above mentioned Suicide Cliffs, over 5,000 people jumped off. The movie was very detailed and graphic, and the girl leaned toward me and translated every word of it. This had almost as much impact on me as real death in my own war. A few years later, we gaveOkinawa“back” to the Japanese. I felt great sadness when this happened. The Okinawans I knew liked things the way they were. Apparently they forgave us since we didn’t eat their babies.

  We made several landings on beaches for practice, an omen of what we might do on our return toViet Nam. The best role was being on the beach as enemy, firing blanks at the leaky landing craft. It beat the heck out of being IN the leaky landing craft.

  Returning toViet Namwas an anxious time. We rode on a strange ship that had 2 hulls with water in between them.  Parked in that water were several landing craft, and some otters. An otter was a small tank that floats with just a few inches of it showing above the water.  It was ok for crossing a placid river, but not something to play with in the ocean.  The landing craft were the same ones used in WWII movies, with a large panel in the front that folded down to let you jump in waist deep water, with 50 lbs of equipment on your body, in waves 3 feet high. It didn’t look like we were going to have fun. At least Navy food on the ship was better than Marines mess hall stuff.

  We came to a beach area a few miles south of the Dong Ha River, and all piled into the landing craft and otters. The front of the ship lowered like a landing craft and we took off for the beach. I rode in an open craft that didn’t ride waves well, and we were all soaked as we jumped out and ran for the dunes on the far side of the beach. We yelled and dodged as we ran, but nobody was shooting at us. My radio got soaked and I was afraid to use it as I might get electrocuted. It was a tough old PRC-25 or prick 25 as we called it, and it supposedly worked wet. I didn’t want to test that theory. When we got set up on the dunes facing a flat of short jungle plants behind the dunes, we were told to watch for a regiment ( a whole bunch) of NVA that were being chased toward us by the South Vietnamese Army. The ships reloaded the landing craft, left us the otters, and pulled out to sea. For 2 days we hid on the ocean side of the dunes, watching the jungle. We sent patrols out in the area, and set up outposts, but they weren’t spotting anything. Then we started relaxing and enjoying the beach. One of the otters had 2 fishing poles, so we dug up some small clams for bait and got to eat fresh fish with our c-rations. We stayed there for almost 2 weeks, but nothing exciting happened.

  The ships and all the landing craft came back and we climbed on with all our gear, expecting to go aboard the ships. But instead we rode along the beaches getting soaked until we reached the Dong Ha. It was about 15 miles south of the DMZ that marked the border withNorth Viet Nam. This was a volatile area, but as we rode up the river, we saw villages with mud huts and a few fortified positions for the ARVN’s. Arvins were what we called the South Vietnamese Army. It looked fairly peaceful. We finally came to a large air base at Dong Ha the “city”. This was our new base to work out of. It did have a mess hall, so no c-rations, but we weren’t allowed into the town. We just hung around our tents and took care of our equipment, and dug deeper trenches next to our tents to hide from the frequent rockets that came our way. Most of them were aimed at the air field, and we could hear them whistle over our heads. I was told that I wouldn’t hear the one that got me, as they traveled at the speed of sound. A cheery thought.

   I had been lucky so far in my war duty, and hadn’t seen much action. A few mortar and rocket attacks that didn’t hit too close to me, but no direct contact. Now we were being assigned patrols in the DMZ area, and that was about to change.

The Horseshoe Mountains

   We sweated along a shadowy trail between two mountain ranges. I carried a PRC-25, nine meals, assorted smoke grenades, a few frag grenades, a rifle and more. About 50 pounds all together.  “Be prepared”, was our motto, too. It was my first long patrol, and we were looking for the assholes that had been sending rockets and mortars our way. We were near the DMZ in an area that was currently unoccupied due to a war going on. A company of marines and I walked a ways, then stopped a couple of minutes, then moved on again, in a pattern that would become familiar. Our point was cautiously checking things out, and then creeping on. We were quite nervous knowing our base had been fired on from this valley many times, but could find no signs of the NVA. We split up to go around a hill that separated the valley in two, as it got dark. Night falls quickly in the tropics, and as we silently moved forward, we saw some flashes in the trees. Not hearing shots as we flattened to the ground, we realized it was fireflies coming out. Being from the west coast, I had only seen them once on a trip toMississippito see my brother. I was fascinated by the blinking lights, but we were all a bit spooked. Suddenly a firefight erupted up front. I heard someone yell “friendlies!” and the firing stopped as we found our separated units had come back together. No one had been hit, by some miracle, but we had given away our position.

  We were playing “target”. The idea was, we would creep around the jungle until we got ambushed, then draw back and fire artillery and drop bombs from a defensible position. The trouble with that tactic was: a; they got to fire first, and b; there aren’t too many defensible positions on a jungle trail. Being the point man sucked, too. And we had just told the whole world where we were. The CO had us move up a hill a little and we dug in for the rest of the night. I managed to dig a hole about 9 inches deep with my small etool, a little shovel, through the roots. This would be my foxhole shelter if we were attacked. And sure enough we were attacked. First we heard the whistle of mortars as they rose high in the air, then a different tone as they dropped toward us. “Incoming!” someone yelled and we all got as deep in our little holes to try and get as much of our bodies below ground level as possible.  I heard explosions all around us, but no one screamed in pain, a good sign. Several marines jumped up when the noise stopped and ran into the jungle. I was on my radio calling for gunships, helicopters with machine guns and rockets mounted. I heard a lot of rifle fire nearby, then it was deathly quiet. Someone shouted “friendlies” and a few guys came back into our lines. “We got the MFers before they could run. And we got a nice mortar tube and some ammo, too!”  I marveled at the balls of these guys, chasing down an enemy they couldn’t see, only hear, in a dense jungle. I cancelled the aircraft call, and checked for wounded. I would call in medivac choppers if needed. No need this time, thank god.

   To get wounded out, I had to find a clear area to land a chopper, and then stand out in it to wave the bird down to a safe landing. Load severely damaged men or bodies on it, then give the bird “thumbs up” to take off. Talk about playing target. Not something I wanted to do.

   As we moved slowly through the jungle, we came to a river. It was about neck deep, so we held most of the 50 pounds or so we carried over our heads, and crossed. When we got to the other side, I noticed everyone stopped and took their clothes off, and were checking each other out. I stopped and did the same thing as we had to pull leaches off each other, and there seemed to be a lot of them. “Look! I’m getting a blow job!” said a young marine as he took a leach off his penis. But he didn’t seem to be enjoying it.

  For 3 days we moved up and down small mountains without finding anything except empty ammo cartridges and an unexploded 500 pound bomb that we blew up. Then we came down to some abandoned rice paddies, with yellow water, we waded through. We had run out of water, so we filled canteens with this piss colored water and put Halizone tablets in it. This was supposed to make any water safe to drink. The trouble is, your sweat smells like Halizone for 10 years or more.  Sometimes I still smell it. We ate anything that looked edible, and hoped all the shots we had taken before deployment were working. I did get a case of dysentery or “the shits” as we called it. I threw away my pants and painted my legs green with a grease stick we used for camouflage. Naked legs are dangerous in a jungle. I was bitten, scratched, and very exposed. When we were finally resupplied by choppers, a gunner on the chopper took off his pants and gave them to me. One of the kindest acts I’ve ever seen. I wish I knew his name.

How You Got There

              I’m going to borrow a literary device from a Tom Robbins book, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas.  If you haven’t read any Tom Robbins, I suggest you go to amazon.com or your public library and get one. I consider him the Shakespeare of my generation. His use of language is incredible, his philosophy dead on, and he is funny as hell. His most famous book was Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which wasn’t his best and didn’t make a great movie.

                 You remember how boring school became as you progressed and they proceeded to teach you the same thing, with a little more information, every year. So when you went to high school, your social life became the most important part of your life. You joined a high school fraternity (semi-civilized gang), and cut school frequently. All of a sudden your mother runs away from home and you end up living with your older brother and his first wife. Not knowing where your mother went or why, gives you guilt and angst. As if teenagers don’t have enough angst already. But your brother is the only father image you ever had.

                 But your social life is good, playing football against other fraternities for cases of beer, and having parties with sororities…..and beer. Just showing up at school to take tests and, back then, most teachers wouldn’t fail you if you could pass their tests.

                You are the first white in your school to take a person of color to a dance, setting a trend that may have helped promote more mixed marriages inOakland. Remember, they were starting to bus blacks up toSkylineHigh Schoolin those days. Fremont High was about 30% white, 30% black, 30% Hispanic, and the rest mostly oriental. You don’t really think about race until your minister goes toSelmato march with Dr. King. Then it hits you that there are people who actually care what somebody’s skin looks like. On a trip toMississippito visit your brother in the Air Force, before your mother left, you get a chance to actually see prejudice in action. You’re 14, and go to drink out of a water fountain on a fishing pier, when someone yells at you “Don’t drink that, it’s colored.” Your California-raised mother standing behind you naively asks, “What color is it?” You look around and see bathrooms that say; Men, Women, and Colored, and suddenly you get it. Taking a black, nerdish, but cute friend to a dance was your personal statement against what you had seen.

                You find out your mother is inStockton, house and baby-sitting to make money and you end up there. By this time you’re sporting the surfer look, and really don’t fit in this redneck town. In the summer you ride “wino” buses out to the asparagus fields and pick veggies for $1.25 an hour, once in a while. Then you get a job at the bowling alley, teaching kids to bowl and watching the desk. You buy a 49’ Buick hearse from a biker friend, because it is even cooler than the new Mustangs and GTO’s the rich kids have. You grow your hair long and the girls like you and your friends better than the jocks. This seems to cause problems at your school that end up with a huge confrontation after school one day. You hear the jocks are threatening to cut your hair, and so you go find a couple of bikers and some big farm boys that like a good fight, and show up with a motley crew of about 20. Surrounded by half the student body, that came to see this showdown, you hear a lot of disparaging remarks. Nothing happens, though, so one of the bikers walks up to the biggest football player he sees, and hits him in the jaw, watches him fall down, out cold, and looks around to see who is next. The principal comes running out yelling and everybody, except you and your friends, run off. All 20 of you slowly walk to your hearse, all climb in it, and ride off, with the principal screaming something about a riot. You decide that this school wasn’t a sanctuary for someone like you, and quit. You were a senior, taking calculus and advanced classes, but were still bored.

                You make friends with an English drummer working for Gary Wagner and the Chosen Few.Garylikes your hearse and hires you to carry instruments to concerts. He teaches you a few riffs on the harmonica, and has you sit on the edge of the stage to keep the groupies off. Ever hear of “Time” by the Chambers Brothers?Garywrote that and later sold it to them. Meanwhile you’re sleeping in the hearse or at someone’s house, and think life is great. You get in a little trouble, because mothers, who want you to keep away from their daughters, complain to the police about the hearse.  A judge, who doesn’t seem to like long hair, tells you to join the military or go to jail. Your mother calls your brother, who comes and finds you, and tells you it might be a good idea to join the Air Force. Ever the rebel, you tell him you are going to join the Marines with a friend. Besides, there is a waiting period for the Navy and Air Force. People who don’t want to be drafted into the Army, are joining the services that shouldn’t see combat. You don’t know anything about the war or Marines, you just want to be cool and go on an adventure. You have NO idea what you are getting into.