THE POTATO PEELER: 2012

This story is about some of my experiences while in

the army, suffice to say I was no hero while in Vietnam

but hero’s is not what this book is about. It is however a true story of the times which has not been written about, the time was the early 70s a time of war and the explosion of drugs in our culture, and un knowingly to me and most all others extreme prejudices in the military between soldiers, both black and white.

Also I added a short background of my childhood and of the extreme poverty from which I came if only to explain why I made some of the bad decisions that I made, but not to excuse myself of them, wrong is wrong and I don’t forgive myself for it. But life is a funny thing as you will see.

I was born in poverty and in a violent neighborhood full of uneducated people but mostly hard working and honest; also a drug free time in the summer of 1964 when at the age of 11, I had just gotten my first 40 hour a week job as a busboy cleaning tables at a place named Sutter’s B.B.Q. in my neighborhood known as Riverside in Fort Worth that paid 35 cents an hour and was glad to get it, school was out which I hated anyway as I never felt comfortable and out of place, now I had a job, and was happy. It was at this local greasy spoon joint of the day where my drunken step grandfather worked. He was an Irishman and a Yankee with red hair and face to match from years of drinking, he wasn’t a big man but he loved to fight, and was a ww2 veteran he also taught my brother and me how to fight with the boxing gloves he bought for us, he loved to watch me and my brother box, though I could never take my older brother, I still tried and he told me that was the important thing, never back down and just give it your best as that is really all we can do, he was right as he was teaching us more than boxing, he was in his own way teaching us about life from his point of view. Anyway he was the so called chef and he got me the job at the café and rode my ass hard but he was good to me and never mistreated me. I can still see him now laughing his ass off as big brother beat me every day boxing but I would always come back for more, he would be laughing and drinking Falstaff beer from a steel can and listening to a baseball game on the radio, before it was on TV as he barked out instructions on how to fight while sitting on the dilapidated wooden back porch of the small 2 room shack in which we lived next to the railroad tracks, that was called the bottoms, it was called the bottoms because you couldn’t get any farther down in life than living there, anyway back to the café.

It was a great place to work and it opened a whole new world to me as a kid that knew nothing about life other than the abuse of home life dished out from the various men my mother seemed to attract, it was more importantly a place in which I could feel at ease instead of the constant fear of beatings for the slightest little thing, but enough of that.

For the first time in my life I had the money to buy new clothes instead of wearing the hand me downs of my older brother that was 4 years older that my great-grandmother had bought new for him the year before as he lived with her, even though he was older we were the same height and by the next year when it was my turn to wear them of course I had grown taller, well you get the picture, he was also fat for those days actually he was just healthy from always having plenty of food to eat from my great-grandmothers huge garden which wasn’t my case, and the clothes wasn’t in the best condition or size being short baggy pants and short baggy shirts, making me embarrassed and ashamed to go to school, so quite naturally I hated school and everything about it except lunch, you see when living in poverty food is the most important thing in your world, which reminds me of a little story of adapting. One cold winter day with a couple of inches of snow on the ground, I was in the 3^rd grade and had to go to school, but there wasn’t anything to eat for breakfast, so my mother had a boiled me an egg, she let it cool just a little before handing to me saying this is all we have to eat so keep this in your hands to keep them warm as I had no gloves, and when you get to school eat it for breakfast, as a little kid I thought great problem solved, two birds with one stone, not thinking about tomorrow kids never do, but I did have money for lunch and that was all I cared about.

Back to the café, it was the first time I had ever eaten in a café. It became my home of choice and I would work there until I joined the army except for a few summers working on my grandfathers dairy farm or my uncles tobacco farms in Kentucky along with hauling hay, anyway it was a hotspot in the area that had the old carhop option of just pulling up and places your order to be brought to your car by the carhop along with beer, and there were speakers outside that played country music from the juke box inside, with all the lights shining on the cars it was a sight to see and hear by a kid that hadn’t seen such things before, and I was lucky enough to have been there to see the muscle cars of the late 60s and they were remarkable, plus with any luck there would be a good fight or two on Saturday night.

Inside there were the slutty waitresses also a sight to see with their red lipstick and cheep perfume in those little uniforms, I might have been a little kid but I sure did like it; it was a good thing I wore an apron so my enthusiasm was hidden. It was great and I loved it; it was the kind of place that had the little mini juke boxes at each table that played 3 songs for a quarter, maybe 5 I don’t remember, and steel cans of beer was served with a small glass. Across the street was the biggest dancing hall around, country of course hell after all it was Texas but more important it was Fort Worth which should have been the capital of Texas, anyway it closed at 9 p.m. as at the time it was against the law to dance after 9 o’clock it was ok to get drunk and fight as it was a god given right for any Texan on Saturday night you just couldn’t dance, and back then nobody called the police and nobody went to jail as nobody pressed charges, no real Texan would do such a thing, what they would do was after it was over they would shake hands and go back to drinking, I think it was a better time in our country, don’t you ?

Anyway when it closed they would walk across the street to resume drinking, play music and eat, just no dancing, as I went about my job of clearing the tables of dirty dishes and cleaning the tables, there would seem to always be a nasty cigarette but stuck in what was left of the mashed potatoes which was left on the plate seemingly left for just that purpose, that I couldn’t understand as on every table was placed a clean ash tray, not to mention the fact that anybody would not eat everything on their plate especially since they had paid good money for it, but there was much I didn’t understand as a kid. And there would always be old drunk women, probably all of 30 to 40 years of age but old to me anyway that would call me over to their table to ask me to get them another beer, and I would have to tell them I’m sorry mam I’m not old enough, then she would say how old are you honey? When I replied my age I was usually given some change anyway as she would take me by the hand, by this time I was getting enthused again but I couldn’t help it, there was just something about the smell of a drunken woman smelling of perfume, shit I lost my train of thought again.

Back In the kitchen Motown music on 45s was playing on the little record players owned by the black cooks that became my close friends, and they were the first black people I had ever talked to, at first I didn’t know what to think of them and looking back I’m sure they were aware of the fact and quickly put me at ease, they were two brothers both tall and slim as most people of the day were slim, and about the time I was 12 they started explaining the facts of life and about girls of which I knew nothing, being shy and insecure by nature and low on self confidence, being poor plus living literally on the other side of the tracts and the embarrassing job I had at school. I hated everything about school as it wasn’t until I got a job at the café that I could afford to shed the rags handed down to me, I still felt inferior to the other kids plus the fact my mother arranged for me a job in the cafeteria to pay for my lunch. My job was to stand in the window where all the kids in school when finished eating would pass me there trays where I would remove the food from the plates and stack them, to be washed later by a nice old black woman that worked in the kitchen and then stack the trays, I still remember how nice all the old women were to me and after I finished my work and the amount food they would pile up on my plate, I guess in a way they felt sorry for me and took pity. But by now at least I had better clothes, but still no money as I had to give what I earned at the café to my mother except for clothes which was ok with me as long as I had clothes and plenty of food all was good. Then one day some rich kids came through the line to hand over there trays and started laughing at me for what I was doing like they were so much better than me, I wanted to kick there ass but I knew if I did I would lose my job and go without anything to eat until I got to the café later after school where I never had to pay but that was hours away and I was hungry now, so I let it go. After my work was done for the day an old black woman sat me down with an extra large plate of food and told me not to worry about those spoiled rich kids someday you’ll show them all and they don’t know what hard living is like we do, yes mam I know, then she told me to finish my food so you might have time to go play. After I couldn’t eat another bite I went out to the play ground when there I saw the same 3 little rich bastards fucking with this poor retarded kid as they were referred to at the time, I could see the confusion and fear in his face as they taunted him and I exploded into a rage then I made the 3 of them suffer as they had never suffered before, I was big for my age and stronger than most from hard work and constantly doing pushups, and running, I took off in a dead run hitting one in the jaw knocking him to the ground then started on the other 2, the 1^st one got up and run away while I worked on the other 2, a woman teacher was screaming something but I couldn’t hear her words, the next and only thing I knew was the vice principal was pulling me off and holding me from behind but I still couldn’t hear his words for a time, how long I don’t know. When I came to my senses and my hearing returned he told me to go to the office and wait for him there. It was the nurse’s office for the other 3. The only thing I was worried about was losing my job for lunch, it certainly wasn’t the paddling I knew was coming I was used to being beaten at home so I could take that well enough, but food I couldn’t go without, I had had enough of that from my mother hiding food from time to time but not always, maybe I did eat too much who knows.

When the vice principal arrived demanding an explanation for my behavior I told him the truth, and he gave me a good paddling then sent me on my way but not before telling me to watch out for the ones that couldn’t take care for themselves against the bullies.

For now it was back to the cafe at night and working at school for my lunch. You see when any human is not sure of the very basic necessity as food, or not having enough to eat for long periods of time it becomes the most important thing in your life, but I wanted more out of life than just food, like a shiny car and a slutty woman with big tits and red lipstick sitting next to me. Not being very gifted in school and books, or girls I figured the best place for me was the army so I could learn a skill for the future and I thought that after I did my time serving our country the doors of opportunity would open up for me. As you can tell by now I was very naive in the thought that the army was a better place to learn than school. All I wanted out of life was a skill and to be able to work as to make my own way in life doing something other than washing other peoples dishes or even cooking there food for them.

About the time I was 15 or 16 I started hearing about marijuana and it scared the shit out of me as I didn’t want to go to prison but hearing rumors of my friends doing such things made me even more positive I had to get away to the army and get away from any trouble that would surely come from such a thing as marijuana that would end me in prison. Of course I just knew there would be no drugs in the army and I would find safety/security/and 3 meals a day, not the least of all a skill I could use in life to work after my 3 years of duty. It sounded like a reasonable and logical simple plan to me, but at the time of my plan for life and joining up I was 16 and didn’t really know anything about life and nobody to advise me about what or what not to do. So I went to check out the recruiters a month before I turned 17 to get the ball rolling, after all I was in a hurry to be a man and see the world like so many other dumb ass kids growing up in my time, watching the war movies about Audie Murphy, and the great Sergeant York, Ira Hayes and John Wayne. But I would soon put such dreamy eyed thoughts out of my mind and see the harsh reality of a war that should never have been, and later understand that there were many more heroes that lived in drunken or drug induced pain and misery, as in the sad case of Ira Hayes with their only wish being that it had never happened at all, wanting only to be accepted as normal, the most unrealistic impossible dream of all. I was no hero but I would never be normal again after it was over either, with the feeling of being different from others for the rest of my life, but that’s another story.

But for now I am still washing dishes in Fort Worth and counting the days until I can go to be a man and fight for my country. Such is the thoughts of children living in poverty with lack of direction and good sense to begin with.

MY ADVENTURE BEGINS

At last my long awaited 17^th birthday had come, January 6, 1970 a bitter cold day, what we Texans call a blue northern had blown in overnight, but as far as I was concerned it was Christmas Day and my present was a free ride to the Dallas induction center and freedom from what I only thought was a tough life, I was soon to find out how wrong I was.

Right on time the recruiting sergeant arrived as my mother had requested of him, to come in late afternoon so I could have a combination birthday/going away party. And he promised her I wouldn’t go to Vietnam as I was too young and would most likely be sent to Germany instead or maybe even Korea, but it was very unlikely that I would to stay in the United States.

So I said goodbye to her as she stood on the front porch, watching her crying and I got into the car with 2 other dumb asses. Then I rolled down the window and told her, don’t worry mother I’ll be back home after I am finished with the army.

The sergeant was a very pleasant man and he would be the very last nice sergeant I would encounter for a long time, that was his job to be nice and to sucker us in with smiles, jokes and of the good times to come, but the other sergeants had their job to do as well but being nice wasn’t in their job description. There job was to toughen us up and ready us for the hardships of war.

I had never been to Dallas before and was in awe with all the tall buildings with having so many people walking around downtown, then it began slowly sinking in I was on my way with no turning back now, after all how hard could it be, I had seen it all in the movies and in my mind the worst thing that could happen was that I had to peel a bunch of potatoes.

The one thing that sticks out in my remembrance of being inducted was all the questions about communist, did I know any? And was I a communist or any of my family communist? Hell I wasn’t even sure what a communist was other than a Russian and was sure there weren’t any Russians in Fort Worth that I knew about. After they were satisfied I wasn’t one and finished poking and prodding me in places I didn’t like we were given something to eat and sent to a dormitory for a night sleep.

The next day or the day after we were all sworn in and were now officially in the army. Then the rest of the day we were given a battery of tests the multiple choice kind where you filled in a little circle, and as I didn’t understand most of the questions I just started filling in the circles at random hoping to get some right, and still more questions about communist, the only thing I could figure out about communist was that the army really didn’t like them. The next day we were put on a bus for love field and the plane ride to Seattle Washington and the then brutal basic training of Fort Lewis, named after the famous Lewis of the Lewis and, Clark expedition.

I had never even seen a plane before much less a giant jetliner I was shocked and scared shitless, as we boarded I could not imagine or believe such a huge thing could actually fly, by the time it took off it was dark and I had a window seat, as the plane made a banking turn I looked down on the night lights of Dallas knowing we was going to crash, it just seemed impossible to me.

We landed in Seattle and the real fun started which was no fun at all, and I began to realize I had fucked up, but that in mind I also knew there was nothing I could do about it now but tough it out and make the best of it, after all I asked for it and that was that. My mother taught me that when you make your bed you have to lay in it.

The drill sergeants had a field day with me because I was the youngest trainee in the battalion, making me the hand to hand combat dummy to teach the rest how to kill with only the hands, I was probably the only one that really understood how to do it. On top of that I was made the company medic which meant not only was I getting beat up all the time, I had to carry an ammo can along with everything else, in those days after morning mess call we drew our m14s and fell out in full combat gear, steel pot helmet, back pack, canteen, poncho, half a pup tent, gas mask and little shovel known in the army as a entrenching tool and never but never to be referred to as a little shovel, it was one of the very few things in basic training I thought was funny ,the whole 9 yards of shit to carry, sometimes one of the drills sergeants would add a few rocks to my medic kit for good measure.

It was also a cold son of a bitch and we wasn’t allowed to wear our long johns and we couldn’t use the 2 wool blankets issued to us, and at night when we slept using only one, with the windows in our barracks was also open. Then one day I found the strength to see me through this difficult time, one day after a long run and while we were taking a smoke break I saw a guy in tears actually crying and saying if I could only get warm for just 5 minutes I would be happy. He was about 20 or 21 years old, it was then I realized I was tougher than this guy 4 to 5 years older than me besides I had more to worry about than the cold, trying in vain not to be noticed by the drill sergeants. I couldn’t figure out if they were trying to toughen me up or make go a.w.o.l. but what they didn’t know was I had already forgotten my childish dreams of being a hero, and I would never go home in disgrace as a coward or a pussy that couldn’t take it, nothing less than an honorable discharge for me thank you kindly, you mother fuckers.

About half way through our basic training hell we were all in the barracks waxing the floor by hand I might add when one of the big mean drill sergeants, by the way which was an airborne ranger with a at least 2 tours in Vietnam with so many medals I didn’t even know what they were, these were men of a different kind that I had never before or since known anyway he yelled out my name, knowing this could not be a good thing I yelled here drill sergeant, as I stood at ridged attention he said the C.O. wants you in his office, this was something new to hear as it had never happened before to anybody, and the captain was another airborne ranger with a shit load of medals from Vietnam with his fatigues looking like cardboard, he was a scary looking man the kind of man that didn’t know how to smile of laugh as the army didn’t issue it to him and the army was all he knew and all he wanted to know other than killing the enemy and I was sure he was good at his job. The captain was a fierce looking man with piercing eyes, a face that looked like a combination of stone and leather, and looking back I am sure he hated the job of being in charge of bunch worthless trainees.

When I got to his office and stood attention as ridged as I could and praying that my salute was perfect, he saluted me back and said at ease private, then he looked at these 2 men sitting behind me and said these men are here to see you private, as I turned to see them as I hadn’t noticed them before I was only thinking about my appearance to the captain. One of them said for me to relax, my first thought was what the fuck does that mean relax ,then they started asking me some crazy questions that had nothing to do with the army, I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, after all these men were in civilian suits and we hadn’t seen any civilians anywhere but here they were asking personnel questions, sexual questions I told them I didn’t know nothing about sex other than masturbation, I was very confused, then they started asking me about communist and did I know any and all the other questions that go with the subject , I wanted to say no but if you point one out to me I will be more than happy to kill him for you, of course I didn’t and after about 20 minutes of interrogation one of them said ok solider that’s all we want.

I turned to the captain gave my salute and did a sharp about face and went back to waxing the floor and never gave it much more thought except to wonder what to fuck was that all about? And why nobody else was sent for.

Graduation day finally came and what I will never forget and surly the others won’t either, much to my surprise and to the disgust of my drill sergeant which had promised me that more hell was coming my way the day after graduation in the form of advanced infantry training, what was called across the street, instead I was ordered to report to fort Monmouth New Jersey for a special and much sought after electronics school, they were amazed and mystified at my assignment even I didn’t know why or how I got something I never wanted to begin with, but for now I didn’t give a shit I was just happy to be going home for 10 days, back to fort worth in my new uniform with the shiny buttons on it before I had to report to New Jersey for electronics school.

The short time spent back home was like a dream, at last I was able to have a coke and a hamburger even a candy bar, the little things we all take for granted until you are forbidden to have them. And I got to show off my new uniform that I was very proud of with the shiny brass buttons and cool hat. And of course telling of how hard it was. Then the subject turned to girls whom I hadn’t had any luck with in the past and the present would prove no different especially as we all given a fresh burr haircut the day before we were sent home. My short time back home was gone before I knew it, but it was sweet being able to sleep in as late as 6 or 7 in the morning.

Now it was time for a new adventure as I had to fly to New York, shit I just thought Dallas was a big city. Having never owned a car and never before traveled any farther than my bicycle could take me before joining the army, I was in for a frightful shock not to mention the language barrier, I was unaware that Yankees in New York anyway didn’t speak English at least any kind id ever heard before, and I was alone and lost to say the least. On the way I asked a stewardess if she knew where my hotel was located which I had a voucher for a nights stay before taking a bus for New Jersey, she was very nice and smelled good too, wearing a nice shade of red lipstick, anyway I shared a taxi with her and 3 other beauties I guess they knew I was a lost country bumpkin and took pity on me. It was my first taxi ride and one I would never forget. I had never stayed in a hotel before either but the one thing that sticks out in my memory of it was that the television had so many channels and even porn which of course id never seen before or even knew it existed, I thought at the time it was sick and I would surely go to hell for looking at it for even a second, I couldn’t believe my eyes and quickly changed the channel and tried to forget what I had seen. The other amazing thing about New York TV was they didn’t sign off at 10<30 a="a" able="able" accent="accent" also="also" and="and" another="another" as="as" asking="asking" asleep="asleep" ate="ate" back="back" bastards.="bastards." be="be" being="being" besides="besides" but="but" cheese="cheese" chicken="chicken" city="city" day.="day." day="day" didn="didn" dogs="dogs" dumb="dumb" eat="eat" even="even" events="events" fell="fell" following="following" food="food" for="for" fried="fried" from="from" have="have" heard="heard" heck="heck" home.="home." home="home" hot="hot" i="i" id="id" in="in" it="it" just="just" least="least" like="like" lost="lost" luck="luck" macaroni="macaroni" me="me" mexican="mexican" mind="mind" mistake="mistake" much="much" my="my" need="need" never="never" new="new" not="not" o:p="o:p" of="of" one="one" only="only" or="or" ordering="ordering" p.m.="p.m." pasta="pasta" people="people" poor="poor" problem="problem" proof="proof" quickly="quickly" rest="rest" sandwich="sandwich" say="say" saying="saying" simple="simple" so="so" something="something" spinning="spinning" steak="steak" strange="strange" street="street" strong="strong" submarine="submarine" such="such" t="t" texas="texas" the="the" they="they" thing="thing" things="things" to="to" understand="understand" understanding="understanding" uneducated="uneducated" unsettling="unsettling" up="up" venders="venders" waking="waking" was="was" were="were" what="what" world="world" would="would" yankee="yankee" york="york">

Thank god I didn’t have to stay there to long my bus was leaving in a few hours for my new army home where there was no confusion about what or when to eat.

With the few hours waiting for the bus to leave I decided to walk around to see the sights and take a few photos with my new Kodak camera, it was amazing. Somehow I ended up down on 42^nd street where all the hookers were, a couple of them tried to get me to go with them up the dim lit stares to their lair of sin, or that’s how I saw it at the time, anyway I couldn’t get the hell out of there fast enough, I didn’t like being a virgin but at the time they just scared me and I was afraid of being robbed as well.

Finally I caught the bus and was on my way to Fort Monmouth N.J... It was not what I had expected. It was there when I was checking into the post I was informed of my top secret security clearance needed just to enter Fort Monmouth, I didn’t really know what I had gotten into. I thought I was going to learn how to operate a radio when I learned the school was for 1 year and after completion given the rank of E 6 staff sergeant.

With this swimming in my head we were put on KP for 2 weeks but after that there would be no more duty of any kind other than hitting the books, we didn’t even have to make up our bunks just stuffed the bedding in the locker, and never saw an M 16, no more polishing anything. In the morning after mess we got into formation and marched to school for 8 hours a day Monday through Friday taught by civilians or whatever they were. Now I understood who the 2 men in dark suits were that came to interview me in basic training to give me a top secret clearance.

I was sitting in class all day next to high ranking sergeants and a couple of officers all of whom had reenlisted to get this elite school, most college graduates while I had to go to summer school just to get out of the 8^th grade. School was never my cup of tea and I didn’t quit school for the army just to end up in another school where I felt out of place learning about things like oscilloscopes.

A device for viewing oscillations, as of electrical voltage or current, by a display on the screen of a cathode-ray tube

And ohms, amps and understanding transistors and the color codlings for them.

This story is about some of my experiences while in

the army, suffice to say I was no hero while in Vietnam

but hero’s is not what this book is about. It is however a true story of the times which has not been written about, so with nothing better to do at age 60 and waiting to die while living a life of seclusion in Argentina, as old men do and looking back on life, I began to write about my life, not that I did anything important, and not that anybody cares, after all I am just another Vietnam veteran alone with only memories of long ago, and just one more thing, I wouldn’t have it any other way by being alone. So with no further ado I will begin my story. the time was the early 70s a time of war and the explosion of drugs in our culture, and un knowingly to me and most all others extreme prejudices in the military between soldiers, both black and white.

Also I added a short background of my childhood and of the extreme poverty from which I came if only to explain why I made some of the bad decisions that I made, but not to excuse myself of them, wrong is wrong and I don’t forgive myself for it. But life is a funny thing as you will see.

I was born in poverty and in a violent neighborhood full of uneducated people but mostly hard working and honest; also a drug free time in the summer of 1964 when at the age of 11, I had just gotten my first 40 hour a week job as a busboy cleaning tables at a place named Sutter’s B.B.Q. in my neighborhood known as Riverside in Fort Worth that paid 35 cents an hour and was glad to get it, school was out which I hated anyway as I never felt comfortable and out of place, now I had a job, and was happy. It was at this local greasy spoon joint of the day where my drunken step grandfather worked. He was an Irishman and a Yankee with red hair and face to match from years of drinking, he wasn’t a big man but he loved to fight, and was a ww2 veteran he also taught my brother and me how to fight with the boxing gloves he bought for us, he loved to watch me and my brother box, though I could never take my older brother, I still tried and he taught me that was the important thing, never to back down and just give it your best as that is really all we can do, he was right and he was teaching us more than boxing, he was in his own way teaching us about life from his point of view. Anyway he was the so called chef and he got me the job at the café he rode my ass hard but was good to me and never mistreated me. I can still see him now, laughing his ass off as big brother beat me every day boxing but I would always come back for more, I enjoyed his laughter, and think that was the reason why I kept coming back for more, he would be laughing and drinking Falstaff beer from a steel can and listening to a baseball game on the radio, before it was on TV as he barked out instructions on how to fight while sitting on the dilapidated wooden back porch of the small 2 room shack in which we lived next to the railroad tracks, that was called the bottoms, it was called the bottoms because you couldn’t get any farther down in life than living there, anyway back to the café.

It was a great place to work and it opened a whole new world to me as a kid that knew nothing about life other than the abuse of home life dished out from the various men my mother seemed to attract, it was more importantly a place in which I could feel at ease instead of the fear at times, of beatings for the slightest little thing, but enough of that.

For the first time in my life I had the money to buy new clothes instead of wearing the hand me downs of my older brother that was 4 years older that my great-grandmother had bought new for him the year before as he lived with her, even though he was older we were the same height and by the next year when it was my turn to wear them of course I had grown taller, well you get the picture, he was also fat for those days, actually he was just healthy from always having plenty of food to eat from my great-grandmothers huge garden which wasn’t my case, and the clothes wasn’t in the best condition or size being short baggy pants and short baggy shirts, making me embarrassed and ashamed to go to school, so quite naturally I hated school and everything about it except lunch, you see when living in poverty food is the most important thing in your world, which reminds me of a little story of adapting. One cold winter day with a couple of inches of snow on the ground, I was in the 3rd grade and had to go to school, but there wasn’t anything to eat for breakfast, so my mother had a boiled me an egg, she let it cool just a little before handing to me saying this is all we have to eat so keep this in your hands to keep them warm as I had no gloves, and when you get to school eat it for breakfast, as a little kid I thought great problem solved, two birds with one stone, not thinking about tomorrow kids never do, but I did have money for lunch and that was all I cared about.

Back to the café, it was the first time I had ever eaten in a café. It became my home of choice and I would work there until I joined the army except for a few summers working on my grandfathers dairy farm or my uncles tobacco farms in Kentucky along with hauling hay, anyway it was a hotspot in the area that had the old carhop option of just pulling up and place your order to be brought to your car by the carhop along with beer, and there were speakers outside that played country music from the juke box inside, with all the lights shining on the cars it was a sight to see and hear by a kid that hadn’t seen such things before, and I was lucky enough to have been there to see the muscle cars of the late 60s and they were remarkable, plus with any luck there would be a good fight or two on Saturday night.

Inside there were the slutty waitresses also a sight to see with their red lipstick and cheep perfume in those little uniforms, I might have been a little kid but I sure did like it; it was a good thing I wore an apron so my enthusiasm was hidden. It was great and I loved it; it was the kind of place that had the little mini juke boxes at each table that played 3 songs for a quarter, maybe 5 I don’t remember, and steel cans of beer was served with a small glass. Across the street was the biggest dancing hall around, country of course hell after all it was Texas, but more important it was Fort Worth which should have been the capital of Texas, anyway it closed at 9 p.m. and at the time it was against the law to dance after 9 o’clock, it was ok to get drunk and fight as it was a god given right for any Texan on Saturday night you just couldn’t dance, and back then nobody called the police and nobody went to jail as nobody pressed charges, no real Texan would do such a thing, what they would do was after it was over they would shake hands and go back to drinking, I think it was a better time in our country, don’t you ?

Anyway when it closed they would walk across the street to resume drinking, play music and eat, just no dancing, as I went about my job of clearing the tables of dirty dishes, there would seem to always be a nasty cigarette but stuck in what was left of the mashed potatoes which was left on the plate seemingly for just that purpose, that I couldn’t understand as on every table was placed a clean ash tray, not to mention the fact that anybody would not eat everything on their plate especially since they had paid good money for it, but there was much I didn’t understand as a kid. And there would always be old drunk women, probably all of 30 to 40 years of age but old to me anyway that would call me over to their table to ask me to get them another beer, and I would have to tell them I’m sorry mam I’m not old enough, then she would say how old are you honey? When I replied my age I was usually given some change, anyway as she would take me by the hand most likely out of guilt for not being at home with her own kids, by this time I was getting enthused again but I couldn’t help it, there was just something about the smell of a drunken woman smelling of perfume, shit I lost my train of thought again.

Back In the kitchen Motown music on 45s was playing on the little record players owned by the black cooks that became my close friends, and they were the first black people I had ever talked to, at first I didn’t know what to think of them, and looking back I’m sure they were aware of the fact and quickly put me at ease, they were two brothers both tall and slim as most people of the day were slim, and about the time I was 12 they started explaining the facts of life and about girls of which I knew nothing, being shy and insecure by nature and low on self confidence, being poor plus living literally on the other side of the tracts and the embarrassing job I had at school. I hated everything about school as it wasn’t until I got a job at the café that I could afford to shed the rags handed down to me, I still felt inferior to the other kids plus the fact my mother arranged for me a job in the cafeteria to pay for my lunch. My job was to stand in the window where all the kids in school when finished eating would pass me there trays where I would remove the food from the plates and stack them, to be washed later by a nice old black woman that worked in the kitchen and then stack the trays, I still remember how nice all the old women were to me and after I finished my work and the amount food they would pile up on my plate, I guess in a way they felt sorry for me and took pity. But by now at least I had better clothes, but still no money as I had to give what I earned at the café to my mother except for clothes which was ok with me as long as I had clothes and plenty of food all was good. Then one day some rich kids, or what I thought was rich, came through the line to hand over there trays and started laughing at me for what I was doing like they were so much better, I wanted to kick there ass right then and there, but I knew if I did I would lose my job and go without anything to eat until I got to the café later after school where I never had to pay, but that was hours away and I was hungry now, so I let it go. After my work was done for the day an old black woman sat me down with an extra large plate of food, and told me not to worry about those spoiled rich kids someday you’ll show them all and they don’t know what hard living is like we do, yes mam I know, then she told me to finish my food so you might have time to go play. After I couldn’t eat another bite I went out to the play ground when there I saw the same 3 little rich bastards fucking with this poor retarded kid as they were referred to at the time, I could see the confusion and fear in his eyes as he looked at me for help, as they taunted him and I exploded into a rage and made the 3 of them suffer. I was big for my age and stronger than most from hard work and constantly doing pushups, and running, I took off in a dead run hitting one in the jaw knocking him to the ground then started on the other 2, the 1st one got up and run away while I worked on the other 2, a woman teacher was screaming something but I couldn’t hear her words, the next and only thing I knew was the vice principal was pulling me off and holding me from behind but I still couldn’t hear his words for a time, how long I don’t know. When I came to my senses and my hearing returned he told me to go to the office and wait for him there. It was the nurse’s office for the other 3. The only thing I was worried about was losing my job for lunch, it certainly wasn’t the paddling I knew was coming I was used to being beaten at home so I could take that well enough, but food I couldn’t go without.

When the vice principal arrived demanding an explanation for my behavior I told him the truth, and he gave me a good paddling then sent me on my way but not before telling me to watch out for the ones that couldn’t take care for themselves against the bullies. More or less giving me the nod, or the ok to kick ass on the bullies, it was a great release for me, and I liked it, why wouldn’t I? It was fun and I didn’t have anything better to do, I sure as hell wasn’t wasting my time on books.

For now it was back to the cafe at night and working at school for my lunch. You see when any human is not sure of the very basic necessity as food, or not having enough to eat for long periods of time it becomes the most important thing in your life, but I wanted more out of life than just food, like a shiny car and a slutty woman with big tits and red lipstick sitting next to me. Not being very gifted in school and books, or girls I figured the best place for me was the army so I could learn a skill for the future and I thought that after I did my time serving our country, the doors of opportunity would open up for me. As you can tell by now I was very naive in the thought that the army was a better place to learn than school. All I wanted out of life was a skill and to be able to work as to make my own way in life doing something other than washing other peoples dishes or even cooking for them.

About the time I was 15 or 16 I started hearing about marijuana and it scared the shit out of me as I didn’t want to go to prison but hearing rumors of my friends doing such things made me even more positive I had to get away to the army and get away from any trouble that would surely come from such a thing as marijuana that would end me in prison. Of course I just knew there would be no drugs in the army and I would find safety/security/and 3 meals a day, not the least of all a skill I could use in life to work after my 3 years of duty. It sounded like a reasonable and logical simple plan to me, but at the time of my plan for life and joining up I was 16 and didn’t really know anything about life and nobody to advise me about what or what not to do. So I went to check out the recruiters a month before I turned 17 to get the ball rolling, after all I was in a hurry to be a man and see the world like so many other dumb ass kids growing up in my time, watching the war movies about Audie Murphy, and the great Sergeant York, Ira Hayes and John Wayne. But I would soon put such dreamy eyed thoughts out of my mind and see the harsh reality of a war that should never have been, and later understand that there were many more heroes that lived in drunken or drug induced pain and misery, as in the sad case of Ira Hayes with their only wish being that it had never happened at all, wanting only to be accepted as normal, the most unrealistic impossible dream of all. I was no hero but I would never be normal again after it was over either, with the feeling of being different from others for the rest of my life, but that’s another story.

But for now I am still washing dishes in Fort Worth and counting the days until I can go to be a man and fight for my country. Such is the thoughts of children living in poverty with lack of direction and good sense to begin with.

MY ADVENTURE BEGINS

At last my long awaited 17th birthday had come, January 6, 1970 a bitter cold day, what we Texans call a blue northern had blown in overnight, but as far as I was concerned it was Christmas Day and my present was a free ride to the Dallas induction center and freedom from what I only thought was a tough life, I was soon to find out how wrong I was.

Right on time the recruiting sergeant arrived as my mother had requested of him, to come in late afternoon so I could have a combination birthday/going away party. And he promised her I wouldn’t go to Vietnam as I was too young and would most likely be sent to Germany instead or maybe even Korea, but it was very unlikely that I would to stay in the United States.

So I said goodbye to her as she stood on the front porch, watching her crying and I got into the car with 2 other dumb asses. Then I rolled down the window and told her, don’t worry mother I’ll be back home after I am finished with the army.

The sergeant was a very pleasant man and he would be the very last nice sergeant I would encounter for a long time, that was his job to be nice and to sucker us in with smiles, jokes and of the good times to come, but the other sergeants had their job to do as well but being nice wasn’t in their job description. There job was to toughen us up and ready us for the hardships of war.

I had never been to Dallas before and was in awe with all the tall buildings with having so many people walking around downtown, then it began slowly sinking in I was on my way with no turning back now, after all how hard could it be, I had seen it all in the movies and in my mind the worst thing that could happen was that I had to peel a bunch of potatoes.

The one thing that sticks out in my remembrance of being inducted was all the questions about communist, did I know any? And was I a communist or any of my family communist? Hell I wasn’t even sure what a communist was other than a Russian and was sure there weren’t any Russians in Fort Worth that I knew about. After they were satisfied I wasn’t one and finished poking and prodding me in places I didn’t like we were given something to eat and sent to a dormitory for a night sleep.

The next day or the day after we were all sworn in and were now officially in the army. Then the rest of the day we were given a battery of tests the multiple choice kind where you filled in a little circle, and as I didn’t understand most of the questions I just started filling in the circles at random hoping to get some right, and still more questions about communist, the only thing I could figure out about communist was that the army really didn’t like them. The next day we were put on a bus for love field and the plane ride to Seattle Washington and the then brutal basic training of Fort Lewis, named after the famous Lewis of the Lewis and, Clark expedition.

I had never even seen a plane before much less a giant jetliner I was shocked and scared shitless, as we boarded I could not imagine or believe such a huge thing could actually fly, by the time it took off it was dark and I had a window seat, as the plane made a banking turn I looked down on the night lights of Dallas knowing we was going to crash, it just seemed impossible to me.

We landed in Seattle and the real fun started which was no fun at all, and I began to realize I had fucked up, but that in mind I also knew there was nothing I could do about it now but tough it out and make the best of it, after all I asked for it and that was that. My mother taught me that when you make your bed you have to lay in it.

The drill sergeants had a field day with me because I was the youngest trainee in the battalion, making me the hand to hand combat dummy to teach the rest how to kill with only the hands, I was probably the only one that really understood how to do it. On top of that I was made the company medic which meant not only was I getting beat up all the time, I had to carry an ammo can along with everything else, in those days after morning mess call we drew our m14s and fell out in full combat gear, steel pot helmet, back pack, canteen, poncho, half a pup tent, gas mask and little shovel known in the army as a entrenching tool and never but never to be referred to as a little shovel, it was one of the very few things in basic training I thought was funny ,the whole 9 yards of shit to carry, sometimes one of the drills sergeants would add a few rocks to my medic kit for good measure.

It was also a cold son of a bitch and we wasn’t allowed to wear our long johns and we couldn’t use the 2 wool blankets issued to us, and at night when we slept using only one, with the windows in our barracks was also open. Then one day I found the strength to see me through this difficult time, one day after a long run and while we were taking a smoke break I saw a guy in tears actually crying and saying if I could only get warm for just 5 minutes I would be happy. He was about 20 or 21 years old, it was then I realized I was tougher than this guy 4 to 5 years older than me besides I had more to worry about than the cold, trying in vain not to be noticed by the drill sergeants. I couldn’t figure out if they were trying to toughen me up or make go a.w.o.l. but what they didn’t know was I had already forgotten my childish dreams of being a hero, and I would never go home in disgrace as a coward or a pussy that couldn’t take it, nothing less than an honorable discharge for me thank you kindly, you mother fuckers.

About half way through our basic training hell we were all in the barracks waxing the floor by hand I might add when one of the big mean drill sergeants, by the way which was an airborne ranger with a at least 2 tours in Vietnam with so many medals I didn’t even know what they were, these were men of a different kind that I had never before or since known anyway he yelled out my name, knowing this could not be a good thing I yelled here drill sergeant, as I stood at ridged attention he said the C.O. wants you in his office, this was something new to hear as it had never happened before to anybody, and the captain was another airborne ranger with a shit load of medals from Vietnam with his fatigues looking like cardboard, he was a scary looking man the kind of man that didn’t know how to smile of laugh as the army didn’t issue it to him and the army was all he knew and all he wanted to know other than killing the enemy and I was sure he was good at his job. The captain was a fierce looking man with piercing eyes, a face that looked like a combination of stone and leather, and looking back I am sure he hated the job of being in charge of bunch worthless trainees.

When I got to his office and stood attention as ridged as I could and praying that my salute was perfect, he saluted me back and said at ease private, then he looked at these 2 men sitting behind me and said these men are here to see you private, as I turned to see them as I hadn’t noticed them before I was only thinking about my appearance to the captain. One of them said for me to relax, my first thought was what the fuck does that mean relax ,then they started asking me some crazy questions that had nothing to do with the army, I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, after all these men were in civilian suits and we hadn’t seen any civilians anywhere but here they were asking personnel questions, sexual questions I told them I didn’t know nothing about sex other than masturbation, I was very confused, then they started asking me about communist and did I know any and all the other questions that go with the subject , I wanted to say no but if you point one out to me I will be more than happy to kill him for you, of course I didn’t and after about 20 minutes of interrogation one of them said ok solider that’s all we want.

I turned to the captain gave my salute and did a sharp about face and went back to waxing the floor and never gave it much more thought except to wonder what to fuck was that all about? And why nobody else was sent for.

Graduation day finally came and what I will never forget and surly the others won’t either, much to my surprise and to the disgust of my drill sergeant which had promised me that more hell was coming my way the day after graduation in the form of advanced infantry training, what was called across the street, instead I was ordered to report to fort Monmouth New Jersey for a special and much sought after electronics school, they were amazed and mystified at my assignment even I didn’t know why or how I got something I never wanted to begin with, but for now I didn’t give a shit I was just happy to be going home for 10 days, back to fort worth in my new uniform with the shiny buttons on it before I had to report to New Jersey for electronics school.

The short time spent back home was like a dream, at last I was able to have a coke and a hamburger even a candy bar, the little things we all take for granted until you are forbidden to have them. And I got to show off my new uniform that I was very proud of with the shiny brass buttons and cool hat. And of course telling of how hard it was. Then the subject turned to girls whom I hadn’t had any luck with in the past and the present would prove no different especially as we all given a fresh burr haircut the day before we were sent home. My short time back home was gone before I knew it, but it was sweet being able to sleep in as late as 6 or 7 in the morning.

Now it was time for a new adventure as I had to fly to New York, shit I just thought Dallas was a big city. Having never owned a car and never before traveled any farther than my bicycle could take me before joining the army, I was in for a frightful shock not to mention the language barrier, I was unaware that Yankees in New York anyway didn’t speak English at least any kind id ever heard before, and I was alone and lost to say the least. On the way I asked a stewardess if she knew where my hotel was located which I had a voucher for a nights stay before taking a bus for New Jersey, she was very nice and smelled good too, wearing a nice shade of red lipstick, anyway I shared a taxi with her and 3 other beauties I guess they knew I was a lost country bumpkin and took pity on me. It was my first taxi ride and one I would never forget. I had never stayed in a hotel before either but the one thing that sticks out in my memory of it was that the television had so many channels and even porn which of course id never seen before or even knew it existed, I thought at the time it was sick and I would surely go to hell for looking at it for even a second, I couldn’t believe my eyes and quickly changed the channel and tried to forget what I had seen. The other amazing thing about New York TV was they didn’t sign off at 10<30 a="a" able="able" accent="accent" also="also" and="and" another="another" as="as" asking="asking" asleep="asleep" ate="ate" back="back" bastards.="bastards." be="be" being="being" besides="besides" but="but" cheese="cheese" chicken="chicken" city="city" day.="day." day="day" didn="didn" dogs="dogs" dumb="dumb" eat="eat" even="even" events="events" fell="fell" following="following" food="food" for="for" fried="fried" from="from" have="have" heard="heard" heck="heck" home.="home." home="home" hot="hot" i="i" id="id" in="in" it="it" just="just" least="least" like="like" lost="lost" luck="luck" macaroni="macaroni" me="me" mexican="mexican" mind="mind" mistake="mistake" much="much" my="my" need="need" never="never" new="new" not="not" of="of" one="one" only="only" or="or" ordering="ordering" p.m.="p.m." pasta="pasta" people="people" poor="poor" problem="problem" proof="proof" quickly="quickly" rest="rest" sandwich="sandwich" say="say" saying="saying" simple="simple" so="so" something="something" spinning="spinning" steak="steak" strange="strange" street="street" strong="strong" submarine="submarine" such="such" t="t" texas="texas" the="the" they="they" thing="thing" things="things" to="to" understand="understand" understanding="understanding" uneducated="uneducated" unsettling="unsettling" up="up" venders="venders" waking="waking" was="was" were="were" what="what" world="world" would="would" yankee="yankee" york="york">
Thank god I didn’t have to stay there to long my bus was leaving in a few hours for my new army home where there was no confusion about what or when to eat.

With the few hours waiting for the bus to leave I decided to walk around to see the sights and take a few photos with my new Kodak camera, it was amazing. Somehow I ended up down on 42nd street where all the hookers were, a couple of them tried to get me to go with them up the dim lit stares to their lair of sin, or that’s how I saw it at the time, anyway I couldn’t get the hell out of there fast enough, I didn’t like being a virgin but at the time they just scared me and I was afraid of being robbed as well.

Finally I caught the bus and was on my way to Fort Monmouth N.J... It was not what I had expected. It was there when I was checking into the post I was informed of my top secret security clearance needed just to enter Fort Monmouth, I didn’t really know what I had gotten into. I thought I was going to learn how to operate a radio when I learned the school was for 1 year and after completion given the rank of E 6 staff sergeant.

With this swimming in my head we were put on KP for 2 weeks but after that there would be no more duty of any kind other than hitting the books, we didn’t even have to make up our bunks just stuffed the bedding in the locker, and never saw an M 16, no more polishing anything. In the morning after mess we got into formation and marched to school for 8 hours a day Monday through Friday taught by civilians or whatever they were. Now I understood who the 2 men in dark suits were that came to interview me in basic training to give me a top secret clearance.

I was sitting in class all day next to high ranking sergeants and a couple of officers all of whom had reenlisted to get this elite school, most college graduates while I had to go to summer school just to get out of the 8th grade. School was never my cup of tea and I didn’t quit school for the army just to end up in another school where I felt out of place learning about things like oscilloscopes.

A device for viewing oscillations, as of electrical voltage or current, by a display on the screen of a cathode-ray tube

And ohms, amps and understanding transistors and the color codlings for them.

It didn’t take me long to fall behind and when I failed a test my teacher said he was going to give me another chance and let me take the test again, but I knew it was useless as I could never graduate and might as well get it over with now. Then he told me what would happen if I flunk out, id be given a combat school and not a good one, when I told him that was what I wanted anyway he just looked at me like the dumb ass I was and said ok.

It would be about 35 years later before I would know why I was sent there to begin with it wasn’t a mistake as id thought instead it was a favor I didn’t know about yet from a distant relative I never even knew I had in the C.I.A.

But for now I was in over my head and knew it without the educational background needed for this school.

The next day I was back on K.P. waiting for my new orders for whatever combat training I would be assigned and the sooner the better as far as I was concerned, K.P. really sucked. In the meantime I was hearing what would happen to me because I was in the signal core I’d probably be in the infantry with a radio strapped to my back while humping the bush with the antenna sticking up in the air that would make me a likely target as to take out the radio man, but I was still 17 and would most likely would be sent to Germany anyway.

My orders finally came for Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. For combat engineer school which was basically infantry school but with a shovel and demolition training, with building bridges as well as blowing them up. These drill sergeants were different than the ones in basic training with only a couple being air borne and none rangers so it wasn’t too bad as the army goes.

After 2 months our training was over and we got our orders to go overseas, the few that were 17 were sent to Germany and the rest to Vietnam.

Now I was sent home again because I wouldn’t be back until my discharge over 2 years later, that’s what I told mother and great grandmother so they wouldn’t worry, but I had something else in mind, Vietnam. But that would have to wait until I was 18 it was the law, besides if I was to make a career in the army going there was the best way to gain rank and a higher pay grade which I needed to send money back home to my mother that was still in poverty. She was happy thinking I was going to Germany to stay and not to the war that was still going strong after the failed 1968 Tet offensive. Another 20,000 plus would be killed after 1968. A little unknown fact not talked about by people thinking it was over after 1968.

GERMANY CHAPTER 2

I didn’t know what to expect about Germany only the usual rumors that all soldiers hear, and that was that the hardest army time was over and no more drill sergeants to have to deal with and that to me was just fine, thank you. But that was all I knew about it for now. We landed in Frankfurt Airport early in the day and my learning began right away in the airport, as soldiers will do I had budded up with another newbie as we were called on the flight over, anyway as we were stumbling around the air port I noticed some strange machines and ask him what are these fucking things, he replied I think some kind of slot machine, you know something to put your money in and got nothing in return, he said gambling was legal here and so is the whores , no shit I thought to myself I only had 1 thing I wanted to loose and it sure as hell wasn’t money it was my virginity which of course a fact I kept to myself.

There would be time for that latter but for now we had to get to our final destination which for me was Bamberg, and a long bus ride but a civilian bus the kind id never seen before, a Mercedes bus, also something I’d never heard of before I had never heard of a Mercedes car because there weren’t any in fort worth, but it was great seeing the beautiful countryside and snow capped mountains. On the way I began wondering about what I was going to do once I got there, and that was to do my best and make my way up to sergeant which meant more money and less work, such as K.P. and guard duty plus a private room or maybe with one other sergeant. Well that was the plan anyway.

By the time the bus made the 12 or so hour trip to Bamberg and to my company I had come down with a bad case of tonsillitis and was taken to the hospital with a slight fever, the doc gave me a shot and sent me back to my company with orders for 5 days of bed rest.

It was a 5 or 6 man room instead of the open bays I had experienced before, even sick I liked it. The other guys didn’t have much to say to a sick newbie and I didn’t feel like talking either, I just laid in my bunk and listened to learn whatever I could to help me know what was the day to day tasks consisted of.

The 1st day of my bed rest was the 1st time I met the man that I would never forget even to this day I hold him in fond remembrance and with the utmost respect that man’s name was, Sergeant Harris, staff sergeant Harris to be exact as he deserves so. It was our first encounter but it would not be the last as we would meet again in another time and another place as soldiers do with any luck.

I must take great care when speaking of this most honorable man and the soldier he was. He deserves nothing less.

While the other guys was off doing their assignments of the day he came into our room and when I started to get up to stand at attention he said at ease soldier don’t stand up just sit up, he was a tall black man and looked like the perfect soldier with heavily starched fatigues and a patch on his arm from Vietnam and his spit shined polished boots that few soldiers did as it was not required and took a couple of hours to get it just right, and he wore them everyday rain or shine, which meant he had to own more than 2 or 3 pair.

He began to explain basically what my duties would be which wouldn’t be like what I had done before in training and things here are pretty lax, he said if I wanted to get ahead and get promoted all I had to do was my job whatever it might be without complaining and bitching about it, you’ll have to do it anyway so why not make the best of it, which made sense to me. And keep everything ship shape like my uniform, foot locker and wall locker, and don’t make me tell you when you need a haircut, he then added I don’t want you to kiss ass as it will do you more harm than good with me. With that he added some of these jokers don’t want to do any of these things which makes problems for me and doesn’t do them any good either. He then said to stay away from the shit, I didn’t know what he was talking about, when I asked what shit was he talking about he scratched his head and said hash, then I told him I didn’t even know what it was. He then explained it was a drug that is smoked and if you get caught with any of it you’ll be court marshaled and loose whatever stripes you have, just stay away from it and the people that do it. After that I told him I hadn’t ever did anything like that and never would, with that he said ok keep it that way and lay back down get some rest then left the room.

As I laid there thinking about what he said it sounded good to me as I was determined to be the best at everything, but not to ever be accused of being a suck ass by the same token, there was one in every platoon and he had no respect, honor, or friends, and these are the things I had to have.

The next day as the other guys I shared the room with was coming back from the end of the day they came in laughing and joking about something, I noticed 3 were gathered together in a circle in the corner then they got quiet, 2 of which I didn’t know. Then I saw a pipe and was scared they might be fucking around with some sort of drug and my heart began racing with fear when I asked them what are you doing, Sparks one of the men I shared the room with, replied making a bowl man, when I asked do you mean dope? They started laughing and said what the fuck else do you think it is newbie? and went back to what they was doing, I didn’t want to get in trouble and had no other choice but to stand up and say not in my room you aint you aint getting me busted, again they all started laughing but now at me, once again I told them no way not here when Sparks said this is my room to and I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, with that I said anything but dope. Then he said what are you going to do about it go tell the C.O., hell no I aint no snitch but you guys aint going to have much fun smoking that shit and beating the shit out of me at the same time because that’s what you’re going to have to do, with that they looked at each other and just laughed, then one of them said this mother fuckers crazy and another said come on lets go to my room fuck him.

I wasn’t at all happy with what had happened and I wanted all the friends I could get but I just didn’t see any other way to handle the situation at the time. Hell I was new and didn’t want to be an outcast but at the same time remembering the words of Sergeant Harris, this was not good or what I wanted, what else could I do as a soldier trying to do right and get ahead ?

After they all left a guy sitting on his bunk across the room was looking at me in disbelief and a grin on his face then said you don’t know who you were talking to do you, hell I don’t know anybody around here why who the fuck is he ? That’s sparks man, a bad mother fucker, well I didn’t think I could take him just by looking at him but I’ve had the shit beat out of me before and was willing to have the same happen to me again to stay out of trouble.

No man you don’t understand on top of him kicking your ass if he wanted the dude is a big fucking war hero with a silver star and bronze star with the oak leaf cluster not to mention 2 purple hearts, fuck man he was shot 4 times in the back and still killed a bunch of mother fuckers that’s who Sparks is man. Well fuck me running shit I fucked up, he said don’t worry about it man I think he likes you if he didn’t he would have hurt you.

I later got to know this crazy fucker and he showed me photos from Vietnam the first id ever seen other than on TV, then he told me he wouldn’t do any dope around me anymore so take it easy kid, I was thankful and told him so. Then I asked him did you really get shot 4 times in the back, then he told me how he got the Silver Star, first off he said I was stoned out of my mind man on that dink weed, what is weed I asked he just looked at me and said where the fuck are you from man, Texas I said, he replied marijuana man, o well I don’t know nothing about that. He shook his and began telling the story about one night when he and his friends was sitting around all fucked up and all of a sudden we was under attack from charley so I snatched up my weapon and returned fire, it was real bad he said and they had lost some men and many more wounded when the dust off came to get the wounded he was carrying one of his buddies to the chopper when he took the first shot in the back, he said it didn’t really hurt much at all so he kept doing the same thing getting his buddies on the bird, how many he didn’t say but when he got as many as it could hold they grabbed him in and took off.

He never said how he got the bronze star and I didn’t ask. I was glad to know him and to also know there wouldn’t be any tension between us, we spoke but I still gave him a wide berth, later he would play an important role in my life. But for now everybody knew better than to smoke any hash around me because it would be a fight, not that I was tough or anything hell I was just 17 and weighed 137 pounds when I enlisted and not much more than that 6 months later, but for them dope smokers it just wasn’t worth the hassle to fuck with me win or lose, I was determined to stay straight, which at the time meant free of drugs. My only thoughts were of soldiering with more money and more stripes.

For now I was settling into a routine which I liked as it was without surprises. Mostly staying in my room at night spit polishing my boots or polishing brass buckles or something else, an art one of my other roommates a Puerto Rican by the name of Ortega taught me among other things such as how to polish a floor to a mirror like glaze, and teaching me other things like how many beads in the dog tag chain we all wore around our neck, or how many eyelets in a pair of combat boots or dress shoes, believe it or not these things mattered as I would find out. And if you are wondering why would we sit around at night thinking about such things and reading technical manuals on weapons of all kinds to study the maximum effective range and killing range along with speed per second for each weapon, for one we was in the army, 2 we didn’t drink, 3 no drugs, 4 nothing else to do as we didn’t have enough money to go buy a poke even if we knew where to buy it, so that is why dam it. Hahahaahah dam civilians don’t understand anything. Just joking?

Come to find out Ortega hadn’t had to pull any guard duty in over a year or more, no one could remember when he ever did because he was so perfect for inspection in every way including his M 14 that he taught me how to polish the bore with basso for a high shine

At the time the duty rosters were posted daily in the hall so the men in the company would know and prepare for either K.P. or guard duty, with advance warning one could begin preparing his uniform and gear for inspection of the guard and the 1 that was the slickest didn’t have to pull any guard duty and was sent back to the barracks to be on standby in case of an emergency but of course there never was, and he didn’t have to freeze his balls off for 8 hours standing out in the cold. This was another no brainer for me, for 1 I wasn’t thrilled about 8 hours of a cold night spent standing by some fucking gate that nobody used and still had to make early formation and work the rest of the day too.

Ortega was my roommate and friend, and since we didn’t spend our money on beer at the army club we spent most of the time in the barracks at night after our work day was over, there we had 2 options, the day room/game room/ or in our room. And I liked being a sharper soldier than I had to, and in our spare time he taught me the art of being stract, which meant looking like a professional soldier with heavily starched fatigues and spit shined boots, and everything that went along with it.

My name was less a threat than Ortega’s on the guard duty list and the others weren’t very happy because they knew it meant more preparation for the inspection if they wanted to get out of it, but most didn’t even try as it was impossible to beat Ortega so in their mind what was the point of working like hell when they couldn’t beat him anyway.

Then the unexpected happened, I guess the first sergeant was having a little joke for himself or maybe just to see what would happen so he put both Ortega and me on the same guard duty roster for the next day.

After lunch mess we were given the rest of the day off to prepare for inspection of our uniforms and M 14, plus time for a haircut if needed or not just to be on the safe side as a new haircut shows the officer of the guard your intent of trying, which counts.

I was already mostly ready with new fatigues never worn in my locker with heavy starch from the cleaners, which by the way was costly but I didn’t care. Ortega was just as ready and for the rest of the time we spent polishing the M14 especially the bore. Already knowing our general orders and serial number of our weapons and other things we studied at night such as the trick questions like how many trucks were on the post, there were many vehicles but only 3 trucks, a truck being the ball on top of a flag pole among other things.

When it came time to go we walked there together knowing one of us was going to lose. Ortega said hey Tex, as I was called being from Texas, I bet you 20 dollars that I win; you know I don’t gamble with my money I replied jokingly.

When the officer of the guard showed up we all stood at attention and gave our salute, also graded. Then he inspected our weapon and its bore. He quickly eliminated the other 8 and focused on us.

He went over us with a fine tooth comb trying to find some little something out of place anything so he could eliminate one or the other, there was nothing to find, with that he ordered me to present arm, he then took my M 14 and asked the serial number, answering him quickly he then began to ask other questions about the maximum effective killing range, feet per second and anything else he could think of but to no avail, I knew it all by heart. Then he turned to Ortega and started asking other off the wall shit such as the daily events and his entire general orders, again he failed to ask either of us anything we couldn’t answer. Time was beginning to run short for our guard duty to start, he was out of questions, and then he said at ease and motioned us off to the side and said I don’t know what else to do, we could be here all night men, he was a little embarrassed at the fact we knew more than him an officer, then he scratched his head and ask us if it would be alright if we just flip a coin? We looked at each other in disbelief and pride as we had beaten an officer and said sure, and with the flip of a coin I froze my balls off that night. I could hear Ortega laughing his little Puerto Rican ass off all the way back to the warm barracks. Hahaha shit.

That was my life, the army. Staying away from the E.M. club at night, not drinking and staying in my room reading army manuals and learning everything I could to advance in rank and to be a professional soldier as was Sergeant Harris who I looked up to with the upmost respect, I didn’t care if he was a black man.

He was not the norm as far as career sergeants went; most were called lifers, which meant just doing his time for retirement. But not sergeant Harris, he was a professional and I wanted to be the same.

Ortega also taught me to put a shine on a floor you wouldn’t believe, just like glass, and we had a big I.G. inspection coming up.

Everybody was coming to look at our floor, but nobody knew how to do it just Ortega and myself, when asked how it was done we just smiled and said wash and wax; of course it was a long process we keep secret. Anyway the C.O. heard about it and came to see for himself, when he saw it he said that is the best looking floor id ever seen damm, with that he told me to report to his office in 2 hours.

As ordered I reported standing at rigid attention as usual with a salute, after he returned my salute he said at ease and sit down, I sent for you because as you know the Inspecting General is making his annual tour of inspections and I would like him to see my office floor looking like yours. I thought for a second and didn’t know what to reply; after all I couldn’t tell him to do it himself as we told everybody else, he was the captain, as he tried to make me relaxed at this point as he had a touchy situation to talk to me about.

Being he wanted me to do his floor but couldn’t order me to do it, with that he came out and asked me if I would, this put me in an uncomfortable spot and I told him so, that if I did I would be a suck ass to the men and myself as well, but I added that if he gave me a promotion for doing it then I would have the respect of the others and of myself, otherwise I would be just another suck ass in the company that had far to many as is and I can’t do that sir, he thought for a second trying to find a way to tell me he would promote me, but he couldn’t tell me in so many words, without a guarantee of being promoted I said sorry sir but I just can’t do it, I have to have the respect of the others and that of my friends, he said I understand and didn’t seem upset, he then said you are dismissed private, and I gave him a sharp salute then returned to my room. When the others asked what he wanted me for I told them what he wanted me to do, most agreed with me but I had one older friend that told me he would have gave you another stripe but he couldn’t just come out and say it you idiot, yea I know that and everybody would still be calling me a suck ass / fuck that, he agreed.

The buildings we lived in were large about 150 ft. long and 4 stories high not counting the attic, and had to be kept clean at all times of course as only the army knows how to clean. On each floor was a large hallway and each part of the hall in the area of each room of the men was their responsibility to keep clean, which meant mostly sweeping every morning after morning mess call and before morning formation.

There was an old saying that if the men aren’t complaining something was wrong, and in 1970 half was draftees who did more than their share of bitching about everything, I never saw the point of it, we still had to do whatever it was so why not just do it and get it over with. Anyway I ended up sweeping the hall most mornings unless someone else volunteered, this didn’t go unnoticed by Sergeant Harris and he told me I was up for promotion next month and that the C.O. had agreed even if I didn’t wax his floor. He said nobody likes a suck ass anyway Tex and that is what really cinched the promotion for you, you got his respect, a lesson I wouldn’t forget.

Next month I was promoted to E 4 and no longer was a private, 1 more promotion to sergeant now was on my mind.

I later was moved to a different room and away from Sparks whom I had no problem with and I liked him as well as respected of course, and he even respected me for not being a snitch and standing up to him. But what I didn’t know but kind of expected he was a hash dealer, later I found out just how big he was. Sometimes when he and some of his pals would come in I knew they were up to no good by the way they looked at me, but Sparks said I was ok don’t worry about it. So I made myself scarce by going to the day room to play pool or a game of ping pong.

The day room is where I met the best friend I had in Germany, a Pollock ill just call KJ. He had one of those long names the drill sergeants couldn’t pronounce and gruffly yelled out alphabet.

He was an entrepreneur and later my mentor in something I’d never dreamed of in my life.

As for now I was trying harder than ever to solider and after I was moved to another room I had the company clerk wake me up 1 hour before the others to give me time it go run track and do my pull ups and pushups, I trained for boxing before the army as that was what I wanted to do, be a boxer. But I found out early on I wasn’t cut out for it and didn’t much like the nickname of canvasback, but I still liked to train as if I were a boxer.

Things were going pretty good for me at the time, and my mother wrote me to say she had gotten a good job now and I didn’t need to send her anymore money, so I started saving it and putting it in the company safe. It would come in handy later on.

When I got to Germany I found out that there were soldiers loaning money to other soldiers at 25 percent interest, then within a couple of months or so it jumped to 50 percent, I thought this was insane and couldn’t understand how someone would be so stupid, but that was there business and it didn’t concern me, I guessed they needed it for beer and drugs which again didn’t concern me as I rarely drank and sure as hell wouldn’t smoke any of that shit as sergeant Harris called it.

By now I was hanging out more and more in the company day room; it had a pool table, ping pong table and something I’d never seen before, a foosball table. And I became friends with KJ. The guy in charge of it, that’s all he had to do in the company, was take care of the company day room. He was duty exempt, no guard duty, no k.p. nothing not even formation and no inspections of his room which was in the attic. There was only 2 rooms up in the attic which was huge but empty except for the 2 duty exempt rooms, his and the company clerks room that he shared with the company mail man.

They had to work in the office and make formation but still no room inspections as they lived in the attic but KJ. Didn’t even have to get up in the morning or wear fatigues, he only wore them once a month for pay day which was held in the day room. In those days we were paid in cash.

As far as I could tell he had the sweetest deal going in the company, and all he had to do was unlock the door to the day room at 5 p.m. then lock it back at 10 p.m. he didn’t even have to stay there, but he usually did because he had a little ice box and made sandwiches on the side for a little extra money.

I also became friends with his friends, all of whom smoked hash but I didn’t know it, they kept this fact from me, not for fear of me snitching them off but because they knew I wouldn’t talk to them anymore not that was a big deal, but we were friends and we all lived together and all got along great so why rock the boat, plus the fact it was a joke on me and they was all laughing at me behind my back at being such a country bumpkin, and they knew I would fight at the drop of a hat if they smoked it in front of me, so It just wasn’t worth the bother, they was happy and I was ignorant of what was going on, but would learn later.

Then I met an Indian from an Oklahoma reservation, a full blooded Indian by the name of Cornsilk, and we became good friends.

One pay day as most soldiers did we went to the E.M. club where no sergeants or officers were allowed. So on this night of having money to drink on which I rarely did, but he invited me saying come on man you got to get out of the barracks once in a while and stop reading those fucking army manuals, my Indian friend was right and it WAS an invite so off we went to drink some beer and drink we did, maybe a little too much. He suggested we go back to the barracks as he had a bottle of whisky hidden out in the bushes of the barracks, of course by this time I said fuck it lets go man.

He finally found the bottle in the dark and we made our way to his room to drink it out of the bottle, after all we didn’t exactly have a kitchen with glasses, cold cokes with ice that was something soldiers never think about or should they, it’s better to forget than remember something’s.

As we were drinking the whiskey I noticed him doing something very confusing to me being already drunk, when I asked what he was doing with that pipe he looked at me in a slightly fearful manner as I posed no real threat, he replied making a bowl man. He knew how I felt about that shit and said look man, are we friends? Yes of course I said, and do you think I am crazy? With that I thought and said no. then he told me that KJ. Smokes it to man chill out and just try it. When I told him I didn’t know how he laughed and said just watch me, he got it fired up and took a big hit then started chocking, then handed it to me, choking and coughing said here take a hit and hold it in as long as you can. And I did.

Things began to change; now I was invited up to the attic to KJs room where the heads of the company gathered at night to get high, play spades and listen to the rock and roll of the day, all new to me but I was learning to like it. Soon after being accepted and brought into the fold of the group I heard a song I remembered from Fort Dix in New Jersey while waiting to be shipped to Germany when hearing the song by country Joe and the fish that was playing over the loud speakers that called us to formation, it was on the Woodstock album, singing be the first one your block to have your boy come home in a box, and that I asked somebody what is that? He said that’s Woodstock man, when I said what the hell is a Woodstock? Well you can guess the rest and spare me the embarrassment.

Anyway it was impossible it get busted up there as nobody ever went up there to check anyway, even if they did KJ had the door rigged so it couldn’t be busted into. And even if they did there more than enough time to toss it all out the window and they knew it so why bother trying was the mutual thought.

Back then you could have a kilo in your locker but if it wasn’t locked they couldn’t prove it belonged to you and there was nothing they could do about it other than confiscate it as anybody could have put it there, it was great and I was a fast learner especially when the money to be made was explained to me by KJ.

RACIAL TENSION IN GERMANY

This was a time in military history hidden, a time of race riots on military bases hidden to the outside world that was happening in Germany and with good reason, after all the eyes of the world was on Vietnam of course after all that was news, where the war was and nobody was thinking about Germany that was 2 wars ago and quickly forgotten by the press and not considered news worthy as should be I suppose for young and old readers of the press. After all war is war and must take precedent over all, including Germany and of its white soldier’s plight being the victims.

And the racial tension there in Germany was worse than anywhere else that I had been in the army. It was a dangerous situation not experienced in the U.S. and certainly not in Vietnam. But in Germany it was bad; intimidation was the order of the day inflicted on white soldiers by the blacks who ran in packs and stuck together, as was there nature to follow and be liked by the others of their own kind as most men do I suppose, on the other hand white people are more likely to be individualist and was not as angry at being in the army and stayed to themselves for the most part and wouldn’t stick together to protect themselves.

It was evident everywhere, whether it was going to the movie house on base or the mess hall they would cut in line everywhere there was a line for whatever, and the few blacks that really didn’t like it had no choice other than to go along with the others or be outcast from their own people, it was a fucked deal all the way around, and we the whites had to take it, the constant insults and relentless intimidation which didn’t settle well with me. There were riots and killings on other posts to in Germany but not in the states.

At night we huddled in our barrack rooms in safety, getting high and playing records on the most expensive record players of the day, there was no television in English, so we just had music, hash and cards for entertainment.

It was too dangerous to go out at night for fear of getting the shit kicked out of you unless you get a group together and even that was no guarantee the others would back you up in a fight. A white man couldn’t fight just 1 fucking nigger as they would gang up on you, and that’s right I said the word nigger, but that was exactly what they were niggers , and I know the difference of that to a black man.

You have to keep in mind this was 1970 and morale was low due to so many drafted. We took insult on top of insult and there was nothing we could do about it, the whites just wouldn’t stick together as the niggers did, and they took full advantage of it, many times a very small one would call a big white man a honky or cracker knowing there was nothing he could do but take it, with 10 niggers to back him up. I was not used to this intimidation, hell id been fighting all my life taking countless beatings from my brother but I always came back for more. Looking back its understandable the way they felt as most all were drafted, but only in a small degree as far as I was concerned; hell I had nothing to them so why was should their frustration be taken out on me? I had done nothing other than being born white; why not take it out on the army? Because they couldn’t that’s why, I guess we were the next best thing, such is the workings of a small inferior brain, not because they are black, but made inferior self induced from hatred and prejudice, it is not different in white men that share the same affliction such as the K.K.K. hatred is an sickness that I will experience later when I went to Vietnam, it sickens the heart and souls of all men and makes us all weak and at times insane as I will experience later in war first hand.

Keep in mind this was before CNN, the internet and cell phones and no civilians were allowed on the post, nobody knew of the problem. The one thing that always amused me was the fact that when called a honky or cracker by some dumb nigger it never bothered me, I found it funny because that’s all they had in their repeatwar as being a derogatory comment meant to inflict insult but to no avail, not like nigger was to them.

Once a month was steak day at the mess hall and everybody went, tough as it was it was still a steak. It was a cold day as we stood outside waiting to get in and eat and I was a little stoned but just barley , and as usual all the niggers were cutting in line daring one of us to say something, of course none did as it wasn’t possible to win. As I stood out in the cold I began remembering all the shit in my life I had to take for something to eat, like my own brother at the kitchen table when I ate or stayed at my great-grandmothers house, gobbling down his food then trying to take mine off my plate, he finally stopped after I stabbed him several times on his hands and arms. Then there was junior high school where I had to take the trays from all the other kids and hear them laughing at me, but I had to eat so I couldn’t say anything back for fear of losing my job and the free food. All my past bad memories to do with food was churning in my head to the boiling point, something had to give.

I will say not all blacks cut in line, as they had honor and the self respect that goes with being a real man.

By the time we made it in to eat the best steaks was gone, the cook serving up the steaks was a nigger and a shitty one. As I was going through the line getting vegetables first, when I reached the steak part I asked for one well done, he gave me a shitty look and gave me a rare one, when I asked him to please cook it some more, with a snarl look on his face he snatched it off my plate tossed it on the grill and flipped it over immediately then tossed it right back on my plate throwing vegetables all over my tray, that’s when my heart started pumping hard.

What I did next was a crazy, stupid and dangerous for everybody in the mess hall as it could have caused a riot and this was a battalion mess hall that fed 5 companies of men and was full on steak day, but for me as I knew I couldn’t win but I didn’t care I had to hit this mother fucker just one time anyway to release the pressure that had been building up over the last few months.

I looked at him and said thanks a lot nigger, back then even blacks didn’t use that word ever. He looked at me in disbelief and said what did you say, you heard me nigger, he said you stay right there and I yelled come on mother fucker, as I waited for him to make his way around the serving line to get to me I sat my tray down and waited, and watched the mess sergeant leave quickly afraid of what might happen, a full blown riot. I was waiting for the cook to come to me and when he did I hit him with a hard right to the cheek that left a half inch cut on his face, I was amazed at this and for a split second forgot what I was doing looking at his cheek split and bleeding, he was surprised to and came in close to grab my leg and lift it up making me to lose my balance and taking me to the floor but I had a hold of his neck, then it happened all the niggers in the place came to get in there punches and kicks as I was on the floor trying to protect my face and ribs as a boxer would do, they beat, stomped and kicked me until I let out a yell like a animal would, I screamed that’s enough mother fuckers get off me, with that they stood back for a moment but not without getting in a couple more kicks.

After they were satisfied and backed off I slowly got to my feet and looked around to see not one white man had even gotten out of their chairs, they just sat in fear. But I didn’t blame them.

There I stood looking like Marlon Brando from his beating in on the waterfront.

Food was the last thing on my mind at this point I was all fucked up and bleeding but the pain hadn’t really set in yet. I knew what I had to do now if I was ever going to eat there again, I got my tray of food with the bloody steak and went to get my desert and cup of milk, as I walked into the dining hall from the serving area I found a table that was empty and against the wall. Sitting with my back to the wall I started to eat with blood dripping on my food I sat staring at everybody in the place, and it got very quiet for some reason, but I ate every fucking bite sitting alone as my friends was afraid to sit with me but that was ok. Anyway I finished and made my way back to my room to hit the bunk.

About an hour later the biggest buck in the company came down to my room and looked at me laying there, I didn’t know what to expect out of him but he just looked at me shaking his head and laughing saying your one crazy ass white boy, as he left laughing and shaking his head I could tell by his gesture that he respected what I did, but he couldn’t come out and say it or shake my hand.

Riots have a way of spreading like a wildfire out of control, which did happen at the time in Germany at different posts and what I did could have turned into that, so word of what happened at the mess hall spread all over the post in a matter of a couple of hours.

About 30 minutes after the big buck left Sergeant Harris shows up, naturally he heard what happened, he came in and I started to get to my feet, at ease god damm lay down, what the fucks wrong with you? What happened? I told him I fell down the stairs all the way down. This was a sticky situation for everybody and even a 17 year old, I could figure that out.

He knew it better than me, it was still a problem. He stood for a minute thinking then he looked at me and said what happened to you? Again I fell down the stairs sergeant Harris. I was trying to read him and he was doing the same to me. And I think we both knew what the other was thinking without saying it. With that he said we have to report to the C.O. now he is waiting to see you.

I got to my feet and we went to see the C.O.s office as we entered his office standing at attention with salute he said at ease Tex and sit the fuck down. What the hell happened to you soldier? I fell down that long flight of stairs sir. The C.O. was west point and younger than Sergeant Harris and new to Germany.

Bull shit he said I can pick up that phone and have the M.Ps put him in jail busted so tell me what really happened. Sir I fell down the stairs. Then HE began thinking but slowly, as Sergeant Harris had nothing to say, it was out of his hands and he knew what I was doing was the only solution to defuse the situation. After some thought the C.O. said is that the story you’re sticking to? Yes sir, all knowing a lie. He then said dismissed. Hell I wasn’t being brave, but I would like to think that it was the only smart thought I had that day.

I made it back to my bunk for a sleepless night of pain waiting for the next day to come as they always do like it or not it’s always there and the morning mirror we all have to look in, it’s always there good or bad, and never lies.

By the time it was time to get up and go eat breakfast the pain had really settled in but I was still young and would get over the pain. I wasn’t very hungry on this particular morning and wasn’t getting around very good, but I knew I had to go to the mess hall for breakfast and go early. I didn’t point fingers or rat out the ones that beat me. I showed up early to eat knowing the same cook would be there and he was, with a swollen up face. He seemed surprised to see me but didn’t say anything. That morning he was doing the eggs, when I got to him for the eggs I simply said over easy. Without a please, he said nothing and turned to cook my eggs then placed them on my plate, without another word I went to the same table as the afternoon before alone with my back to the wall, still sitting alone. At this point nobody wanted to be associated with me. That was about to change very soon.

As I sat there force feeding myself and having the feeling of strength and balls, I was saying to everybody concerned you can beat me all you want and even kill me but you will never intimidate me, that’s what I was telling them without saying a word. A man not in fear of death is difficult to intimidate if not impossible.

As I was sitting alone eating when I looked up to see a giant black man standing in front of my table with food tray in his hand. My first thought as you might think, oh shit this can’t be good. Then he asked if he could sit down, I replied are you going to beat the shit out of me to?

He smiled and as he was pulling out a chair said can I sit? But he didn’t wait for my reply as he sat down, and I didn’t say no.

I could tell this was a bad mother fucker but I hadn’t ever seen him before, he wasn’t in our battalion. But he ate wherever he wanted, he was battle scared even on his face, plus the patches he had from Vietnam, he was the real deal. And an air borne ranger.

I could tell right off he was not an ordinary man; he would have made Rambo piss his pants.

After a couple of minutes we both relaxed a little, or I should say I relaxed a little, then he told me why he was there, to meet me and to see for himself the crazy ass white boy that nearly caused a riot the day before.

He was from the other side of the post but when he heard what a 17 year old kid did, and he said I wanted to see if you would make it for breakfast and if you did I wanted to have it with you. Then he said do you see those people behind me looking at us? With a quick glance I said yes why? Because they want to know what we are talking about and what is going to happen next, he was the kind of a man that thrived on danger and was a stranger to fear. As we sat and had another cup of coffee we began a friendship that later would help me to make thousands of dollars, but much later.

Then he said you’re going to the Nam aint you? Yes when I turn 18, then I asked him why did you ask that. He said I don’t know just a feeling that’s all and the fact you must hate it here in Germany with all this bull shit like you had yesterday. Then he said you have to know it aint like this in the Nam, yes I heard.

He then said you don’t have to worry about anybody fucking with you anymore, nobody fucks with my friends and I want to be your friend because I like what you did yesterday standing up to those chicken shit mothers that I see every day and cause shame on their own black people by forgetting what Martin Luther King tried to teach all men, then he added I hate what happened to you and I am sorry for it. After he said that I was at a loss for words and could only say with much relief and near lump in my throat, thank you big man.

Then he walked back with me to my barracks, I noticed the blacks looking at us with a little confusion as the big man (that I will call BIG JOHN, who kept mostly to himself and never ran in pacts like most did. He would play part in something KJ and me would put together a little later and we would become good friends, as he had the balls to do so, it was rare for the time and place and was my good luck.

With a firm hand shake he said if you ever need anything come see me, and then told where his company was on the other side of post, good luck. This was a man out of place in Germany he was the type of man made for war, there were few like him, and I considered myself honored to be his friend. Not to mention very very lucky. I was not this kind of soldier, but I wanted to be .Later I would know more such men in Vietnam on the Ho Chi Min trail when I was a demolition specialist with the Black Horse Troop, for nearly 6 straight months in the field but that would be later.

As for now my little world just got bigger and better, and now I had more friends than I knew what to do with because I had protection from the black bullies that now wouldn’t even look at me or my friends with me wherever we went.

I also had the respect of Sergeant Harris the C.O. and most all the other men in the company, but there were still some blacks that wasn’t happy at all with me but was afraid to fuck with me, but I was careful not to use my new friend for protection, I knew that if I did I would lose it as fast I had got it.

Sergeant Harris knew I was getting stoned now but I was still doing my job to the best of my ability, and he told me that the C.O. thought I should take the week off due to my recent beating, sergeant Harris laughed and said you aint worth a fuck for work anyway, so just hang around the room and take it easy. It took months for my ribs to completely heal, and after a couple of days I stopped pissing blood. Plus he said I’m going to see about getting you a waiver for you to be promoted to sergeant E 5 buck sergeant hard stripes, which meant not a specialist E 5. The same pay and duties just cooler I thought, and the fact I would be called sergeant instead of specialist Tex. And on the dress uniform looked real cool Ha-ha.

Wow I thought of all that had happened; now I had big john for protection, new friends and respect and a promotion on the way and all it took was getting the shit stomped out of me and near causing a major riot, aint life funny.

Now everything has changed as it has a way of doing in the army.

And my friend KJ the day room orderly was sick of Germany and was thinking about putting in a 1049 that was a request for Vietnam that would leave 2 open key slots and I wanted them both, his job and his huge room in the attic, I practically lived there anyway, with my own bunk, but still had to keep everything in my room for inspection and get up early for formation every morning.

About 2 months went by before KJ left, but for now we were making new friends, one of them a timed little book worm that was extremely happy to be in our attic room every night, he needed the protection we provided, and he was a clerk for the C.I.D. that’s the army’s F.B.I. and he knew all the tricks of dealing drugs without getting caught. What he did all day at his job was read the case files that the government had lost against drug dealers.

Remember Sparks? We rarely saw him anymore, before he moved off post, the C.O. told him that the battalion commander wanted to award him his medals at a command retreat for the whole battalion to see, I could hear him screaming at the top of his lungs as everybody did, as he told the C.O. to tell the colonel to shove them up his ass and refused to appear. He didn’t give a fuck. Anyway he was THE dealer of the post, him and his more important business partner that to this day I don’t repeat his name he was that big, and I was told later he had smuggled back to a big city on the east coast where he was from at least 1000 kilos via various ways explained to me later so I could do the same but only later after they were gone and had no more interest in it, they were legends. But I never reached their level of success even though Sparks gathered his connections for the introductions for future business after he was gone. He gave this gift to KJ and me without a price because we were in the same company, and I would like to think because of my past with him in the beginning when we first met. But in reality and looking back it was the dealer in him knowing KJ was soon leaving and I would be left with it alone to do the work as we called it, and it would be something he could laugh about it later, who the fuck knows why, but it was a turning point in my life as a still 17 year old kid and would shape my future, not just for the money that was great, but just as fun as making money so was getting away with it, that was a thrill in itself hard to explain. This was Germany 1970.

They both was getting out soon which left another window of opportunity open that needed to be filled. We had the connections and the approval but we needed some more cash, and now that the interest rate for borrowing money had went to 100% me and KJ got in on the action at 50% undercutting the others, in a month we scraped up enough to buy 4 kilos at 300 dollars a key, and sparks gave us his connection in Nuremburg.

We went to Nuremburg on a train and 1st class which meant we had 6 reclining plush chairs and could pull down the shades down then lock the door, and then open a window so we could fire up a bowl.

Before we went to get the keys we stopped off at a famous whore house called the walls. I couldn’t believe my virgin eyes, you see it was legal and had a set price of 11 dollars; they were all beautiful as they had to compete with each other if they wanted to sell any pussy. They were all half dressed sitting or standing in their little rooms behind the glass windows or doors. It didn’t take me long to find the one I wanted, a beautiful blond with red lipstick and big tits, after 5 minutes with her I was in love. And I told her I’d see her next month then left.

But for now we had to go make the deal. The place where we went was not what I expected, it was a bar of sorts with very loud music and crowded as hell, the kind of place where you had to wait for people to come out before you could get in it was that crowded. It was like something out of the movies. We were taken to a table and ordered a pitcher of beer. After we got our beer, I started wondering where and from whom are we going to get what we came for. KJ said wait sparks told me what to do so take it easy Tex. I then noticed 5 or 6 dudes walking around from table to table and all wearing the same hippie hats of the time, but they weren’t carrying beer, then one made his way to our table and asked what it was we wanted, KJ did the talking for us as he was the oldest and biggest of our group, he told the guy we want to buy some kilos and who sent us, with that he replied what kind, green, red, black, brown, tell me what you want and I’ll go get a sample to try right here at your table. He came back with some green Lebanese, I wanted red Lebanese but this shit was good and the price was right 250 dollars a kilo and we could sell it for 1 dollar a gram, so what we paid 25 cents a gram we sold at a dollar a gram.

The money piled up quick. And now that the interest rate on loaning money had jumped to 100 percent, but we stayed at 50 and took all the business, plus there was nothing the other lenders could do but cry, buy now they all knew about sparks and big john was together from sparks backing us with his connections and blessings to the protection of big john who had become a regular in the attic seen by everyone which was all that was needed, and I would loan him any amount of money he asked for interest free, and give him 10 grams or so from time to time free of course. But he never asked for it, just a small loan from time to time and he always paid me back, I would have been happy to have given it to him for what he did just for his presence, but to him it would have been an insult, and a sign of weakness for me.

It was such a sweet and simple thing we were doing. We made more money off the hash than our lending business, but selling hash was illegal and at the time loaning money wasn’t. When we lent say 100 dollars they had to sign an i.o.u. at 50% interest which back then was binding, to top it off because KJ was the day room orderly it was his job to stand to the right of the C.O. as he counted out the money to every soldier in the company, when each man was paid if they owed us money KJ laid the i.o.u. on the table and he had to pay then and there before leaving. Then some of them would go outside to pay others if they had any money left, some even had to borrow the same day. But at least we only charged 50%. And I learned a fast dime is better than a slow dollar in business and that money in each business of drugs and loaning money was only a tool to be used to make more money. A simple concept to understand when given any thought to the matter.

Now we had enough cash to buy 10 kilos in just one month and things couldn’t be going better, I told KJ this time I think it a good idea to take big john with us for a little more protection, he was more my friend than the others, we were a tight group and had all the people in the right places to help, we had the little book worm from the C.I.D. , he was happy just to hang out with us and asked for nothing more than he was getting, protection and some friends, then we had the company clerk and the postman that we gave smoke to when they needed, they fell under the same protection as did all our friends because of big john befriending me after my beating. The only problem as far as I could see was the lending business; it had grown as far as it could without going outside our own company where our return was guaranteed. Now I was thinking about that blond whore with the big tits and red lipstick, I forgot what I was saying.

Oh yea now I remember, money, I thought it would be a good idea to give big john some cash to loan at his end of the post, after all who’s going to try to fuck him? And since the interest was up to 100 percent I thought why not have him pay us 50% and he could keep the same for himself, but what if he fucks us KJ asked, I guaranteed him he wouldn’t and I trusted him, he was my friend. Then KJ says why not give him a couple of kilos as well, because when we get back were going to have a shitload to get rid of, hell yea I said sounds great but well have to work out how much to charge him, fuck it why not make it the same 50% we don’t want him to think we are using him and we need him happy plus we need the help, we both agreed so off to Nuremburg we did go with a new plan, but we had to make a stop first at the whore houses then a taxi to the getting place. This time being repeat customers’ we got very lucky and got the best, red Lebanese and it was killer shit, 10 kilos was 10,000 grams, but the price was higher 300 a key, KJ wanted to get him down but I said fuck it man let’s just get it and go back to Bamberg, he agreed we paid and headed for the train station.

This was a time in my life that I would never forget, it was New Years Eve and the ground was covered with snow. We had our 1st class compartment with door locked and shades pulled down; we had a cracked window and a bowl going. I had a seat by the window and we had a bottle of red wine, we rarely ever got drunk but I was still so fucking stoned from testing our product, I was looking out the window when all the beautiful fireworks began at midnight, it was so beautiful I couldn’t believe it, it was one of those seemingly magical times in life the kind we all have and could never forget or wanted to, and the train was silent as it made its way back to Bamberg. And I was still thinking about those red lips, what a perfect new years eve it was; in 5 days I would turn 18.

But things were about to change, as nothing ever stays the same especially in the army.

Slowly our group was disintegrating, in another month or so KJ would leave for Vietnam and that would leave me with the problem of how to collect my money, all mine now from the borrowers I had lent it, as KJ stopped lending now and only collected for me as he didn’t want to fuck with it anymore for fear of not being there the next month to get his share because he wasn’t sure when he was going, only that it would be soon, but our partnership had paid off for us both and now because he would be leaving and getting out of both businesses and that we had pooled our money to buy hash pretty evenly and he wanted all the money from it off the top, leaving me to sell mine after he got all his money back plus the profit, it was understandable and I agreed but with that said he still had to trust me to send him money that he wasn’t there to collect from fronting out some of the smoke, and I did.

But he wouldn’t be going back to Nuremburg with me again, and I would miss that and him to. But for now he was still here and we would party hard until he left smoking more than ever before and slipping out a back gate and going to what was called a guesthouse, it was like a bar and restaurant where we ate very good every night on schnitzel, bratwurst or any other thing we wanted, not to mention the pitchers of beer that we were drinking now more and more, and there was a juke box and pretty girls that KJ would flirt with but I never could, the only sex id ever had was paid for, then stumbling back to the barracks smoke some more and pass out, only he didn’t have to get up in the morning but I didn’t care because I knew that soon I would never see him again, the last time I ever heard from him was in a letter he mailed to me from Vietnam, he said he was on r and r, rest and relaxation for you civilians, in his letter he said he was on a beautiful beach called von tau with a little plastic bottle vile if heroin. That was the last I ever heard of him and I never knew if he made it out alive, and I never read the list on the wall of the dead to find out because I didn’t want to see his name on it if he was dead, but anyway enough of that.

But my luck was holding; the army works in mysterious ways? And it did just in time for me.

A turn of events were all coming together at the same time, 1st KJ was leaving in another month 2nd my promotion was due 3rd we were getting a new C.O. and new first sergeant at the same time, and I wanted the job of day room orderly , which was a tricky maneuver for me to pull off. After all it was up to the C.O. and first sergeant to assign who did what, and not to forget Sergeant Harris my platoon sergeant.

On the weekend of getting the replacements that would be our new bosses, all coming and going at the same time. I told KJ fuck it I’m going to move all my shit up here with you this weekend, the clerk told me what time they would be coming and going.

I said look man I want your job and this great room in the attic, with that he said I don’t give a fuck but what about sergeant Harris? I don’t know but I have to try I guess we’ll find out Monday morning.

Before each morning formation sergeant Harris made his rounds to each room for a quick inspection. Then he said where is all your shit Tex? When I told him that I had moved to the attic to take over the day room from KJ after he leaves, with that he said well he aint gone yet and who the fuck said you would be the chosen one. Now go get your shit and move back to your room. Without hesitation I did as ordered.

The next day he took me aside and said here is the deal if you want to be a sergeant next month it is yours you worked for it, but if you want to through it away to be day room orderly the choice is up to you, but I would be disappointed to see you go to waste. To me it was a no brainer I had already put in my 1049 request for Vietnam where on arrival there everybody gets a promotion as soon as you get in country, and I wouldn’t have anymore inspections in the attic along with being duty exempt, no more getting up in the morning no more nothing but taking care of the day room, plus I didn’t want to be the boss of my friends which I would have to do as sergeant. I told him on the spot what I wanted, he said ok then get your shit out of my squad’s room and get up stairs. He added that if the new first sergeant doesn’t agree with this decision you’re making against my better judgment I won’t stand in your way, but if you end back in my platoon you can forget about making sergeant. He also added that after they both get there gear in order there will be inspections; I think you know what to do.

I knew exactly what to do and without wasting any time about getting to it, it being to polish the day room like a new penny. I worked all night and paid Ortega to help me with the floor, he quit working about 2a.m. as he had to get up early, but I didn’t, not for now anyway.

I was still asleep when the clerk came knocking on my door, when I unlocked and opened it, he said that the new Top wants to see the day room and you too; shit I thought this is it. I put on my new starched fatigues and spit polished boots and made my way down the 4 flights of stairs where he was waiting in his office, as I entered and stood at attention I stated my name and rank of specialist .

He said I can’t find the keys to the day room, do you have them specialist, yes sergeant then he said well lets go see what it looks like. We made the short walk down the hall and I unlocked the padlock.

It was an impressive sight and everything was fucking perfect, but he didn’t seem impressed at all as he slowly walked around looking at it as through a fucking microscope, he had no expression that I could pick off, I didn’t know what the fuck he was thinking or what he was going to do, and he knew about the switch I was trying to pull off.

As he slowly looked around he turned to me to say not bad specialist, then he added you got a pretty good deal here don’t you? Duty exempt and your room in the attic I heard about, no getting up in the morning or wearing a uniform like the rest of us, except on pay day of course. Yea you have a sweet deal, but there is one thing wrong with it specialist, I asked what was that first sergeant?

I don’t see any stars and stripes newspapers for the men to read. With that I didn’t dare tell him that nobody reads that army bull shit. But while I was trying to say without knowing what to say he cut me off at the pass, and said look I want you to go every day and pick up a stars and stripes for the men and without hesitation added as long as you are going there anyway you can pick me one up while you’re at it, at the same time he’s telling me this as he got a 1 dollar bill out of his bill fold and handed it to me and said when that runs out let me know, oh and one more thing have mine on my desk before 12 noon. I quickly replied ill go right now first sergeant. He was a crafty old fucker and I knew exactly what he wanted a 5 cent newspaper and more than that to let me know who the fuck was in charge, and I had enough good since not to think I could get over on him or out smart him.

He couldn’t order me to get him a paper every day, but then again he didn’t have to, I loved it, I was on top of the world, the news stand was about 4 blocks away and I was always buying comic books there in the morning anyway.

I’d get up about 8 or 9 get stoned and go buy some breakfast as it was too late for the mess hall and I had the money for better food. Then a short stroll to the news stand and back with tops paper about 10 a.m. just to be on the safe and respectful side of him. Then I had to unlock the day room at 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and that was that, I didn’t even have to stay there if I didn’t want. I could do whatever I wanted, and if I needed someone to lock it back up at 10 id give him the key, but not very often.

Months went by and I still hadn’t received my orders for Vietnam, it took longer than I had expected I wouldn’t get them until august, but that would give me more time to make more money.

As time went by there were people asking if I was even in the army because I always wore civilian clothes and the newbie’s didn’t know who I was.

I was alone in my huge room after KJ. shipped out but only when I slept, it was still a popular place to hang out and always a party up there at night. It’s a funny thing but at the time those that drank were called juicers by the heads being us, and we were called the dopers, so we didn’t mix very much except for Cornsilk my Indian friend, but he too was about to get out and go home, another friend gone, I was now an old timer so to say.

Mysterious ways, now the clerk was knocking on my door and calling my name, he was a friend, I opened the door and he said that top wants me in his office now, when I asked why he said I’m not sure Tex, ok let’s go man. When I got there I noticed a new man id never seen before, then top says to me this is your new assistant. He knew I was dumbfounded by this, and added yes your assistant and new roommate so take him upstairs to his new home then report back to me, yes first sergeant , what else was there to say. I took my new unwanted but later needed new roommate and assistant to the attic then reported back to top as ordered.

When I got back he told me what was going on with this new arrival. Right off it was easy to see the new man had a bad attitude and I didn’t like him, and he didn’t like anybody and nothing but hate for the army, he was another miserable draftee who couldn’t figure out how to make the best of what you’re dealt. When I reported back to top he said that this new guy named Franks had just been released from the stockade and he was assigned here awaiting his undesirable discharge from the army, and then he said I don’t want to see him ever and so I give him to you to babysit and he is your job not mine, understand? Yes first sergeant, dismissed specialist, and that was that, I more or less had to keep him out of sight of any and all officers.

I never did understand these idiots, ok you hate the army I understand especially if I were drafted but getting drafted was for 2 years instead of 3 for those that join, but I must have known of 4 or 5 dumb mother fuckers after already 1 year behind them decide to just quit. It was the stupidest thing I ever seen nearly, but after they had to be court marshaled and do a little time in jail then go to another company busted down to what we called E fucking nothing and wait with no money or respect and given shitty details. By the time they got out they only had a couple of more months to go, plus they weren’t even going to Vietnam, and worst of all to go home without honor. Fuck em. Now I had this worthless shit bird to deal with, and he didn’t want to work, I didn’t need his help anyway. There was a big advantage to him living in my room though, now my chances of getting busted were practically 0 as long as I didn’t put a lock on one of my lockers, in court it couldn’t be proved it was yours as long as it was possible somebody else put it there, so they never even tried to convict. And he did have a great album collection that I bought from him, and he guarded the room for a little free smoke.

As far as the day room went I kept care of it and once a month I paid Ortega to help me polish it for the C.O. on pay day.

Once the C.O. asked me where the money for chalk for the cue sticks and the other things came from because I noticed you haven’t requested any money from the company funds to pay for these things. I told him that I buy everything myself sir, I didn’t want to bother you or the first sergeant with the little things I need to do my job with sir.

He pondered this for a moment knowing everything I did was some sort of scam; my thinking was to keep them happy and not to be thinking about it too much, or me. Then he asked where do you get all this shit anyway, downtown sir. Then he said I want to go see this place, come with me in my car to town, he had a cool Porsche car, it was strange riding in a private car with a captain driving me, and I was a little puzzled as to his true intentions.

He already knew of the money I was loaning and how much I was making because of the I.O.U, s I laid in front of him every pay day in the day room. But now I was worried if he had any idea about how much hash I was moving every month, by now about 20 keys a month at the end is what I bought alone, it was getting to big I was thinking, but no dealer can stop when he’s on a roll, the prisons are full of them, making so much money for such little risk is addicting, but I only had another few months before I would be gone and done with Germany. But back to the captain, it almost felt like he wanted to be my friend, or was trying to figure a way to get some money out of me but I wasn’t about to give up any of my hard earned money, like I said it was a strange ride. We went and I bought what I needed like ping pong balls and other various assorted shit, then he drove us back to the barracks and all he said was good luck, and good job soldier. But nothing ever happened and I never got caught.

Now that I was buying 20 keys and was considered a valued customer the price per key came down even more, then I thought why not go up on the sales price ? Hell I only went up 25 cents a gram from a dollar. But I always had the best, red Lebanese was a favorite but sometimes id get 5 keys of Afghanistan black that was cut with heroin, but that was special and seldom seen, that was 2 bucks a gram even though I paid the same 200 a key, with no complaints I might add, plus the fact that like Sparks I was the only game in town to speak of now, and like him would soon be leaving. By the time you got on the feds radar you were already gone in the army if you are smart and very lucky, lucky I was.

If you haven’t done the math yet there is 1000 grams per kilo self explanatory right.

As always with plans well made there is a fly that finds its way into the ointment. And mine was in the form of all the 20 dollar bills.

The one my best friend and mentor KJ forgot to teach me was how to get all the money back home, probably because he never thought about how much was going to roll in after he left, and Sparks never told me how.

At the time there wasn’t any 100s or 50s available to me anyway, the tourists didn’t have any because they didn’t need them and the Germans didn’t want them either, they were just too big a bill back then to break without going to a bank or emptying out there cash drawer not having enough left over to make change for other customers.

This is where my friend that roomed with the company clerk in the attic came in, he was the mail man. And things were very different back in the days before so many dogs sniffing around where they wasn’t wanted, because I had to ship my money home in boxes. I sought the help of the mail man; he said it’s simple as long as the packages aren’t too big as to attract the attention of state side inspectors. And he had a friend that was a staff sergeant at the main post office where he delivered the company’s mail, and once it was stamped by him that was it, home free and for only 20 grams for each of them, but I sent it by several boxes to cover the odds of a loss. In the 1st box I added a letter for my mother saying I had won it at a slot machine in a casino with 25 cents and that it was a rare payoff for a slot, and that the money inside was a down payment to buy a house with, her first. Hell I never even seen a casino, and that she would be getting more boxes but and they was surprise gifts for other family members and I wanted it to be a surprise so don’t say anything about it and don’t open any of them I wanted to see the surprise on their faces when I gave them their gifts.

Things were so easy back then, I also got back some hash, but I can’t say how, you probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. But the army takes care of its own, hell I remember one night in the field in Vietnam some of us was sitting around and just for a lark or lack of anything better to do I said I think I’m gonna mail my mail man buddy in Germany some pot. So I took a letter and put a bullshit return address on it and addressed it to my friend with another bull shit name that we had made up before I left so when he saw it he knew what and from who, see many of the guys there missed smoking pot and wanted me to send them some, anyway I never thought it would get through, after I addressed the envelope and being half drunk and stoned by candlelight as that was all we had, anyway jokingly and all of us laughing I reached down in a big sack we kept on hand I literally stuffed the envelope so full and after smashing it as flat as possible which wasn’t flat at all, but I was able to lick it and make it stick. The mail was flown out to us every day by the company mail man, another friend of course, made his rounds before flying back to heaven, I handed him the stuffed letter and asked what do you think? He laughed and said are you fucking crazy? He said ill see what I can do and we waited. About a month later one morning as the mail man was flown out to our little piece of heaven, he walked up to me with a big smile on his face, and said I got a letter for you man from Germany.

Inside was about 10 grams of red Lebanese and a letter saying thanks for the pot, he added I aint never smoked any shit that good man. I couldn’t believe it had made it, and it got me to thinking, oh well that’s later for now ill finish talking about Germany, if I have any readers left. Where was I? Back in Germany everything was going great I was making the first sergeant happy and that was just as important as the C.O. being happy if not more important.

One day as I was taking my morning stroll to get top his daily news paper and my comic books I saw some civilians doing construction work, with nothing better to do I walked closer to see what they were doing, as I got closer I saw they were laying bricks on a sidewalk. I had never seen bricks laid before, and it made me think of this bricklayer when I was a dishwasher and bus boy at the café. He was the kind of person in life that you sometimes meet and never forget, even if you aren’t really friends.

I remember like yesterday, I was 11 or 12 the first time I saw him walk in for lunch at the café and the place changed, the waitresses were acting different at his being there, I didn’t know why but they all gathered at his table flirting and giggling, naturally this got my curiosity aroused, I was already impressed with anybody that had the money to eat in a restaurant to begin with, then one of the waitresses told me to go outside and look at his car. It was a brand new Eldorado convertible Cadillac, powder blue, a 1964 or 65 maybe a 66 I don’t remember but I was amazed I just walked around it eyes bugged out looking in at the white upholstery. But I had to hurry back it was lunch hour and tables needed cleaning. I had to know what this guy did for a living as I didn’t know yet. I was checking him out and I was sure he wasn’t a doctor or banker or anything like that by what he wore. He wore khaki pants with dust on his boots. When I found out he was a bricklayer I knew what I wanted to do in life, he was on top of the world as far as I could see, and he had lunch their everyday, amazing with all the slutty waitresses hanging all over him and a new Cadillac, I thought what else could a man possibly want out of life other than that.

After about a week later I got the nerve to go to his table after I saw he was finished eating and having a cigarette to ask him for a job as his helper. He looked at me with a friendly smile and said your too young kid to do the work , I assured him I was strong and a hard worker , but he was right , that wouldn’t stop me from wanting to be a bricklayer, which I did later in life but that’s another story. Now I have to get that news paper for top before noon.

Since id been in Germany close to a year I was considered an old timer and had a lot of friends and some of them black as I was respected by them if nothing else. I showed respect to those that wanted it and I had some bad ass black friends, a hell of a lot tougher than me, but with mutual respect for each other.

One of my black friends that was probably the toughest mother fucker in the company asked me for a favor, I thought he wanted me to front him some smoke, as I did business with him when he wanted to sell to others. Andy was his name and what he wanted was to use the day room after closing time for a private party for him and his friends, all black of course. Then he said ill make sure we clean up after were finished and I’ll take care of everything and ill kick anybody’s ass that fucks anything up, I guarantee it. With that I said your word is all I need man just take care of it and I’ll give you the key after I lock up at 10. Ok thanks Tex we just want to have a little going away party for a dude in another company.

At about midnight as me and my friends were smoking it up in the attic I heard a knock on the door and a friend calling my name and I knew he was on duty as night clerk. We were all stoned as a mother fucker, so fucked up we couldn’t remember whose turn it was as we attempted to play spades. Well I knew this couldn’t be good so I opened the door for a rush of smoke hit my friend in the face, he said fuck man there’s a god dam 2nd lieutenant from battalion down stairs for a surprise once over, and he sent me to get you, then I remembered Andy and his buddies in the day room that is off limits or closed after 10p.m. fuck, ok tell him I’m on the way man. I tried to wipe the stoned off my face and we didn’t have eye drops back then to get the red out, when I reported to the office there was a 2nd lieutenant that I’d never seen before, all I knew was that he wasn’t an M.P., then he told me something about something about where the fuck he came from, I didn’t give a fuck who he was and wasn’t listening anyway. But I did hear him when he said, why there are people in the day room. Shit I thought right quick
As I followed behind him looking straight at Andy with my eyes wide open and shaking my head to let him know hey man it aint me fuck him, the lieutenant I mean, I could hear grumbling and words like white mother fuckers, I was getting as far away from this dumb ass as possible, and hopefully some would read my body language, as we all do, knowingly or not. Anyway as I was making my way across the room avoiding any other eye contact other than Andy’s, I was making my way to an open window that I could jump out of if I needed, it was on the 1st floor. Before I got to the windows I heard a bottle of beer hit the floor, that wasn’t empty either, without hesitation Andy in a gruff voice told him to go get a mop and broom and told where to find them, with that I was relieved and just stood looking out the window, when the lieutenant now shaken and didn’t know what to do, this wasn’t covered in his officer school. I was praying he wouldn’t do anything stupid when the guy returned with mop and broom with Andy chewing on his ass all the while, and it got a little quieter and began to settle down, and then the lieutenant asked me what you think we should do. I think we ought to get the fuck out of here sir and let them have a good time with their party, as you can see all will be ok let’s just go ok sir? After we made our way out he was still at a loss for words so I told him, sir I think that was the best thing you could have done to defuse the situation, trying to help him think he saved us. I could tell he was some college boy with absolutely no street smarts and didn’t have a clue of the racial tension there at the time. When I woke up the next morning I saw that Andy had slipped the key under my door as expected.

When I got ready to make my morning rounds of other business other than breakfast and the paper stand I stopped on my way out to look in on my day room, without even 1 second of worry. Andy was a very dangerous man that required respect, and it was given as he was a man that didn’t run in a pact to intimidate white soldiers, he was like big john and walked alone, I knew there was no way he would let me down, if only for his own self respect, the day room was perfect.

Later after I delivered the paper for the first sergeant I went to Andy’s room to see him and thank him as well. And I want to add he is the only man I ever seen do 10 Chinese pushups, or do pushups on his fingertips, and we had a understanding I guess he respected the fact that I would fight win or lose, when others wouldn’t and that’s what really counts. Aint it? What I respected about him was like big john he wasn’t a follower that ran in groups, they both walked alone and feared no man. I was lucky to have them as friends. Most people wouldn’t even look at them, white or black.

They were both regulars in my attic room.

One night we were hanging in my room setting stoned and playing spades like every night, there was 5 or 6 of us and like all teenagers HUNGRY with no place to get any food and it was too late for the pizza man to make his rounds as he did without being called, we didn’t have a phone anyway and all his pizzas were the same anyway. And I long since stopped making sandwiches in the day room and didn’t have any food in it. I’m talking big time munches, so we decided to break into a mess hall and get something to eat. At that time unguarded, we got plenty to eat and didn’t get caught. But it didn’t take the army long to figure out what was happening, apparently us geniuses wasn’t the first stoned and hungry kids in Germany to think the same thing. Looking back it had to be happening everywhere, and it didn’t take long for the army to make a few changes at the mess halls, and started keeping bakers working in them all night, but we could go and get some free cookies, problem solved.

While on the subject of mess halls I am reminded of a funny story about K.P. duty. All the first sergeants in the battalion must have got drunk at the N.C.O.s club the night before and thought it would be a good joke to play on the biggest heads in each company to have to pull K.P. on Saturday, just after the first of the month because you couldn’t pay anybody to pull your K.P. we were all in for a big surprise though.

Remember when it came to guard duty the slickest soldier didn’t have to pull guard; well K.P. duty had a similar thing but not as good. The way it worked was that whoever works the hardest on K.P. gets off work after lunch was finished and all cleaned up, it sucked and most didn’t even try, fuck it was hard enough without killing yourself over it besides by then the worst was over with only one more meal to go.

The duty roster was posted on a bulletin board in the hall of each company. As it didn’t concern me I never looked at it being duty exempt. A friend comes upstairs to see me and to ask if I had looked at the bulletin board today with a shit eating look on his face, I didn’t think he’d be grinning if it was my orders for Vietnam that I was expecting. Why I said what’s on it?

Your name man hahahahaha, what’s my name doing on it I thought. After he fucked with me a bit he said K.P. what the hell you talking about man I don’t do K.P., he says you do now I seen your name for in the morning. I didn’t believe him and sat down to fill a bowl, as we were smoking it another friend comes upstairs and said the same thing.

So I hurried to see for myself and there was my name, then went to see what had happened, it had to be a mistake for sure, I went to see the clerk and point out the mistake, which added to my confusion because he knew I was duty exempt and a close friend. Then top looked at me and said no mistakes are made in my office and by the way you needn’t worry about getting my stars and stripes tomorrow because I am going to stay the weekend in Nuremburg getting drunk and fucking whores. Your dismissed specialists I suggest you get good night’s sleep, with a cat that ate the canary look on his face. With that said I knew the only thing coming out of my mouth next was YES FIRST SERGEANT and that’s exactly what he got, but I added have a good weekend first sergeant with just the slightest smile.

At this point I wasn’t aware of what had exactly happened but I knew better than to argue or piss off in any way any first sergeant especially my own.

There was surprise waiting for me about 4>30 a.m. the next morning as I walked into the mess hall I saw all of my friends from all the other companies in the battalion sitting having early breakfast before it was time to open and go to work. And every single one was a dealer, and one of them was a dealer and day room orderly in another company and most of them got there supply from me. All stoned of course, then it finally sunk in through the fog what had happened, them cock suckers are fucking with us having a good laugh at our expense, hell we was even laughing at the situation, after all it was funny. Until somebody pointed out the fact that maybe there sending us a message saying they know who the dealers are, somebody else said fuck em they still got to catch us.

It was now our turn to have our own little joke. Remember whoever works the hardest gets off after lunch, and at the time we had to clear off and clean tables when someone was finished eating and because the deal with getting off early worked so good that the mess sergeant was hardly ever around to check on anybody. But the first sergeants made 1 mistake, they forgot to tell the mess sergeant who we were as he didn’t know who and didn’t care. when you put these kinds of people together in the army something has to fuck up like it did. Then this crazy mother fucker says hey why don’t we go smoke a bowl and come right back, they won’t even know were gone, I knew no good could come from it other than getting more stoned, but still I went along hell I wasn’t going to be the only one to stay and besides at the time of our escape so to say there wasn’t that many people there eating anyway. So fuck it lets go, we went to my barracks but to somebody else’s room on the 1st floor, a crazy fucker that I would be partner with in a big deal later on, but for now we were just getting stoned in his room, he too had a door that couldn’t be opened from the outside. When we got there somebody said we better hurry man we don’t wana get busted fire it up. As hash has a way of making one lose track of time like it did to us we heard a loud pounding on the heavy door, shit. It was the mess sergeant with a couple of M.P.s with him, we opened the windows and tossed everything before opening the door a very upset mess hall sergeant and 2 M.P.s that couldn’t care less as they knew they couldn’t bust any of us, and we were ordered back to the mess hall. By the time we got back there wasn’t 1 place to sit and eat, there was dishes stacked up everywhere and people waiting to line to find a table that wasn’t full of dirty dishes, the place was a fucking mess, but what put the icing on the cake was that goofy son of a bitch named Stone, a name that fit him to a tee. Back then we got our milk from a milk machine made just to hold milk; it held 2 five gallon plastic lined boxes of milk period. A box of milk with a rubber tube extending from the bottom and fit in place that was held tight by a heavy handle, it all worked on gravity, once in place with the door shut and making dam sure the rubber tube was securely in place before cutting the rubber tube as milk would be all over the place if not properly placed in the slot. When one was full there was a lot of pressure forcing milk through a small tube and everybody knew to take care when getting milk not knowing with how much force would be coming out at, well Stone had a cookie in his hand as I watched him walking toward the machine with a cookie in I thought no way man, you see he didn’t have a cup to get any milk, at the same time I was watching the mess sergeant, knowing we were thinking the same thing, no surely not, nobody’s that stupid to do what looked like he was going to do. It was 40 years ago and I still get a laugh out of it from time to time. He placed said cookie under the tube as we watched waiting to see what was going to happen, when full would splash out of your cup if not careful, when he lifted the handle you guessed it, it was full and when the hit that flat cookie, fucking milk went everywhere, and he just looked at it for a minute before letting go, I looked at the mess sergeant and he couldn’t believe what he had just seen and walked out shaking his head in disbelief.

Much to my surprise I wasn’t sent for the following Monday as I had expected, but a week later the first sergeant sent for me, my first thought was a court marshal or probably losing my day room, but instead he said the reason that nothing was going to happen was because my orders had came down to battalion but not yet to our company for me to go to Vietnam, and since I was going to hell anyway, and they couldn’t really bust everyone else without busting me they had decided to just mark it up as a good joke gone bad, now get the fuck out of my office, yes first sergeant, I thanked my lucky stars, but wait lucky? Shit I’m going to fucking war and with a combat job, oh well I asked for it. I had a little over 30 days before I left for Texas and 30 days at home with free airline ticket. But I had time for one more deal and a big one. It was the nut with the cookie that came to me with the deal, I should have known better.

He asked if I had heard about the new safe house on post, this was the first time for me to hear the phrase safe house. I had a weird feeling about this guy named Stone; and he had a different look in his eyes than other people, like he was dead or something never smiling or showing any emotion of any kind. I asked what a safe house. He said a place for soldiers to go when having a bad trip on acid. He added that he knew the 1st lieutenant and staff sergeant running the place. So what I ask what’s that got to do with us? Everything he says, ok how? Look he says a half way house is off limits to all M.P.s and C.I.D. officers not the F.B.I. or any kind of cop can get within 100 yards or something like that. I said so what I don’t take acid why would we want to go there? Because it’s a perfect place to do business, because I know these guys and they want to do business with us, you mean a fucking officer and a staff sergeant are you fucking crazy? No he says I mean I KNOW these mother fuckers ok and said ill prove it to you, come on well go smoke a bowl with em. It was against my better judgment but I was curious and went along just to see the place id never heard of before. Curiosity was one of the things that got me where I was to start with, I couldn’t help it, and the same with Vietnam I just had to see Oh well. So I followed this fool to meet these people and see how they handled themselves before I was going to say anything about anything, so I let stone do all the talking. I was thinking all the while without telling Stone that I would wait for tonight when the book worm would come to my room as he usually did to play spades and smoke. Remember he’s the little dude that worked as a clerk for the C.I.D. and knew everything; I would wait for his advice before I said anything more to stone. Anyway we went to see these guys and I thought maybe there ok, hell the sergeant made a bowl and passed it to the lieutenant that didn’t hesitate a second smoking it. I was freaked out seeing this, I never thought in a million years id be getting stoned with an officer and sergeant. We didn’t talk any business we were all just checking each other out for now, and I didn’t stick around very long after getting stoned, and left Stone there to do whatever he wanted I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

That night the book worm showed up and I asked about this new so called safe house. He scratched his head and said I don’t know but ill snoop around tomorrow and see what I can find out, can you spare a couple of grams? I said sure and tossed him a nickel, 5 grams if you didn’t know.

The following night the book worm showed up and said they was for real, that he read a memo saying off limits to everybody, and he even checked on the names I gave him to look up and find out whatever he could, like was it a trap or something. I really didn’t know what I was doing, but I thought I did like any teenager, but as far as Stone was concerned I was in for a big shock. I was in over my head as I soon found out.

With only a month left in Germany and most of my money safely sent back home disguised as gifts for family members and not to be opened before I got home, I was stupid for even thinking about doing anything especially after the K.P. fiasco, curiosity getting to me again.

With the ok from my buddy and thinking Stone was somewhat a normal kind of guy anyway, except for those dead eyes I couldn’t get out of the back of my mind, I mean this fucker wouldn’t even smile or laugh when stoned and who don’t get goofy when stoned? My new found partner in crime, what was I thinking?

Ok so we go to talk to these guys again but this time I wanted the cards on the table as in regards to why us.

The lieutenant naturally started answering my questions with a few of his own. He said it’s simple, we know who you are and when your shipping out, leaving your business that we want after you go. He went on to say what their plan was. He said were going to run wide open for about 6 months then shut it down before there was any chance of getting caught, and we want you to spread the word to your friends and customers for where to go after you leave, but most important we need your connection in Nuremburg that Stone said you have. With that said I turned to look at Stone and said, well Stone has a big fucking mouth doesn’t he?

And what do I get out of it? I don’t need your help for anything, anyway I’m about to leave you know that plus I don’t want to get stuck with something I won’t have enough time to get rid of. The lieutenant had an answer for everything; he laid it all out as he saw it to work out for everybody’s benefit.

To begin with you don’t have to buy anything we will give you 2 kilos and the sergeant here knows how to ship it back to the states for you free of charge, he added do you have any idea what this shit goes for back home? I have some idea but I don’t know if I’ll be able to sell it, he said you won’t have to try selling it, it will sell itself and for 10 dollars a gram. It didn’t take me long to do the math in my head enough to agree. He added we only need your connection that’s all, we don’t need Stones money either, and he’s only in this because he knew you. The sergeant added talking to me, if it were me in your shoes when I got the 2 keys delivered I wouldn’t break the seal that it will come in, I would leave it like it is and go put it in a safety deposit box until you get back from Nam, it will be safe and won’t spoil, laughing at the thought of it. So far so good. Hell 20,000 dollars free with what I already had was a hell of a lot of money at the time, I couldn’t resist.

The sergeant went on to say well drive up there together but you can take the train back because we want 50 keys and that’s too much to take on the train, I said great thinking that would give me time to see my favorite whore.

Everything worked like a charm we drove up together and did the deal, and Stone gave them his money to go with theirs so he could get a cheap price on his kilos. We then left the place and parted ways, I told them I had something to do, and I didn’t care what Stone did or how he got back but he made it, I saw him the next day and he had bad news. Of course, one more reason I departed there company in Nuremberg, but mostly to get laid by a beautiful blond with red lipstick and big tits, ok back to story at hand.

Come to find out they were robbed by the German mob on the autobahn on the way back to Bamberg, but Stone wasn’t with them. Stone was a scary mother fucker, as he was telling me all this shit I could tell he was upset, but only because he was talking faster than usual but still he kept his cold face without expression or raising his voice. I had my doubts about it and I really didn’t care as I had hadn’t lost any money but he did. What happened next was very scary and I would soon find out just scary Stone really was.

Later that night the book worm came to my room with a German newspaper, he read it to me and stone. Armed with machine guns 6 Germans in 2 cars forced 2 American soldiers off the road and were robbed at gun point, authorities expected drugs was involved, but had no proof and that the 2 Americans were being held for questioning by the German police but released the next day.

After hearing this Stone began pacing the floor, that gave me reason to worry, I tried to settle him down and asked him to sit and smoke a bowl, then I told him how sorry I was that he had lost his money, he then looked at me with his dead eyes and said I didn’t lose my money they did and I will get my money, and nobody fucks me out of nuttin. Then he said tomorrow we will go pay them a visit, with that I replied why should I go? This is your problem not mine he quickly replied yes it is until I get to the bottom of this we are in this together to the end then he added why didn’t you ever get robbed, I knew where this was leading and it wasn’t good, then I stood up to show him I was standing my ground and told him I never got robbed because I never carried over 10 kilos at a time and made 2 trips a month so it wasn’t worth their time and you’re crazy if you think I had anything to do with them getting ripped off, so I told him ok ill go with you tomorrow to talk to them but it will have to wait until after I get tops newspaper. Fuck what I couldn’t figure out was why the hell they got so much on the 1st meeting, to me that was just fucking stupid to begin with, and I had doubts they could even get that much, especially it being there 1st time there but I didn’t hang around long enough to watch the deal go down anyway, I had better things to do with the time I had in Nuremberg, knowing I would never see her again, but I couldn’t get her off my mind, so the trip was worth it to me, we had a very good, goodbye and she sent me on my way stoned on her stash and a big smile on my face for the train ride back to Bamberg. Back to Stone.

Sure enough shortly after I returned with tops newspaper and went up to my room I heard the knock on my door I had been dreading. When I opened the door there he was, he said are you ready? I said lets smoke a bowl first, as I wanted to settle him down at least a little shit. He said ok, as we smoked I was trying to read him but it was no use he was cold as stone like his name. This was the only time in Germany that I was truly scared, I wasn’t even scared when all those niggers beat me half to death but that was different because I was in a rage; the next time I experienced that type of rage it resulted in the death of a total stranger back in the world, but that’s another story better left untold.

So off we went to visit the lieutenant and sergeant at the safe house. As we walked to see these guys not 2 words were said by neither of us, and there was a surprise when we got there something Stone neglected to tell me about.

As usual when we got there we sat down for a bowl of hash to talk, before Stone had a chance to say anything they started explaining what had happened, it was pretty much like the paper said, except the part where the C.I.D. came to take them from the German police and were grilled for hours and released, but they was scared shitless but that didn’t matter to Stone. What I didn’t know was Stone had gotten the book worm to do some digging on the both of them, and he usually asked me before he did anything like that, but he was scared of Stone and with good reason. I thought they were telling the truth and that was that, it goes with the territory sometimes you take a loss its called price of doing business, hell you can’t go around killing people for a fuck, up but Stone didn’t see it that way. Now it gets scary, Stone starts in on them by telling them that he knew there d.r.o.s. day, that’s when their time is up in the army or departure from Germany, then he added he knew where their children was, and their parents location. This was crazy, his statement true or not as in regards to the whereabouts of family members was all I could take hearing and freaked out. Fuck I didn’t sign on for any of this shit, then stood up and told everybody concerned to count me out man, I’m not having anything to do with this and started to walk out when Stone said don’t you want your 2 kilos?, I just kept walking more scared of being in any way involved in a murder, and had already accepted the fact that I wouldn’t be getting 2 kilos of hash for free, big shock huh?

Later that night he showed up at my room and assured me everything will be ok that he would get his money and I would get my 2 kilos, I screamed at him I don’t give a fuck about the 2 kilos you crazy mother fucker, I was trying to put some distance between us, then he said don’t ever raise your voice to me again, I like you so just trust me and chill out I know what I’m doing, then he left. I then turned to the book worm and asked him, what was you thinking about giving him that information you know he’s a crazy fucker, and why didn’t you say something to me before you did? He said Stone told him to keep my mouth shut and not to tell me; ok well it’s too late now anyway, then I said lets go to the E.M. club and drink some beer, back then I only drank about twice a month after KJ was gone, but the nerves was on edge and the book worm was happy to go, as he was afraid to go alone at night and I still had the protection of big john and everybody knew not to fuck with me for fear of him.

The next morning I woke up and looked in the morning morrow, I thought about Stone and what he might do, I tried to put it out of my mind but to no avail being truly frightened at what could happen next, the dreaded unknown.

For the first time I didn’t want to hear a knock at my door, but that night there he was again with as much of a smile as he could muster which wasn’t much at all. Come on in I told him, then he pulled out all this money and said see I told you id take care of it, he then went on to say that my 2 kilos would arrive at the address I had given the sergeant before. I was relieved at this news but not for the kilos, which I told him ill believe it when I see it, he said don’t worry ill make sure you get it just like you were promised, at this point I didn’t really give a shit, now I had other things to think about for one being in Vietnam in about 2 months after my leave. SHIT at least I would get to go home for a month paid for.

I began wondering about my old friends back home I wondered if they was getting stoned, the funny thing was they were thinking the same about me, they knew I was coming home as I was writing a girl I thought was my girl friend waiting for me, oh well.

I left Germany but before I left and trying to liquidate my inventory, I will always remember the night before I left. The company clerk and the mailman shared a room in the attic and they had one of those water pipes with 4 stems that sat on the floor with a really big bowl so I mashed up 40 grams of red Lebanese and loaded that mother up, I told them I wanted to smoke the whole fucking thing and what we can’t smoke you can have, reason mostly being I knew there would never be another time in my life that I could do it. We decided the best thing to do was sit on the floor so we wouldn’t have to far to fall, and that is about all I remember about Germany. Next stop Texas.

On the long flight back home I wondered what to expect when I got there, or if it had changed much, I also wondered about my friends and how they might have changed, thinking about the 2 kilos I was supposed to get and wasn’t holding my breath on getting it, and put it out of my mind. I was just glad to get out of there without getting busted or worse Stone killing anybody, the fucking nut.

What I wanted most was to be home again and have some real food from my mom. It had been 1 year since I had listened to a radio or seen a television in English. My head was spinning with what I would do when I got home, but in the back of my mind the thought of going to Vietnam was always present but ignored, as if that would help.

I hadn’t talked to anybody back home in over a year only letters, so I had wrote home to tell my mom when I would be at the airport in Dallas so somebody could pick me up, I never got a reply to my letter but there was my big brother along with his best friend to get me. I was so glad to be home again like every other soldier throughout the history of time. Anyway my brother had just bought a new 1971 Chevrolet chevelle with a 454 and man was it fast, I had never seen a car like this it was like I was in a dream.

We cruised the old neighborhood and the strips in fort worth for a couple of hours, then I asked him to drive through the jack in the crack as we called it, he said no that mom had a big spread waiting for us and everybody was there waiting, when he said that I got a feeling of shame because I was not the innocent boy they knew and a bit ashamed to face them, I said all I want is a big cup of ice water, As we were waiting in line for my water all of a sudden I remembered the money I sent back in boxes telling my mom not to open along with the expensive presents I bought for everybody. I had told her months before I wanted to wait until I got home before they opened anything, now my brain was really racing, but we were stuck in line and had to wait, aint life funny? After I got my water I told my brother we better go to moms now, my heart was beating fast with anticipation. Come to find out I was worried for nothing.

None of the boxes had been opened and everybody was there then the celebration began.

It was like something out of the twilight zone, I had stepped into another world and I had it for about 25 days, with another one waiting for me, and other twilight zones to follow that I didn’t know about.

So there we were 5 generations with smiles and tears, as I could see what they were thinking all the time that I was only home for a short time, when I realized this on their faces I hollered to my mom in the kitchen , hey mom where are the Christmas gifts I sent? She said go get them they are all under my bed. With that I ask my big brother come on help me pass them out, now everybody had something else to think about even if it was an august Christmas Hashanah. With my brother in the other room I got down on my knees to get boxes from under the bed. I had everything marked with the names of family and 3 were mine. When asked what was in my boxes I just said oh some of my stuff from Germany.

But I never could lie to my mother and get away with it, she knew what was in those boxes and she didn’t like it at all. So she waited until everybody had gone and said my first and middle name, which was never a good thing. I want to see in those boxes now. I thought a minute and said ok mom, I opened just 1 and dumped it on the kitchen table, 20 dollar bills , her eyes got big and I could see she was scared but when I told her this is all for you, then a different look came on her face. The other 2 are mine, ok she said being speechless, no longer asking questions.

I had bribed my own mother in a sense. Just goes to show everybody has a price, with that done I told her not to ask any questions about how I got it, ok she said I don’t think I want to know anyway.

The next morning mom took me to my great grandmother’s house to use her car while I was home, she didn’t use it anyway.

After a short visit with her she gave me the keys to her 58 Chevy Biscayne turquoise color 2 door, I tossed the boxes in the trunk and off I went to find my old friends.

I found them at the local dirty little pool hall, a place from back in time, and with no women allowed, if you wasn’t from the neighborhood you didn’t go unless you had a set of balls, and didn’t start any shit. The old men gambled at the domino tables or cards, we played pool and drank cheep draw beer even if we were too young. For one thing the old big time gamblers had paid off the cops years ago to never come in and bother anybody, and they never did. The old men that ran things had kids or grandkids in the military, it was still the time of the draft and all were vets, as they saw it, if you are old enough to fight your old enough to drink beer. It was also a place for a working man to go to get away from the wife and drink in a place where no women were allowed, so they couldn’t bitch so much about them going there, and most likely didn’t care anyway. Years later there would be tons of drugs move through there, but that is another story.

As I walked in I saw 3 or 4 of my old buds playing pool and the party was on. Like I said it was august and it was summer vacation for some friends still in high school, they were going back to school just about the same time my plane was landing in Vietnam. The reason I can’t forget the day I landed it was 3rd of September the day I remember, same as the song, oh well.

The 1st thing on my mind was pot and I didn’t know if any of them smoked it or not, what I didn’t know was they were thinking the same about me and how much I was against it when I left.

We all had changed and all smoked, they smoked pot and I never had before only hash. So we went to the parking lot to smoke my 1st joint it was great but nothing like hash. One of the gang’s dad owned a car lot and we had access to any car we wanted, my favorite was a 2 door burgundy rag top 1967 G.T.O or a goat for you old timers. P.S. 4 on the floor.

The party was on now for sure, I had a pocket full of money and I bought all the beer from the pool hall, sneaking it out the back door, then we piled in the a car usually 5 of us and we would all chip in 2 dollars to buy a once of pot and smoke it all in 1 night of drinking beer and cursing for girls.

One night, I think it was my last night home or close to it anyway, there were 4 of us in the rag top 67 goat flying down the highway at over 120 m.p.h. we had 2 cases of Budweiser in the back seat in between sitting between and one of friends and we had 4 bags of weed that I bought for a going away present for my friends, which I might add carried a penalty of 2 years to life in prison at the time, when the red lights came on, we had just past a D.P.S. trooper like he was standing parked but he wasn’t parked , so we was ready for the red lights to come on. The driver asked me if we should try to outrun him, no man just slow down and pull over. The drinking age was 21, we were 17 18 and 19 years old and the law then in Texas was 2 years to life in prison for 1 joint and they wasn’t joking this was Texas. As long as we stayed in our part of town we didn’t have to be worried about the local cops as they knew each of us by name, as we did them and they knew where I was going so we got a little leeway, but this cop didn’t know us. We sat still in the car as trooper walked up, at first he didn’t say anything and as we were in a convertible he put his flash light on us and the 2 cases of beer then he asked for the drivers license of driver then told him to take the keys out of the ignition and follow him back his police car.

We didn’t know what was going to happen as we sat waiting, then they both came back and my friend had a slight smile on his face, the officer asked for my i.d. which was army, when he saw this he then said show me your orders, which was the law if I didn’t have my orders on me at all times I would go straight to jail. I gave him what he ask for. I didn’t know my bud told him about me.

He read them and handed them back to me, and then he looked at me for a minute in a strange way I thought at the time, and then said with a lump in his throat, my boy is over there right now. And I know you are all stoned on that shit and underage my son is underage to, I going to let you go without a ticket for speeding or anything , all I ask you is to slow down and don’t kill yourselves tonight, will you give me your word that you will slow down ? We all agreed and went on our way drinking beer but driving slow. Wow I really got ahead of the story huh? Oh it was the goat that took me down memory lane; now let’s go back about 2 weeks or so.

I started hanging around my mom’s house everyday thinking maybe I would get a package from Germany to come by mail, but still not holding my breath for the 2 kilos but I was hoping and would wait for the mail man everyday as it sure as hell wouldn’t be a good thing for my mother to intercept it.

It was another hot august day in Texas, the only kind Texas has hot. As I was sitting on the porch with my favorite drink at the time, a glass of ice water as I never drank beer before dark then, when a when a brand new black Eldorado that was driving by very slowly past my mom’s house, I watched it pass as it went to the end of the block and then turned around and slowly started back as if the driver was lost, then it stopped across the street and just sat for a minute, then I see the driver looking in my direction, I figured they were lost because when it passed before I noticed the license plates were strange to me, which all was if not from Texas. Anyway the man driving slowly got out of his fancy car looking up and down the street very carefully then started walking toward me; I was thinking this rich fucking idiot Yankee must be lost. I say Yankee because that’s what we Texans called everybody that wasn’t a Texan. And no brainer he was lost and was going to ask me for directions I thought. Our dog a German shepherd was laying next to me on the porch when the guy about 30 years old still standing at the curb asked me if my dog bites, I told him no not usually with a little smile, then he said can I ask you something? Sure you lost, he replied I don’t think so can I talk to you? Without the dog? Figuring he was a rich man and no threat I said ok come on and have a seat after I put the dog in the house. The house door was open with only the screen door as it was so hot and we didn’t have air-conditioning. Then he asked what was my name was, at first I thought what the fuck business was it to him but I told him anyway. Then his face changed a little, like he was relieved or something, with that he said great I have news for you from Germany. When I heard this I knew it had to be good news otherwise it would be the cops and he sure wasn’t a cop. Then he said can we please go to my car where it is not so hot, sure I never been in a new Cadillac before. When I got in I couldn’t believe what I saw 2 of the hottest women I ever saw next to my whore in Germany, he said get in the back, inside there was these 2 women in their late 20s or early 30s and the one in the back had red lipstick on, my favorite kind of woman, ok back to the story, I sometimes get a little confused when I think too much. After I got in he introduced himself and his wife in the front seat and her sister in the back.

Then he said why don’t we drive around and talk? Ok I happily agreed; just wait a minute I have to tell my mom that I’ll be back later and to get my wallet and id. It was about lunch time and he asked if I was hungry and that we had some business to do and talk in private. Before I said anything I asked if he had brought me something. Yes he said but wait until we get to the hotel downtown they were staying in, again I agreed, thinking to myself 2 firsts in one day 1st the car and now a fancy hotel downtown that I had never been in before. My eyes were as big as a kid at Christmas and they knew it, they thought I was a country bumpkin, and they were right. By the time we got to the hotel that blond with the red lipstick had me hard as a rock just sitting there smelling of perfume, anyway he parked the car and opened the trunk and took out a small suitcase and said let’s get out of this fucking heat, how the fuck do you Texans live in this shit? I told him we liked it and wished it would warm up a little, he just gave me a look but the girls were laughing and said we love the way you talk we never heard a Texan talk before, but he wasn’t amused and told them to go shopping and don’t go back to the room for 30 minutes you can listen to him talk later, with that she sister said I can’t wait and gave me a look I wasn’t used to, because the only sex I ever had I paid for.

We get into the room and he said have a seat at the table, I did as he said, he looked worn out and said I need a fucking beer you want one? Do you have anything else? No you want one or not? Sure what the hell another first for me drinking so early and I didn’t want him to think I was a puss. He first got 2 beers from the ice box and got the case from the bed and put it all in the table.

After he opened his beer and took a long drink and said want to smoke a bowl? A phrase only used in Germany for smoking hash, and I would find out soon enough in Vietnam, the same term for getting high. Then I knew he was x military and was talking about smoking hash, fuck yea fire it up. I could sense something but I didn’t know what. He wanted me to be relaxed before he put his cards on the table. And I knew it. He opened the case but I couldn’t see what was inside, he pulled out a big chunk of red Lebanese about a100 gram piece or so block and a pipe.

We got stoned as hell; this was some of the best hash in the world. After we got relaxed, or he got me relaxed he opened the case and turned it around for me to see what was inside. Then he started telling me about himself and his partners in Germany with the hash deal they were doing, 1st he said my partners wanted me to thank you personally for all your help especially with that fucking idiot that you got under control over there, which I didn’t but if that made them happy to think so who was I to say different. Then he went on to tell me that they never wanted to sell in Germany and had learned their lesson not to buy more than 10 keys at a time and to take the train and to get a taxi to and from the train, we sent more money to them to buy more, and got it back home to us is Boston or New York, where I wasn’t sure where, but they got it back somehow, I didn’t ask how why would I? I didn’t care. So he says to me that they were so happy that they told me to give you a bonus instead of 2 kilos they want to give you 4 kilos, but he said I have a little problem with that. Fuck I thought what now?

Then he began his speech about all the trouble he had went through with just the driving to Texas and as far as he was concerned he didn’t have to do it in the first place but his friends insisted because without my help it wouldn’t have happened to begin with, so I let him think what he wanted, but I really didn’t do all that much. Then he goes on telling me this and that about shit I didn’t care about in the first place, and then he said it, how much is it worth to you just to get 2 keys instead of 4 which he wanted half for carrying charges, and ask me if I thought that was fair? With that I replied hey man I’m surprised to even get 2, and I agreed. He said good glad to hear it and went on to say I know you are going to Nam soon so this is what I suggest but you can do whatever you want but these keys are sealed in a special way that even the dogs can’t smell it. Then he made a mistake when he added when my brother, and he stopped realizing his mistake as to who he was, quickly I said hey man I don’t care what you and your brother are into and I don’t care just go on with what you was saying about your advice, fuck you know I aint a cop and finish what you were saying ok. He was not happy with himself with his mistake but he went on to say, look like I said they are perfectly sealed so don’t open them and fuck it up, I know you want to smoke on it while you are still here so I am giving you this chunk of the same stuff about 80 grams left after he took some, you can’t possibly smoke that in the less than 2 weeks you have left, now let’s walk down the street to the bank and get you a safety deposit box to put it in for when you come back, and I will help as I know you don’t have a bank account or know anything about safety deposit boxes ok. What can I say but thanks my new Yankee friend and we both started laughing and left the hotel for the 4 block walk, he told the teller that my little brother here wants to open an account and a large safety deposit box. After the paper work was done and we started for the vault he told me to put the whole thing in their case and all, my gift for you.

Then we went back to the hotel where the women were waiting for him, but sister was happy to see me and I felt the same about her, but I was extremely shy and awkward where women was concerned.

As we sat around smoking and drinking beer I started getting hungry and asked the guy if he would take me back to my mom’s house, then the sister said what’s the hurry? Don’t you like our company? Yes mam but I am very hungry and stoned, she said I am hungry to why don’t we all go out to eat something? Surely you know all the best places to eat, I told her no but I know where they are. So what do you suggest handsome? My face turned red when she said that and they all started laughing, and the guy said ok lets go eat ill buy, well I said I hadn’t ever turned down a free meal saddle up, then sister says oh you Texas boys with that slow southern draw I love it lets go baby boy. She was at least 10 years older than me, and she was right in a way I was still a boy when it came to women. The only experience I had when it came to sex was in Germany where I paid for it and went on my way, there was no need for talking or kissing, and that was all I knew. Having never seduced a woman I hadn’t a clue of the process and never tried, as my brother explained it to me that women are like wild barn cats, you can chase one all day and never catch it, but if you sit still and don’t pay any attention to them after a while one will come to you willingly out of curiosity, and he was right.

So after we got in the car and he started driving he asked me where are we going to eat? They were asking me where do I want to eat, another first and the day was still young, hell I hadn’t ever eaten in a restaurant that I wasn’t working in. so I replied do you like Mexican food? Then all of a sudden the sister with the red lipstick sitting next to me in the back seat seemed to get all excited and said no but I am always open to something new experiences, and we don’t have Mexican food where we come from, and we don’t have cute guys that talk like you either, my face turned red again and she said what’s wrong baby? Why is your face red? Then I knew she was fucking with me and we all got a good laugh while passing a joint. Then I asked them if they knew the law in Texas? And we could all get 2 years to life in prison for just 1 joint. Then he taught me something I would never forget. He said do we look like hippies? And do you think I am so stupid as to drive all the way down here in a Volkswagen bus with fucking peace signs plastered all over it? What did you think the first time you saw me driving down your street? I said well I thought you were some lost rich Yankee. And would you ever have thought I was a drug dealer? Well no, I wouldn’t have. No and neither does the cops, and why do you think my hair is so short? With that I said ok lets go eat.

When we got to the restaurant and sat down a waitress came to take our orders, the guy said please bring us 4 beers to start while we look over the menu, she looked at me and said I know he is too young for beer he can’t be more than 16, the guy told her that I was his cousin and this is a going away party for him and I was 18 and going to Vietnam in 2 days, she said show me your military identification, I pulled it out of my wallet and handed it to her, she just looked at me and shook her head in disbelief handed it back and returned with 3 beers and a glass for me. This guy was full of tricks but not nearly as many tricks as the sister had as I would later find out that night, much better tricks that I didn’t know about, and her tricks had nothing to do with dealing drugs, I was about to get an education. It was the beginning of us falling in love.

My mind was in a state of confusion with so much to think about and with so little to think with, for 1 I had 2 kilos of killer red Lebanese in a safety box, 2 I felt out of place in the company of these older strangers,3 I was stoned as a mother fucker, and last but not least I was about to fly away again to another world not knowing if I would come back in a box or alive, after all I had a combat job, what the army put as my m.o.s. As we were headed for my mom’s house I remembered the hash in the hotel that he said was mine for agreeing to give him 2 keys for his trouble, when I mentioned it he said don’t worry it’ll be there for you later tonight, again confused I said tonight? Sure he said we were planning to pick you up tonight unless you can get a car and come to meet us at the hotel later, we wanted you to show us around Fort Worth if you want to, sure that sounds like fun, then the sister told me to give her my phone number and she gave me the number of her room for me to call later with a smile that only added to my enthusiasm and visions of a delight as I couldn’t take my eyes off the beauty sitting next to me as she moved closer to me, when she did I got a rock hard boner, hell I was 18 and had no control of the situation. As we started getting closer to my mother’s house I tried thinking about something else, but it didn’t help, as I got out of the car it was still hard as I tried to adjust it without anybody noticing, but I couldn’t fake it and red faced I said, ok see you later and turned around a little bent over and totally embarrassed, I heard them laughing as they drove away.

It was about 5 in the hot afternoon when they let me out at mom’s house and I took a short nap not being a drinker and full of Mexican food and stoned. I woke up took a shower and got dressed up in some nice clothes I had bought when I was in Germany and was ready for the night to begin not knowing what lay in store for me. And not forgetting those red lips on the smiling sister that I called mam.

About 8 that night the phone rang and my mom said it’s for you, when I asked who it was? I don’t know some girl. Hello this is Tex, sister said I know baby id know that voice anywhere, then she said I thought you was going to call me did you lose the phone number? No I replied, well are you coming here or not? I will be there in 15 minutes, then she told me what room she was in, she had her own room. When I knocked on her door she opened it and said come on in Tex I been waiting for you let’s get stoned, ok I never have turned an invite to get stoned. Her room was smaller than the other one we were all in before and she didn’t have a ice box but she had a ice chest full of beer and about 10 grams of hash broken down ready to smoke, and told me to get us both a beer and have a seat here at the table, I did as she said of course.

Another first in the same day being alone with a woman in a hotel room but to say she was just a woman would be a gross understatement. She was perfect from head to toe and she made me feel uneasy being alone with her. Her smile could melt any man’s heart melt to put it mildly, if you know what I mean. I didn’t know what to say or do, so we got stoned without talking at all, and then I asked where the others? Oh she said didn’t I tell you? There’s been a change in plans; they already went out to find some beer joints to go dancing and sense you are too young to go I thought we could stay here and get to know each other better, and drink some beer here just you and me, how does that sound to you? And we can have room service bring us up food from this menu. Yet another first I didn’t have a clue what room service was and told her so, then she looked at me with those red lips and dimples and said with eyes sparkling don’t worry I’ll take care of you baby.

And she did all night and after the sun came up and then some. I had about 4 or 5 first time experiences with these people, but I had about 10, 1st time things happen to me with the sister. And even though I had paid for sex many times in Germany, until I was with her in that Texas hotel I was still a virgin. About 3 a.m. she pulled a little box out of her purse and poured some white powder on the glass table, when I asked what it was she just smiled and said it is something that will make it feel better when we doing it, I replied what any kid in my situation would say, well hell I’m all up for that count me in mam, she wanted me to call her mam, what did I care? I would have called her anything she wanted. We parted ways after she gave me her home address and phone number back home and made me promise to write her from Vietnam and she would write to me every day like she did her brother over there, and then she teared up and walked away. Then I started to worry about getting back, then I thought what about my money and what to do with it before I leave. Should I hide it or give it all away? In case I get killed.

On the way.

The day came to leave, and I was ready but my mother wasn’t, as she tried not to cry as to make me worry, but I had lost the fear and was excited to enter another unknown world, plus when I got there I would get a promotion to sergeant at 18 years old and probably leave a staff sergeant at 20, you see I planned to retire from the army, but then again I had many plans.

Before we left for love field air port headed for Fort Lewis Washington where I had already went through hell in basic training, anyway before we left the house I gave my money to my mother and told her to save it for me, I didn’t want it in a safety deposit box where she couldn’t get it if I didn’t make it back, but I didn’t add the part about maybe not making it back, but get what you need, now let’s go I can’t be late for my plane.

It was strange being back there and we were restricted from leaving our barracks other than the mess hall and the giant beer hall at night where everybody went to drink all the free beer you wanted.

There must have been 300 soldiers in their drinking beer and I think everyone of them was smoking, the place was full of smoke and drunk kids, but what sticks out in my memory was there was a guy with one of those Scottish or Irish bag pipe instruments and he was walking back and forth along the long wall playing that damm thing but nobody gave a fuck what he was doing we were leaving in a day or so and had plenty else to think about.

I was still thinking about those red lips and the gardenia perfume she wore and wondering if I would ever see her again, time would tell, I had her phone # and address so I could write her when I got to wherever I was going so she could write me back like she had promised she would.

As we boarded the plane my thoughts began to wander as everyone else was for sure, I began to think about Germany and how good I had it there, so why did I give all that up to volunteer for Vietnam, I still am not sure why exactly why, I guess a variety of reasons anyway it was too late now, fuck me running. Most of the white guys just wanted out of Germany and all the niggers that fucked with them every day, they all knew it wasn’t like that where we were going.

As the plane was about to land I could see explosions in the distance and see tracer rounds in the air, it was at night when we landed. When we got off the plane the first thing I noticed was the ungodly heat and the stench in the air, it smelled like a construction shit house that was in need of a cleaning, the whole country smelled like shit.

And now I could hear cannon fire and machine guns firing, it was dark and I am not ashamed to say I was fucking scared as hell, how did I get here? Oh I remember now I asked for it, what a poor dumb shit ass I was.

Now the fun begins.

What I am about to tell you is so different than anything ever written about or seen in a movie, without all the Rambo shit, but the real story that the government and a few soldiers sure as hell don’t want to be known. They would rather you see older men in the movies killing, fighting, and dying for their country instead of 18 and 19 year old kids not knowing what the fuck they were doing there or why.

Landing in Viet Nam at night 3rd of September

Just like the song, that day I always remember. We landed in Saigon at tan son nhut airport and quickly loaded onto smaller airplanes that later we called caribou’s. I had never seen one before, it was a 4 engine cargo plane designed to take off and land on a short air strip, as we were herded in and told to strap in if you had a seat with a strap, but the rest of us sat on the floor and held onto the ones strapped in. as far as I was concerned I was scared as shit, it was dark and hot. Then the plane got all the engines going full blast to take off in a very short distance and it did, we were rolling all over the place for a short while. We were taken to a place called

Cam Rahn Bay.

Once again like the twilight zone I had entered into a completely different world where I didn’t know shit from wild honey, a FUCKING CHERRY as we were called, and a field rat’s worst nightmare, as we were stupid and they didn’t want to get killed over a stupid mistake some cherry made.

But I wasn’t there yet, we were all waiting for our orders of where to go from there and the quicker the better because being in-between sucked big time for several reasons. You had to get to your unit to get paid, and get a rations card to buy anything. Of course we were fed but we couldn’t but any cigarettes or get any mail as we had no address, and had to live out of a duffle bag, everybody hated it.

About 3 or 4 times a day we would all assemble in a big compound and listen for our names to be called out so we could get our orders and leave for wherever to hell we were going.

I was there about 2 days waiting, then something different happened at one of our gatherings, usually the names were called out, soldiers were told what time and where to go to fly out for their outfit. This time the guy said when you hear your name called out it means front and center, 10 names were called and mine was one of them. Then a captain told us to take out our army I.D. then he took each of them from us, we had been picked to walk guard duty at night on the beach with an M16 and told to look out for any little boats in the water. Just weeks before we got there some sappers got through the wire and blew up some fathom jets and some choppers as well. So here I am a cherry walking the beach at night and across the bay was a mountain getting bombed all the hell. I was told if I see anything in the water not to shoot but go to the radio and call it in.

The first night went ok and nothing happened which was just fine with me, and yes I was scared 18 and a stupid cherry shit I was happy to see the sun come up, but the bombing of those mountains never stopped day and night. This in a way I liked seeing it and hoping it might kill some little bastard that might try to kill me.

After our first night of guard duty we were told that because we had been picked for guard that we 10 cherries could go to the other side of the bay where the combat soldiers went for R and R, rest and relaxation. So I went to check it out after bumming cigarettes off the new guys coming in, I would do this at every formation. Anyway I made it to the other side and was walking down this beautiful beach with choppers flying over head firing into the water, I guessed at sharks so I didn’t go swimming out very far. Then I smelled some pot burning and the 2 guys that were smoking it, they were from the 101st airborne division on R and R.

As I started walking toward them they told me to join them, as at first glance they knew I was a fresh cherry with new jungle fatigues and very white skin, because they wanted to know all about what was going on back in the world, the world was what we referred to as the U.S. and they had all kinds of questions for me as we got stoned on the best pot I had ever smoked, nothing like it in Texas for sure. After about 30 minutes of talking one guy says what is a cherry doing here on this beach? So I explained my misfortune, how I had no money or smokes and so on, they understood completely my predicament and ask me if I would go get us some food and beer at a little stand and gave me a 20$ M.P.C note, it was military payment currency. At first I thought they were just fucking with me but assured me it was real money for here. Then told me to get everything on the fucking menu. I did as I was told; chicken, hamburgers, ice cream. It was a lot to juggle but the beer I put in the big pockets on my new pants. As we sat eating and drinking beer and smoking more pot I passed out on the white sand. When I woke up alone and with the worst sunburn in my life even my feet were burned and I had to walk guard that night, and I had to do it no matter how much pain I was in, especially wearing new boots and jungle fatigues. You see in the army if you get a sunburn what you have done is you destroyed government issued property, hence G.I. and if you can’t do your job because of it you lose a stripe and money. Hell I went there to get another stripe or 2 not to lose any. Oh and now it gets even better, as I was in miserable shape walking up and down that sandy beach with bombs going off and flares in the air I spotted something in the water oh shit I thought but did as I was told and called it in. In about 1 minute a gun boat showed up and opened fire the likes of which I had never seen before. I think they used a quad 50 on it but I can’t be sure, whatever it was it blew up from the explosives on it; all that was left was a few splinters floating in the water.

Shortly afterwards the sergeant of the guard showed up at my post and said good job cherry you might have saved some lives, and I will get my C.O. to write up a good report for your C.O. to read when you get to your unit, don’t worry you’ll make buck sergeant in a month, rank comes fast here anyway as you know most everybody gets a promotion just by coming here, then just before he left he stopped and ask if I was planning on doing anymore sun tanning with a shit eating look on his face, he knew I was hurting, my reply was no I don’t think so sergeant. After he was gone I thought shit at this rate ill be a fucking general by the time my tour was over if I didn’t get killed first.

Funny story, I never got any promotion ever, latter you’ll know why, I don’t want to get ahead of myself but is a good story even ironic.

In the following few days there about 10, was the same I would lay on my bunk all day miserable from the heat and trying to recover from my sun burn and walk the same stretch of beach at night without any more excitement, but I kind of liked it a little at first, that was the cherry in me thinking.

THE BLACKHORSE REGEMENT

At last I was assigned to my unit the 2nd of the 11th armored cavalry regiment, known as the Blackhorse Troop. Steeped in battle and feared by all dinks. And our commander was none other than General Patton himself, not the old man of course but his son.

I had mixed feelings about my new assignment, but I was in the rear and safe with plenty of pot to smoke and whores for 5 dollars a poke, hell that was half price of the whores in Germany and the pot was free, at this point I wasn’t much of a beer drinker but for 5 cents for a steel can of Budweiser hell life was pretty good so far.

After being there a couple of days I saw my first field rat, he was pointed out to me by another cherry, he said look that’s a field rat. It was in the way he said it that got my attention; I asked what the hell is a field rat, even though it was self explanatory. He looked and acted different and wanted nothing to do with any of us cherries. He had been sent back to the rear for something and then sent back to the firebase from which he came. He was different and did what he wanted, I remember every morning we would kind of just gather for the morning roll call, but we didn’t get into formation like in the rest of army in the world, anyway on this particular morning this field rat showed up not wearing a shirt and had a can of beer in his hand, I couldn’t believe my eyes, I wondered what the first sergeant wag going to do when he came out and saw him with no shirt and drinking beer in the morning. He came out and said good morning and called out our names as to take count of his men. When he looked at the dude drinking beer he said that beer better not be from my ice chest, oh top he replied you know I like my beer hot and that was that, nothing else was said except he just said carry on see you at lunch.

I knew then what I wanted, I wanted what he had, respect and honor and I knew the only way to get it was to go to the field and earn it. Plus I heard there weren’t any niggers in the field, when I was there and a nigger was ordered to go the field by a white officer all he had to say was that the white officer was prejudice and that was that, it was a different time.

I had the misfortune to have a sergeant that not only was a prejudice nigger, but also what was called a lifer. Nobody had any respect for a lifer because they did only the minimum to get by and retire on their pension, anyway we didn’t get along at all and I didn’t want to get along with that worthless mother fucker. So in the day time I would hide out in an old abandoned bunker removing the tobacco out of cigarettes and replacing it with pot as there weren’t any rolling papers over there. What I was doing drove that nigger crazy and I knew it. I wanted to go to the field but I wasn’t about to volunteer, and now I know how stupid a thing it was to do, but still I knew I wanted to be part of them in the field, with respect and honor, plus a better chance of being promoted, so one day he threatened me with the option of being sent to the field or do as he said, everybody knew he was scared to death to go himself, I came right back at him and told him I didn’t give a fuck what you do sergeant, what do you think I came here anyway, it sure as hell wasn’t to lay around in the rear fucking whores and praying I wouldn’t be sent out there, like you do sergeant. The next day I was ordered to report to the C.O. I thought maybe I was getting my promotion, instead he told me to pack my gear for I was being sent to the field in the morning and to get as much pussy as I can now, because there won’t be any where you’re going. I thought great it worked; now I know I will get promoted. I obeyed my orders and fucked about 7 or 8 whores stocked up on pot and got drunk.

The next morning it was raining buckets, but that’s what we had ponchos for and it was so fucking hot that nobody cared anyway.

I had gotten my first and only M16 I would ever carry over there, and I filled all my magazines with ammo, we were waiting for the clerk to come and get us from our hooch for the ride out.

When the time came we loaded into 2 5ton dump trucks. There was a bunch of shit in the trucks, mostly beer and cokes and ammo boxes. 3 cherries in the back and 2 old timers in the cab, driver and shotgun rider. In the other truck 2 field rats in the back, they didn’t want to go with us.

The last thing I remember was climbing in the back and looking down at the C.O. smoking pot with his pipe turned upside down to keep out the rain, then told us to lock and load men, and when you leave the front gates be ready for anything because anything can happen, it’s a long ride so good luck, then off we went in the pouring rain without a fucking clue what we were getting into or doing, fucking cherries.

As soon as we left the front gates it was balls to the wall for the driver, we were only 2 trucks and they didn’t slow down for anything or anybody as we blasted through the little villages along the way, I began wondering if we was even going to make it to our destination alive, but we did and when we did I had a big surprise waiting for me, and only for me.

The trucks began slowing down and I could see some tanks up ahead waiting for us on the mud road.

As I jumped off the truck and sank in mud up to my knees I heard an old familiar voice calling me by name, I was in shock when I looked up and saw my old mentor and platoon sergeant Harris from Germany laughing at me saying, thought you’d get away from me didn’t you, calling me by my last name, now get that fucking truck unloaded and put everything on the tanks.

Fuck I knew then and there that I would not get the promotion I wanted so bad, you see he was still pissed at me for not taking the promotion when we was in Germany. He had left Germany a month or so before I did, and now he was the first sergeant in the field, he got his promotion from E6 to E7, what a fool I had been in Germany while I thought I was so fucking smart. My army career was over and I knew it the second I heard his voice, I had planned to stay in 20 years and retire at age 37, but by not getting another promotion in Vietnam it was over. If , man what a big word to be so small in letters, anyway if I would have taken that promotion in Germany to E 5 I would have got E 6 when I got to Vietnam, and maybe E 7 by the time I left even if I had to do 2 tours to get it. E 6 was another category in the army and E 7 was way different with many more perks and money I would have been on my way, but hahahah another big word, oh well no time to dwell on that now.

Now I was really in Vietnam, not in the rear anymore and no longer safe either. We were about 30 miles from Cambodia on a firebase named Andrews named after the first soldier to die there; it was about 5 miles from THE BLACK VIRGEN MOUNTAIN, Google to see mountain and what happened there.

It was a miserable mud pit where we were, without electricity which meant no fans for the fucking heat inside our sand bag bunkers where we had to sleep at night; again I am getting ahead of the story.

My first night there, we 3 cherries were told there was a vacant bunker because the men that called it home were out on a mission and wouldn’t be back for a couple of days hopefully, anyway there we were the 3 of us sitting and talking to each other by candle light and listening to a transistor radio and feeling quite uncertain about our future while hearing gunfire and cannons going off when all of a sudden all hell broke loose, now every gun began firing along with all the cannons as well, we were speechless and scared as hell, I thought we were being attacked, we looked at each other without speaking and put on our helmets’ and grabbed our M16s, I was the first one out the small opening of the bunker but only because I was the closest one to it, when I ran out I saw the whole night sky lit up by tracer rounds and cannon fire of all sorts including air burst, they would explode in the air like fireworks, but the pretty bright stars that was falling were the same as hand grenades and when they fell to the ground they exploded, later on I enjoyed the light show but for now fear ran through me, not knowing what to do or where to go.

Before me stood a 6 foot 5 to 7 inch Indian laughing his ass off at us, now I was totally confused as chief the only name I ever knew him by started to explain when he wasn’t laughing at us explaining to us that this is all out going fire, called a mad minute just wait till we get incoming fire before you panic.

It was a time for everybody to go to his assigned fighting position to check his weapon and burn off old ammo and scare the fuck out of any new cherries also to let charley know not to fuck with the Blackhorse Troop, and it worked on all counts. Later I found out that part of the mad minute was sort of a test, to see how the cherries would react, and that if one of us panicked or pissed his pants, he would be sent back to the rear the next morning, we 3 passed the 1st test, there would be more.

I had entered into another world once again, and the soldiers were like none other I had never known before or since in my life, and I wanted to be a part of them but before I could gain their trust I had to lose my cherry. To these men that lived a life of danger 24/7 I was one step away from the enemy simply because I didn’t know shit as far as they was concerned, and they didn’t want to get killed because of a mistake I might make, and they was right I didn’t, sure I knew how to shine my boots to look sharp and all the other bull shit that went with being in the army, but all that shit was worthless now, this was truly a different world. One of the first things I was told was to forget everything I had learned thus far in the army.

After the fireworks show was over and we went back into the bunker called a hooch, shortly afterwards sergeant Harris came into the hooch with some beer for us, I had mixed feelings about him, on one hand I had the utmost respect for him and I liked him as well, but on the other hand I knew I would never get another stripe if he had anything to say about it, he would never forget that he went out on a limb to get me a waiver for my time in service to get promoted in Germany, but now it didn’t seem so important as before, now I was thinking about getting out alive, fuck the army. He told us that we each would be assigned to a squad tomorrow, each of us to different squad to split us up, he didn’t have to tell us that nobody wanted a fucking cheery anyway.

Before I continue with my story I want to take a little sidestep to let you know what kind of people these guys were like, take chief for example, he was a mountain of a man and he ate more food than any man I ever seen in my life. About 3 days a week the rear would fly breakfast out to us, dinner too about 3 times a week, but never lunch, other days we had c rations that sucked but it was better than nothing. I can still remember being hunched over my mess kit when eating trying to keep the rain out with not much luck I might add. It’s funny what sticks in your mind the rest of your life.

When we had breakfast flown out the mess sergeant would give chief more food than anybody else but nobody complained about it, I myself and all others thought it was cool, chief would get a half a pound of bacon and 6 eggs plus his own bottle of Louisiana hot sauce. In a way it was like saying we don’t go by the book here or any rules either except ours. And as far as money was concerned you could leave it on whatever you slept on either a cot or a stretcher which I slept on. What I am trying to say is the only thing that mattered was taking care of each other and nothing else was important.

The next morning we were assigned to our squads and told to just hang around the area and don’t do nothing but look and listen. My squad was going out to do their work along with another squad or 2. Which was to sweep the road leading to our firebase, of mines for the trucks bringing supplies to us. As we sat looking the firebase over and listening to the outgoing cannon fire that never seemed to stop. It was a mud pit that smelled like shit. I lost about 30 pounds in the first 2 months from not being able to eat for the stench of the mud, and the burning of human shit.

The mud in places was 5 feet deep and it had the consistency of gravy made by the never ending fucking rain and the tracks of the tanks chewing up the dirt under the mud. The firebase was simple in its design. To begin with the combat engineers, which we were was flown out in the middle of nowhere to build it; a bulldozer was flown out by a flying crane and the troops flown out by other helicopters, the bulldozer moved dirt in a big circle about 5 feet high all around for protection from gunfire which was a good thing, but there wasn’t any place for the water to escape with only 2 openings to the base, because the dirt that was moved to make the berm made a low place all around inside, except in the very middle where the cannons were placed. Then the cannons were flown out and placed in the middle and on high ground. It was built in the dry season, and then each squad had to fill sandbags to construct a bunker so they were very small.

I wasn’t there when it was built but I was told that the C.O. and first sergeant filled their own sandbags and made their own bunker which was bigger than what we slept in, that was the way it was, and they had our respect. For one they would never order others to build it for fear of being killed, we never was ordered to do anything instead either the first sergeant or the C.O. would say WE have to go do this or that no matter what or how dangerous it was, one of them was always right there with us, they did there share.

Ok so after a few days of getting our bearings of our surroundings the day came, my first day out on the road looking for mines in the road, I should have been scared and as stupid as it might sound I was more excited than scared, I don’t know why maybe because I put a lot of trust in the soldiers I was with, to them it was just another day and that instilled my confidence, or maybe I was just stupid who the hell knows.

I remember it like it was yesterday, it was hot as hell but no rain. As we was loading up to go out I was told to help this guy with the R.P.G. screen to place in front of the tank supported by steel pipes up high to protect us not the tank, I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, then he pointed to a guy waiting for me to help him, to my surprise it was a roll of chain link fence, I thought what the fuck, but not wanting to ask to many questions I waited until we were on the road to ask what is this chain link fence supposed to do? The answer I got was simple, if a R.P.G. hits the fence it will explode on impact. And to make matters worse I didn’t even know what a R.P.G. was, all I did know is that it couldn’t be good, and we didn’t have any in the army is why I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to look any more stupid than I was, so I didn’t ask but I had a pretty good idea.

My thinking was maybe it would be better without, it might just pass through and not hit anything, or us and explode somewhere else; I mean shit the screen was only about 3 to 6 foot away from you depending where you were on the tank. Then I was told to keep my arms and legs on top of the tank and not to be hanging over the edge because if we hit a land mine you would lose whatever was hanging over, he said it would just blow us straight up in the air and maybe you’d land and be ok more or less.

He was giving me instructions on what and what not to do it being my 1st day out, he said to relax, stay in the back and if somebody wants a coke or a beer to get it out of the ice chest and pass it to them, and make sure you’re locked and loaded referring to my M 16. Then he asked if I knew how to use the M 60 machine gun, I said yes somewhat but not an expert at it but yes kind of, he said if something happens to one of the 2 guys that used the 60s for me to take their place and man it.

In the middle of the tank was mounted the 50 caliber anti aircraft machine gun I had never fired and knew nothing about other than the accurate killing range and caliber, it was manned by the T.C. tank commander, on his left and right was the two 60s.

Then the other guys dismounted the tanks to begin sweeping the road in front of us, it was a slow ride because they had to take the time as to not miss a mine and get somebody killed in the trucks bringing in supplies, or us.

As we made our way down the road I was keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut. Everything I had learned in Germany that I was so proud of at the time was completely useless now and I knew it. It was as if I had no training at all, and I didn’t know anything for war except how to use a M16.

Then I noticed the T.C. behind the 50 cal. Reading the funny papers from his home town news paper he had got that morning at mail call. I remember every morning waiting for the 1st bird to come to the firebase it was always the mail bird, and we would listen for it, after a while we would know what kind of bird it was by the sound, anyway here we were making our way down the road when the sergeant in charge stopped, and told everybody on the ground to stop sweeping the road and mount up, he said fuck it were going to thunder run it, I wasn’t sure what he meant by that but it didn’t sound good at all to me, so I asked what is a thunder run? And the reply was that we are going to just get everybody on the tanks and barrel ass down the road without checking for mines and HOPE we didn’t run over one.

Mother fucker I thought at first, but I wasn’t all that scared and maybe I should have been instead I was excited again, it was a rush and I later understood it was for my benefit, to see how I would react in the face of danger, if I had of freaked out I would be put on the first bird out back to the rear, but I didn’t and I was hooked on the adrenalin, I was 18 stupid and there was no other place I wanted to be than their living a life of danger, first I got addicted to the adrenalin rush then on heroin, but that would change about 5 months later.

One night shortly after I got to the firebase I noticed a guy in my squad snorting heroin, when I asked what he was doing he said heroin man, I didn’t want to do any as I was afraid of being addicted and told him so, then he looked at me in a strange way and replied, look around man, remember what happened today? He said chances are we aint going to make it out of here alive anyway so what the fucking difference does it make? And nobody gives a fuck anyway as long as we do our thing and don’t get anybody killed. The way he put it made perfect sense at the time, so I said fuck it let me try some. It did help relieve the misery from the flies, mosquitoes and the constant cannon fire going out. But it had another affect as well, as for me it filled me with hate and the wanting to kill as many as possible, but we won’t get into that in this book, I don’t think anybody wants to know the truth about it anyway.

Everybody knew who was on heroin but they didn’t care because we were all in the same boat. In the day we all worked as a team and there was never any arguments among the junkies and what we called the juicers, which was the word for the drinkers and the very few straits, they didn’t like it but never said a word about it.

At night we would separate from each other, the drunks and junkies to do what we wanted then the next day it was business as usual. To give you an idea of how close we all were one day the C.I.D. sent an informer out to bust all the junkies, he was flown back out the next day with the morning mail and of course we was told of the snitch by the company mail man that worked with the company clerk which knew everything.

When our sergeants, that didn’t like us doing heroin found out about some outsider sent to bust us, who they depended on and trusted with their lives every day went to the first sergeant and the C.O. and told them that if that mother fucker wasn’t sent out a.s.a.p. we will kill him ourselves, nobody fucks with our guys, and it wasn’t an idle threat. We never saw him again and there would be no more snitches sent out after that and it was all soon forgotten.

I had become close friends with a guy, also a junkie and we worked on the same tank later on working the 60s him on the left and me on the right, and the only name I ever knew him by was B that’s the way it was. So one day one of the guys working the mine detector missed a land mine and the result was the death of a truck driver when he ran over it with his truck, it caught on fire and we had to watch him burn to death. This was a major changing point in my life and forever, the reason was not because another man was dead, but what happened next later that night. I had made the mistake when I first got there by looking into the eyes of a man dyeing and I see it on a regular bases even now, and I never made that mistake again.

I wasn’t quite a cherry still but at the same time they still didn’t have much respect for me either and the one of the guys that worked the mine sweeper told me that I was going to work it tomorrow. My answer to this old timer was fuck you, I aint doing it and I wasn’t supposed to say that to him, it was a dangerous thing for me to say and I knew it, but I also knew that I would never take on that responsibility of missing another mine. I had all the responsibility I wanted and didn’t want more, and never accepted any more for the rest of my life, I had had enough.

That night sergeant Harris came to my bunker where I was alone and that wasn’t the norm. He came in alone and sat down and asked me what happened today? I said you know what happened, then he said no I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about you what the fuck did you do? Because I was told you was going to get killed tonight because they think you are a coward by refusing to work the mine sweeper, but I ask them to wait and let me talk to him I know he isn’t like that, so tell me what are you going to do about this? Then I told him about the responsibility I didn’t want and wasn’t going to take it either, then added that I had maybe 2 hours training with it over a year ago, and I forgot what I did know about by now. He said well I can understand and don’t blame you, but they don’t so what are you going to do because I have limited control over these jokers, you know that. We sat and thought for a minute then I told him I aint scared of dyeing fuck them, you go tell them that I’ll walk point tomorrow and every other fucking day after that, and we’ll see who’s got the balls. His reply was I was hoping you would say that because it’s the only thing I could think myself, but you had to be the one to say it Tex. Then he got up and was leaving when he stopped and turned around gave me a strange look and said something I never thought he would ever say to me being the professional solider he was, I’m proud of you solider, don’t worry and get some sleep ill go tell them now. For him it was the ultimate compliment to me and it also gave a great deal of confidence for the next day to do my job to the utmost of my limited ability.

It was impossible to lose the respect I had for him and never once did I hold it against him for blocking my promotion as I knew he did, after all I was the one that made my bed to lay in back in Germany.

He saved my life that night. He was a great soldier that all had respect for, that was the big deal in Vietnam respect, and it set us apart from the 90% in the rear that supported us in the field that we had none for.

The next day I was the new point man and gained the trust and respect of everybody, and I admit I liked it, I mean these were some bad mother fuckers walking behind me and trusting me, some of them on their 2nd or 3rd tour in country. For me being 18 years old I was on top of the world I was part of something without rules or regulations other than safety, not even rank it didn’t matter what rank a man had, what mattered was the size of his balls and how many kills you had junkie or not, hell I knew a couple of guys that had been in country 6 and 7 years and didn’t know or remember another way of life, back home they would be nothing just another fucking civilian or called a baby killer, we didn’t like the protesters of the time and they didn’t like us, we didn’t like anybody but our friends that we worked with everyday in the field.

We were demolition specialist, and were paid more for it; above the combat pay that everybody got by just being in county. We had access to everything that had to do with explosives and demolition and being kids we would play with it when time permitted, for example taking shit apart like claymore mines to see what was inside, the same thing I did as a little kid, I might not get it back together just right but I could always get inside to see how it worked, which was more fun than playing with it, and I never had that many toys anyway. What B and me would do was to take the flares apart and mix up the colors for a light show at night, flares came in different colors each color meant something different depending on the order of the day, and there was white, red, blue, and green the rest I don’t remember but you get the idea.

Every night we all had guard duty on our tank that was parked next to our hooch, whoever had 1st guard had to set out a cluster of claymore mines all hooked together in what was call a daisy chain, it was very simple. A claymore was filled with good sized ball bearings backed with C 4 a plastic explosive and slightly curved outward for effect, and to avoid confusion at night and direct the powerful blast, when at times was so fucking dark the wind got lost, anyway whoever had 1st guard had to set them out, and the last guard, when the sun came up had to bring them in.

A claymore has 2 holes on top, 1 at each end and prongs on the bottom of each end that would fold down and spread apart into two 3 inch prongs to stick in the ground to hold it up, it took 3 0r 4 trips back and forth to get the job done in knee deep mud. After a guy had them all in place then he would go back and get all the wiring to hook it all up to make 1 big fucking blast, we used detonation cord that wasn’t fuse cord, it was an explosive cord, with a crimped on blasting cap on each end of the det cord, then stick it in the hole on top and the other end into the next one and so on as many as you wanted, then with all that done there was one more trip back to get the electric fuse wire and place it in the first claymore that would create a chain reaction for all of them to go off at the same time, hence the phrase daisy chain.

We did have the option more or less of choosing what time we wanted to pull guard, some wanted to be first or last so they didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night, we decided among ourselves when, but when I found out that WOLF MAN JACK was in from 2a.m. to 4 and I loved to listen to him it was like being home. I didn’t mind setting up the claymores or taking them in I did my share of that but hey the WOLF MAN was my favorite even though it was a shitty time to go on guard, but I always got it.

The one time I got scared taking in the mines was one morning when a helicopter came in to early and the static electricity could set off the 1 electric blasting cap that started the chain reaction and I had just started to bring them in and hadn’t had time to remove the 1 electric cap, the rest of the caps weren’t electric so they were very safe.

I tried to wave them off but they landed anyway, so I ran back to the other side of the wall of dirt, then I realized they had wounded and had no choice but to land so our aid station could patch them together enough to make it to the hospital in the rear, so I had to let it go and not retaliate for very nearly killing me. One of the most important things there was is to forget about getting killed, because that would drive a soldier crazy, you had to forget that.

The mail was the only thing we had to lift our spirits, and I had been getting letters from the woman I met while on leave in Fort Worth. She explained to me many things that I didn’t really understand, like why I was given the 2 kilos, but I thought I already knew why. She went on to tell me that most of her family was in the army including her father and it was him that shipped the hash back to the U.S. he was a 30 year man with many friends in high places with the right connections. She went on to tell me that when I got back she would waiting for me and not just to fuck but to make money in the drug business a bunch of money, she said that with me being from Texas and her in New York we could make a fortune together and have fun doing it. I wrote her back and told her I didn’t know shit about selling drugs in Texas or New York. She wrote back and told me not to worry she would teach me everything I needed to know and how easy it would be. I had already told her I started using heroin, and she told me to mail as much as I could to her and explained to me how to do it without getting caught and I would make a hell of a lot more than 100% percent on my return, this got my attention so I started sending as much as I could, for some reason I trusted her to keep my money.

She went on to tell me the cost of pot in New York was high and the price in Texas was so low then she told me not to worry about it for now just come back safe and sound because she had a beautiful future planned for us when I got back.

Shit I was on cloud 9 just thinking about her, and I was telling my friends while showing them her picture, look what I got waiting for me boys, she was so pretty some of the guys said sure I bet that’s your big sister, we were 18 and 19 but she was 26 with blond hair, big tits she was so beautiful wearing that red lipstick that I liked so much, what could be better than that I thought, I guessed only time will tell.

After about 2 months of walking point I was taken off and me and B was assigned to pull security for the water purification truck that went in the opposite direction of the village that we swept through every day. But the road that went to the creek wasn’t swept for mines; we just took our chances and hoped for the best. The water truck had an escort of 2 tanks, which wasn’t very many men but made up for by the amount of firepower, on 2 tanks we had 2 m 60s.

M60 7.62mm Machine Gun

The M60 is a gas-operated, air-cooled, belt-fed, automatic machine gun that fires from the open-bolt position. It has a maximum rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute. Ammunition is fed into the weapon using a disintegrating metallic split-link belt, feeding from various containers, such as a 100-round bandoleer. The weapon has an integral, folding bipod and can also be mounted on a folding tripod. It can be fired from the shoulder, hip, or underarm position; from the bipod-steadied position; or from the tripod-mounted position. It can also be spindle mounted on various vehicles and helicopters

And two 50 caliber machine guns. That when heard would instantly instill fear in the enemy. With all the firepower we had to lay down was enough fire to suppress the enemy’s fire that would buy time for support from cobra gunships that came in pairs and was always near bye that had an array of unimaginable firepower each with a minigun at 4000 to 6000 rounds per minute plus rockets. And more weapons also. Google to see if you want to know more as there is much more to know about the weapons the cobras had at the time.

In short they were outgunned to say the least, we were bulletproof Blackhorse Troops and we instilled fear into them, not the other way around. We were much feared and we kept it that way by being ruthless and unmerciful, after all it was war and to our advantage to keep it that way even if it got out of hand at times so what, it was the feeling at the time and we all had to go along with the others in our outfit or be outcast which was even more dangerous than charley was. And if what I said makes you think I’m trying to make excuses for my actions and that of others you’re wrong, that being said I am at a loss for words and have only the truth I hope to set me free, the truth for me and not for you the reader, unless you are another vet.

Truth being the burden of guilt to begin with, for those who didn’t make it, as surely as it does in all soldiers of all wars who survive. And that comes back to visit every time I see someone in civilian life that’s missing an arm or leg or in a wheelchair. And that’s only one part of it.

As there is nothing you can say to me that I have not already said to myself, and is too much for you to comprehend unless you was there. At the time I was there we had all volunteered to go, to escape the hate and prejudices of Germany only to be infected by the disease ourselves by the same sickness that we had suffered. The only difference was that we was so miserable being there, add the fact we were taught to hate them and I am sad to say that I didn’t see them as human beings, add our age and the heroin factor into equation and you have a recipe for disaster, that was the reason not an excuse. So let’s finish the story before I get carried away.

On one particular day we had a new T.C. a lifer sergeant that was still drunk and hung over, we wasn’t at all happy with this and we never got drunk in the day and hardly ever at night either, now we had a drunk that wanted to tell us what to do because he out ranked us, and we could tell he was scared as well as drunk and there was no way in hell we were going to get killed over this drunk mother fucker, he didn’t understand that B and me called the shots by now on this tank so we let him know before we even got to the road that was about 200 yards from the firebase.

With this fool sitting behind the 50 cal. And his back to us I filled my ivory pipe full of pot and lit it up, got it going good and passed it to B, he gave me a look as to say are you sure as he took a big hit from it, when our so called tank commander smelled the smoke he turned around and said something to the effect that he wouldn’t allow pot on his tank, with that B told him turn your drunk ass around and mind your own fucking business if you want to live to see tomorrow, we run this fucking car and we tell you what to do, you understand old man? He understood and did as he was told.

Then something funny happened after we got there. When we got to the creek each of the 2 tanks backed off the road in opposite directions into high buffalo grass, it was the so called dry season and after a couple of hours of guarding the idiot working his water truck we decided to have a little snack of c rations.

Being demolition specialist we always had plenty of C4 to heat up the can of shit of the day. C4 came in ¼ pound blocks and was highly explosive of course but you could tear off a little piece of it and set it down and light it with a cigarette lighter it burned hot as hell but wouldn’t explode unless you stepped on it, anyway we had another junkie friend with, us he was a Pollock and we just called him ski for short, he was always pushing his army glasses up on his nose from the sweet pouring down his face. So here we sat having a nice quiet picnic when ski had finished heating his can of shit and kicked the still burning C4 off the tank into the dry buffalo grass, B told him man you’re going to catch this shit on fire, his answer was who gives a shit it’s just Vietnam.

Then proceeded to light a bigger piece and tossed it into the high dry grass, what happened next was one of the funniest things I ever saw over there, even though it put us in unnecessary danger.

As you probably guessed by now the fire was on, and we were sitting on top of an A.P.C. which is an armored personnel carrier we often called a car, that nobody ever rode in because for 1 it was full of explosives of all kinds of other shit you name it, and the 2nd reason nobody got inside was fear of running over a mine. Anyway as the fire started to spread the idiot that started it got off the tank to attempt to put it out, then the idiot hung over sergeant got off as well and left his position behind the 50, next he told me and B to get down to help fight the fire, we told him fuck you mother fucker, I wasn’t about to leave my M60 and neither was B we were in a dangerous place anyway and could be an easy target for an ambush if they were stupid enough, but they were full of surprises.

There was only 1 other tank with us and it was on the other side of the road so B told our driver to back up across the road away from the fire before we blow up, he didn’t waste any time he had already started it up, so we backed up across the road and nearly died laughing at the 2 of them trying to put out the grass fire, as we loaded another pipe.

Ski would take a couple of swats at the fire with his shirt and have to stop to adjust his glasses and the drunk was using one of those little shovels carried on a back pack it was funny as hell. After it was all over and the water truck guy was finished we headed back to the firebase, all the way back the drunken sergeant was blabbering on about what he was going to do when we got back, and all the way back me and B was smoking pot and drinking beer. We didn’t give a fuck what he did or said to whoever the fuck he said it too. We had a motto or saying, what the fuck are you going to do send me to Vietnam? We were respected field rats now and had lost our cherries.

Our work was appreciated by the C.O. and 1st sergeant Harris, we never saw the drunken sergeant again he was sent back to the rear where he belonged and never heard a word about what happened that day, they didn’t have to ask our version of what happened, we were trusted and sergeant Harris wasn’t anybody’s fool either. He counted on me and B even knowing we were junkies.

THE LIVING CONDITIONS

Forget about the danger we were in everyday, we did.

Now let me tell you how we lived which to me was worse than my fear of getting killed. For example the flies that was so thick that when you opened a can of c rations to eat you had to use 1 hand to constantly wave off the flies, then when you went for another bite it had to be done fast to get back to waiving your hand over your food, and I don’t mean slowly either it had to be done very fast or the shit food would be covered with flies.

Then there were our sleeping quarters if you could call it that. 5 of us in a sand bag hooch with a foot of thin mud for the floor, it was about 5 foot from underneath the mud to the ceiling and about 50 foot square without light or fans only candles. At night before we went in to try to sleep with all the cannon fire and machine gun fire all night, guys firing into the darkness, we would go in and tuck in our mosquito nets and light 5 to 10 pic mosquito repellents the kind you used to get at a drive in movie, anyway after they were all lit we would get out and let the smoke settle before going back in, this was our time to sit around and drink beer or separate to smoke pot. I slept on a stretcher less that 2 foot wide and hard as a rock about 2 foot from the ceiling. I remember being stoned in the dark hearing the rats screeching and worried about a mortar or rocket landing on top of me. With the mud for a floor I had to climb a makeshift ladder get on my stretcher which I couldn’t sit on as there wasn’t room, so I kind of got situated and untied my boots then tie them together so I could hang them on the handle of the stretcher and hope the fuck I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to piss, or if I did I would try to wait until it was my turn to pull guard where on more than occasion I would cry, but not for myself or not even the dead and wounded, but when they played that song, be the 1st one on your block to have your boy come home in a box.

I cried for the mothers back home. And for my mother worrying about me even though I lied to her in my letters back home telling her that I had a very safe job in the rear as a clerk. I didn’t want my family to worry, and like my great grandmother would say it’s just a little white lie so it’s ok. And while on guard you’d have to coat yourself with stinking mosquito repellant and roll down your sleeves of your stinking shirt, oh didn’t I say we didn’t have a laundry mat? We had to wash our clothes the best way we could, I washed mine with a bar of soap on the tail gate of a trailer from time to time. We all had our pant legs rolled up to our knees to keep the mud off our pants because it would build up and become heavy, then we would pull the mud off our legs everyday and after 40 years I still don’t have any hair on my legs hahahh. Oh well I can’t complain, as I have legs and so many others didn’t make it back at all.

After being on this firebase for 4 months and doing basically the same shit everyday now they were calling on me and B to take on more dangerous missions by sending us out in choppers to blow up a booby trap, or a mine that the grunts would find while beating the bush on foot and we never tried to disarm anything, we just blew it up in place. We didn’t mind working with explosives, hell that part was kind of fun like a kid playing with fireworks.

When working with explosives everything has a formula depending on the task at hand, but as it was explained to me by an old timer sergeant, we aint got but 1 formula here kid, formula P for plenty so forget all that crap you learned in school back in the world.

But the part I hated was the chopper flights, to be honest my first ride up was fun until I stepped into it and seen all the bullet dents, then I got a sinking feeling in my stomach as the chopper got higher and higher in the air, I felt like we were sitting ducks, still noticing the bullet holes in the chopper and a sense of helplessness and the fear of being shot down which happened all the fucking time, we saw them being transferred by bigger helicopters’ using sling ropes sometimes 2 at a time as they flew by our firebase on a regular basis. And if it crashed would I live? And if I lived would I be captured? That was my greatest fear getting caught and tortured. So I was ready to do any fucking thing they wanted when it landed, just get me down from this mother fucker was all I wanted I didn’t care what I had to do when I hit the ground, maybe I should say we but I can’t speak for what is going on in another guys mind.

Anyway everything was about to change and in a big way especially for B and me, something that not even in our wildest dreams would we think we would end up where we did. That could never happen to us especially us, but I’m getting ahead of myself again, sorry sometimes my mind drifts while remembering things that happened so long ago.

It was December now and we got word that we were leaving this mud pit to set up and move to another firebase called fiddlers green. And we would start tearing down our firebase in 2 weeks. But for now it was business as usual. One morning the Chaplin came by our hooch before we went out to do what we had to do no matter what it was or the destruction we had to do, sometimes to the innocent but I won’t talk about that or the torture I had to witness, and you don’t want to know either, anyway I never liked to see the Chaplin and with good reason. To me he was a reminder of everything good, but there was no good left inside me anymore only hate was in me now, and I am ashamed to admit I was meaner than I had to be, and leave it at that. But on this particular morning I asked him what are you doing here? We don’t want to think about god or anything else good; don’t you know what we have to go do this morning? Please don’t come around us before we have to go do our thing, god is the last thing I want on my mind ok. With that he bowed his head and said a little prayer and walked away. I never heard his words nor did I want to.

We were Blackhorse troops with a price on our heads. About a month before I got there our company had killed over 100 dinks and placed them in a pile and rode around then firing machine guns into the dead bodies and tearing off their Blackhorse patches, leaving them on the dead bodies as a warning to others not to fuck with the Blackhorse again, that is what happens to kids full of hate and heroin living in hellish conditions 7 days a week, months on end. I leave the rest to your to your imagination.

Before we left this stink hole we still had our work to do, for B and me it was still pulling security for the water truck in the afternoon after our other duties of security in the morning for the mine sweepers.

One day while on water point some women came down to the creek begging for food, I said ok if you will wash my clothes on the bank ill toss a hand grenade in the little pond off to the side and you can have the fish that float up, they agreed, then one of them said she had pussy for sale and I was all for that until I saw her squat down in front of us and take a shit and didn’t even wipe with a leaf or anything, then she stood up and said ok I ready now, I had to pass on that one, yall get the fuck out of here now but before they left an old dink man showed up, they all knew better than to get within range because we were in what was called a free fire zone, which meant we could kill anybody that we wanted to. Then for some reason Ski shot him in the stomach with a fucking 38 revolver for no reason at all, but we didn’t say anything to him about it, what was done was done.

Me and B loaded the old man on or tank and took him back to the base when we were done at water point and asked the C.O. if he would call for a dust off to get him, the medics didn’t have time to fuck with him, the old man was laying on the landing pad waiting for the dust off to pick him up, when the chopper got there a medic said where is he? Our C.O. pointed to the old man, in a rage the medic told him don’t ever call us again for a fucking dink we don’t have the time, and flew off.

We sat on top of our bunker watching all this happen, while we ate our meal of the day we watched him die in the hot sun. Like the torture of kids I had to watch, I didn’t like it but I couldn’t go against the team. But I didn’t have to talk to them again either, that was all I could do but my silence to some was loud and clear. I could kill an American the same as a dink by now.

Anyway we were about to pull up stakes and move to a clean dry new firebase free of the smell of burning shit and flies for a while anyway.

Before we departed we had to be sure we didn’t leave a single thing behind that the dinks could use for anything. First we had to remove the sandbags from the top of our bunkers that was held up with landing pad material used for helicopters’ and walkways for the wounded brought in for emergency repair so they could make it to a real hospital. Then cut open the sand bags empty the hardened contents and kill as many rats as we could in the process then burn the bags and everything else. This left us without shelter from the rain or the occasional rocket, and everybody had to sleep in the rain except B and myself because I was in charge of the only covered trailer where a bunch of shit that I was responsible for was stored along with the starlight scopes and various explosives. Now this was one of the reasons I liked being in the field, as me and B was in the dry doing heroin at night and listening to a transistor radio drinking beer, the C.O. And first sergeant Harris was under the trailer on the ground trying to stay dry. We were 18 year old junkies but treated with all the respect that was needed and we had the utmost respect for our C.O. and first sergeant for treating us like the men we thought we were. Rank had very little meaning there, only respect and trust mattered.

We were saying good bye to the Black Virgin Mountain that was about 5 miles away. If you are reading this Google the mountain and Cu Chi that was our next stop to let off some steam before we were turned loose in Long Bin to watch bob hope for Christmas. On the day we left, the whole firebase was assembling on the road with all kinds of heavy equipment brought in to help with the move, it was the biggest convoy I ever seen before or again, it took hours to get ready, then we started to move towards the village that planted all those land mines at night.

When we got there we didn’t see anybody which wasn’t normal, as they were always begging for food but not today, then gunfire was heard, I didn’t know from where so we all fired enough rounds into that village. There couldn’t have been a fly alive after we stopped firing. We were not ordered to dismount after the firing stopped and just moved out, it was never talked about and I hope the civilians were already gone. We were leaving and that was all I cared about at the time, the next stop was Cu Chi about 6 hours away. And it was getting late in the day.

Later we found out that under Cu Chi was a hospital for the dinks. But we didn’t stay long enough to find out. All we wanted to do was find the closest steam and cream, a steam bath and happy ending of course. I remember it was B, Ski and me in this whore house made with plywood dividers that didn’t reach the ceiling, and about 5 by 6 foot in size with a little massage table and a ceiling fan above, when I hear B laughing and then laughing harder, then I started hearing a thump thump thump thump I thought what the fuck is that thumping sound? When we was finished with the whores, about 3 minutes later and went outside I asked B what the fuck are you still laughing about, it took him a while as he was bent over laughing, finally he told me that his whore was tickling his balls and as he was laying on his back laughing looking up, and fucking Ski jumped up on his table to see what was so funny and that thumping sound was his head in the ceiling fan getting thumped but the funny thing was him adjusting his heavy glasses and so full of heroin the fan didn’t bother him as much as his glasses sliding down the dumb asses nose.

We didn’t have a place to sleep other than on top of our tanks but we was so full of heroin, more than we would be on a firebase because here we was safe or that’s what we thought, we drank and smoked as much as we could of heroin, beer and pot, I was nodding off as we sat on top and hitting my head on the shield that protected the 50 cal. Then I fell off and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, when asked if I was all right I thought for a second and said oh yea I’m ok man, and I was for the time being with so much heroin in me I couldn’t feel a thing, but I would later. What happens in the next couple of days would be a little fuzzy to remember with clarity. But I’ll do my best, maybe ill smoke a joint to help remember, be right back. Ok now I remember some of it anyway. The next day we were put on the big Chinook birds that was called a shit hooks by all in country and taken to Long Bin to see the bob hope show that I couldn’t care less about, we had reserved seating front row, but it was in the blazing sun without any beer and nary a whore in sight. I told B I wasn’t staying here just to look at beautiful round eyed women when there has to be a beer joint close by plus I think I got a rib or 2 cracked, he stayed behind and I started walking where I had never been before, lost in more ways than one.

I made my way to a road where vehicles were moving and started walking down this road when 2 guys in a jeep stopped and ask if I needed a ride; it wasn’t until then that I understood how different we were, by the respect they showed and what they thought I was only by my ragged uniform and the Blackhorse patch and white boots from the mud that had never seen polish. I told them what I was looking for a beer joint with whores, so they took me there after giving me a bag of weed. After I went into the bar I don’t remember what happened after that. About all I remember was getting on another chopper headed back to our tanks at Cu Chi, for the move to our new firebase; Fiddler’s Green, that we had to build in the middle of nowhere that would be our new, but a dry home away from home.

While writing this book and remembering more than I really wanted to, and in doing so I left out a lot of details that I didn’t think was necessary for you to know or me to say, and from time to time I would get ahead of myself but now I want to go back and tell you something about the kind of people I lived with on Firebase Andrews. And something about our battalion commander.

His was one of the few names I remember his name was Lieutenant Colonel Stokes. He was an old man in his mid 30s, to us he was ancient. Then one late afternoon we saw his private chopper coming in to land on the landing pad that was outside the inner part of the firebase, the pad was 2 hooch’s away from us, as we watched him get out of his bird we noticed he was covered in blood as he walked by us headed for the C.O.s hooch, dragging a wounded N.V.A. behind him, that’s a dink in a uniform. His pilot always stayed behind with the chopper to check it out for damage and whatever, so my curiosity got me again and B and I walked over to the pilot to ask what had happened to the old man as he was called. Then he told us what he did, he said we were up high when the old man said I saw some movement on the ground, get us down for a better look, it was 2 N.V.A. caught in an open field running for the tree line, they was trying to find cover before firing at us when the colonel told me to get on top of them now, then he said when I got on top of them the Colonel pulled out his 45 and shot one in the lower back then jumped out of the fucking chopper landing on the other one and beat him to death with his 45, as I landed to pick him up he told me to help load this other mother fucker on board the bird, he said I have questions to get out of him while he’s is still alive. With hearing this about the old man we were all pumped up by his actions of the day, we had a leader to respect in a big way. It turned out that after he was done with the dink he told the old man that the N.V.A. stayed clear of us and went around us, not able to match our fire power, and then we saw 2 guys taking him back to the Colonels chopper, I couldn’t tell if he was still alive or not, but who cared anyway.

As his chopper started warming up to take off everybody was yelling yea Colonel and saluting him as he left, and we never saluted anybody ever. As we watched them get higher and higher while moving away we saw the dink thrown out, but he landed far enough away so we didn’t have to smell him.

Back at Cu Chi I was in for a surprise I didn’t like, I was assigned to ride shotgun on the bridge tank, and even though I was pals with the operator of this huge tank with a bridge on top that was operated by hydraulics raised and extended over a creek then drove over by the other tanks, but I still didn’t like being away from B who I counted on every day as we knew each other’s moves, and he wasn’t happy either as now he had a cherry to take my place, I never did know what happened to the bridge tanks protection and didn’t ask either, what for I thought, if he was injured or dead why bring it up? If he had just rotated back and was going home he would had told me the good news. I don’t remember his name but we was pals and did heroin together many times before, but we had to be somewhat alert now as a convoy was a favorite target for the enemy to hit and run, knowing that convoys as a rule don’t stop for anything.

The guy I was riding with had been in country close to 6 years and it was an honor for me to ride with him, as he had asked for me specifically to ride with him on the move to the new base. When we finally started moving out he asked if I had anything to smoke. What do you want to smoke I asked? Heroin of course was his reply, well I have some ready to smoke now if you want, but don’t you think we should wait until we get moving so we don’t get caught by the smell? He agreed so we waited until we got moving. It wasn’t that dangerous of a move, and as Colonel Stokes had found out from the N.V.A. he captured we would never be attacked in force simply because of our firepower that was incredible to start with, not to mention our will to kill and burn out any village we didn’t like or trust, it just depended on our mood, or if we had lost any guys that week. The only thing we had to think about was maybe a R.P.G. or sniper, we would find out in the hours to come.

We had been moving now for about an hour or so and the driver was nodding off at the controls and I was constantly waking him up. We were somewhere in the middle of the convoy and couldn’t see much because of all the dust from the tanks in front of us kicking it up.

As we was making our way through a little town that was bigger than a village. The driver nodded off then ran off the road and ran over a lambreta, it was one of those little busses powered by a motorcycle and killed 10 to 15 men, women and children, we didn’t even know what had happened but the bump woke him up and he got back on the road. We didn’t know about it until we got to the new firebase when the guys behind us that saw it told us, but the C.O. never said a word about it and for the time being it was forgotten, but I remember now, and I am ashamed about it but when it happened I didn’t care, it was how we lived with ourselves day by day. I personally have too much shame and guilt to live with at times, my only relief was heroin for the next 30 years, and telling myself it wasn’t my fault it was the war. If only I could really believe that was true. Was it?

Ok so here we was at our new dry firebase without sand bag bunkers, instead we lived on the ground covered with a half a piece of corrugated culvert. When a bucket operator drove up to me and dumped it on the ground and told me to position it in whatever direction I wanted it as he was going to cover it with dirt, I looked around to see what direction the others were pointed, and they were all pointed in different directions, so I said fuck it what’s the difference? With that he said ok so turn it over and I’ll go get some dirt, he returned and dumped a bucket of dirt on top of it, then went for another load of dirt, dumped it and said laughingly there’s your new home. It took an hour or more to dig out the dirt at both ends so I could crawl in and set it up. But they did give us air mattresses to sleep on. I had that and a candle along with my transistor radio was about all I had besides my weapon, ammo and some c rations but not just any c rations, I had something special, the only thing in Vietnam that wasn’t shared with even your best friend, I had a can of c ration peaches that was rare and when a guy opened a box of rations to find a can of peaches he didn’t say anything about it and stashed it away waiting for the day when he would open a box to find a can of pound cake. Together it was the biggest treat you could have in the way of food, the next day you’d tell your friends about it; sometimes it took a month to collect both.

We had the same job as at the other firebase such as guard every night. No need to go over all that shit again right.

We had been there only a few days when it was pay day January the 1st 1972 when the C.O. sent for me with good and bad news, the bad news I was paid only 1dollar, I said I guess the good news was that you was planning my 19th birthday party on the 6th he laughed and said no the good news was that I had to fly back to the rear and get your pay straightened out, and take a couple of days off for fucking whores and getting drunk then get your ass back here. You will go back in the morning with the mail bird when it leaves, and don’t go fucking crazy and get in any trouble I want you back here in 3 days.

I went back and went to the finance office and got my pay straightened out, then I went crazy what with all the whores and cold beer and running water for a much needed shower, there wasn’t any hot water but we didn’t need it and I didn’t care, it was a fucking shower. That night I got so fucked up that I passed out in an open space that wasn’t partitioned off with plywood to make a room; I was just out in the middle of the bay. The next morning at the gathering around to hear what the 1st sergeant had to say I noticed everybody looking at me in a different way, not because I was a field rat but it was another look, then somebody asked me how I felt, and if I was alright as if something had happened to me the night before, no I’m ok what’s with all the fucking questions anyway? They the cherries was half scared of me and didn’t try to talk to me, as far as I was concerned that was fine with me as we didn’t have anything to talk about anyway, but the night before in the beer joint one of them asked me if I wanted to smoke some pot, and we sat stoned getting drunk talking, mostly I wanted news from the world and we had a good time with the whores and drugs, I loved the whores, for one thing you didn’t have to talk to them, so he told me what had happened the night before. Some of the cherries had gassed the M.P.s with a grenade launcher after I had passed out in the middle of the open bay area, and that the wind blew the gas back in our direction and everybody had to get the fuck away from the gas, except me I was out of it and they couldn’t wake me up so I slept through the whole fiasco.

After my head started to clear I began to notice all these fucking cherries with their new clean ironed clothes, and shined boots all done by the hooch maids, and there was a bunch of these fuckers with fans and running water and I thought why don’t they send some of them to the field and send some of us back to take it easy for a change, there was so many of them and only about 20 of us from our company in the field, we was a very small part of the all the guys on the firebase. It didn’t seem right to me and I started thinking about it more and more and getting pissed about it.

When I got back to the field a day or so before my 19th birthday I told my friends about all the new cherries back in the rear and how unfair it was not rotating some of us back, I went on to say I hadn’t lost my balls but I think we all had done our share of living in hell, and they all agreed with me, but what do you suggest we do Tex ?, I said I’m going to talk to the C.O. and ask him about a little rotation. He looked at me like I was crazy saying we can’t have a bunch of cherries out here getting people killed specialist, instead of calling me by my name which in the army meant he wasn’t happy with me, then he said something that sent a chill down my spine, he said you aren’t never getting out of the field specialist. I turned around and went back to tell my friends what he had said to me. Then B said there is another way to get out if only for 2 weeks, I asked him what the fuck are you talking about B? He said aint you heard about the new amnesty deal? What the fuck does that mean I asked; he said it’s a new deal for junkies.

I still didn’t understand what he meant so he explained it to me in simple terms while trying to settle me down, he was afraid I was going to do something stupid. He told me what amnesty meant, and that a junkie any junkie could turn himself in, go to the hospital for 2 weeks and not get busted in rank or any kind of punishment of any kind, the big drawback was no junk or anything but food and cigarettes not even a beer or a joint for 2 long weeks, I thought for a second not a minute, and said fuck it I’m going at least there will be beds, fans and running water. So I took out a vile of heroin took a really big snort and returned to the C.O. and nearly vomited on his boots while telling him that I wanted to go on amnesty for being a junkie.

I had never seen him so mad. God dammed I know you’re a junkie then he stopped talking as his face turned red staring at the ground thinking, but there was nothing he could about it and told me that there is 1 more bird going back later and for me to get my shit and be on it, he then stormed off and I never saw him again.

I was all fucked up when I got on it and the pilot told me that they needed another door gunner and to strap myself in behind the M60, as it took off the other pilot lit a bowl of pot and away we went for the ride of my life as they were either trying to impress me or scare the shit out of me, but they never saw any fear from me as they did scary maneuvers like making a hard bank that put me seeing nothing but the ground below, then got it about 10 feet off the ground at full speed, I was glad that we had made it back alive, and told them how stupid they were and went on to my company to report to the 1st sergeant. He told me to be ready in the morning to go to the hospital and to do whatever I wanted tonight.

The next morning I went to the morning gathering to hear whatever was being told to the rear echelon cherries that had nothing to do with me but I still had to go. After it was over TOP called me aside and said there was a delay with my departure due to something unexpected that had come up of some importance, he told me that that no more than 5 to 20 minutes after your ride took off for here that 6 of your friends also decided to follow my lead and asked to go on amnesty. Then in other 20 or so minutes while the men were waiting in line for the steak that had been sent out, three 122 rockets hit the firebase and 20 plus was killed.

God fucking dam I thought fucking dink mother fuckers, then he went on to say that the 6 that had already asked for amnesty had made it, and are on their way here to go with you to get off the shit, and they aren’t looked on as cowards as they wanted on amnesty before the rocket attack happened and was already signed up so they couldn’t back out if they wanted to.

It was the biggest loss of men that I had ever known of for our battalion. The rockets hit the other side of the firebase and I didn’t know who they were. It might seem strange to you but we didn’t socialize with other troops on the base, the reason was quite simple when given any thought. For 1 we stayed close to each other and close to our tanks and assigned fighting positions, I mean you just didn’t go walking around where you don’t belong or even wanted, that’s how tight we all were.

So here comes B and Ski and the others that I can’t remember the names of, they was picked up by a chopper and brought it the company head quarters to report in and sign some paper work all the time being reassured there would be no reprisals as it was an amnesty program trying to help us and not to punish, but there was a catch a big one, that after doing the 2 weeks of withdrawal and later get caught on a piss test, that was a new thing to us a piss test, but if that happened you’d get a dishonorable discharge.

But we were also able to go on amnesty again but only 1 more time.

We were put on a truck and sent to begin the painful process of withdrawal with the only relief of 3 aspirins a day and all the horse liniment we wanted to rub on our legs for muscle spasms, as we lay on our beds with legs constantly kicking, hence the phrase kicking the habit. But what drove me crazy was that one of the biggest beer joints and whore house in country was directly across the street, we could hear them at night getting drunk, raising hell and smoking pot, we could smell it, and well you get the picture it only added to our misery. But as the saying goes time heals all wounds, that is what they say anyway, but there are a whole bunch of sayings told by a bunch of theys.

I even have one myself that I think I mentioned before in my book, it is that the army works in mysterious ways, and to prove it just wait and see what happens next to me and my junkie friends, you may not believe it, I know I didn’t at first.

At the end of our 2 weeks in a different kind of hell than that of being in the field we were cured from heroin for now anyway.

What happened next had never been done before in the history of the army. Before being released from the hospital everybody wearing the Blackhorse patch was separated from the others and handed a large envelope with a set of orders inside.

When I opened mine and read what the heading said I started freaking out and jumped out of my seat saying WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT, we was promised amnesty without punishment. Then the officer said chill out and keep reading. The part that freaked me out was the words typed at the top that said LONG BIN JAIL, that was all I wanted to read so the officer explained what the orders meant. We were going to be assigned to the prison as M.P.s of all things, I didn’t believe it and thought it was a trick it was a fucking joke, me a fucking M.P. but it wasn’t a trick, later when we got there it was explained to us why we were chosen for this job that we knew absolutely nothing about.

L.B.J.

L.B.J. was short for long bin jail. My confusion was clarified when we got there. When we arrived and reported for duty the 1st sergeant told us to take the day off and find hooch to live and put our shit in order, and the next morning for all 30 of us to report to him in the morning for instructions. So B and I found a room to share by ourselves, all the little rooms were 2 man rooms partitioned off with plywood, they were about 8 by 8 foot square which made sense because plywood comes in 4 by 8 feet sheets. So here we were living with M.P.s that we didn’t like for different reasons, 1st they were M.P.s that was a form of authority, and 2nd they were rear echelon, not field rats, and they were taken by surprise at our presence and just stayed away from us, and didn’t say a fucking word when the smell of pot flowed out of our rooms. Pot was not tested for then by the army for good reason, nearly everybody was smoking it.

The next morning we were taken across the street and into the main gate of the prison, as we walked in still wearing our shabby jungle fatigues, by the way the prisoners acted you would have thought we were the rolling stones or something they was cheering at our arrival, you see they knew we were coming and was happy to see us, and there was a reason why they were so happy to see us that we still didn’t understand yet. As we were being processed in the prison, it was different than processing to a new assignment than we had ever experienced before, it was totally self contained with all the paper work done on site in the prison instead of running all over the post for different things, it was like the Vatican or something by being completely separated from the rest of the army. After all the paper work was finished and given new clothes and boots to be shined by our hooch maids that we had never had before, anyway the Captain of the prison told us to go get cleaned up and change into our new uniforms and to meet him in the company day room at a certain time for further instructions and explanations about why we were there.

As we sat around the day room drinking beer I told B hey man I haven’t been in a day room since Germany, he got a smile on his face and said me either man, and added as we sat stoned, how the fuck did we get here ? Then the Captain came in with all the answers we were waiting to hear. He started with a little joke as any good leader would do to break the ice, so how do you like your new M.P. uniforms? He knew who and what each of us was by reading our files long before we had arrived. And he showed us the respect that he knew he had to, if he was to expect any in return from us, to get the cooperation that was needed for the task at hand.

But he was the kind of man that had my respect already by the way he acted, he wasn’t any part of a pussy, you could tell he was a tough bastard and smart even if he was a cop.

I liked him right off the bat. He also knew we were different than any men under him before in his army career, he was a cop plain and simple and cops don’t go to the field. The prison was in trouble from the riots and letters to congressman from prisoners, so much that the Colonel was ordered back to the world every month to answer questions and get his ass chewed out by a panel of Congressman.

The Colonels first solution was to build a new and better prison next to the old one that I’ll tell you about later. So a new prison was built but the riots and endless letters to their Congressman didn’t stop, the Colonels career was on the line. So when he was ordered back again he told them that he had an idea that I think will work, they were all ears as he explained that 90% of the prisoners are combat soldiers and hated the M.P.s that they would never respect or take orders from, then he added if I could get some combat soldiers in there to work with the kind of people that they understood and had a mutual respect for each other I believe it would fix most all the problems at L.B.J.

So that’s how we got there, and it worked. They prisoners knew we didn’t like the M.P.s anymore than they did.

There were 30 of us all Blackhorse troops, but I didn’t know any of them except the 6 of us from the junkie hospital, and not all of them were field rats so they were placed in the guard towers and kept away from the prisoners. Again I’m getting ahead of the story. After the Captain finished his impressive presentation he asked are there any questions. The only question I can remember was where are our weapons? Referring to our M16s, his reply did not get an applause, for myself as I can’t speak for other peoples thoughts, I felt uncomfortable without it close to me at all times, but this was Long Bin the biggest military base in Vietnam and we had to adjust to certain things. But as far as I could see it was fucking all great. Anyway he said you won’t need any weapons here men, the war is over for you.

Then he told us to follow him to see the old prison and not to take any cameras with you and don’t ever take any pictures of the prison old or new ever period, or face a court marshal. Of course for me it was a have to take pictures later.

What we saw was unbelievable I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and was never able to take a photo of it. As we stood there speechless somebody asked if this was for dink prisoners? The Captains reply was, sadly no this was for the punishment of American soldiers and it was and is still is a disgrace for the army. There was no doubt in my military mind what all the riots and killing of M.P.s was about. This was the old infamous Silver City, and I really didn’t know much about it before researching it for this book, to read more about it go here on Google.

1. Long Binh Jail Riot During the Vietnam War

www.historynet.com/long-binh-jail-riot-during-the-vietnam-war.htm

12 Jun 2006 – Some inmates considered this a form of torture, and Silver City dramatically contributed to LBJ's reputation as the worst place to be in Vietnam.

What we saw was army connex containers painted from green to silver and placed on white sand with slots cut out in the doors with a cutting torch. These containers were made of very thick steel like everything else in the army built to last and bullet proof. About 6 foot square and 6 foot high, the heat must have been unbearable without any shade in sight. Little wonder why no photos were allowed.

After our tour of the old prison we went back to the day room with the Captain, we was told by a sergeant to stay there and wait for your name to be called for a 1 on 1 with the Captain in his office, with that said he told us to drink up and take it easy. He had all of our 201 files on his desk so after he talked 1 on 1 with each man, each man then would be told to go get the next from the day room.

Finally it was my turn, as I reported with a salute he said a salute is not necessary here but thanks anyway have a seat, but when we are in the prison a salute is needed, not for us but for the prisoners benefit, do you know why? Take your time before you answer I understand your confusion being in a different environment, so I did take my time and to hopefully have the right answer, as long as I was here without any other choice I wanted to do it right and be a good worker. It was clear to me what the answer was, it was to instill in the back of prisoners mind that there is order in the prison I guess. Then without saying one way or the other he said I have been reading your 201 file specialist. Why are you still an E/4? You should have been made sergeant months ago, hell it says here that you was an E/4 in Germany when you were recommended for soldier of the month in your battalion, you never been busted or given an article 15.

I couldn’t tell him the truth so I just looked at him and shrugged my shoulders and said I don’t know sir, then smiled and said; think you could help me out with that sir? He smiled and said I also see you have a top secret clearance, I could see the wheels in his head turning and a bit of a puzzled look on his face, then he said report to me here at 0700 hours, yes sir was my only reply and I left his office, I knew he liked that I didn’t ask any questions such as why or what for?

After I left I slowly began to wake up and understand that I had entered another world in a world in Vietnam, and that I had to forget about being a field rat in the Blackhorse and adjust to my new life of being rear echelon, I was still in the army and still wanted to make sergeant.

I reported to his office 5 minutes early, all he said was follow me I’m going to show you what your new job will be, I didn’t understand why just me and not any of the others.

I followed him to the control center of the prison where he had another office, after entering his office he told me to have a seat, I sat there watching him reading paper work for about 30 minutes then he picked up a Walkie talky and told somebody to report to his office. 5 minutes later a black M.P. sergeant showed up and the Captain stood up and introduced us to each other, then he told the M.P. this is your new replacement looking at me.

Then at last I was told what my new job was, and that I was the only Blackhorse soldier to get this job, I was to be a work supervisor, at the time I didn’t know what that meant but the C.O. told me that the M.P. would teach me what I needed to know as how to deal with prisoners and told the sergeant to teach me everything that he knew, he understood how important it was for everybody concerned with the prison. Then he told us both to go to the day room for the rest of the day so the M.P. sergeant to teach me the do’s and don’ts of being a work supervisor and some basic psychology not to mention the benefits that came with the job.

First everybody in Vietnam worked 12 hours a day 7 days a week so they didn’t have time to think, everybody except prisoners, they only worked 8 hours a day with 2 hours for lunch and until noon on Saturday with Sunday off, so my hours was the same, I couldn’t believe my luck.

The first thing I was told was to buy some sunglasses the more they cost the better, it was another form of putting distance between me and the prisoners I was dealing with, but that would be another 10 days before I was put in charge of any prisoners that I had to sign for to do different details outside the gates of the prison up to 10 at a time with my only protection being my Walkie talkie and the respect they showed me, they all knew the Blackhorse patch.

That patch was all I needed and I seldom used the Walkie Talkie to call control to say, control I got a man that wants to go to the hole. That’s what it was called. But for the time being I only watched and listened to my teacher, and was told not to talk as to not let any prisoner hear my voice for the next 10 days and just to stay next to my trainer to watch and learn the techniques of how 1 man could control many, which was extremely important as I would find out later.

Now it is important to understand the prisoners and what they were thinking, and never letting them even think they know what you’re thinking. And that I never show any expression on my face good or bad, another psychological technique because that was our most important weapon that we had to work with, psychology.

Now let me tell you something about the prisoners and there situation 1 they was in the army. 2 they were in Vietnam. And number 3 in prison. And let me tell you from my personal experience that being in Vietnam a guy had to really fuck up bad to land in prison. Which meant these guys didn’t give a fuck about anything or anybody especially the guards watching over them.

Most all was killers about 90% of them were combat soldiers that got caught doing some of the same things I had done without getting caught.

We were the same, but now I had to separate myself from them to maintain control and peace in and out of the prison. I became an emotionless robot, even when I was stoned.

After my first day of training I went back to the hooch that B and I shared, but he wasn’t there, poor B didn’t show up for another 4 hours, when he came in I was half drunk and totally stoned, I jokingly said where the fuck you been man, he was not amused at my comment and said I been sitting by a fucking gate for 12 hours opening and locking it back all day, what are you doing here so early? I hadn’t said anything to him about my new job yet.

Then I told him what my new job was, all he could say is you lucky mother fucker, why you? I said I don’t know but I love it, then I told him how many hours I had to work, he just shook his head and asked if I had found any heroin yet since you don’t work much ass hole? No but it is on the way, should be here in a couple of hours. Then he wanted to go take a shower but I said take one later, let’s go buy some fans before our heroin showed up, his reply was fuck you god dam it, you go get the fans mother fucker I’m a tired and hot cocksucker you lucky bastard. Ok as I was laughing, and stop laughing before I kick your ass, I laughed my way out the door walking backwards just to be sure he didn’t jump me from behind, but it was all in fun, he was the closest friend I had over there and I never even knew his first name.

He had one of those long French names that started with the letter B so that was what everybody called him. As I was walking out the company clerk told me to report to the first sergeant, oh fuck what now I thought. But it turned out to be a good thing, I had a stack of letters that had finally caught up with me and top wanted to give them to me personally to see the look on my face.

He seemed to be a good guy and we got along well, even though he knew we were smoking pot in his company area. After all he had been an M.P. close to 20 years, but he had the good sense to know there was no changing a field rat and let it go, and told the other cops not to bother the Blackhorse guys as we wouldn’t be there long enough to worry about and we deserved a break reminding them what we had been through and how good they had been living, so that was that, no problems from the cops ever. Anyway I didn’t have time to sit down and read any of my letters, it would have to wait first we needed fans for our hooch, we might be in the rear now but it was still hot.

By the time I got back to our hooch and walked in carrying 2 fans much to my surprise sat B naked with a towel covering what I didn’t want to see, sitting in a lawn chair with 2 fans blowing on him. At first I thought I was in the wrong hooch until B looked up and started laughing his ass off. I stood there speechless wondering what the fuck happened and where did this shit come from?

B could hardly control himself from laughing, then he said laughingly you think you’re so cool with your fucking gravy train job mother fucker, remember when the clerk came here to tell you to go see top? Well right when you left he looked in our hooch and noticed we didn’t have any fans and said I got a bunch of fans that his friends gave me when they went back to the world, I’ll go get you a couple, then B said wait a minute, why was my buddy sent to see top? The clerk said oh no big deal top wanted to give him his lost letters a good surprise for him.

B thought for a minute knowing I wasn’t going to carry those letters to the p.x. for the fans and would stop back to drop them off before I went. Then the clerk said it’ll be another surprise for him ill goes tell him, B said oh yea it’ll be a surprise all right, but wait and I’ll go get them from your hooch, with that the clerk said cool I got a chair you can have to. The clerk didn’t know I was going to walk a good distance to buy a couple of fans, but my best friend did the cocksucker. The joke was on me, and I have to admit it was funny. Now we had 4 fans, 2 lawn chairs and 2 beds, bunk beds. Now all we needed was some junk, it showed up about 30 minutes later, now we were in heaven. The bare light bulb was great as well, no more candles. Sure we had all these things in the hospital but we weren’t free. Now we were free to do pretty much what we wanted, whores, drugs and beer, it was really nice.

For a change we were comfortable plus we were M.P.s of all things, I told you the army works in mysterious ways ha ha ha ha.

I started reading my letters; I had 2 from the Yankee gal I had been sending small amounts of heroin to, hoping I would have it when I got home, I knew that to use heroin in the world you’d have to use a needle, I knew I couldn’t do that, I’d never even seen anybody use a needle and didn’t want to either. I wrote to her that night with my new address and to tell her where I was and what I was doing and that I was ok.

The letter I got in return was a surprise and it led me to another door of life, into another world just when in my young fucked up mind I actually thought there was only 1 more world to enter, the world of back home. But I wouldn’t get the letter for another 7 days or so.

Life for us went on the same as every day until one morning when I woke up to see a woman bent over an ironing board on the floor working, with her ass up in the air, pointed at me and it looked so good, hey I had been 19 about a month and was one horny young kid especially after withdrawing from the junk, as I was starring at her but I knew B was already gone to work so I said something to her and she stood up and walked toward me smiling, we didn’t speak as I took her by the hand wondering what her reaction would be, much to my surprise there wasn’t any so I pulled her into my bed and started kissing her and she was kissing me back. Well you can guess the rest. Now I had a girlfriend that I could understand very little of what she was saying but it didn’t matter, but it didn’t take her long to learn how to say I love you. It was the first time I had ever heard that from a woman that wasn’t a relative and the first I didn’t pay for it, and hearing made me completely confused and speechless. I didn’t know what to think, but I did know that the war was nearing the end and any beautiful young dink woman would marry any soldier to escape to the world, so how could I trust her? She was still a dink and not be trusted.

I had so much on my mind as it was and I didn’t need or want this in my life. I never gave her anything such as a bar of soap or cigarettes like some of the other guys was doing for their so called girlfriends, no not me I was too tough for that I wouldn’t be played for a chump. Instead she would bring me food, and then cry when I wouldn’t eat it, then I told her that she was the only dink I didn’t hate and would not eat anything she brought me for fear of poison, but I didn’t tell her that I just said I didn’t like dink food. But every morning as soon as B went to work she would come in and take off her clothes and got in bed with me.

Her name was Kim. I’ll get back to her later, and tell you what she did.

A scheme to make money was in the works, and I didn’t even know about it. But later, for now it was business as usual.

My training was coming to an end and I would be on my own with the prisoners I had to supervise outside the gates of the prison. I had watched and learned my trainer closely as my life depended on it, even how to walk, talk and so many other things I won’t go into.

In the prison was a large fenced in compound where the prisoners would get into the morning formation and wait for their names to be called for different details of the day. At the other end of the compound stood a podium 6 feet high with a microphone.

This was my day to walk up it and call out the names on my roster for duty. Before I did this I had to get my orders for the day as what to have them do with their names on it, and I had to sign for them, after I signed for them they became my responsibility and only mine, not even colonel could talk to them or give an order to them they were mine. And at the end of the short work day I had to make a report on each of my prisoners in detail, such as attitude, how well they worked and other things I won’t go into but I had complete authority over them, enough authority that I could recommend they be released to what was called across the street, which meant a man would be assigned to a regular company to work and not have to stay in the prison until it was time to go to Leavenworth prison in Kansas. That was the only thing they had to look forward to, prison in the world. Sad but true. And I did get 2 out on my recommendation, it was crazy the recommendation of a 19 year old junkie.

We weren’t in a real world not even close to it. The first day on my own, after I read my work orders I walked up to the top of the podium and called out 5 names and told them to get in a column of ducks which meant form a single line near the gate, that’s when they heard my voice for the first time, what I told them was plain and as simple as I could make it.

The first thing I told them was that I was not a M.P. I am a demo Specialist from the Blackhorse Troop. Then I went on to say I didn’t like it here but I am in the army and was ordered here to do a job, I have in my hands my orders for the day, and that we would get along just fine if you do what I am ordered to tell you what to do, it’s as simple as that, and they liked that I wasn’t a real M.P. so I had very little trouble with them, but there is always a fly in the ointment. All they had to do was pick up trash and drugs that guys would toss out while passing by, when I saw any drugs I looked the other way so I didn’t see who picked it up, I didn’t give a fuck but at the same time I couldn’t let them know that I knew, because they could use it against me. I had to be careful with all of them and trust none of them for fear of blackmail later if they had anything on me, for instance if I gave a guy that I liked any heroin and if he turned me in then I would be in prison with them, and I sure as hell didn’t want that. I gave the same speech everyday and when I did get a problem usually from a nigger, id pull out my radio and say, control this is specialist last name, I have a man that wants to go to the hole and 2 M.P.s would come to get him, then at the end of the day as I made out my reports on the prisoner’ I had sent one to the hole I had the authority to say how many days from 1 day to 2 weeks plus how much food he was allowed. The time was the same for all that I sent there, 2 weeks the max, but with full rations of food. I told them not to fuck with me from the start, so as far as I thought it was their fault not mine and it helped me to kept the others in line.

My job was like walking a tightrope, I couldn’t show any fear whatsoever, nor did I want to come off as a hard ass, I was acting when I walked into the gates of the prison no matter how stoned I was I could never smile. And I was always stoned. One morning as I was reading my orders of the day and given the 10 names to do the work outside the gates the orders said to give each man a sling blade for cutting overgrown weeds in front of the prison for appearance sake. Now I had 10 guys that didn’t give a fuck about anything and all of them had a weapon in his hand while all I had was a radio to call for help if I needed it. I gave the same speech and walked them out the main gate to begin their work of cutting the high grass and looking for any kind of dope as I looked the other way.

This day was particularly hot and after a couple of hours I told them to take a break and sit down in the shade, as they did so I decided to take a chance and asked them if they would like a cold soda pop, of course they all said fuck yea, they didn’t have any money to pay for it so I said, look if you’ll all just stay put and don’t get up and go walking around ill go buy you guys a coke but no beer, they all agreed not having any place to go anyway, I knew while I was gone it would give them time to do whatever dope they had found that morning. Before I left for the much wanted sodas that weren’t available to them on the menu of the day, I warned that if anything happened while I was gone there would be no sodas for anybody; I knew that would keep them in line while I was breaking the rules by doing so. They were happy to get a treat denied them in prison, but one of them a nigger took it as a sign of weakness; he would regret his mistake later at the end of the day.

I was about to sign them back into the prison, like every day I had to strip search them before releasing them out of my hands and back to somebody else’s problem. Before I could do this on this day the Captain called my aside, he was from Texas like me and had been watching me; he liked how I did my job and how I handled the men. He had taken a shine to me and was trying to get me to re enlist as an M.P. with the promise of a 10,000 dollar bonus and a promotion, but I wasn’t having any of it I just wanted out. Anyway he called me aside away from the enclosed area for the daily strip searches and told me to search him for weapons, and being the type of soldier I was I didn’t understand why, I just did as I was told without any questions, I patted him down without striping him of his clothes, when I finished doing this odd thing I turned my back on him and he put a 38 revolver to the back of my head and said now search me again, and I did so, again I turned my back and he had a knife to my throat.

He had made his point loud and clear but out of sight of my prisoners. I strip searched them every day but I let them keep their socks and underwear on, now he told me he wanted see a regulation strip search which meant no socks or underwear. As I started going through the motions I then told them to remove your socks and underwear, that I didn’t want to do, hell I knew they didn’t have anything or so I thought. As I told them to do so a nigger said to me, why I got something you wanna to see white boy? I remained expressionless drew my radio like a pistol, my main weapon and put it to my head saying control this is specialist you know who, I got a man that wants to go to the hole and gave my position. As all of them started getting dressed 2 M.P.s was there in 2 minutes so was the Colonel hearing the nigger yelling prejudice white mother fuckers, the Colonel was a black man, he asked the Captain what the problem was as he motioned him closer so others couldn’t hear what was being said, then the Captain told everybody to stay where they was, then ordered me front and center, as I did so I saluted the Colonel and said yes sir as I stood at attention, he said at ease specialist.

The Colonel after being told of the matter by the Captain the Colonel asked me to reconsider the situation for such a minor thing, his hands was tied and couldn’t order me to change my mind as at the time it happened the prisoners were my responsibility and not that of the prison. As I explained to the Colonel, if I let that go what happens tomorrow when I have them outside the gates thinking they can disrespect me? And I lose control? He thought for a second and said carry on specialist as I gave him a salute and finished my work for the day and went back to my hooch to fuck my girlfriend before she left for home like every day, by now with her in the morning, lunch time and when I got off work, we were young and she loved me, or so she said. I didn’t give it much thought either way, I was getting what I wanted and didn’t care; I am ashamed to say now. It wasn’t until much later she told me she was pregnant with my child.

THE LETTER

At last I got a letter from that Yankee gal back home in the morning but didn’t have time to read it until Kim went home. I couldn’t believe what she had to say. First she told me that her brother was in the same place as I was only about 1 mile away, because she knew I worked at L.B.J. her brother had told her months before that he was about a mile from the prison known as L.B.J. and that she had mailed us both a letter and put both in the mail at the same time to make sure we got the letters on the same day and for us to meet the following Sunday knowing I was free on Sundays as I had told her in my letter before.

She told me what unit and company he was in and for me to go to his company day room where he would be at a certain time at night so he would be there waiting to meet me, and that if we missed each other for some unknown reason to try the following Sunday, she told us each other’s names and told him I would have a M.P. patch so we wouldn’t miss each other. She added maybe we all can make some money with me being an M.P. and with his connections there. They were all always scheming how to make money, so was I so we made the perfect pair.

I didn’t know what she had in mind and was a little leery, but they had been honest with me before and more than fair, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to go meet with him and hear what he had to say.

Meanwhile next door to our 284th M.P. battalion was the 28th medical evacuation hospital, the biggest in hospital in country. And the choppers never stopped coming in bringing the wounded, the unmistakable sound of a dust off chopper we all knew too well, we knew by the sound from a distance any type of helicopters they were just by the sound. The dust off choppers was the same kind that brought our mail out to the field every day. But now the sound was a constant reminder that we hadn’t escaped the war. We had friends in the hospital that got hit badly after we had opted for the junkie hospital and again later to, so when we found out they were just next door to our company I started going everyday to talk to them and go buy them stuff from the P.X. mostly candy and comic books along with cigarettes, and maybe a little heroin. One day as B and me were coming back from the P.X. with stuff for our friends we noticed a couple of field rats being hassled about something on the side of the road by 2 regular M.P.s as we got closer we saw they were Blackhorse soldiers, though we didn’t know them personally we decided to see what the fucking problem was, we were already upset from our visit to the hospital, seeing all the tubes in our friends and one hanging on near dead. So as we shook hands with our fellow field rats I asked what the problem here was.

Come to find out they were to see friends in the hospital when these 2 ass hole M.P.s stopped them as they was walking down the road because of their shabby uniforms and lack of there rank insignias on the collars of their shirts and was writing them up for being out of uniform. When I heard this I blew up and told the cops to stop writing in your fucking little book, then I took the insignias off my shirt and put them on one of the guy’s shirt as B was doing the same. Now I don’t have any rank on my uniform, do you want to write me up you stupid mother fuckers? Noticing the M.P. and Blackhorse patches on our shoulders, they tore up the tickets, got in there jeep and drove off without saying a word.

After that the 4 of us made our way back to the hospital I pointed out a bar that we could meet up at and drink some beer if you have the time, then one of them told us something we didn’t know, he said hell yea we got all the time in the world man were standing down and going home, B asked what do you mean? And he told us that the whole Blackhorse unit was going home leaving forever. With our heads spinning at the news I said great can you meet us at that bar in about an hour we want to hear more and the beers on me, they said ok we’ll be there after we see our friends.

After we delivered the things to our friends they had asked for and told them about the stand-down which only made them feel worse thinking about how close they come to going home when they got hit. Then it made us feel bad for telling them, we weren’t thinking and should have known better than to have said anything about it. So being all bummed out we headed for the bar to see the 2 guys we met earlier. As we was walking in the middle of the huge hospital compound in the center of it was where the never ending choppers bringing more and more injured every day, it sounded to me like the war was getting worse instead of better in late February of 1972 and we didn’t know what was going on and plus felt uneasy without any weapons to use if needed.

As we walked I saw a hot dog stand and asked B if he was hungry for a hot dog? Why not sure he replied, as we walked towards it we passed a couple of officers and acted like we were going to salute while passing them by, we only scratched our heads as they saluted us, it pissed them off but when they saw our patches they was confused thinking we must be somebody special with both a Blackhorse and M.P. patch, they had never seen that before as there was only 30 soldiers in the entire army with both, it didn’t make any sense, so we got away with all kinds of shit due to simple confusion, you’d of had to of been there to understand. And to understand how a military mind works after a couple years in service, to that I mean the daily routine and familiar sights and sound the brain computes with little or no surprises, but when given a surprise the brain starts to work to understand why, and that is when they are off guard and easy prey to fuck with, we loved it and took advantage whenever given the chance to do so.

Now as we got to the hot dog stand that was a little shack with picnic tables outside to sit and eat, and on the table was ketchup, mustard, relish and napkins, but the dinks that worked the dump had just finished painting the table and chairs and put up a sign that read wet paint, but the mustard and other shit was on a dry area. We saw the wet paint sign and didn’t want any on our uniforms. And when the dink bitch gave us our hot dogs out of the shack she said wet paint wet paint wet paint over and over until we told her to shut the fuck up bitch but she wouldn’t shut up, about this time her husband or whatever he was to her came walking up and she got that poor bastard all worked up as he started saying, I go get sergeant, I go get sergeant over and over again. By now we were losing what little patience we had with them and one of us said, well go get the mother fucker, with that said the dink then said he’d go get a captain. These dinks weren’t used to dealing with field rats, but we were different from the rear echelon soldiers they were accustomed to dealing with as they would soon find out. But first let me say why we were so different, it was the hate that we had for them all of them, I’m not saying we was better all I am saying is that hate can and does change a young kids mind to the point of not caring.

As far as these dink hot dog venders was concerned we was cherries by our new uniforms and polished boots, in the heat of the moment our Blackhorse patches were overlooked, the next thing I remember as I was putting mustard on my hot dog, and B having this dink on the ground beating the fuck out of him, I was about 10 feet away off to the side eating my hot dog and watching, when the dink bitch came out the door of the shack with a broom handle in her hand screaming something and hitting B on the back with it, on about her 3rd swing at my buddy I blindsided her with a hard right hook to the chin from the side, a knockout punch as the spinal cord is disconnected in the neck, I heard a loud pop and she fell landing on the corner of a cinder block with her ribs that I also heard a cracking sound. All we wanted was a fucking hot dog, as we walked away B said; now go get sergeant you stupid fucking dinks as they lay unconscious, I don’t know if I broke her neck or not, at the time I didn’t care and I’m not sure I care now either.

It all happened so fast, so we took our hot dogs to go, before some officer come by.

We made our way to the bar to meet up with the other 2 guys, remember the 2 we was going to meet before the hot dog incident?

That was meant to be funny, anyway we got there and bullshitted and drank beer for hours getting to know them and making new friends, people we could relate to when somebody suggested we go get stoned. We said hell lets go to our hooch, and one of them said, in an M.P. company? Sure we smoke there every day they don’t fuck with us as I jokingly said hell were the fucking cop’s man.

When we got to our hooch and sat down B started filling a pipe with pot, as he was doing that I pulled out a vile of heroin, we knew they were junkies like us but when they saw the junk they got a sick look on their faces, when I asked why the sad look? They said they had to stay clean of heroin but not pot because of the piss test they had to take tomorrow and that if we were dirty for heroin they’d have go to the hospital for 2 weeks and get a bad discharge to go along with it. Then he said you guys really got fucked being sent here instead of going back to your unit after the hospital that we had told them about, I told him we already figured that one out.

One of them had told us back at the bar he was a tunnel rat, but first let me explain what a tunnel rat is and what he does, and the rewards if not killed. All the tunnel rats I saw crawl in where I wouldn’t go because I didn’t have to, there were always volunteers wanting to do it. As you scratch your head wondering why anybody in their right mind would want to do such a crazy thing, the answer was simple. Whatever a tunnel rat found was his to keep no matter what, this meant dope, A.K.47s whatever.

As we were wishing them a safe good bye, one of them looked at the other one and what you think motioning his head at us, then they looked at each other again and the other one said why not. We sat confused and stoned wondering what the hell are they talking about when they asked how much money did we have, I asked money for what? Then he said, look man I got about 2 pounds of 100% pure heroin I got out of a tunnel last month and we don’t know what to do with it and none of our friends want it, nobody wants to take the risk of not getting out of here if caught trying to take some back, hell we can’t even give the shit away man, the only people we know are going home and you guys are all right and helped us out today, so how about it? You want it? Fuck yes we want it, so we counted all the money we had together, it was less than 300 dollars. They agreed and one of the guys said follow them back to where our tanks are parked, you can pay us then. They were right the only thing they could do was give it away or throw it away. He gave it to us in an army ammo box, I couldn’t believe my eyes, I’d never seen so much heroin before, and it made me nervous so I told B let’s get the fuck out of here man shit this is a lot of heroin, enough to get 20 years in prison for, we all agreed and said good bye them to. We gave them what money we had shook their hands and said thanks man and good luck back in the world, then we split back to our hooch.

By the time we got back B was starting to panic over it being in our hooch, and then I reminded him as long as it isn’t under lock and key they couldn’t prove whose it was, I aint so sure about that Tex this is just to fucking much I don’t know what I was thinking shit. Then being in a better light I opened the ammo can again to see just exactly what we had. It wasn’t the 2 pounds they thought they had fuck it was 2 kilos, I could tell by my hash days in Germany. They were kilo bricks but hadn’t been broken down to fill the 1 gram plastic vials that were scattered on the ground everywhere when they was empty, this was good because of the smaller size would make it easier to try to ship back to the world.

And then it hit me, hey man remember the guy I’m meting on Sunday? He said yea so what’s he have to do with anything, I said maybe everything, you remember what the guys sister said in her letter about maybe making some money?

He said I don’t care just get this shit out of here, but what about the money you chipped in? I don’t care I don’t want nothing to do with it period. I thought a minute and asked B just give me to Monday morning and I give you my word it will be gone, B thought as he looked at me and said that’s 3 more fucking days dude, come on B just 3 days I promise.

He reluctantly agreed and said ok, but it better be gone when I wake up Monday morning mother fucker god dammit I aint went through hell to spend the rest of my life in fucking prison. Then I realized I was putting our friendship on the line, after all we had been through he had never talked to me like that before. B didn’t talk to me until it was gone, and he never really forgives me for it, I had nearly lost my best friend forever. But then though I never said it to him, why did he chip in on it just to get so pissed off, chalk it up to bad ass weed and too much beer.

Sunday at last was here, so I went to meet with her so called brother with her picture in my pocket to see if he knew her name, I wasn’t taking any more chances than I had to.

When I left to meet the guy that I didn’t know, B told me he wasn’t staying in the hooch to guard the shit. So what was my thinking nobody’s going into our room anyway and all the hooch maids were gone so fuck it, I wanted this back home. When I found the place I went to the bar for a beer, a couple of minutes later a older guy about 30 years old dressed in civilian clothes asked me if he could buy me a beer and pointed to his table in a the corner of the day room. I figured this had to be the guy and followed him to his table, I also knew he had rank by his age but I didn’t know what rank he was, but I knew the higher the better because of contacts of higher ranking sergeants was well known in the army.

I was in a hurry to get so B could go back to his room and soothe his nerves if I could, hell he never acted like this back in the field, but that was only death not 20 years or so in prison, I was worried about him. But I didn’t want him to notice my anxiety of what I had back in my hooch unguarded.

I could see this older guy was trying to read me to, so I got right to the point and showed him the woman’s picture I had in my pocket in a vain attempt to throw him off the track, and asked him if he knew her, he laughed as he took another picture out of his pocket with him, her and the rest of their family and said you mean this woman? As I compared the 2 photos I kind of lost MY train of thought looking at her red lips and big tits, he said no problem I know about the 2 of you.

Now we were relaxed knowing it wasn’t a set up. He went on to say he knew all about me and how I had helped his brother in Germany. At this point I asked him if he knew a way to send something back home without getting caught. Yes I might know a way, why what did you have in mind? I was still looking at the family photo in my hand and told myself fuck it after thinking what she had written me, and I had trusted them and her in the past so I leaned closer to him and said heroin, he asked how much, so I told him how much I had and the problem I had with my roommate. He thought for what seemed like an hour to me, but at the same time I thought this was a good sign and I could tell he wasn’t stupid by taking time to think. Then he said I can get it back, but it’ll cost you and you’re going to have to trust me ok.

What choice did I have I thought to myself, and said ok. Then he stood up and said follow me, I followed him to his private hooch for high ranking sergeants, we sat down and talked I little bit, mostly about money and how much we could make, it was unbelievable the money at stake as he explained the purity of what I had and how much cut would have to be added to it before being sold. Then he went on to tell me that I would get a minimum of 100,000 dollars maybe more, but you have to decide if you want to trust me and my sister and wait to get your money when you get back to the world, that’s the only way. As I was thinking again I thought what choice do I have, and said ok. He then said ok go get it and bring it to me here, it’ll be safe here and I’ll take care of everything don’t worry. I did as he said and went to get it and took it back to him. When he looked inside a big smile came to his face, then he said it was nice meeting you, the next time we meet will be in New York, we don’t need to be seen together again just to be on the safe side, as I shook his hand I said I like the safe side and hope it gets there, he said don’t worry ill get it there no problem. I didn’t ask how and I didn’t care either that was his business. I just hopped I wouldn’t get fucked, I thought fuck, guess I’ll find out when I get home.

When I got back to my hooch B was there still pissed off at me and said what happened to the shit, all I said was I got rid of it isn’t that what you wanted, then I said come on man lets smoke a bowl, drink a beer and forget it ok, he agreed and said ok god dam, you crazy mother fucker.

Ok now everything was back to normal for us anyway. I didn’t mention the fact to him that he was all for it until he started thinking, a problem I never had, thinking. Maybe that’s the reason I am here in Argentina living alone at 58 years old writing this book, thinking? That’s was a joke. Ha

BEING NORMAL

For you the reader of this book I want you to think about being normal, are you normal? Or just think you are, I am sure you want to be normal, I know I do but I’m not, what is normal to one person is insanity to somebody else.

We were normal Vietnam soldiers of the time doing what we had to do. For example I remember we were on our tanks one day at the first firebase I was on, we were coming back to the firebase after doing our job and there was all these civilian people taking photos and putting us on film with movie cameras, as we entered the base I remember all of us giving the peace sign to them, I even had a big peace sign hanging around my neck and one on my helmet, now try to visualize us on tanks with machine guns, hand grenades hanging everywhere and all the other tools of war, with all our peace signs, that was normal for us but it was a contradiction in itself. Look up the word normal. And to top it off we hated the hippie war protesters, nothing made any since.

It was as crazy as taking me from a junkie hospital and put in charge of other junkies and killers, was that normal? For there it was normal.

Oh well enough about what nobody has an answer to, and back to my present job at L.B.J. Prison.

It had been about a month since I handed over the 2 kilos to a stranger to be shipped back to the world, and I still hadn’t heard anything from the Yankee gal about if it had made it or not, but I was still getting letters from her. And I had started using more and more heroin, then the company clerk came to my hooch and told me that the first sergeant wanted me in his office, this I knew couldn’t be good I thought, I was in for a surprise, the first sergeant told me to sit down that he had something important to tell me.

He thought or knew I was back on heroin in a big way no matter how I tried to hide it, he knew. Now keep in mind this was a lifetime cop, and he surprised me with what he had to say. As he started talking he called me by my last name which was less formal than saying specialist, he said look you have been doing a good job and I know what you have through, you and some of the others like your friend B, and I respect that of you, that is why I sent for you. I asked why is that top? He stopped me from talking and said just listen to what I am trying to tell you ok, sure top ill shut up. What he was trying to say went against everything he was taught and trained to do, breaking the law or rules. Then he brought the subject of me being in the junkie hospital before ordered here, and then I got a very sick feeling in my stomach because if he made me take a piss test then and there I would be sent back to the hospital and given a dishonorable discharge, my life would be ruined I couldn’t go home in shame with anything else other an honorable discharge. As he sat not saying anything he was letting what he said sink in. he could see the panic on my face, more panic than I ever had in the field. As I looked up at him wondering what was going to happen to me, then he began to talk and he didn’t have much to say, he said that tomorrow there is going to be a surprise piss test for everybody in the company, then he asked me if I wanted to use my one more get out of jail free card by going straight back to my room and pack my shit for the amnesty junkie hospital one last time, absolutely first sergeant and thank you very very much. Ok report back here with your gear in 1 hour ready to go. I felt like falling to my knees and kissing his boots, he had saved my life and I don’t know why he did it but he did.

Within 2 hours I was back in the hospital for another 2 weeks ok kicking the habit again. The only bright side was I was able to get my mail from home, and the withdrawal this time wasn’t half as bad as the time before. After about a week I got a letter from the Yankee gal with good news, she said I have it baby but your share would be only 1 fourth, half a kilo because of the risk and bribes that had to be paid. I wrote back that day and told her that was ok with me, I understand just keep it for me because I’ll be home soon. I was thinking about all the money waiting for me, but not the risk. After my time was up at the hospital I was sent back to the M.P. Company but there was some changes waiting for me. For one I wasn’t allowed back in the prison without an M.P. escort at my side and then only for processing out. So with no job or nothing to do, guess who the first sergeant made the new man in charge of the day room where all I had to do was sit behind the bar and sell beer, the dinks did all the cleaning and work. I couldn’t believe it I was a day room orderly again mostly because they didn’t have anything else for me to do, and maybe to keep a eye on me, either way I didn’t give shit, and something good came out of me going on amnesty again.

They were processing me back to the world having nowhere to put me, and here is the silver lining, at the time the army was going through some changes, the draft was over and the army didn’t want any more draftees because of all the problems they caused. But even better than that they also didn’t want a bunch of out of control crazy vets back either. So if a man was sent back as part of the troop withdrawal and had 1 day less than a year left to do in the army, he had the option of staying the full time, or gets an honorable discharge when the freedom bird landed back in the world. This option was a no brainer for me.

I got out of Vietnam 4 months early and out of the army 8 months early. I would be back home in less than 2 weeks out of my 2nd trip to the junkie hospital, I had got my walking papers a week out and had 10 days left in country to do with Kim my girlfriend that said she was going to have my baby and was begging me marry and to take her back with me. But there wasn’t enough time even if I wanted to, and I didn’t, I still couldn’t see if she was really pregnant or not. When the day came for me to get on the truck to leave she grabbed me by the leg begging and was crying, I had to drag her, I feel guilty about it now and then, In my heart I believed her, I didn’t know what was going to happen to her but she did, and I didn’t find out what happened to the women there that had an American baby for 40 years, if you want to know what happened to them research it yourself, I wish I hadn’t.

Now I was in the final check out point to leave the country which meant customs stripping us down to our underwear looking for whatever, I had some pictures that was taken from me and tossed in a barrel of fire; they didn’t want the civilians seeing some of what I and others had taken photos of.

After the customs search we were escorted to THE PEE HOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON, for 1 more piss test.

After the final piss test I scored some heroin for the last time In Viet Nam, the only thing left was some more paper work and then taken to the freedom bird for the world.

Back home to the world. Now I was having all kinds of different thoughts and worries going through my head, and I hadn’t even got on the plane yet. We were told there would be protesters to greet us, I didn’t expect or want a ticker tape parade, but to be actually be spit at by Americans and called baby killers, this I didn’t expect either.

I remember getting on the plane like it was yesterday like every other soldier still remembers. We boarded the plane in complete silence, I can’t speak for the others but I was just as scared leaving than I was when I landed in that mother fucker. As the plane started up there was complete silence, nobody was saying a word, you could had heard a pin drop because we was still there and knew we weren’t home yet, we could still be shot down and we all knew it, it was about 30 minutes after we were in the air before anybody started talking. And one of the strange things that happened on this flight was that for the first time of traveling with fellow soldiers, this was the first time that nobody was trying to make new friends, I guess we all knew we would never see each other again so there was no need to make new friends plus we all had our heads full of enough thoughts to make any chit chat. I didn’t write to my mother to tell her I was coming home, the Yankee gal knew I was coming, but not when. And of course I didn’t call anybody, hell there wasn’t any phones that I ever saw over there anyway.

I was happy to leave there, but I was afraid to go home, I didn’t know what to expect, I was a kid washing dishes when I left and that was about all I knew about home. I left to learn a skill to use when I got back, but my skills wasn’t in demand, I had no job skills for civilian life, I didn’t know what my friends would think about me, or if I would even have any friends left, nobody liked the returning troops and we didn’t have any use for them either, I would be alone in a world that I didn’t understand, but my biggest fear was looking my mother in the eye after all I had done.

I was afraid she would be able to see into my eyes what I had done. I could never lie to her and get away with it.

COMING HOME

To me and I think for everybody else on the plane, it wasn’t over until the plane landed safely and we got off on the ground that it really was over that I made it back. When the pilot said we are going to land, it was the same silence as when we took off.

We landed at a military base somewhere in California I didn’t know where but I’m sure we was told, but it didn’t register in my mind, anyway what did it matter to me where in California. There weren’t any civilians to be seen as expected, we were loaded into army buses and taken straight to a mess hall to be served steaks and beer for our welcome home, they said to leave whatever you had on the bus as there will be a guard posted to guard your shit. All I had brought back was a folder of army papers, a couple of important letters from the Yankee gal and my tooth brush and what I was wearing.

They told us to go in and have a seat like in a restaurant, they had basic trainees as waiters to take our order of how you liked your steak cooked and what kind of beer do you want, this was the first and only time I would eat like this in a mess hall. We were told we had 1 hour to eat and drink all the beer you wanted and then load back in the bus to be taken to the warehouse they put us in that we couldn’t leave; it was a giant warehouse full of bunks, and you wasn’t assigned any certain place to put our stuff if any, and was told just sleep wherever you want and don’t worry about making up your bunks or shaving until we take you to the airport for your home town, we don’t care how you dress or look because you are here for 1 thing and that was to process out and you are confined to this building.

I remember the lights were always on and guys walking around like zombies, there was pay phones everywhere but I seldom saw them being used, I didn’t call anybody, I wasn’t expected home for another 3 or 4 months, I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t call and there wasn’t anyone to meet me at the air port. Nobody was sleeping more than an hour at a time, and we weren’t talking to each other either.

We was paid for the last time and issued a new class a uniform to wear home with all the patches and whatever ribbons you had been awarded, all with new polished dress shoes, we had to wear our uniforms, it was army regulations while traveling on civilian air craft. We were given our last inspection in the army, so the civilians would see we looked good in our uniforms I guess. When the bus was taking us to the air port I saw the golden gate bridge I couldn’t believe how big it was, the next thing I knew was that I was in some air port waiting to get on a plane for Dallas, and while I was waiting I didn’t see any kind of respect at all, just the opposite but nobody spit in me at least, I would have been in jail if they had.

Ok onboard and in the air, I hadn’t slept much in 3 days and still couldn’t sleep on the plane, I was scared and worried with all the shit going on in my mind, like would the cops be at the bank when I went to get my hash? And how much of my money did my mother save for me. Would I see the Yankee gall again? What was I going to do with the rest of my life; I didn’t know the answers for any of these things.

The plane landed about 2 in the afternoon and I got off it and found a place in the airport that sold food, so I had a bite to eat and then found a place to sit down close to a pay phone. But I couldn’t call anybody, I just sat there in shock until about midnight, then I got myself together to go outside to get a bus or something to take me to Fort Worth, I found a bench to sit down on and just sat there until about 2 A.M. when a taxi driver asked me did I need a ride and to where, I told him I need to go to Fort Worth, then he said for me to wait a few minutes so he could get another passenger to help pay for the cab ride. I told him that I didn’t want to share a ride all the way to Fort Worth that I’d rather go alone, then he said it will cost you a lot of money going alone, I said I don’t care lets go, I had a couple of thousand dollars in my pocket.

After we got to Fort Worth about an hour later he asked me what part of town you are headed to. I told him and when we got closer I gave him the directions to my mother’s house.

My head was still spinning, I just can’t explain to you what I was thinking as the taxi stopped at my mother’s house a little after 3 a.m.

I got out of the taxi after paying him for the ride, and a good tip for answering all the questions I had asked him. As I stood there in my mother’s front yard watching the taxi drive out of sight.

I had never been so scared in my life with all the shit I had been through even feeling the heat from a bullet as it passed by my head one day when I wasn’t wearing my helmet, as I finally worked up the courage to walk up to the porch of my mother’s house to knock on the door and look my mother in the eye, so afraid she would see what I had done. I would never again look into that morning mirror and feel good about what I saw looking back.

THE END

THE POTATO PEELER

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

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Sunday, November 25, 2012

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