I’d been home for a week before my first contact came in from Oak Knoll, but it wasn’t from the medical side. It was from Johannson, the Marine Corps liaison officer both Mary and I’d dealt with when I was in the ward with the other prisoners. The call came in at seven a.m. which was unusual. Nobody called at seven a.m.
Thompson might show up, which he’d done before seven on three occasions, more to see Mary than I, or so I thought. His excuse was always the same; he needed to open early for one reason or another, and he’d gotten used to my pumping the gas for his patrons. My other job was answering the phone, although I never really got to talk to anybody because everyone calling in wanted to talk only to Mickey. I’d drag the phone, on its super-long extension cord, out to the garage and hand it over. When he yelled, I’d go get the thing and clean it because Mickey didn’t believe in using gloves to work on cars. I tried not to look at my GTO because it was such a mess. He’d even taken the doors off, and then fully apart. What could doors have to do with drag racing? I just shook my head and kept my mouth shut.
“Drag racing is all about the applying of sufficient power to the rubber, then getting that rubber to stick properly to the concrete, and finally balance and lastly the driving,” he’d once said, answering a question I’d never asked.
I didn’t really understand more than half of what he said or meant, but I made believe I did. He was an expert at making cars go fast. I was an expert at calling artillery. Those were not sympathetic pursuits, and although I could understand his area of expertise, it wasn’t likely he could ever come to understand mine.
The work at the shop intensified, as Mickey brought in friends who never much spoke, and I never really engaged with. I was just the gas station attendant, as far as they were concerned, as it appeared Mickey never discussed the car’s owner, or my existence, with them. Every chance I got I spent hanging in the garage, trying to figure out what was being done to the GTO. Mikey would occasionally mention what he was doing but, as for the rest, I had to figure it out for myself because when Mickey was working he didn’t want to answer questions, whatsoever. And, if the bell rang, and I was still in the shop, then he’d start bellowing until I was out of there.
“God damned Jaguar,” Mickey said from under the car one morning.
Finally, the GTO was up on the single lift the garage had, although the lift only went up about four feet, not high enough for anyone to stand fully erect under it.
“They design fantastically but then can’t mechanically figure out how to hold things in properly,” Mickey said. “The English can’t build a decent car to save their lives.”
I looked at the complexity of the system he was working to install under the left front wheel well. I realized it was a disc brake, with all the parts still attached.
“Why do we need disc brakes,” I asked, not being able to stop myself. My curiosity was just too great. “The track has to have a long flat surface past the quarter-mile since I know they run AA Fuel dragsters there.”
“Shut up, and find something to do,” Mickey yelled, sticking his head out, while two of his guys held part of the assembly up to the chassis. “Because the car is going to go just as fast on the street as it is on the track, that’s why. How the hell are you going to stop it out there when racing is over? Sure as hell not with the totally shitty drum brakes Americans stick on there.”
That seemed at odds with what he’d said earlier about English cars but I let it go.
“Where did he get the Jaguar disc brakes from?” I whispered to one of the men standing just outside the open garage door smoking a Marlboro.
“Appropriated from another job,” the man replied, shrugging his shoulders.
The man’s face was so deadpan and his expression so ‘of course’ that I had to believe him. I decided right then that Mickey might be a wild, wonderful, and genuine guy, but he was also dangerous. I went to the office smiling to myself, to await the arrival of another innocent citizen low on gas. Of the four things Mickey certainly was, it was that last one I thought I could handle with the most comfort.
Maybe the Marine Corps would send me to some other state where nobody could find me if it kept me at all. How many of the parts in my car would be on some hot list of ‘misplaced’ items I had no idea, but jail or prison, I suddenly realized, would be as nothing compared to inhabiting the A Shau Valley.
The Sears charge card came in the mail the next day. I was surprised by the fact that the card was not made of plastic but of embossed paper like it wasn’t real at all. The letter that accompanied it had good news buried inside it, however. The amount of credit I had at any Sears store or affiliate was eight hundred dollars, not four hundred, or even six hundred. I’d paid twenty-two hundred for the GTO, and still owed most of that to the Navy Federal Credit Union, so the eight hundred dollars, nearly twice what I made in lieutenant’s pay for a month, was something, indeed.
My wife was blown away by the card. Her father was a middle manager at the downtown Sears headquarters in Chicago. The CLC card was a coveted item. I didn’t mention that her father would never likely have gotten us one. That took a bizarre drag racing nut in a run-down San Francisco gas station.
“Cafeterias,” she said, waving the card at me with a smile.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, befuddled.
“They have restaurants and cafeterias in all the big stores,” she replied. “We won’t starve.”
I hadn’t thought of starvation, even in the deepest corners of my mind, but my wife was Irish, one step removed from County Claire back in the old country.
The drag racing track at Half Moon Bay proved not to be a stand-alone track at all. Instead, it was set on an isolated back landing strip of the Half Moon Bay airport.
I was surprised. I didn’t get to ride in my GTO to the track because Mickey wouldn’t let the car be driven on the street until it was converted back into what he called ‘civilian’ use. I thought he’d made the decision to tow the vehicle because of safety, but one of the guys that hung around him corrected me.
“Nah, he doesn’t want the ‘dial-in’ messed with, and the rear slicks are screwed into the rims so regular street cornering messes with their ability to hold air.”
I realized, at that point, that Mickey was all racer, and couldn’t care less how cars performed out on the street. His own Oldsmobile 442 was wonderfully quick and of very high quality, but it was unmodified in any way, including to make it go faster.
“Why is the track part of the airport?” I asked Mickey when he stepped back from under the hood, as he prepped the car for its first practice run.
“Because it’s made of concrete, not asphalt,” Mickey replied. “Asphalt has oil in it, so it’s too slippery for burning out, and concrete takes the wear when the Fuelies run.”
There were no spectators at the track, only mechanics, drivers, owners, and some people who ran the place. To me, it was boring, smelly, noisy, and filled with people all smoking cigarettes around surfaces covered with gasoline and alcohol.
The GTO ran to what Mickey called ‘specification.” The lights at the end of the quarter-mile lit up with 103 miles per hour in fourteen seconds. “We’ll tune next time,” he said, once we got into the cab of the tow truck. I didn’t know what ‘tuning’ really meant but presumed it was stuff like adjusting the floats on the three carburetors or changing the spark plugs.
The telephone seldom rang under M&M’s small front counter. I answered it and, to my surprise, it was Mary, my wife.
“Thanks,” I replied, after her short message. “I’ll be home in a bit.” I hung up the phone, and then slowly put it and the base back under the counter. Mary’s message had been short and to the point. Oak Knoll’s surgical team wanted to evaluate my condition for immediate surgery since they had a specialist visiting from back east. I stood at the counter, frozen, the crummy Zenith portable radio blaring out the Animals singing the last stanza of the House of the Rising Sun: “Well, there is a house in New Orleans, they call the Rising Sun, and it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy, and God, I know I’m one.”
“A poor boy,” I whispered in the silence, after the song was over, and before another could come on, “and I know I’m one.”
I had to get to Oak Knoll tomorrow. It was Tuesday. The big E-Stock Eliminator race was set for only a little more than three weeks away. How could I recover enough to attend the race in that short of a time? My last serious surgery had taken almost six weeks to come back from, and I hadn’t been fully ambulatory even then.
I realized that I had nobody to talk to about what was coming. My wife would not understand at all that I was concerned about being well enough after the surgery to attend some auto race, any kind of race. She, and Pat, no doubt, would take the position that I ought to be worried about surviving, getting home, seeing my rapidly growing daughter, and thinking other such more proper family thoughts rather than going to a loud, low-class running of our only car in a race populated by mechanics, owners, and spectators who might be considered cultural rejects, if such a generous definition was allowed.
The race was important to me, as was the effort that had so far been made on my, and my family’s behalf. I stared out the window at the passing traffic. A swept-back sixty-six Chevy pulled off the street and slowly moved to the side of one of the inside pumps. I inhaled deeply, pulled my shoulders back, and went out to pump gas. As I walked out, I thought about my life. I was a college graduate, an officer in the Marine Corps, and a combat veteran of some distinction, but here I was, pumping gas as my primary purpose in life. I moved around the back of the beautiful car, an Impala SS, and approached the driver’s window. I smiled down at the woman, who was smiling back at me. She didn’t know why I was smiling because of something she could probably not imagine if I told her. I was smiling because I was happier pumping gas than at being all the other things I was or had become in life and because it was something, anything, to do.
The woman, wearing giant sunglasses, with her hair wrapped up and around with some kind of cloth, held out two one-dollar bills.
“Can I put regular gas in this car?” she asked. “It’s my husband’s car. Usually, I’m not allowed to drive it, but I’ve got to get down to Rockaway beach, and it’s on empty.”
I stood back from the car and looked toward the lead edge of the left fender. There was no mistaking the 327 located just above the crossed racing flags on the emblem. The engine had to be one of the higher output 300 horsepower units, I knew, to be in an SS.
“You need premium, the 93-octane stuff, or you might hurt the valves,” I replied, watching the smile disappear from her face. The premium price was twenty cents a gallon above the 29-cent regular. It wasn’t likely the woman was going to make a 70-mile round trip in an Impala SS on about four gallons of gas. Even driven as conservatively as possible, the car wasn’t going to see much more than ten miles per gallon.
“I’ll have to risk it,” the woman said, after a few seconds of consideration, pushing the two one-dollar bills toward me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, crumpling up the money and sticking it in my pocket. “Pull forward to the other pump,” I instructed the woman.
The woman frowned at me, but then pulled the car forward until the back of the car was just past the pump.
I knew the gas cap was located under the hinged license plate, although I couldn’t remember how I knew that. I took the pump handle down, pulled up on the lever to turn the machine, and then squatted down near the center of the Impala’s rear bumper. The license plate pulled down, just as I’d somehow known it would.
I inserted the handle’s nozzle into the tank filler and squeezed the trigger. I held it down for about a full minute, before letting up, enjoying the smell of the raw gasoline fumes as they surrounded me. Then I stood up and back, returning the handle to the pump. I shut it off and looked down at the woman.
The pump read 10.7 gallons.
I walked over to the woman’s window.
“You pumped more than you should have, didn’t you, and you put the expensive stuff in,” she said, taking her sunglasses off in order to look at me closer.
“You’ll have no trouble making it there and back,” I said, not being able to think of anything else to say, other than the fact that I’d just stolen about four bucks worth of gas from Mickey Thompson.
She leaned away from the window for a few seconds, bending down to get something nearby on the seat next to her.
“Here, that’s my husband’s card,” she said, sticking a gold embossed little white card out the window. “He’s a lieutenant on the police department. I’ll tell him what you did later. If you get in trouble just say you’re the kid from the gas station.”
The woman started the Chevy and pulled away, turned sharply to her left, and then entered the traffic passing by on the street. The 327 growled throatily as she accelerated the SS, but the rear wheels didn’t break loose.
I pulled the two bucks from my pocket, as I headed for the office to put the money in the register. “Thomas O’Boyle, Lieutenant, Traffic Division,” the card read, with contact address and information below. I put the money in the register but stuck the card into my wallet. One never knew. I also wondered why the woman had called me a kid. I’d been a ‘kewpie doll’ looking person not long ago, and now I was a kid. When was I ever going to be taken seriously?
The surgery was serious, that much I was certain of, and my own fear with respect to it. I was doing everything I could not to think about that. I didn’t want to go under general anesthesia again, much less come out of it in extreme agony.
But there was nothing to be done for it. I already knew what the evaluation would find. I was gaining weight and feeling stronger every day. I’d pass the inspection. I limped when I walked, but not terribly so, and I could make the trip to the gas station in only a couple of minutes instead of my first attempts, which had taken almost a quarter of an hour. I was going to be declared good enough to cut up again. I felt the slippery plastic bag snuggled between the lower part of my shirt on my left side and my skin. It would all be worth it, I knew, but still.
Once more, I stared out the window, leaning against the wall, trying to press my shoulders against its surface. I could not stand straight. The more I pushed against the wall, however, the more I stretched the incision running up and down the front of my torso. Finally, I had to give up and sit down. My hip hurt, my incision hurt, and my mind was filled with a dull fear. Not the terror, like that of combat in the valley, but the enduring central feeling of worry about the unknown that just stayed with me, like the never-ending awareness that I wore a plastic bag on my stomach.
Two Harley Davidson motorcycles pulled up to the inner pump closest to the office door. I looked through the window, waiting for the recurring blasts of their deep beating engines to come to an end.
I went out through the door, curious as to the men who might be riding such machines. They were both big brawny men, much like the Marines I’d trained with at Quantico.
I didn’t know whether Harleys took ethyl or regular gas, but I didn’t get a chance to ask.
“Hey, gimp,” one of the men said, both having dismounted the big bikes and balancing them on nearly invisible kickstands. “Put the good stuff in,” the man went on as if he’d read my mind.
“Chester,” I murmured, unscrewing the big gas cap from the center of the front Harley’s tank.
“What?” the man asked.
“The gimp thing, like Chester from Gunsmoke,” I replied, smiling.
“More like Quasimodo,” the man said back, then both started laughing.
“Not very complimentary,” I remarked, filling the tank with ethyl from the pump, making certain not to overfill it, “but then, at least you’ve done some elementary schooling, since you know the book or the movie the character’s from.”
The men stopped laughing and looked at one another.
“You may be a skinny know-nothing crippled kid, but your mouth can still get you in a lot of trouble,” the other man said.
Both men faced me, as I moved to the second bike.
I looked down at the tank of that cycle. There was a very small Vietnam representation of the Vietnamese flag next to the cap. I realized it was a plastic cut out of the Vietnam Service Ribbon, and across from it was another cut out of a Purpleheart.
“You been to the Nam,” I said, unscrewing the cap, and plunging the pump handle in.
“You said it correctly,” the first man replied, a small bit of wonder in his tone, “not that Nam crap, rhyming it with jam.”
“Yeah,” I replied, “The Nam, like in bomb.”
Both men laughed together.
“Who were you with?” the second man asked.
“Marines, A Shau Valley,” I replied. There were all kinds of possible answers to the question he’d asked, but I wanted to cut to the chase as quickly as possible. There was no point in getting even gently hit in my current condition.
“Con Tien, both of us,” the first man said. “When you get out?”
“Not out,” I said, finishing filling the gas tank, and then screwing the cap back on.
“Still in,” I went on, “just on medical leave to heal up before the next surgery at Oak Knoll.”
“Shit hole, Oak Knoll,” the second man said.
“Lookin’ kind of that way,” I replied.
“Sorry about the comments earlier,” the first man said, holding out his hand. “Both Marines,” he said. “I was staff and he was a buck under me. I didn’t get hit, but one small chunk of mortar took off his little finger a bit.”
The second man, the former buck sergeant, waggled what was left of his left little finger. It wasn’t much.
“No offense,” I said, heading back for the office door.
“What was your rank?” the staff sergeant asked from behind me.
I breathed in and out shallowly, not wanting to tell them that I was an officer. I didn’t need any trouble, but there was no way around it.
“Lieutenant,” I tossed over my shoulder, heading through the door.
“Sir,” the staff sergeant said, which surprised me so much that I twisted around, causing my hip and central incision to knife through with pain. I winced and bent my knee slightly, as I recovered myself.
“You didn’t get hit in the little finger, I’m presuming, sir,” the buck sergeant said, grabbing the door with his right hand to hold it open.
“Hey, thanks guys, but I got to sit down for a minute or two,” I replied, turning to put myself onto one of the three chairs strewn about the small area.
The two men came into the office after me. The staff sergeant took out a twenty and put it on the edge of the counter, then picked up a pencil lying next to the small white pad Mickey kept there to make notes on when he was on the phone. He started writing.
“Here’s how you can reach us if you need us,” the staff sergeant said, “we’re in the moving business just down the street when not hanging out on our bikes.”
I was recovering myself so I didn’t say anything, I just nodded.
Both men left, the buck sergeant throwing me a regulation salute once he got aboard his bike and got it going. I didn’t salute back, merely nodding again.
They were gone, in seconds, the scattered, yet syncopated roar of their two-cylinder machines disappearing out into the sparse traffic.
I got up and eased my way to the counter. Their gas bill couldn’t be more than six bucks, or so, I knew, although I couldn’t read the small numbers on the pump from where I was. A fourteen-dollar tip. Once again, very meaningful to me in my current situation, and twice in two days, I’d been given identity information from people who might help me if I was in trouble. I laughed out loud when I read their names. Tom and Jerry, like in the cartoons.
I went out to check the pump. The tip was actually a little more than fifteen dollars. I moved back inside to the register and made the change, pocketing the difference, wondering if Mickey ever bothered to true up the amount of money in the register. I didn’t know if I was trusted or not, although the answer to that question didn’t appear to be too important at the moment.
I smiled to myself. Both NCOs had called me sir, and that felt good, especially when I was headed back into Oak Knoll where it wasn’t likely anyone would treat me with any respect at all, and that was if I lived. I wasn’t afraid of dying during the surgery. I was now a known drug addict, however, no doubt wrote into my chart and file, even though I’d come through the brutal detox on my own. What I was really worried about was whether I’d be getting any pain drugs following the surgery. I knew at the center of my very core that I couldn’t handle the kind of pain that had to be lying in wait, just ahead, again.
<<<<<< The Beginning | Next Chapter >>>>>>
stopped reading after you got…hit
finally opened the next..chapter
read all the rest..couldnt..stop
thank you
Great chapter – My folks lived in Arkansas so my dad got the respect he desired after 3 tours in Nam. My mom was an army nurse so our family was strictly military. I appreciate your opening up about your time in the A Shaw Valley and afterwards with such great detail. My dad never talked about his service in the three wars he fought. Thank you for your service and your commentary.
I never talked about the reality of the experience either, not much anyway. Certainly not the truths I’ve laid down in the three, and now four books.
Thanks for the compliment and the encouragement.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for another Great read.
Thanks Raymond, much appreciate that comment.
Semper fi
Jim
That Disney song can be heard in the background, ” It’s a small world after all…….” It seems to never go the way you think it will huh. Peace LT and again , welcome home!!
Yes, that song: …”There is just one moon and one golden sun,
and a smile means friendship to everyone…though the mountains divide, and the oceans are wide,
it’s a small world after all…” How apropos for the writing about all of what happened, and what is happening now.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks for another great chapter, Jim. And the introduction to Tom and Jerry!
I got out in Nov. ’67, almost exactly a year after I returned from Nam. In all the years since, I have seen only one person from my Squadron, our Senior Chief. Spotted him at a gas station outside Pensacola in ’75. We said Hi, and that was that.
Keep the Lion moving forward!
When coming out of combat one must almost be foreably reminded that the number of survivors of real
combat are pretty damned rare. Probably only about a hundred and fifty thousand left from the Nam thing.
One fortieth of one percent of the population. Not good odds in running into old members from the same unit.
Semper fi,
Jim
At last count, Jim, there are only 30% of we Vietnam soldiers, sailors, Marines, and Airmen still alive. And I wonder how many of us are rated at 100% disabled, like you and me.
Sad statistic, ain’t it?
I agree, Craig
Thanks for your support.
Semper fi,
Jim
Where do your answers to comments come back? I have made two Here on the Cowardly Lion and looked on my yahoo web page for your comments but…. Nothing.
Stay well, keep pounding on that keyboard.
I am not always here to comment Bud, as I have so many other things to accomplish and these comments cannot be answered by just anyone.
Thanks for caring.
I am working on these this night.
Semper fi,
Jim
It has been 57 years since I got back from Vietnam and discharged, but every time our squadron has a reunion, we all fall back into our prior roles of pilots, crew chiefs, and gunner team. We are immediately comfortable with each other. We slip backwards, but we are content.
It is really good that you have that Warren, as so many of us do not.
I find it hard to be around most vets, although easier among those who have read the books.
Semper fi,
Jim
Lt. Straus, this was very interesting especially the parts about the respect and camaraderie of the Sgts. I was a Sgt. In DaNang & Phu Bai (2/5)my friend from high school was in the Army with American. Retired E-9. We call each other once in a while and inevitably Nam comes into the conversation. He was base camped near Cu Chi. It is sad and. Comforting to talk to one with similar experiences. Anyway thought I’d mention the conversation I have with a Nam brother. There is a closeness between us war torn vets.
There is a closeness among SOME war vets, certainly not all. Vast chasms of difference in life experience lay out there between us, although
the public, and much of the peacetime serving military and veterans administration don’t view us that way.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you, Sir, for another chapter. Hope writing this isn’t bringing back more of the painful memories that you may have been able to suppress over the years. (For the most part, I remember PI being a beautiful place, LOL)
Some of it is painful to the extreme and more difficult in some ways because my wife is now reading the Lion
and that creates a whole different dimension to things. We have different memories and perspectives and sometimes I
must incorporate hers as I have come to believe, about some things, she is spot on.
Semper fi,
Jim
You have my utmost respect
Thanks Don, much appreciate the comment on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I served as the crew-chief door gunner on a Huey slick in Viet Nam. US Army 121st Assault Helicopter Co. We mostly supplied outpost, hauled troops etc. but every now and then we were able to provide direct support to troops in the field. We had a commitment that everyone lives to go home and whatever we could do to make that happen is what we did. We provided medEvac when dust off was called off. Many of the wounded we transported were serious but we got them to medical attention quick (we flew a lot of wounded over the year) I celebrated each success! I didn’t stop to consider what those wounded warriors went through to get a life again, you have made me think it through. Thank you
The long winding road to recovery physically, the adjustment back to a planet that had disappeared to become something else,
and then the dealing with the memories and readjusted circumstance of dealing with it all…yes, long and hard…
Semper fi, and thanks for the ride!!!
Jim
LT, another entertaining chapter. WOW. What an amazing bunch of characters you have run across in your short life. I’m sure there will be more interesting characters to appear in the future. As always looking forward to the next chapter.
You have mentioned this but did the gunny get wounded on the plateau that night or was he lucky enough to escape the hell.
The Gunny. I don’t know if he got hit or not, as when I saw him almost 20 years later in New Mexico he seemed physically fine.
That he wanted nothing at all to do with me was a shock, but I came to understand it. Neither of us were the most honorable of men
under the effects of the A Shau.
Semper fi,
Jim
WHAT???!!! You met the Gunny 20 years later and he didn’t want anything to do with you?!!! Well that blows a real image I had of him so FUCK him! You saved his bacon many times over with your skills at calling in Arty….maybe that’s why he tried to keep you alive…..but that was more than an even trade off Jim. I thought he would have been more “professional” than that. You listened to his sage advice more than once and that shows you had great respect for his combat experience and knowledge – he owed you the same respect back. I believe that the Gunny also came to view me sort of like this lieutenant in Band of Brothers before it was over…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrRarZyjGgc
The Gunny owed me nothing. We were both courageous cowards of combat, trying to save ourselves while we also tried to save others, never sure whether we were trying to save them in order to better secures chances to save ourselves. I was recently told by a friend that he was ashamed about how some of the representatives and senators reacted to what happened to them on the 6th of January. I got upset with him. I told him that if he’d read my books, as he claimed, then he’d understand that their conduct was almost an exact copy of how human beings react to their first times in actual combat. It’s not pretty. The Gunny and I survived thirty days together and we didn’t go it by being the Band of Brothers, as so wonderfully portrayed in that television series. That series was about as true regarding combat as the West Wing show was about how things really work in the White House. Not! The gunny owed me what I owed him, which was mutual respect, to include privacy and not forcing ourselves upon one another. He did not survive in order to help me survive afterward. That has been up to me and some very few others of great generosity and compassion. Those two things were not the Gunny’s strong suits. Actually, I also think the Gunny sort of felt this way about me. It was eerie to watch this segment and realize how much like Speers I was….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrRarZyjGgc
Semper fi
Jim
Sounds more like “When Trumpets Fade” HBO. The Hurtgen Forest.
Had not seen that movie. Will watch it now. Wow! Like real stuff…a bit like my stuff. I am impressed.
I will let you know my analysis…
Semper fi,
Jim
Just one typo in this paragraph for “Mickey.”
Every chance I got I spent hanging in the garage, trying to figure out what was being done to the GTO. Mikey (Mickey) would occasionally mention what he was doing but,
thanks for the help Don!
Semper fi,
Jim
LT, another very entertaining chapter to say the least. What amazing characters you have run across in your life and it’s only started. Always looking forward to the next chapter. Who knows but I think there will be some big surprises yet to come.
You never mentioned if the first sergeant was injured on the plateau or was just lucky enough to escape that awful situation. Maybe to come yet layer in the story.
Thanks, JT
My wife says that a lot of people meet characters during their lifetime, its just that most do not go right in and encounter them
straight across the table like I do and have done.
Most famous people, well, you learn over time that they are not going to do much for you and that you don’t really want
to become like them. Most are very alone.
Semper fi,
Jim
Great read as always!
Thanks Tom, I am on it this night with Chapter Fifteen and the comments coming…
Semper fi,
Jim
How I look forward to every chapter. Thank you Sir.
Almost done with 15 as I move on to finish the book which I predict will have about 25, before the San Clemente series
begins…
Semper fi,
Jim
James, thanks for another great chapter. Semper Fi!
You are most welcome Michael and I much appreciate the compliment and mentioning it on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
Oh, Jim, I devour every chapter the instant it arrives, and yearn for more! My heart goes out to you and others who have given so much and received so little in return! Every day I thank God that I served at a time when we weren’t involved in a shooting war. Last night, I mentioned to Sheila as we were watching a WW2 movie about the Polish aviators who were allowed to enter combat against the Germans in the battle for Britain. I indicated that I’m not sure I could have performed if called upon. She generously commented “You would have risen to the occasion”. Perhaps, but I have deep admiration for those who did!! When I comment on the fact that I am a veteran of the USMC, I hasten to add that I was blessed not to have served in combat lest I be elevated to the status of those who were forced into that situation. Every day, I look at the American and Marine flags that wave in my front yard and pray for those who serve. I am a blessed man! Semper Fi. Batman
I would have been proud to have such a brilliant ‘can do’ kind of officer to be with in the A Shau, although the others I did have
didn’t do so well. You cut a path and course through life that has been pretty damned successful and extraordinary. You would have
been terrific in combat, although frightened to death and not far from it either. I am glad you are here to write to and, at one time, two
work with.
Semper fi,
Old friend,
Jim
another great read, you add people to it that really make the story. and of course waiting to see whats next………
The people came as I extended my self back into the social structures I could find.
I was in total need to have contact with humanity, even if I didn’t really know how to do it.
Semper fi,
Jim
Respect, you earned it and you received it from those who know !
Most times, that was true, and remains so, although there are times…and, as with the guys on the Harleys at the
station that day, I am so glad that somehow I did not have knee jerk macho reactions to immediate threat. God gifted me
to be allowed to wait to see how things would develop and also to consider the long term instead of the immediate and the short.
Semper fi
Jim
James , the Phoenix is arising from the A shau , not The cowardly Lion .
As you, old friend, have guessed, the Cowardly Lion was an act I had to assume in order to survive in a culture that
celebrates violence wildly but punishes the exercise of it cruelly and in draconian ways.
Chameleon might have been a better choice but I did so love the actor in that movie who played the brilliant part so magnificently.
The Wizard of Oz. A totally made up piece of fiction all about real life….
Semper fi,
Jim
Just wondering if those bikes were not four stroke instead of two. Two stroke do not have that roar and rumble.
They were the big four stroke Harleys, although at the time I really didn’t know the difference.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, Like I said before, frying pan to frying pan. Seems to me, both searing & scarring, physically/mentally, in their own way. Not sure if right or not, but “being” there was almost instintaneously – the “after” , though it might soften a bit over time, hasn’t nor ever will end. Just sayin’. God’s speed. Doug
The second surgery was looming before me, and the frying pan comparison seems accurate for the time, although being close to
being around those making me want to live changed everything.
Still works. Like with you guys and gals writing on here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, God love them for being there at that point in time & helping you live. Regards, Doug
Thanks for the kindness of that comment and the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
Great writing. Thank You for your service. Can not wait for the next chapter.
Thanks for the care and the compliment Hayward.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, you are a blessed man, not a Blessed Man, you’re too much of an SOB for that! BTW, somewhere up above you called Mickey -Mikey. As you know there are times in life that things happen without our initiating them. There is some other Authorship at work in those times. Usually it is when everything is so FUBAR that we are ready to quit. That is when we bow our heads and say, “Thank you”.
Thanks for the well thought out and great comment Michael. Much appreciate the read and then the thinking about it.
Semper fi,
Jim
Great read Lt.! You seem to be gathering quite the set of characters along the way. Hope that surgery goes well…
All the Best,
Tim
The characters were all about, all I did was circulate among them and now bring back their memories.
Thanks for the sensitive comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, you just keep amazing me, this is the kid in Twin Lakes that would love to buy you and your
wife dinner one night
262 581 5300, We’ll put it together!
Semper fi, and thanks,
Jim
Thanks for another good read. So sorry you and your boys had to go through the horrors of the A Shau.
You’ve been with me a long time on this trail Ed and I appreciate you making comments now and then.
Your care and consideration do not go unnoticed.
Semper fi,
Jim
Good segment JAMES , I never got above “BUCK” myself.
NCOs were and remain the backbone of the military effort, especially in ground
combat situations. Came home and never treated an enlisted man with anything but
respect and understanding…either in or out of the military.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, Much happening in this chapter. A cast of new characters is being assembled. May
all the threads come together for your and your family’s benefit.
Just two tiny editing suggestions follow:
I inserted the handle’s pipe into the tank filler
Maybe substitute “nozzle” for “pipe”
I inserted the handle’s nozzle into the tank filler
Con Tien
or Con Thien
Blessings & Be Well
Always appreciate your help, Dan
Semper fi,
Jim
LT, another interesting chapter filled with crazy characters. What an interesting life and it’s only beginning.
Thanks for the comment JT and for the others, as well! Encouragement, yes!
Semper fi,
Jim
LT, another wonderful chapter. What a life and it’s only beginning.
And there you are again, and appreciated for you consistency of reading and commenting, not to mention the compliments!
Semper fi,
Jim