{"id":1731,"date":"2011-09-28T18:27:21","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T22:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/wpblog\/?p=1731"},"modified":"2012-07-15T20:12:01","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T00:12:01","slug":"the-worst-of-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/the-worst-of-times\/","title":{"rendered":"The Worst of Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen, missy, if you really want to know why I live on the streets, you need to hear the story of my whole life, and I doubt if you have the patience.\u00a0 You\u2019re probably just like all the other college smart-asses who think they\u2019ll be able to understand what it means to simply not give a flying fuck about the present, much less the future.\u00a0 Hell, I don\u2019t understand it myself, it\u2019s just something that happened.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, girlie, I didn\u2019t just make a decision one day to give up a normal life.\u00a0 It took me, I\u2019m not sure I even remember, quite a few years to realize that I had become <\/em>one of those people who people like you call homeless<\/em>.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got several homes I could go to if I wanted, but that\u2019s the point: I don\u2019t want to live with my ex-wife or either of my kids.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m sure they\u2019d take me in if they knew where I was, but they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

You really want to hear my story?\u00a0 Okay, but it\u2019ll cost you.\u00a0 There\u2019s a liquor store around the corner where you can buy me a half-liter bottle of Four Roses.\u00a0 Then come back here.\u00a0 We\u2019ll sit right on this bench and I\u2019ll begin.<\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t want you to buy me lunch.\u00a0 I never have a problem getting food.\u00a0 Hell, there\u2019s dozens of restaurants I can walk to.\u00a0 They throw away tons of food.\u00a0 But nobody throws booze away.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll just put that in my pocket for now because I\u2019ll probably be thirsty after talking to you.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t talked much these past few years.\u00a0 I\u2019m gonna start by telling you everything you need to know about my childhood.\u00a0 I want to see if you can figure out a pattern, okay?\u00a0 If you can do that, you can bring me another bottle the next time you\u2019re in the neighborhood, and I\u2019ll tell you some more.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s that?\u00a0 Oh, I guess maybe three sessions will cover everything.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

The first thing I became aware of in my life was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.\u00a0 Since I was three months shy of three years old, I probably don\u2019t actually remember it; I probably remember everyone talking about it.\u00a0 I do<\/em> remember my third birthday party because that was the day my Uncle Nick was drafted into the Army.\u00a0 After basic training, he was sent to Italy.\u00a0 He drove a supply truck for three years, bringing live ammunition to the front lines every day.<\/p>\n

My first best friend was a boy named Willy, whose father had come from Germany as a young man.\u00a0 We used to play war in my sandbox and Willy was always the Germans.\u00a0 Before long, we both realized that some day he would have to go fight for Germany while I would be fighting for the USA.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t seem fair.\u00a0 To ease Willy\u2019s suffering, whenever my brother played with us, we would let him be the Americans and I would be the Japs.\u00a0 They were even worse than the Germans because everyone knew how sneaky they were.<\/p>\n

I started kindergarten in 1943.\u00a0 Sister Gretchen taught us to act like \u201cgood little soldiers and sailors\u201d in preparation for our eventual service in the armed forces.\u00a0 I decided that I would rather be a sailor than a soldier.\u00a0 I wanted to go out on a big boat in the ocean, not drive an ammo truck like Uncle Nick.\u00a0 I got a navy blue sailor\u2019s suit for Christmas that year which made me very proud.\u00a0 Whenever I wore it, Sister Gretchen put me in charge of the recess bell.<\/p>\n

For my fifth birthday I got a board game called \u201cSalute the Flag.\u201d\u00a0 Up to four players could choose a branch of service\u2014Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Corps\u2014and, with the roll of the dice, advance from enlistee to Commander-in-Chief.\u00a0 Whenever a marker landed on a flag, all the players had to stand up and salute the flag in the center of the board.\u00a0 The last one to salute had to drop back one rank.\u00a0 I was such a good saluting sailor that I almost always won.\u00a0 I knew all the ranks long before I could read the funnies by myself.\u00a0 I also knew that a Lieutenant in the Navy equaled a Captain in the Army and a Navy Captain equaled an Army Colonel.\u00a0 I could hardly wait to be seventeen and enlist.<\/p>\n

Turning five also meant that I could go to the movies with my mother and my brother on Sundays.\u00a0 They usually showed\u00a0 two westerns, one with Gene Autry and the other with Roy Rogers.\u00a0 They also showed cartoons and previews, but what I liked best was when the newsreels had pictures of American battleships shooting down enemy planes.\u00a0 Some day I hoped to fire one of those big guns and blow Jap planes out of the sky.<\/p>\n

But V-J Day came as soon as we dropped atomic bombs on Japan.\u00a0 What\u2019s that?\u00a0 Don\u2019t they teach history anymore?\u00a0 It means \u201cvictory in Japan,\u201d the day the Japs surrendered.\u00a0 V-E Day\u2014you can figure that out by yourself, I hope\u2014had come before I finished first grade.\u00a0 In a way I was disappointed.\u00a0 The war was over eleven years before I\u2019d be old enough to fight.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t seem fair.<\/p>\n

The only good thing about the War being over was the end of gasoline rations.\u00a0 My father took our car off the cinder blocks and we started going for drives on Sundays again.\u00a0 I had forgotten all about the beaches at the Jersey shore, but the first time we went down I remembered having been there before.\u00a0 I learned to swim in the ocean the next summer and knew more than ever that I would join the Navy when I grew up.\u00a0 We would always take the scenic drive home and stop at one of the overlooks.\u00a0 My parents would point across the bay at the New York skyscrapers, but I didn\u2019t care about them.\u00a0 I preferred looking with wonder at the big Navy ships docked at the ammunition pier a mile away.<\/p>\n

Over the next few years I saw a lot of war movies and read a whole series of books about the Battleship Boys, two friends who had enlisted in the Navy together and were lucky enough to be assigned to the same ship.\u00a0 The best part, I thought, was spending the nights sleeping in hammocks.\u00a0 One day my father took my brother and me to the Bayonne Navy Yard to tour a destroyer.\u00a0 Was I disappointed to see bunks built into the bulkheads instead of hammocks strung from the overhead!\u00a0 Maybe, I hoped, the overhead on a little destroyer wasn\u2019t high enough.\u00a0 But when I saw The Fighting Sullivans<\/em> later that year, I lost hope.\u00a0 The five Sullivan brothers slept in bunks, too, and they were on a battleship.<\/p>\n

But I stopped associating battleships with hammock-sleeping about twenty minutes into the movie when the first brother was killed.\u00a0 The ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft in the middle of the night.\u00a0 Fire broke out in a gun turret when it was hit repeatedly by the warplanes\u2019 wing-mounted machine-guns.\u00a0 Dozens of sailors were either shot or burned to death.\u00a0 The noise was as frightening to me as the flames.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I guess you could say that I was having doubts about enlisting in the Navy.<\/p>\n

Four years later, we were on vacation down the shore when we heard the radio announcement about troops being sent to Korea.\u00a0 My mother said, \u201cOh, there\u2019s another war,\u201d and I knew she was thinking that my brother was sixteen, eligible for the draft in two more years.\u00a0 I was only eleven and found myself hoping this war would last long enough for me to serve.\u00a0 By that time, I had enjoyed too many war movies to be afraid anymore.<\/p>\n

I made my next major life-decision when I was thirteen and finishing up the eighth grade.\u00a0 I had to decide whether to go to an academic or a vocational high school.\u00a0 My parents explained that they could not afford to send me to college, but offered to let me live at home for free if I could raise enough money for tuition.\u00a0 That sounded like a good deal to me, and I began thinking of myself as an engineer or a teacher rather than a sailor.\u00a0 Anyway, I worked part-time at two different drug stores during my high school years and saved almost all the money that I earned.\u00a0 By the time I graduated, I had enough for my first year\u2019s college tuition and had already put into motion a plan to get the other three years paid for.<\/p>\n

According to their catalog, Catholic University of New York had an ROTC scholarship program.\u00a0 It was mandatory for freshman year, but if you opted to continue three more years and agree to two years service as an officer, the Army would pay your tuition and commission you a second-lieutenant upon graduation.\u00a0 Two years of military service was required of all men in those days.\u00a0 I had long been prepared for it.\u00a0 The problem experienced by most of my friends, however, was that they never knew when they\u2019d be drafted.\u00a0 My brother, for example, was already married when he finally got the \u201cGreetings\u201d letter.\u00a0 By taking advantage of the ROTC scholarship, I could get my military obligation over two years after college and start my career at the age of twenty-three.\u00a0 I thought it was a damned smart plan.\u00a0 My father agreed.\u00a0 So did Uncle Nick, who joked that pretty soon he\u2019d have to salute his nephew.\u00a0 Villanova had a Naval ROTC program, but I knew I couldn\u2019t afford to pay room and board, so I\u2019d have to settle for the Army.\u00a0 I could live at home and take the bus to Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s time for your test, girlie.\u00a0 If you knew me back then, would you have expected me to be a hawk or a dove during the Vietnam War?<\/p>\n

Well, you got that right.\u00a0 I was definitely on the side of the hawks.\u00a0 Now I\u2019ve got to think hard to remember those next few years, so that\u2019s all I\u2019m gonna tell you today.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

I figured you\u2019d be back for more.\u00a0 A few bottles of booze isn\u2019t much to pay for a story like mine.\u00a0 Okay, today I\u2019ll tell you all about my early military career.\u00a0 It turned out a lot different from what I\u2019d expected.<\/p>\n

A few of my older high school buddies had joined the National Guard as an alternative to the draft.\u00a0 Eight years of part-time service in the Guard (a drill one evening a week plus two weeks active duty every summer) would satisfy one\u2019s military obligation.\u00a0 That knowledge gave me a new idea.\u00a0 If I enlisted in the Guard, I\u2019d have more than four years service by the time I got my commission and thus be eligible for extra longevity pay.\u00a0 My father again agreed that it was a good plan.\u00a0 Uncle Nick warned me, though, that, if another war broke out, my entire unit would be called up.\u00a0 But I followed my instincts and decided there wouldn\u2019t be another war over the next four years and enlisted the day after my seventeenth birthday.<\/p>\n

By the time I started college I had already been through basic training and earned a marksman rating with a rifle.\u00a0 The ROTC officers were impressed.\u00a0 And the mandatory military history course was a plus for me because I was majoring in history.\u00a0 Everything was going as planned until the end of my freshman year when I failed the physical because of my nearsightedness.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t see well enough to be an Army officer.\u00a0 I was not offered an ROTC scholarship.\u00a0 \u201cBut I can see perfectly with my glasses, sir,\u201d I pointed out to the cadet commander.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what happens if they break in the heat of battle?\u201d he replied.\u00a0 \u201cOr while you\u2019re driving a jeep?\u00a0 You call yourself a marksman, but you can\u2019t even see the target without your glasses, much less the bullseye.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I had to modify my plans.\u00a0 My National Guard enlistment had been for three years, about half of which was completed.\u00a0 There was no way out of the rest.\u00a0 But I had learned to enjoy it.\u00a0 I had initially been assigned to one of the gun crews.\u00a0 We were an anti-aircraft battery with four 120-milimeter guns, one of eight such batteries strategically located in a circle around New York City.\u00a0 If the Russians tried to bomb the city, our mission was to shoot down their planes over the ocean.\u00a0 I started out as an oiler and would have to learn six different jobs before I got to fire the gun.\u00a0 But when the C.O. saw my test scores a few weeks later, he switched me to the radar platoon.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t know what radar<\/em> is?\u00a0 Jesus, kid, where have you been all your life?\u00a0 It stands for radio detection and ranging.\u00a0 You send high-frequency radio waves into the air.\u00a0 When they hit metal, they bounce back in such a way that you can tell the distance, the angle, and the height above ground of an airplane.<\/p>\n

So, where was I?\u00a0 During my second two weeks of active duty, I quickly learned how to operate all three stations\u2014elevation, range, and azimuth\u2014and could lock on to a plane thirty miles away.\u00a0 Radar seemed like magic.\u00a0 We could tell the gun platoon exactly where to aim long before they could see what they were shooting at.\u00a0 During the first week, I observed the senior radar crew as they directed nine successful hits and five misses.\u00a0 I took over in the second week, and we scored twelve straight hits.\u00a0 The targets were small, slow, inexpensive radio-controlled planes, but I knew in my growing militaristic heart that we could take out any Russian bomber that tried to attack New York.<\/p>\n

Without the ROTC scholarship, I had to get a full-time job to generate tuition money if I wanted to stay in college.\u00a0 Between carrying eighteen credits a semester, working forty hours a week, and one-night-a-week military service, I didn\u2019t have much free time.\u00a0 When my enlistment was up, I was already a corporal and three-eighths finished with my military obligation.\u00a0 It seemed silly to waste the time and training, so I re-enlisted for another three.\u00a0 My civilian job\u2014grocery clerk in a supermarket\u2014was boring but necessary.\u00a0 College was tough because I didn\u2019t have enough time for study.\u00a0 But the National Guard service was the best part of my life in those years.\u00a0 I knew what I was doing as a radar operator, I respected my platoon sergeant and lieutenant and they respected me, and I had made a few good friends in my unit.\u00a0 Most of my college classmates lacked the discipline I had learned, and they knew practically nothing about weapons or survival.\u00a0 Just as Sister Gretchen predicted, I had become a good soldier.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, Missy, I still remember my kindergarten teacher.<\/p>\n

The next big step came in late 1957 when my unit took over the operation of a Nike Ajax battery on Sandy Hook.\u00a0 The regular army was upgrading to the new Nike Hercules, so the four gun batteries in my battalion upgraded to guided missiles.\u00a0 We were a step away from the cutting edge of military technology!\u00a0 The missile crews were smaller than the gun crews had been, but the radar platoon was twice as big.\u00a0 There were two separate radar vans\u2014one to lock on to the target aircraft and one to guide the missile to it.\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t miss!<\/p>\n

The next two years went pretty smoothly.\u00a0 I was made assistant store manager, I managed to pass all my courses and even got a few B<\/em>s to balance my two D<\/em>s.\u00a0 I was about to be promoted to sergeant.\u00a0 But I realized I had a problem coming up.\u00a0 I had been planning to switch to night-shift manager at the store so I could do my student teaching the following fall, but that would limit me to only two other courses on Saturdays.\u00a0 That meant I would have to take the other two during the summer.\u00a0 But my Guard unit was scheduled for training camp right in the middle of the summer semester.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t be in two places at once.\u00a0 I needed to graduate the following June so I could start teaching in September.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t afford another semester in college.<\/p>\n

The problem was solved, at least in my mind, when I found out how the Reserve was different from the Guard.\u00a0 A guy at work had just finished six months on active duty and was required to put in six more years in the Army Reserve.\u00a0 But Reservists got to pick their own time for training camp.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t even have to be in the summer\u2014any two-week period was okay.\u00a0 So, I went to my C.O. and explained my problem and my proposed solution.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t like the idea of losing me but understood my reason and agreed to approve my transfer from the Guard to the Reserve.\u00a0 As he said those words an idea popped into my mind and I asked, \u201cWould you approve my transfer to the Naval Reserve?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s your job to find a unit that\u2019ll take you,\u201d he answered, \u201cbut you\u2019d look awfully funny in bell-bottoms.\u201d\u00a0 Wise guy!<\/p>\n

As things turned out, I found a unit that would gladly take me, a World War II destroyer based in Port Newark, the USS Hawkins<\/em>.\u00a0 The Captain needed a sonarman\u2014that stands for sound navigation ranging, which works by sending sound waves into the water to locate submarines\u2014and he figured that my radar training would enable me to pick up how sonar worked without much trouble.\u00a0 And, as soon as I completed the paperwork, I could spend two weeks on a sister ship out of Newport News training under a Chief Sonarman who owed him a favor.\u00a0 That was fine with me because I had two weeks coming up between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of summer.\u00a0 He said I\u2019d have to drop a rank to Seaman, but if I completed all the practical factors in my two weeks training and passed the written test, I\u2019d be promoted to 3rd<\/sup>-Class Petty Officer.<\/p>\n

The two weeks at sea on a destroyer were great.\u00a0 The Chief Sonarman was the best teacher I ever had.\u00a0 Radar and sonar were similar in that they both were used to locate and pinpoint the position of potential targets.\u00a0 Radar uses radio signals to find planes and control the aiming of anti-aircraft guns and the tracking of guided missiles.\u00a0 Sonar uses sound waves to find submarines and control the firing of depth charges.\u00a0 The difference is that a radar operator makes decisions based on a blip on the scope while a sonarman must also interpret the sound of the signals bouncing off the sub to determine its direction.\u00a0 For two weeks I spent twelve hours a day in the sonar shack learning by doing and four hours a night studying the manuals. By the time I got back to Port Newark I was a crackerjack sonarman.\u00a0 \u201cWhen World War III breaks out,\u201d I told my Captain, \u201cthe Russians will never get a submarine past me.\u201d<\/p>\n

I finished college on schedule, in June 1960, quit my job at the supermarket in mid-August, did my two weeks active duty, and started teaching history at a local high school in September.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have the discipline problems with the kids that the other first-year teachers had.\u00a0 The principal, a World War II veteran, attributed it to what he called my \u201cmilitary bearing.\u201d\u00a0 He said I looked, sounded, and acted much older than twenty-one.\u00a0 He was right.\u00a0 I had never wasted time or money and had no tolerance for those who did, regardless of age.\u00a0 I told my freshmen that they were training to be responsible, self-disciplined adults and I expected them to act in that manner.\u00a0 Talking without permission, horsing around, and lack of preparation were simply unacceptable<\/em>.\u00a0 It did not take long for them to learn the meaning of my favorite word.<\/p>\n

For me\u2014and for my students when I managed to explain the significance\u2014the most exciting event of the year occurred on May 5 when Navy Commander Alan Shepard was rocketed into outer space.\u00a0 \u201cThe Russians may have beaten us by orbiting the first satellite,\u201d I told them, \u201cbut we\u2019re catching up.\u00a0 If we all work to our utmost capacities, we\u2019ll beat them to the moon.\u201d\u00a0 And eight years later we did, but many Americans, myself included, no longer cared.<\/p>\n

But at that point I really believed I had made a life for myself.\u00a0 I had managed to make it through college while working full-time and proved that I could teach high school.\u00a0 I was about to start the first two courses toward a master\u2019s degree.\u00a0 If I passed the test\u2014and I had never in my life failed a test\u2014I would be promoted to 2nd<\/sup>-class petty officer in July.\u00a0 With two and a half years left to complete my obligation I was confident of making 1st<\/sup>-class, maybe even Chief.\u00a0 If so, I was pretty sure I\u2019d stay in another twelve to be eligible for a military pension.<\/p>\n

The next turning point in my life occurred in July of 1962 when my ship was activated.\u00a0 According to the Captain, the increasing presence of American military advisors in South Vietnam\u2014see, we\u2019re finally getting there\u2014necessitated the re-deployment of five ships from the Mediterranean to the South China Sea.\u00a0 That meant the activation of five Reserve ships for deployment to the Med.\u00a0 The Middle East still needed a major American presence.<\/p>\n

There was a great deal of unhappiness among the crew.\u00a0 Many did not want to lose their jobs or leave their families.\u00a0 There was no way of knowing how long we\u2019d have to remain on active duty.\u00a0 I was one of the fortunate ones.\u00a0 I had no family responsibility and the Board of Education legally had to grant me a military leave and take me back.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t look forward to delaying my master\u2019s degree, but that was personal.\u00a0 I had a duty to serve.\u00a0 We all did.\u00a0 We had all taken an oath of allegiance with full knowledge that we might be called up at any time.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the Reserve is\u2014trained military personnel ready for service when needed.\u00a0 Our country needed us.<\/p>\n

But a week before we were scheduled to depart, the Captain called me up to the bridge to explain that I wouldn\u2019t be going.\u00a0 Though he believed I was a good sonarman, he had decided that I wasn\u2019t as good as the Chief who had trained me.\u00a0 He had pulled some strings to get him assigned to the Hawkins<\/em> and was transferring me to a shore-based Reserve Center that needed a sonar instructor.\u00a0 I found myself very disappointed.\u00a0 I had been looking forward to active duty in the Mediterranean.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019d been privately hoping we\u2019d be sent to the South China Sea where I\u2019d have the chance to see some real action.\u00a0 Instead, I\u2019d be teaching recruits what I already knew rather than learning what I didn\u2019t.\u00a0 I volunteered to take the place of one of the Reservists who didn\u2019t want to go.\u00a0 The Captain reminded me that it was my duty to obey orders.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

As of March 1964 I had completed my eight years of part-time military service.\u00a0 I was no longer eligible for the draft and therefore no longer required to stay in the Naval Reserve.\u00a0 I had been too busy working on my master\u2019s degree to have the time to study anything else, so I had not made Chief Petty Officer and somewhat reluctantly decided not to re-enlist.\u00a0 While the personnelman was processing my discharge, he asked me if I wanted to be an officer.\u00a0 When I asked how, he explained that college graduates who had completed their military obligation were eligible to apply for a direct-appointment commission.<\/p>\n

I pointed to my glasses and asked, \u201cWhat about these?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could still be an LDO,\u201d he answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cA what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA Limited Duty Officer.\u00a0 You could never command a ship, but you could free up another officer doing some kind of desk job.\u00a0 We all know the Navy\u2019s short of officers and pretty soon that business in Vietnam will turn into a real war.\u00a0 It\u2019s worth applying, and you can do it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought about it for a minute and told him to go ahead.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t be shooting planes out of the sky on a battleship or directing depth charges on a destroyer, but I was going to be an officer in the United States Navy!\u00a0 Sister Gretchen would have been proud!<\/p>\n

It took a few months to complete the paperwork but I was eventually sworn in and commissioned a Lieutenant (Junior Grade).\u00a0 Because of my education, eight years service, and age, I was allowed to skip the initial rank of Ensign.\u00a0 I was made a Public Information Officer and was expected to interpret Navy policy to the general public in a positive way.\u00a0 That sounded like a job I could do.\u00a0 There was growing unhappiness about our increasing involvement in Vietnam.\u00a0 People needed to understand why we had to be there.\u00a0 I managed to get a billet with a Public Affairs group in Manhattan and was soon writing press releases and speeches to explain why America needed to help the South Vietnamese prevent a communist takeover.<\/p>\n

On August 2 came the news that the North Vietnamese Navy had attacked two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.\u00a0 Congress responded five days later with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that authorized President Lyndon Johnson to take whatever action was necessary to safeguard American servicemen.\u00a0 A week later Congress approved Johnson\u2019s War on Poverty, an enemy that more Americans were probably aware of than North Vietnam and the Vietcong.\u00a0 Johnson was elected in a landslide.\u00a0 Besides the War on Poverty, he had managed to get Congress to approve an omnibus civil rights bill as well as Medicare, and 61% of the voters apparently believed he\u2019d be less likely than Barry Goldwater to escalate the war in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

I had voted for Goldwater for the same reason.\u00a0 I believed that the only way the South Vietnamese could defend themselves would be to stop the North Vietnamese from supplying the Vietcong in the South.\u00a0 I thought I understood our policies better than the average American because I had the advantage of reading all that material from the Navy Department every week.\u00a0 Much of it was classified, of course, and I could not pass it on, but reading it motivated me to make my reports as persuasive as I could.\u00a0 It was my duty as a Navy officer.\u00a0 So I was surprised\u2014and pleased\u2014when, in January 1965,\u00a0 President Johnson ordered continuous Navy bombing of military targets in the North.\u00a0 For a domestic-policy-oriented President to do that meant that he was listening to the right military advisors.<\/p>\n

You can see that even after our involvement in Vietnam escalated into a real fighting war, I was still a hawk.\u00a0 I truly believed we had to stop the communist North from taking over the democratic South.\u00a0 I wished I could have been there to do my part, but at least I was making a contribution by writing on behalf of our nation\u2019s cause.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all for today, missy.\u00a0 I\u2019ll finish up tomorrow.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Back again, kiddo?<\/p>\n

Okay, now I\u2019ll tell you how things began to change.\u00a0 Most of my colleagues at the school were opposed to the war.\u00a0 They said it was none of our business, that the South Vietnamese government leaders were completely out of touch with the people, that we were sending American men to die in defense of a wealthy elite, that the domino theory was no longer viable.\u00a0 In the summer of 1965 I learned that one of my first-year students had been killed in action.\u00a0 I remembered him very well because he had been my first real success.\u00a0 He was reading at a fifth-grade level when he started high school but managed to catch up to his classmates by graduation.\u00a0 He had done it by hard work and will power.\u00a0 He came to me after school one day and asked for help.\u00a0 I worked with him almost every afternoon and because I was willing to spend the time, he was willing to do what he had to do.\u00a0 His death a year later made me wonder, for the first time, whether we really should be sending our young men to fight in Vietnam.\u00a0 At that point we had 185,000 troops supporting the 400,000-man South Vietnamese Army trying, not yet with much success, to stop 35,000 Vietcong guerillas.\u00a0 Writing in defense of American policy was getting harder and harder.<\/p>\n

I was promoted to Lieutenant in early 1966 and given a new assignment: to write news articles about the success of the \u201cbrownwater\u201d Navy.\u00a0 This was\u00a0 the newly-created Navy Mobile Riverine Force Mekong Delta, made up of special units with shallow-draft boats for patrolling the Mekong River Delta and transporting Army infantry companies and Navy SEALS to their missions.\u00a0 It was hard for me to imagine small boats as capable of carrying out naval operations, but the idea gradually came to make sense to me as I read the official documents.\u00a0 There was simply not enough solid land for a military base.\u00a0 But the more classified material I read, the more questions came to mind: Why were so few prisoners being taken? Why were entire VC units listed as killed in battle?\u00a0 During World War II and Korea we had taken prisoners of war.\u00a0 Why did we have to kill everybody in Vietnam?<\/p>\n

Of course, I couldn\u2019t write that.\u00a0 No, I had to write what amounted to fiction that would make readers proud to be Americans, defenders of the weak, rescuers of the oppressed and the downtrodden.\u00a0 But the American public was no longer supporting the Vietnam War.\u00a0 Anti-war protests were happening all over the country.\u00a0 People had been promised a complete victory almost immediately.\u00a0 Instead, we kept sending troops\u2014540,000 by 1968.\u00a0 The more bombs we dropped on Hanoi and other northern cities, the more troops they sent to help the Vietcong.\u00a0 We were bombing the Ho Chi Min Trail but communist forces kept coming.\u00a0 In January 1968 they surprised us with the Tet Offensive, simultaneous attacks on major South Vietnamese cities during their most important religious feast when, in previous years, they had taken time out from the war.\u00a0\u00a0 Demonstrators outside the White House chanted, \u201cHey, hey, L.B.J.\/How many kids did you kill today?\u201d Two months later President Johnson announced that he had ordered the bombing to stop, asked to begin peace talks in Paris, and promised not to seek re-election in November.\u00a0 Richard Nixon became the next President because so many Americans had come to associate wars with Democrats.<\/p>\n

Although Nixon promised to \u201cVietnamize\u201d the war effort by bringing home American troops, he wasn\u2019t doing it fast enough to satisfy the public.\u00a0 Anti-war demonstrations continued all over the country.\u00a0 Then, in late 1969, came the first report of an infantry company\u2019s slaughter of civilian residents in the village of Mylai.\u00a0 Army officials denied it.\u00a0 I barely made it to the faculty rest room to vomit.<\/p>\n

Since I no longer could justify in my own mind our military presence in Vietnam, I did what I thought was the only honorable thing to do: I resigned my commission.\u00a0 The problem was that the Navy ignored me.\u00a0 They kept mailing me the public information packet every week.\u00a0 I had stopped writing propaganda and packed my uniform in mothballs, but the Navy kept me in standby-reserve status.\u00a0 My resignation wasn\u2019t accepted until February of 1973, a week after the peace pacts were signed in Paris.\u00a0 By then we had invaded Laos and Cambodia, convicted Lieutenant Calley of premeditated murder at Mylai, and resumed heavy bombing of the Northern cities.\u00a0 On the home front we had witnessed the assassinations of Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X, the killing of\u00a0 four protesting college students by the Ohio National Guard, the resignation of the Vice President, and the outbreak of the Watergate scandal which eventually led to President Nixon\u2019s disgraceful resignation.\u00a0 The last American combat troops left South Vietnam in March and the North Vietnamese completed their victory within two years.<\/p>\n

As for me, I continued teaching high school and married one of my colleagues who had been a dove all through the war.\u00a0 We used to argue about it every day until I realized how wrong the entire Vietnamese policy had been.\u00a0 Once I admitted it to myself, I could admit it to her.\u00a0 We bought a house in the suburbs, had a boy and a girl, and my wife gave up teaching to be a full-time mother.\u00a0 To our relatives and friends we looked like the perfect family.\u00a0 But we argued whenever we were alone.\u00a0 It was my fault more than hers.\u00a0 She wanted to get on with life, but I couldn\u2019t help dwelling on the past.\u00a0 I grew moody and sullen, lost interest in the kids.\u00a0 Nothing seemed to hold my attention except that stupid war.\u00a0 I became obsessed with it, read everything written about it.\u00a0 Each new fact that I learned added to my obsession.<\/p>\n

The official casualty count was more than 43,000 Americans killed in combat, plus almost 11,000 who died there of other causes.\u00a0 That was mind-boggling to me; how could 11,000 Americans not in combat die?\u00a0 The South Vietnamese Army lost about 200,000, the North, 900,000.\u00a0 Worst of all, at least 1,000,000 Vietnamese civilians died.<\/p>\n

The numbers staggered me.\u00a0 I felt guilty at first, guiltier every day, every month, every year.\u00a0 When I reached the point at which I could no longer teach American history without breaking into tears, I had to quit.\u00a0 My wife went back to teaching and I stayed home with the kids for a few years.\u00a0 They were in school by then so I had a lot of time on my hands.\u00a0 Eventually, the guilt changed to shame and I was no longer fit to live with.\u00a0 My wife divorced me and got custody of the kids.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t hate me, didn\u2019t even ask for alimony or child support, just wanted me out of their lives, and I didn\u2019t blame her.\u00a0 I moved to Manhattan, got a job in a supermarket, and lived in a furnished room upstairs.\u00a0 I never tried to make any friends, just lived my own quiet life, trying to live without thinking about life, one day at a time.<\/p>\n

As the years passed, I gradually realized I didn\u2019t want to work anymore.\u00a0 But I kept going in every day because that\u2019s what people expected.\u00a0 It took maybe a few more months to decide that I didn\u2019t have to do what people expected.\u00a0 I just stayed in bed one morning.\u00a0 When the manager came up to check on me, I didn\u2019t even try to make him understand what was wrong.\u00a0 I walked out with the clothes on my back.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been on the streets five years now and I haven\u2019t figured out a reason not to stay.<\/p>\n

End of story, young lady.\u00a0 Go home and write your paper.<\/p>\n

END<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen, missy, if you really want to know why I live on the streets, you need to hear the story of my whole life, and I doubt if you have the patience.\u00a0 You\u2019re probably just like all the other college smart-asses who think they\u2019ll be able to understand what it means to simply not give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,200,223,219,220],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1731"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3264,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions\/3264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}