Two record breaking cold winters back to back (2008-9) led into the hottest and driest summer ever here, swarms
of mosquitos
filled the smoky air as much of the surrounding woods went up in flames. Loss of life and property damage were the realities of two icy cold tundra winters
in a row, and a desert HOT summer made this place difficult to live in and almost
impossible to fully enjoy. So far this has been the warmest
winter in 8 years, some snow but mostly rain is a perfect winter just like the ones I knew in England, although
that place got a 30-year snow dump/freeze and they are all bitching about what here is normal Nov-May. I am looking forward
to 2010 as
a year when I get to spend more time with folks I know, and in whatever small ways I can help them as they so often help me.
The urge to pick up a brush and do some serious fine art painting is growing in me again, and when it gets to the
right moment I have a mind full of images I must commit to canvas, it's been a while and I have a driving need
to turn out the kind of art that inspires and imprints upon others parts of my life that words can not ever fully
express. My health is still of concern, but each day brings me closer to a total cure for a disease that saps my energy
and diminishes the quality of life and stamina I once took for granted in my life until my early 40's. Ever hopeful
of a faster acting, less radical chance (70% success rate is poor odds for 6 months of radical chemotherapy) kinder, more tolerable
and totally
effective drug to emerge soon that will purge Hepatitis-C from my body for ever, I
wait and I endure. I use natural anti-oxidants like pomegranate
juice which tastes just fine and helps neutralize free-radicals and other toxins in my digestive tract before that
job falls to a damaged liver. I've been taking caplets of blue-berry leaf extract daily which does the same thing,
and a few months back I added another antioxidant to my daily intake of Puritan Pride blueberry leaf extract, this is a chemical called
QUERCETIN,
500mg's twice
a day, naturally found in some fruits so I am hoping both herbal capsules taken daily for the foreseeable future
will reduce my viral load and when that drops my energy level
spikes up! What
I can
notice is more energy and less flu-like symptoms which are a daily given for folks infected with Hep-C.
In a few weeks I celebrate my 53nd birthday, 3 days prior is
my 11th year of total sobriety, a much more important date in my life, which gives me one chronological mile-stone that aging brings every
year to those who make it that far, and a decade + 1 of self imposed sobriety which changed my life and brought
an end to an addiction I had since my teens, which would have consumed/killed me had I not stopped. In 2007 I was
walking across the parking-lot to check my mail, inside a locked metal repository of maybe 50 other units in this
complex lays my mail box. It's one of two that service inbound USPS mail Monday-Saturday. One day out checking
my mail inside an open garage I heard power tools, curious I walked over and met Andrew R., a man from the Hawaiian
island of Molokai, although his travels spanned the Pacific, Asia and he has lived in California, my last home.
His heritage leads back to Tahiti. A few years younger than me we got to talking, mostly about familiar places I had known during my
7-year tour on the island of Oahu, Hawaii (1982-89), and my trips to Kauai, Maui, Lanai, Molokai, Hawaii (the big
island with the active volcano), the tiny island of Kahualwe, and of course Oahu, mostly for military training, but also for vacations.
The tiny Forbidden Island
Nihau is the only island in Hawaii I never visited. In order to live a much more simple life there you must be
almost pure Hawaiian, and they are self-sufficient folks. Oahu was my base and where I lived and knew the area
very well for training areas and time off road or hiking treks. Over the years I found I gravitated more to the
local population a mix-match of many island Polynesian folks. Many were not so fond of the Anglos or other non-Polynesians who
share that island, and since Captain Cook found that place in the mid 18th century inhabited by friendly natives
who led a simple life, who already had a rich heritage dating back eons and were a unified kingdom ruled by King
Kamehameha I, it did not take long before the process of 'civilizing' (subjugating) them began and by the time Hawaii became the 50th U.S. State
in 1959 most of the culture had vanished to be replaced by everything that is not Hawaiian like T.V. series Hawaii
5-0 or movies like Elvis 'Blue Hawaii' tourist trash while between the U.S. Military, private industry and the Mormon church owned and ran the whole place relegating
the true Hawaiians into a 2nd class Americans on their own lands. I too looked down upon the 'locals' a belief
I bought into during my 1st few ignorant years there as a U.S.
Army Medical NCO. By the time I rotated out I had more Hawaiian
friends than military ones and my best times were spent in their company learning their ways and feeling pretty
bad about what I was paid to do which was train hard and not respect much but my military chain of command as our
ordinance blew whole chunks of their islands into atoms. Andrew is a master craftsman in designing & producing
authentic Hawaiian everything from weapons to story boards or Harangas that tell a life story or bring back into
exquisite detail symbols of people, creatures, places and legends, which a person can commission from him if they
provide him a general idea of what they want from a bird-house to a hunting bow and arrows. I am the proud owner
of a few of his most unique items, to include a Haranga that tells my life story from birth through now it hangs
above my fire-place as a one of a kind conversation piece that has no equal. He uses materials he imports from
Hawaii, not the cheaper local wood or materials. He is also a master martial arts instructor in both armed and
un-armed combat which he teaches to select students, a formidable multi-talented artisan of many disciplines he
speaks softly and yet he is not the kind of guy you would want to try to pick a fight with unless you used a bullet
which he is no stranger to and many who have tried a pistol on him have lived to regret it.... if they were lucky
enough to survive and end up in jail after they got out of the hospitals he has put them in with techniques few
I have ever met in my life can match. Add being fluent in many languages his talents and skills just developed
into a trusted friend. I am proud to call him my closest male friend in many years. His clan in Molokai are good
people who I stay in contact with in ways that are as simple as snail-mail to a 6th sense I have had since a child
that at times allows me to connect with them in ways that defy any scientific explanation the reader would even
understand, but over the last 2 years I have 'seen' parts of their world in ways that defy any explanation I can
offer, earning me a role in their life as the family second-sight gifted seer, or Kaulua as they are known in Hawaii. My bond with
that family grows stronger every day, but I must remain humble or I will lose that gift if I misuse it in any other way than
freely and without any desire for reward, a thanks is just fine. I have a gift of prophesy (prescience), depending on the source many humans,
about 50% have some level of a 6th sense. It may only surface once or twice in their lives or be a regular event. They
get a gut feeling/hunch that comes out just as they thought it would, they know a loved one is sick miles away
and call to check up on them. Most have at least experienced Deja-Vu, common human gifts that may be a sense we
relied a whole lot more on when we were primates for survival against a wild and evolving old world, then there
are maybe 1 in 100K who have variants of this gift from the ability to move objects by thought, (telekinesis) precognition/prescience
(seeing the future) or even the ability to effect changes in others brain waves and alter their behavior (telepathy).
Those 1 in a 10-million are actually employed by private industry and governments to ply that skill only because
it works most of the time. 'Stargate' may have been a good T.V. series but it was/maybe still is an operation our CIA used as did the KGB in old Soviet Russia peaking during
the Cold War to
see what spies and planes couldn't, both sides had very talented psychics. I am no where close to that level of skill. They are
not the Gypsies
in a tent at the local carnival or some New Age shop who coax a question out of you, tell you what you want to hear and
ask for payment in return, that is just parlor tricks and a sham, smoke
& mirrors!) I had this gift as a youth in England my Grandmother
saw it in me and helped me to use it not let it use me, and now it has developed into a much stronger and more
precise ability to see past events I had no way of being privy to, present events are the strongest and if they
involve those I care about or even folks I do not know, if something good or bad is effecting them I can often
tune right into whatever that be, and some future events speaking in a language I do not know, do not understand,
have never studied, but according to those who can understand and translate it have hit just too many bulls-eyes for even me
to believe is just coincidence or lucky guesses, and no I do not use books or the Internet to cheat! I'll say no more as by now
you probably have me pegged as a Vet who needs some Thorazine and a padded room to live out my life in. But nothing I commit to this ongoing web-page/biography
of my life is untrue, and I am thankful I have such a gift, but use it freely to help never to hinder. That is
about all I can cover about one important facet of my life I think I was destined to hone to a much more focused
and accurate skill here, on Hawaii as a younger man, I had that skill but put it down to being astute or lucky.
I was not ready to use this skill/gift until I crossed paths with Andrew
R. He linked me with people who understand certain folks have
this extra ability and for them it is as normal as going to a doctor if you seek medical advice.
Now what follows is only a small portion of my autobiography, my entire life would take up enough space
to fill a thick book
or a 100GB hard drive, so I have hit only on pivotal episodes which still takes even a speed reader 2-4 hours to
read from top to bottom. Some of my story goes to the grave with me c/o non-disclosure forms I signed that limit (for very good reasons) what will never be included in this narrative or any other to even those closest to me while I live.
If wading thru this
much data is too much time for you to get an idea of who I am, some of what I've done, where I've been and the
events that changed my life & that of others, then log off now, U have been warned and I won't get my feelings
hurt if you check out, or choose to: 'Save As Web-Page Complete' and go over it @ your speed off-line later. I keep this page updated at least monthly ;-}
My life and story starts in the beginning; London, England.
I was born Maurice
Sean Murphy
on a wet and chilly late winter
morning in 1957 in a large public
hospital in the inner London borough of Saint Pancras, next to Westminster,
or very close to the sounds
of the London Clock, 'Big Ben' is the largest bell inside & up-top of that large clock tower (connected to the British Parliament complex, the Houses of Lords & Commons) as it is correctly named, and the entire ancient structure, an iconic land-mark of any London post-card mistakenly called 'Big Ben'
even by those who grew up there and
know the difference, making me officially a Cockney by birth
or so the ancient tradition goes. I am an onlychild of that cursed union and have no children of my own.
My ethnic make-up is 1/4 German
and 3/4's Celtic. U.K. citizen
by birth (London) but Irish by citizenship from my immigrant Irish dead-beat father. My Mother's name was Monica, the last and maybe the prettiest, most reserved
yet very self-educated daughter of seven children (five girls and two boys),
born to my mostly Irish and Scottish
(Celtic) Grandmother Catherine Sullivan, and my (1st generation German
immigrant to England) Grandfather
Ernst. I have an uncle Terry, now the Patriarch of that line , and aunts Aurdry, an old bitter broken woman with a vile temper (both out of my commo
loop indef.) and younger by 10 years Aunt Bernadette still alive today but from what I last heard, now sick and
living in an assisted-living environment for the elderly who also suffer medical problems that come with age. I
remember times when they all were alive and the interactions I had with each one. My Grandfather fought
against the Germans in World War One, probably trading fire
with some of his own kin! He was gassed and survived four long years in the trenches. His trade was a coal stoker, a hard life until he married my grandmother and together they leased
and ran a inn/boarding-house for sailors and merchant marines. WW I was something so terrible to endure for 4 long years of bloody trench warfare that he never talked about it to me or anyone else, I don't think he
could bear to remember the carnage
so he blocked it out with fits of rage at times for no good reason, then cried like a baby, something known today
as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,
but back then called 'shell-shock'
a badge of cowardice that could get a solider shot for incapacitating
fear. My Grandmother told me that a rat
was considered a good meal by the starving British troops. The
rats grew fat on the un-buried bodies of Tommy and Kraut alike that no one could recover so they just lay out in
'No-Mans Land' for months and
rotted, a smell so strong
it also drifting to G.B. when the winds blew from the east. The first battle of the Somme (in France) was so loud
that it was clearly heard across the North Sea back in England, lighting up night skies for days and
worrying my grandmother and many other wives to misery that no letters had come back from her once dashing/charming young lance-corporal husband in months. They lived in South Shields in County Durham in the north of England when my grandfather came back a very different person, quick to anger and stern with anyone. During the next World War the youngest, including my Mother
were evacuated into the country-side , in her case a country hamlet
Vicarage, to avoid Hitler's
Blitzkrieg which was bombing any city, especially the prime targets of the dock
lands and rail-heads of the river Tyne where my Grandparents
still owned and ran a boarding house
for dockers, Royal Navy sailors
and merchant seamen. My grandfather 40+ was too old now for recall to duty, but as required of any able bodied
male he became a member of the Home-Guard
helping out after German air-raids or manning 'pom-pom' guns (derived name for the sound they made with each volley), heavy anti-aircraft machine guns designed
to bring down Nazi bombers. My Uncle Donald
became a Merchant Seaman at 16, and
went off on convoy duty from England to Murmansk, Russia.
He survived several direct torpedo
hits from U-Boats on the vessels
he served on, sending many to the bottom, and leaving him afloat in a lifeboat for days in the freezing Barents Sea. Convoys who stopped to pick-up
survivors often joined their comrades in disaster. He could not survive the alcohol which took him in the end many years later, a broken man. He was buried at sea over the wreck of the Titanic
by the Captain of the Q.E.II, arranged by my aunt Vera, his twin by birth, and a good person who I loved dearly in her sorrow filled life. On my Mother's side of the family, Ernst remains
the only soldier I know of
in my lineage, until me, some 60 years later when I became one, but in a very different Army. I remember him as
a bitter old man who died of colon cancer when I was still young. My Grandmother
was a wonderful person who I loved
dearly. I was raised very close to the Common Gate Pub
in Walthamstow, (the urban mess that is part of the expanding Cockney East
End of) London E-17, England.
My Irish born father's first name was also MauricePatrick, so very
early in my life my Mother, in her wisdom, called me by my middle name:
'Sean' and it stuck throughout my life. It is the Gaelic name for John. It is the name I still go by to all my friends and family, except when dealing with official 'stuff' or folks.
I should have dropped the Maurice part when I became a U.S. Army Combat Engineer, then a Combat Medic,
then a U.S. citizen. Oh well! That
name alone got me into more
fights after school as a kid.
It originated as 'Moorish'
or 'Dark Skinned' and dates
on record from the Muslim Moors
who conquered most of Spain, until Christian Knights (Crusaders) chased them all the way back to their deserts. That name had one benefit I didn't fully appreciate at the time. I was getting good at fighting and soon earned a reputation for it.
"Hey More-Rice where'd
you get that pansy name from?" WHACK!
Two years of formal training
in Shotokan karate (later in my teens)
made me an even better and effective weapon. The rigorous training eventually taught me that walking away or
avoiding a needless confrontation is a good tactic too! I had many
occasions to defend myself over the years and can still drop most with no frills moves that would end fights real fast. Thankfully it's been years since I last had to use it on anyone. Violence (IMHO)
is the last option of dialogue. All kids scrap; I just seemed
to have to more than others
with names like plain old John Smith.
Clan Murphy in Gaelic comes
from the ancient tribal name Muirchu,
meaning sea warrior or pirate, depending on who is telling the story. The English waves of invaders couldn't pronounce the word so they morphed
it into Murphy a name of English creation as so many Irish names are today, and the real Celtic language or names
were prohibited to even be spoken under pain of death from Norman then Plantagenet then Tudor kings and a brutal
Liz I to Oliver Cromwell, the only (non-royal) dictator and ruler
of England after a bloody civil war (1599-1658) found itself rued by 'Ollie' when he had Charles Stewart II's head lopped-off
at the Tower of London for being a tad too anal and in the bad habit of dissolving parliaments that were supposed to represent the English people (landowners, not the tenants who were just worker
bees with no rights to do much but put up, shut up and do as they were told), or who (unless they were the king's
landed and titled court gentry "Yes Sire!" sycophants) saw no use in waging very bloody wars in distant Europe, getting issued armor,
sword, and shields the off they went following the local knight wherever the king sent them, or staying home, farming
the lands, paying taxes for royalist armies off fighting all takers over trivial matters and staying broke at home
in England wondering WTF their
monarch was up to and why the
only thing coming home was bad news or broken veterans of those follies. The (Catholic) Irish people were never
much more than bonded chattel to their hated (Protestant) English masters until Eire found freedom circa 1921 following centuries of revolts and bitter defeats, but still leaving 6 counties up north under the rule of the British (Protestant) crown but still full
of Catholic Irish who had lived there from birth thru death since Saint
Patrick or Padriag, a Roman pilgrim & Christian convert who sold them all on the proper way to worship God, in Latin
of course not even understood by any but the rich educated classes of Europe or the Romans whose mastery of it
was total. Padriag is also
credited for casting (Wizard stuff) those nasty snakes out of the island, or so the fable goes, more likely any snake caught by a starving peasant was a meal so they were probably consumed into extinction, not cast-out! That religious hatred made growing up in the
1970's an exercise in avoiding IRA
bombs in major U.K. cities with London (my digs) a prime target. N. Ireland violence filled our evening news and hunger strikers became (Catholic
Irish) martyrs when in fact
most had a lot of innocent blood on their hands and weren't in HMP Long Kesh, Belfast
for shop-lifting, generating more agro each time one died, or a Brit Paratrooper shot a brainwashed kid for throwing a petrol bomb at a patrol. Murphy (in Gaelic Muirchu) is a masculine surname that pre-dates Christianity meaning 'sea-warrior'. One of the ancient kings of the clan was always
present at the Halls of Tara,
the place now called Newgrange
where a highly civilized Celtic culture once ruled Erin that rivaled ancient Greece at its climax. It marked
all who bore it as originating from southern Ireland around modern day County Cork in Eire where around
500BCE their Bronze-Age men-folk made a decent living raiding Phoenecian traders and later Roman galleys. Enough history to fill a
library, seldom taught
(correctly) in British vetted history books, but facts on my home page
that is already way
too big, to convince you that somewhere way back all of my clan had a common royal ancestor. "Every Irishman thinks he's a king or descended
from one!" were not kind words but they mocked only a much deeper truth.
That 70-year [abbreviated] snap-shot
of my family history is but the very start or prelude of my own life's story, which now follows:
ANGLO-AMERICANseeds are sown,
and take root.
I detested the poverty I was
born into and soon realized after exposure to American culture (almost from infancy) that there were better places or ways to live than my
miserable part of England.
By age 10 I had already seen almost every touristy item that London had to offer, some many times, so please excuse
me if I take for granted the Tower of London, containing the Crown Jewels, the changing of the guard at Buckingham
Palace or Tower Bridge that still spans the Thames. I had seen and
lived with the freedoms and luxuries
of the United States throughout
my most formative first years and then later into my teens without even leaving Britain. My first exposure to American 'norms' was when I lived/visited with my Anglo-American
God Parents and their first two
children; my cousins (big-sis)
Cathy and (my age) Liz, in Banbury,
United Kingdom. Normal working class Americans who took for granted a life-style not common (or
even affordable) on most British salaries. These were constant extended visits throughout the late 50's and early 60's to bases like Mildenhall or
Lakenheath. My uncle and God Father,
Manual Eduardo 'Eddie' Facundo; a Hispanic American patriot was a young handsome Tech-Sergeant stationed
at a U.S. Air Force Base 2 hours ride by train from London. He
married my Mother's elder sister, my God Mother, Bernadette. So
for periods of many months unbroken
we were a combined family and
life was happy. Or so I thought, and forgot about the mean
guy Mum never talked about. My own father was rotting
in one of the most notorious prisons
in England called Dartmoor. Not a place for mere shoplifters! By U.S.
standards an San-Quintan for the
worst of the worst. For what I
don't remember but our trips to Banbury
ended shortly after his release. Then my uncle Eddie's tour was up and he took his family back States-side to a new duty assignment in Texas
complete with his new son, my cousin Eddie Jr. They went on to have two more boys, David and Patrick over the next few years. They left
a lasting impression on me and
a void that was very hard to fill. I stayed in mail and sometimes even phone contact with them in America throughout the years, and dreamt of emigration. I didn't see them again until 1972, aged 15,
and again in 1975 at age 18. Both trips were for two-month vacations spent in places from San Francisco's hippy
havens, camping trips all over Northern
California's many beautiful lakes, mountains,
National parks and forests. great concerts galore, to the wonders of Disney Land
inLos Angeles! Blasting rock from to Rod Stewart to Zeppelin! Much of summer 1975 further saturated me in U.S. culture, and I literally drank it up with honorable men like Ed O'Shea.
A Korean War Veteran and ex-Prisoner
of War. He earned this Nation's 2nd highest military
award for valor; the Navy Cross,
awarded to him once he came home, an empty shell of a human after years
of North Korean captivity and torture. Bastards! Then there was CRAZY Vietnam Veteran Bruce Liker, U.S.M.C. sniper. "Reach
out and touch someone!", 1-shot, 1-kill with over 100 confirmed to his credit and his tormented memory/flash-backs! The
combination of Uncle Eddie, Ed
O'Shea and Bruce Liker made a U.S.
military experience something I had to pursue, but I would have to return to London and wait another long
year before I could follow that path for real. Too much to tell in depth
on a Home Page I AM trying to stop becoming an e-book ! Stop now for a sec please, or revisit when you have more time. This is an ongoing autobiographical account of my life, and it gets heavy later. I weave new events around old
when I remember or experience more, so this stays current and at times pedantic for the regulars. A dear friend
recently asked me to put all my "new stuff" in one easy to get at place on this page, something I have given much thought to, but as time goes by, more of my past
comes back to me, and serves only to expound on my life with events new and dated.To stack only new events up front would confuse any
1st-time visitor and make this site even more disjointed than it already is. Like the Star Wars prequels to the
the originals, it has a time-line but to study me is to know me and if I do not rate that much of your time, then
find a good fiction book that tells a quick exciting story in 300-pages. If you get tired of long reads then book-mark my site and revisit it when you have 2-4+ hours to kill. Regulars can spot new blogs from constants, so for now my life story grows with each update and this page just grows with it to keep pace. And
having a fast Internet connection does NOT make it do anything but load faster!
Surf-on
visitor ;-}
For visitors who find my home page a little too colorful
and love plain old normal black
text on a white background, copy & paste the whole page into your word processing program, I.e. M.S. Word. Get rid of the JPG's, and
turn the multiple text colors and backgrounds I use into a medium U like. All the text is Ariel for international
compatibility. Save it for a less flamboyant read. Regular visitors do the same and replace old saves with updated ones. My whole page in basic
HTML fits on one 3.5" floppy disk taking up around 800
kilobytes! U will lose all the photos, the audio/visual 10 minutes of me talking to
you, and the built-in live links to other web-sites, but this page is not for the glitzy, it is a text rich chronicle of my ongoing life and does fit on a 3.5" floppy disk. A-drives
are now taboo to most new computers that don't even come
with one of those quaint
little add-ons, unless U get a plug 'n play USB peripheral FAT-32
version as I have on my Dell
laptop. So for just my words... save it to your hard drive, a flash-stick or a CD/RW as
a text only file. IMHO it's
my life story that counts, not the JAVA
add-ons. U can find on
much more Flash/Shockwave intensive
web-master works of cyber art
sites on Google! This site
allows you to figure out who I am and saves me a LOT of time answering your questions when we first meet. After
reading through the 4-hour site you can then decide if I would make a good friend or we are not even close to being
on the same wave-length. A wind-fall
for you and a time-saver for me :-)
The Journey Begins...
Major back-track to my first trip out of England. I spent the summer
of 1964 living in Marseilles, France where my (recently released from prison) father played chauffeur to some rich
big-wig. Living in a nice hotel on the beach for free, learning to swim
in the Mediterranean c/o my always drunk father who repeatedly threw me off the end of a long pier and pushed my head down until I frantically learnt
to swim away from the bastard who
would have called it an "accident"
if I didn't surface. His first real attempt at getting rid of me for ever (and
not his last) may have worked, but turned me into one hell of a swimmer. I picked-up some French words which kept me busy and sun-burnt. I watched artists with crayons producing
wonders on flag stones, with a
small can near by and the word 'Merci'
on a sign next to it. I soon emulated their gig, and earned centimes
for my hours of meticulous coloring. I guess that was the 1st job I ever enjoyed and even made money from. It amazed my Mum when I could buy her an ice cream cone from my own
supply of francs and showed her how I had made my first real pay. It did provide quality
time which I could spend with my Mother
away from the nightly binges of
'dear old dad', off chasing the local whores,
or hitting the casino. Driving
through France in aRolls Royce hauling a luxury yacht
for his boss, we visited most tourist traps from Paris to the more famous 'must-see' relics of their past
heading south to Marseilles. Yawn! I'd seen much better castles, bridges
and churches in England. Although Notre
Dame cathedral was impressive,
even if trash blew around everywhere
outside it. My Mother brought a complete photo-album in black & white
with her to America which I now
own. Some photos were taken before I was even born. A time capsule
proper. Priceless! My father'sonly 'legal' hobby was photography, and he recorded
the whole trip, and much more
of our life in England on those photos
he developed himself. It's a hobby I too adopted over time but all my photo gear was paid for and my photos became digital. A legal hobby if you consider that all the cameras Maurice P owned were stolen, as were all
his suits and anything he could
get his thieving hands on. He
never left our home without wearing a complete expensive tailor-made (stolen) suit and tie, he had a wardrobe full of them, and was so vain in other's trappings, when his drinking chums wore plain old (honest) working clothes of course. He drove wealthy people
around, gained their confidence, and then robbed them. I thought most of France
was dirty and the French were (in comparison to the English 'norms' I knew) rude,
unwashed and their food was the cause of constant viral food poisoning we all suffered through. Later
in life ('77-'79) I trained with French
conscripts. They were poorly led, arrogant from Private on up, insubordinate slackers during
training, ill equipped and fed like convicts. They made us look like Rangers in comparison!Not sure who they hated more, the Soviets
or us U.S. soldiers. Many stole
from us at every chance and stayed
drunk even on duty. I guess saving
their ass twice in the 20th century
was something often (conveniently)
forgotten by most baby-boomer French people who
never endured conquest that I
have ever met, and that has been
many over the years with
only a few exceptions. Even to this day when a French skier comes to my favorite diner here and complains about the Rockies not being as good as the Alps. Then go home
Jaques and don't come back! Their Government's favorite
word seems to be: "Veto!".
Friggin Frogs! I guess that makes me a racist, but
there are a few cultures and
places I have seen that I don't want to revisit, starting with London,
E17 and moving into a few which were, and still are even in the United
States. No offense meantAmishfolks, or gang-bangers in da hood, but I
don't plan on moving in! It
was during my stay in the south of France that I got to shake the hand of (then) President Charles DeGaulle in Marseilles
when he visited in his new aircraft-carrier, named after him of
course! Thousands of singing
& cheering Frogs going
nuts drew/pushed me to the
front of the crowd. This was a first for me, and him. I
had never even seen
our Queen, or any
other person so famous,
let alone shook their hand.
I had seen her jewels in the
Tower of London (many times)
and wondered why I was always hungry
when she had all this wealth just behind the glass. At age 7 there were many things I had not yet been exposed to, but I was learning fast. That was as far as I got away from London I got, except
for the few wonderful trips I tagged along with my friend's family, or my own parent's caravan vacations to the Isle
of Wight with forays into spooky Hearst Castle, my best friend as scared as me, with it's Mad Monk ghost
legend. My next trip out of England was a few years later (without my Mother, or any friends) for a month inCork City,
Eire living with my dirt poor (boozing)
Irish grandmother, father,
half-brothers from my dad's
first married fling during
and right after W.W.II, which
he sat out safe as an Irish citizen in Blackpool. Eire was not at odds with anyone but the British.
Maurice P had women a-plenty whose husbands were off fighting a
war against Adolph and his crazies.
Being Irish there was no conscription for him. His first wife Margory gave him my half-brothers (Michael and Tony Murphy)
who were criminal clones of my father.
Both were trouble. If either of you aging wankers ever reads this, leaving you crooks in England was almost as good as leaving
our dear bastard of a father; bugger off!A trip to 'see
me' in America may be your last trip anywhere, you have been warned! Add manyshifty
uncles, a few cowed aunts and
a load of cousins I had never
met before, for a long drawn-out
drunken clan funeral & wake during the late 60's. I think my paternal relative's funeral may have had IRA connections, as they even showed up at the grave-site in ski-masks and camouflaged uniforms! They
even fired off a rifle salute over his grave then raced away in a V.W. Microbus. Literally thousands of other mourners followed
the Hearse, or were leaning out
their windows crying and shouting as we walked toSeven Hills cemetery with me and my cousin
(?) leading the entire way. Weird. I wonder what that bastard did in life to merit that outpouring, and I never asked. My Mother had barely survived two IRA bombings in the business district of London, one of which trapped her and hundreds of
others in a smoke filled tube (or subway) for hours killing some and hospitalizing the rest. For that reason alone I disliked their cowardly methods,
them, and stayed clear of any
who boasted support for those
early terrorists! Like I distanced
myself from all of my father's crazy/criminal clan. Coal Quay, Cork was enough to see what real poverty really meant
and I actually missed London! Ireland was beautiful
and green once you left the slummy cities. Loads of rolling hills, ancient churches and pubs, farms with cows, pigs, sheep and horse-drawn wagons, but little for any kid to do. That was the last
time I saw most of them, thank God.
The rest of my most vivid recollections
concerns my best friend then (met at the age of four when we both started in our 1st class together, 1st lesson
was memorize our Roman Catholic
catechisms!) and now some 46 years later, Mick is still a presence in my life. I had the honor of introducing him
to the young woman he would go on to marry, a relationship that still endures and he bore two fine sons. The years
and miles that separates us have made us different people but we both bear the London, E17 'stamp' from the Cockney neighborhood we grew up in.
Surviving the Monster!
Some folks are unlucky enough to have rotten or dead beat fathers, plain
old bums, my Mother married a real charmer who turned into evil incarnate within a year of the worst mistake
of her life, giving me life. My (way-jealous since my Mother shared her maternal love with my newly born self) father was a explosive, racist, violent, abusive bastard to anyone
at any time, making me and my Mother an easy outlet
after a bad day at the
pub, a horse or greyhound race
betting loss, or most often for no reason at all. Often putting
us both in the local Emergency Room
with serious injuries. File charges
and live! Not likely! Yet he could be charming to those he wanted to impress, then later exploit, then rob them.
From blasting (State forbidden)
IRA revolutionary marches or ballads
out our open front window while screaming drunken obscenities at anyone fool
enough to say something, to Bobbies
bashing down our front door was
not uncommon, as he fled out the
back way, or was hiding-out in London's criminal
underworld. I seldom visited him in prison and my Mother told me he was
"working overseas".
Time passed as did that charade.
Most of our family, friends and neighbors avoided us when he was around. It is
terrible to be shunned for the crimes of another, which my Mother and I certainly didn't benefit from. When money was short, which was any time Maurice P.
was around, he often took all
her money by force and spent it all on himself in one night, then later beat us up
because there was no food or heat in the place! For so many
years we lived off her income aloneor at the worst times the charity of others. She worked in central London for small pay and very long hours of arduous secretarial work she had done since I was a newborn. My father
was a habitual violent drunk, career criminal, gambler, womanizer and very
possibly a murderer. He carried a small semi-auto pistol, but
used a dog chain like a steel whip.
Less noise and more 'effect'. We had
a black terrier mix dog he took
everywhere he went, and chains were expected with any dog. One heartless
and brutal bastard! I had seen him
fight and not many people he worked-over
were even conscious (alive?) afterwards.
I once saw him throw petrol over a poor fella who (he later claimed) owed him money, then he lit a cigar and burned the poor bastard alive as he tossed
the lit match onto the bloke. He constantly boasted about throwing acid in peoples faces, and I'd seen the results that caused when they got out of hospital
disfigured and even blinded for
life. That was his favorite threat to my Mother and her worst fear. May his evil soul rot in hell!!!!
Nice thing to show your young son! Threats of reporting these acts of utter sadism to my: "Whore of a Mother if I ever told
anyone..." ensured I remained too
terrified to do much but keep my mouth shut and even wet my pants at times
with fear when he turned his anger
or pistol on me. Leaving him in
prison seemed our only way to escape his psychotic brutality. He 'obliged' us by being incarcerated for armed robbery two years prior to us finally leaving. It made the T.V.
news and all the major Brit newspaper headlines earning more ignominy for us; losing me my first real girlfriend of three years, and more importantly, my Mother, her job!
She soon found other work under similar conditions but for even less pay. I soon found other girls existed, so
we survived, barely. It was during this time that me and my Mother,
in tandem with our family (the Facundos I knew as a toddler) in the United States, worked on emigration plans.
A slow and bureaucratic two year process. Annual U.S. immigration quota caps was the main obstacle. I found out later in life that he died of alcoholism, alone and in the same city we left him in. A very fitting end for a monster who made so
many other people's lives hell on earth, or worse. I hope it was long and very painful to this very
day. That rushes 19 years of my life to this point. On 31 October 1976, my Mother and me left our
(built in 1870!) slum in Walthamstow having sold or given away almost
everything we owned, and carrying
two suitcases each, headed west on a Boeing 747 arriving in the Untied States 15 hours later exhausted but jubilant. It
was the first time she had flown in a plane and my third! My maternal Grandmother also came with us in her late-80's, but returned to London within months as (at her age) England was all she knew and the cultural shock of even suburban California was not something she could handle. She died alone in London some years later aged 94 when I
was stationed in Hawaii. We were
only able to emigrate through
the sponsorship and kindness of
my Aunt and Uncle, Bernadette
and Eddie Facundo, who then lived
in Petaluma, California. They literally saved us from a continuous reign of terror once my loser father emerged from prison, the very day after
we had already split. Oh to have
been a fly on the wall to see the look
on dad's face when he arrived
at a flat no longer his,
with his bags packed outside. Homicidal
might sum it up! He mailed a hate-filled letter to my Mother and divorced
her many years after we left. Guess he'd found someone else to torment. Per his death certificate he died on the exact same day that I retired from a 20-year career in the United
States Army. Many such unexplained coincidences abounded in my family. I won't list them as you, the reader, may think I'm making them up, yet others
(family & friends) witnessed those eerie events too, so no list on this page ever.
Schools 'n Stuff!
I was educated under the 'tender' whips and
canes of the
Roman Catholic Church for most
of my early youth. They did a pretty good job of beating ANY religion out of me for many
years to come. The beatings from the nuns and monks sucked, but the education was superior to the State operated schooling system. Corporal punishment
was the domain of slackers or trouble-makers, like me! Even though I aced every exam they threw @ me.Art was the subject I always excelled in.'Trouble'
could be something as simple as
a dropped pencil resulting in many lashes of a bamboo cane across the hands or backs of the legs delivered first by the Sisters of Mercy, my often bamboo-cane traumatized ass!
I actually developed callouses
on my hands and legs. I forced myself to smile when I was being beaten. This drove those sanctimonious child abusers into caning
frenzies and there was no punishment they could inflict that I had not become immune to. In comparison to what
my father dished-out to
me for no good reason on a
much more frequent basis, to the beating my Mother endured and sometimes even to my aging Grandmother, who he once threw down a 15 ft flight of
stairs one drunken night. We all suffered through the years and those sisters and a brother who had already emigrated
to America after World War II
and became richer faster than the Facundos ever did, yet refused to sponsor us, or we may have left England in
the 60's, I thank them in retrospect for their apathy! The Catholic's punishments were mild, even after they'd broken most of their canes on me. I ran from an Anglican 'priest'
who lured young boys into his vicarage home with promises of "fun
things to do". I was one aged 8 who found out once inside his home
that he wanted much more than I
cared to give him and found evil wearing
white collars, in 'holy' places. I bolted and blabbed it all to
my Mother. She called the police who would not believe her story. "A
Church of England priest would
NEVER do that, it's all Catholic
gossip, click!" But as the complaints rolled in, and the young Church
of England rectums got torn up by this rapist pedophile fuck
head who finally went on to do
hard time for his criminal perversions,
but not before he messed-up many a-kid's life & mind. Further convincing me that any religion was crap. We
evolved end of story. Today I am old enough to know I'm not wise enough to prove a Higher Power doesn't exist, so I have faith but still many questions. I find it very hard to believe that in an endless
universe full of billions
of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, probability dictates that
some sentient life exists other
than here. Running with that logical
premise, how does the Maker present
Himself to them? Or because if they ate meat
on a Friday on a distant planet orbiting a star like ours, they're heading for a Catholic's version of Hell?
How does one explain dinosaurs? Beta builds of hominids? Doesn't
zound quite fair on E.T. or
T-Rex to me! I didn't buy the 2 by 2 Noah's
Ark story, yet I find it easy to accept that there was once a place called
Atlantis and we are it's progeny.
I resented being born with unbaptised original sin, as if
it did go wrong in Eden, don't blame me not even born yet or old
enough to lie well! That's a sin I learned for self-preservation in my childhood, and didn't like it then as much I disdain lies now. I lied to my teachers (from nuns, thru monks to non religious teachers) about where I picked-up so many black eyes, bruises
or split lips. I was a frequent patient
at Whipps Cross Emergency Room. So they thought I was a real brawler in & out of school, which did nothing to improve my standing with anyone. If I told them it was my own father's fault, then I had just signed my own death warrant or
had my face burnt off with acid!
I may have ended up in a foster
home for my own protection, and this web-page would not have been created
because I'd still be trapped in England, or dead by the hand of my own father. The school administered beatings finally stopped when I hit a State operated school after the private Catholic school I was in folded due to lack of fund$. Funny they had plenty of money to buy new whipping canes each semester! This was new to me, a place where no one gave a damn if you learnt or skipped.
Now beatings were the domain of
school bullies. After a few bad rumbles I started fighting back like a crazed imitation of my father. I soon became
a fast slim dirty fighter others
even older and larger than me learnt to leave alone, using some tactics I'd learnt from Maurice P. I admit I messed-up any punk who wanted to rumble, sometimes very badly, but I never killed, even the worse scum-bags who I always thrashed. I'd be damned if I would take the same from these brainless racist (Irish
surname hating) jerks too!
I grew up in a city that the IRA
bombed numerous times, and sporting
Murphy as my surname made me,
and my Mother the target of what later
became known as racial profiling
and hatred. In England we start
school at age four and continue
until we are 16, ending (12 years of education) in either (Ordinary) O-level exams or GCSE's, or CSE's when I took them. Run a search my non-Brit
friends! Not as prestigious
as the harder O-Level exams, but still valuable. Talented kids who did not have to go to work at 16, and
had passed 6 or more O-levels and/or GCSE's often earned themselves a scholarship to 3 or (pushing-it) 4 (Advanced) A-level courses at a college. Two year courses of study putting them at U.S. Junior College
Graduate education level by age
18 or even younger for truly talented kids, with 14 years of schooling behind them. England has a few benefits! For the elite or smart that was/is the doorway to higher college
education. But for the majority of average working class kids who left school with only a few O-levels, GCSE's
or nothing, normal entry-level
work started at age 16 for very little pay. And Army recruiters filled their
heads with dreams, leaving out any mention of a place called Northern Ireland! I started my school dayzzz
in St. Patrick's Elementary Catholic School (Nuns!), then 6 years later entered St. Egbert's
Catholic College for Boys, (Monks!)
the place that went broke & closed. Then into the State run schooling of Heathcote Secondary Modern School (punks and skin-heads) and then 4 years
at Sir George Monoux High School for Boys, a pretty nice place! I went on to do a year at Loughton College
of Further Education studying A-levels
in Psychology, Sociology and English Literature. 5 O-levels and 3 CSE's were my ticket to no-cost higher (literally!) education. I was also specializing in Badminton
and chasing college girls. Dire Straights was an unknown band @ that time
who played there regularly as many of their members were seniors in that college. Priorities: One year into that part of my life I had to leave college to earn money for emigration. During this period I also counted David (Blip) B.
and Robin N. as close friends, involving them in many a party, pub-crawl or
concert. From T-Rex to David Bowie I saw them all. I have lost contact
with all my college days friends, maybe they'll find me here one day.
I had worked in several small stores starting on weekends at the age of 10, and then moved into larger warehouses
since I was 12 years old, on weekends or most nights earning me the pocket
money my Mother couldn't afford to give me. By age 14 turned those 'skills' into a semi-full-time trade after school and college dayzzzz. Enough to convince me I didn't want to spend my life stocking shelves for a living, even with a fork-lift I learned to drive like a pro by age 15! At 16 I spent a year as a courier in London
wearing suits and hopping taxi-cabs, busses, tubes or hoofing-it to deliver valuable or time sensitive documents/items all over the city which was decent
work for good pay and gave me an understanding of most roads and alleys in the HUGE capitol that normally only
cabbies spend years training to pass a test they call: 'The Knowledge' a must
if your calling puts you driving one of those black London cabs so common all over down-town. Wild wombats couldn't coax me into returning forever to live
out my remaining years there. I am now a Yank and
damn proud of that more so than I
was ever proud to boast about the Victorian slums and poverty I left
behind me, or would not even recognize now with a heavy Asian-Brit population who turned my memories of a white working class life into a place that has more in common with any Asian community when you start talking about Londonistan! British citizens all and loving the freedoms/money Britain gave them, but refusing to act like they were anywhere but still living in some shit-hole in Pakistan
or India or name a shadow of the long gone empire that made them
Brits 2nd but ALWAYS good Muslims
or Hindus 1st. I may say the same about any community or nation when
migration changes or displaces the norms of established folks. My journey through life continues, but I will never forget my roots nor the people, places and things who helped mold me
into the wild-eyed teen who got onto
a 747 on Halloween 1976 and never
came back to London to stay, nothing personal to any Brits reading this, but that place is not for me, America is my home of choice and a place I love.
I returned to in
Washington State, U.S.A. on 17 July 2001, and 56 days later.... the world changed as
the twin towers fell.
Only in America; this one picture taken
of the real heroes of 9/11 show
3 Caucasian male fire-fighters raising
our flag amidst the ruins of the WTC.
It was not 'staged' but captures the
real event as it happened. Plans are in the works to turn this into a
huge statue of a Hispanic, an African American
and a Caucasian doing the same deal for
all to see for all time. In 20 years a child will look at that statue and think it is factual. We may as well throw
in a percentage of color into the famous picture of the United States Marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima to make it 'culturally correct'.
What follows is my history, and many comments about my English youth, thru a 20-year career in the United States
Army, to the present day Veteran I am:
I always wanted to be a soldier remembering how sharp my Uncle
Eddie looked in his uniforms and the many tales he told us of military
life. The Vietnam war had started at that point, but that was still 3rd page news in 1963 English newspapers. America
offered me the opportunity to fulfill that dream. During my first trip to America in the summer of 1972 at the
age of 15 I figured that if the British Army would take volunteers at age 15 (with parental waivers), I would try the very same thing. I got all dressed-up in my best suit and tie, then strutted right
into the Petaluma, California U.S. Army recruiter's office, fully intending to sign-up and leave that very day for Vietnam. My cockney accent turned into the best Clint Eastwood Yank
twang I could pull. The African American staff sergeant behind the desk had more ribbons and medals than General George S. Patton himself! He asked me my age so I lied and told him
17. I was 6 foot tall and weighing 160lbs. I looked 17-ish. He then asked me for my I.D., and I lied again telling
him it had been stolen, and then he raised an eye-brow. Now totally committed to this situation I layered lie on top of lie until even I forgot how much
utter bullshit I had spouted
out. Finally he got way mean and
stood up staring me down. I cracked and told him the truth. He was impressed that I had tried so bloody hard to B.S. him and gave me a stack of pamphlets, telling me to return in
a few years and he'd let me sign-on. I dragged my sorry demoralized butt back to my Godparent's home, and he had
called them! Yikes! I didn't even
remember giving him their phone number but obviously had. Oh shit! My uncle & aunt finally stopped laughing around 10pm, and by then I had 'borrowed' a few beers from my uncle's stash
and the humiliation was numbed into stern words about if I EVER tried that again they would take me into the woods with a tent and leave me there
so I could get a feel for what I wanted so desperately to do. That incident became a favorite story my whole family
yanked my chain about for years, but if I could have lied, cheated or sold my very soul and managed to enlist,
I would have probably been the youngest troop in 'Nam during it's last year of combat. Whole different story in 1976 when just three weeks after I emigrated to the United States, I DID join the U.S. Army as a Combat Engineer
(12 Bravo) complete with all the documents required. I wanted to be an Infantryman but my ASVAB (entry level I.Q. testing) scores were too high, as in officer candidate
high. Being a British/Irish citizen I couldn't become an officer. Even getting a security clearance higher than
'none' is the domain of non-U.S.
born legal-alien Yank military anything like I was then, so most legal aliens or Green
Carders are enlisted into jobs not requiring a need to know anything
but basic levels of a very limited field of military occupations, most in combat arms. So I asked what other type
of 'exciting' combat work I now
qualified for. Combat Engineer
was the answer. I was sworn-in that very day in late November 1976 and opted for delayed entry, meaning I had a
few weeks to report-in, and had the best Christmas of my life with my new American family in their beautiful Petaluma home, complete with many visiting
relatives and much love. Three days before I was due to depart for boot camp my (now passed on) Uncle Fred offered
to get me out of my Army contract and send me thru medical school and with his funds he could have made that happen,
he had well connected Masonic friends who were part of the Department
of Defense and a single call would have changed my course in life. I
declined his over-generous offer, he had just lost his only son, my cousin Jimmy in a tragic auto accident and
I did not want to become a replacement for that boy in his life, which if I had accepted would have meant moving
to Ohio to study there and forsaking the connections with my Mother and the family who in 1976 I honestly loved
with all my heart. I was destined to enter medicine 4 years later but not as a doctor, and I am glad I chose the
hard life over the emotional connections I was reluctant to commit to had I become a doctor by my mid-20's living
in world that lacked the adventure I so needed to form my personality to what it is now. Magical times that ended that chapter in my life as I closed
the book on being a civilian. I always loved blowing stuff up as a kid with fire
crackers, and I was provided many opportunities to indulge this desire with chunks of C-4, det-cord, TNT and other high explosive ordinance in the next 3 years! I went through 16 weeks of Transformation
at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri
(Misery) starting 3 January
1977. Talk about a COLD
winter! Colder than any winter I had ever endured in Britain. For anyone who has seen 'Full Metal Jacket', that was still the 'normal' way to turn
raw recruits into soldiers. We were all called 'Cruits by the Vietnam-era soldiers, most of whom had been drafted, not re-CRUIT-ed. In their eyes we were green fools who had not earned the right to be called anything
else. FNG! The 'Nam acronym assigned
to any new replacements who the 'old-timers' didn't want to get to know, as they were normally the first killed
in action in 'Nam. Fucking
New Guy was
the worst derogatory term still used to describe us. After a year there,
we 'welcomed' fresh meat likewise, playing them just like our mentors/tormentors had treated us. Our only war was
cold.... and scary. Many of our
orders were barked out in fluent Vietnamese and we learnt the very worst phrases very fast, which I still remember
and sometimes still use to this day, without even knowing I let them slip: Time to di-di mau or "Time to go real fast." The craziest old-timers had left their
brains in 'Nam when that war ended and they came home to a country who wanted only to forget them and their war
like sniper Bruce Liker who drank
his nightmares away. I adapted quicker than most of the American recruits to the Spartan discipline and environment of class Delta-4-2. What was too tough for my American counterparts, I thought little of the B.S. The
food was hot and filling with 3 meals a day (!!!), clean sheets and uniforms, the barracks with hot showers were all luxuries in comparison to daily
'life' in slummy Walthamstow
and living with a maniac who made
even our meanest Drills look like puppy-dogs. For my 'adaptability'
I got my first chevron (/\ stripe) 2 months in and was one proud, young smart-ass Private E-2. Big deal! A few dollars more pay per month and more responsibility as a trainee Squad Leader in charge of 12 other recruits. Some so dumb that even tying shoe laces confused
them, or the few who thought a shower was something a person takes when it warms up. Hill-Billy kids and inner-city
gang-bangers were booted out even then, or went AWOL, then (predictably) ran right back to their homes &
were policed-up by waiting cops, turned over to military M.P.'s and sent right back to the brig as deserters, now felons and breaking
rocks 12-hours a day in places like Fort Leavenworth. Those few who could or would not adapt were finally booted-out with a trainee (general) discharge
eventually after maybe a 3rd try at recycling them through another 4 months starting from day 1 each time. Hell! A few just swan-dived face first from 4th floor windows onto cement parade grounds 40 ft below, ending
what they could no longer endure. Our senior platoon Drill Sergeant, SFC
Brown, kicked ass! A strong love/hate relationship created a bonding and respect for this decorated 'Nam Vet who never
once called us FNG's, but pushed
us beyond our limits making us soldiers. So that's how it worked! Upon completion of my 4-month combined Infantry
& Engineer (OSUT or One
Station Unit Training) adventure I was sent right back to Europe after breaking my ankle 2 weeks into Airborne school at Ft. Benning, Georgia, my next stop after Fort Lost in the Woods, Misery. The 82nd Airborne Division was supposed
to be my first assignment after a 3-week Jump School. At 20 I was super-fit and would have made that course with no problems, but you can't run all day long
and jump out of C-130's on a broken ankle. I took some leave back in California to bid my family farewell and recovered
from the ankle injury, then I was gone.
That broke my Mother's heart and I didn't return the same person 2 1/2 years later. I sent my Mother one third
of my meager monthly pay-check home to help her get started, keeping me one always broke soldier and I never enjoyed
the the trappings my peers splurged on. Thank God she had family who stayed close and helped her start a new life
in her mid-40's. She soon found good paying work and a new home of her own in Santa
Rosa, California. Most of all she didn't have to live in poverty, or endure the daily beatings by
my father ever again. What a leap of faith! My one regret is I did not visit her more as I globe hopped for 20 years. Something I still get
reminded of by certain members of my biological family, who know little
about the military and were raised with luxuries (like good clothes and good food) that I never had and took an easy loving life for granted. Not
one of them ever served a day in the uniform of their own country; thereby
making most of them 'armchair experts'
in all aspects of a military life they knew nothing about. Europe was a place I had just left (!) but I had never been to Germany. I grew up in a country still recovering from World War II, that ended only 11 years before
I was born. The trains I rode in still were steam engines, and puffed like dragons. I had seen the after effects
of the Blitzkrieg. Where once stood
family homes were empty weed filled lots where I played, all over my civilian east-end London neighborhood. So
I did not rush into Germany with any "Gutten Tag" lines knowing they'd tried to whack my Mother's family twice! Until 9/11, a concept lost on
most Americans who had
their one Pearl Harbor to my
family's nightly air-raids
of prolongedterror and death during W.W. II. I spent
the next 2.5 years in Charlie Company,
78th Engineer Battalion,
Rhineland Kasern, Ettlingen, or 'The Zoo'
as it was known to the locals (and us) who insisted it was full of wild animals. They were not far off in that take on us as animals. That name came from a fire-base in Vietnam that was a very bad place to end up in deep in V.C.
badlands. The 78th Combat Engineer Battalion no longer exists although the buildings remain right where I left them. It was the height of the
Cold War. We shared the post
with a German unit of the Civilian Labor Group (CLG), a para-military German & foreign civil engineer outfit. Good professional folks who went
home at night to their own places & families in cars that very few of us even owned. The U.S. public and military
were still stinging from the debacle of Vietnam. Saigon had fallen less than two short years prior to my arrival.
All of my leadership had served tours there from my (crazy) squad leader SGT S., (an African American Buck Sergeant/E-5)
who was a tunnel-rat in Vietnam, on up to senior still serving Korean War Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers
(NCO's) from the early '50's. Few (normal) people joined a down-sizing military for $360 a month (Private, E-1) that in my opinion was still
ill prepared, under-equipped, and NOT
a popular profession. We (meaning everyone from the Battalion Commander
on down) expected a Soviet invasion almost every day and full roll-out alerts were very frequent. Almost as frequent
as wild parties from the barracks to the local beer halls or 'window-shopping' along the brothels of 'The
Wall' in Nuremberg. A wonder to behold after 30 days in the field at
training centers like Hornfels, Vielseck or Graff, with a full paycheck (unspent) in our back pockets and a testosterone
level bordering on overload! My favorite city in Germany was Hiedleburg. Only a short rail or bus trip from my barracks.
Frozen in time, it was a unique and beautiful city filled with adventures
just waiting to happen, like the annual 'Burning of the Castle' blow out! Since the Wall came down and E.
Germany emptied it's jails, the Euro-trash flooded in, and with it Germany lost another war and started building new prisons
to accommodate the worst of what emerged from E. German cells. 19th century Germany was once a proud European nation
that rivaled any western power in most ways @ the time. The British royals are heavy on German genes. My German
Great-Grandfather's lineage of watch makers and sea captains or mates. That 25% of Germanic genes kept their wilder
75% of Celtic cousins, and me focused. But at 20 I was still one wild and reckless punk with an M16 to prove it
to any bad old COMMIES who my leaders
told me were sub-humans. I believed every word of it ;-} Sometimes my attempts to visit friends and/or my Nan back in London went smooth, but one try crashed
in flames. Once upon a time in
Germany long ago I saved up some cash, took 14-days leave and headed for London. I packed my duffle bag and bade
my Yank M8's farewell, headed on a bus to Karlsruhe bahnhoff (train station). Before I split I took 1/3 of my spending money and stuck it in one of the
combat boots I always wore
for travel, a precaution which later saved my ass. Also stuck in there was a 3" switch-blade, a traveling precaution when not passing thru metal detectors or airports in a country
where mugging solitary G.I.'s by gangs of German punks was common, and had saved my butt when they tried a few times, just by pulling and flashing it always
did the trick, with no need for the stick. That rhymes :-) Whilst in Germany I made a few trips over to London to see old friends. This is how one turned out,
or should I say didn't pan out anywhere close to what I had so carefully planned. Best laid plans... my ass!I was
at the railway station by 9am I sat (sober) waiting for the train to take me to Calais, and a 30 minute hover-craft ride to Dover, my favorite
& fastest way of crossing the channel (4 times between '75 and '79), followed by a quick train/tube into London,
then a double-deckered bus, and
finally a quick hoof-it to
see old friends and Grandmother. Mid summer and me looking forward to a
perfect vacation which started to go
badly tits-up @ Karlsruhe bahnhoff B 4 it even really began in earnest.
As I sat there checking out the fraulines, an RAF enlisted
fella also heading home sat on the bench with me and we began to chat. He produced a bottle of schnapps and we
passed the 1 liter bottle, taking bigger gulps each time. A warm fuzzy
buzz crept over us as the train headed west and we chatted like troops
do. The next thing I remember was a totally dark rail yard where they park the trains at night in God knows where. Something had gone VERY wrong very fast! Still groggy I lit up
a match only to find a missing duffle bag, containing a carton of smokes, a gallon of Jack Daniels, all my changes of clothes and toiletries.
Also missing my wallet (lifted right out of my jeans) and the $200 in cash inside with all my other forms of I.D. gonzo, my Army field jacket, my Army
sleeping bag, my watch and most importantly my U.S. Army I.D. card plus my NATO
leave/travel orders, which was as good as any passport then. Reaching down into my combat boot I found the cash
I had stashed and that gave me a glimmer
of hope, in a situation where most would have lost any! It was 1am (local) as I wandered up to the ticket window
through rows of deserted trains 1 kilometer away. It was staffed by two folks who spoke no English and a little
German. Lucky my German was good but not yet fluent. I had visions that I may have actually crossed into Soviet controlled E. Germany or even Poland and my ass was about to get fried bad! MOV.
Missing on vacation to the max! I told them I had got mugged on the train, a 1/2 truth as I needed no bashing to rob me. God only knows how I made it through
borders in the nations I traveled thru totally out of it, when it was common practice to check every passenger's
I.D. & ticket before allowing them to go from one nation to the next. Especially during the Cold War! I saw a sign as I walked towards the station lights,
dumping what could be construed as a weapon, that said 'Hoek van Holland'. I was on the coast all right, but about 100 klicks north of where I was supposed
to be heading. And no bloody hover-craft or means to travel anywhere but back into a place I had strutted out of
only a day before! Felt like a week had passed! At least I had not crossed the Iron
Curtain and that was one huge relief. Explaining that to the KGB would not have been even close to a vacation, more like a 1-way trip to Moscow and a major diplomatic incident,
as they would have charged me as a spy! Visions of Siberia flashed through my befuddled mind, as shock and
cold air sobered me up real fast! It took a (collect!) call to my Company
Commander in 'The Zoo' to verify who I was. Utter shame! I bought a train ticket back to the Zoo ($95), but still technically being on leave, I laid-low in a German M8's apartment for
a whole day B 4 I dragged my sorry ass in front of a young Captain, my Company Commander, who bought my almost true "mugged on the trip" story, phew! It took me a whole month of pay to replace the stolen
Army gear to add further insult to injury, and began a deep-rooted distrust of any wanker in an RAF uniform from a lowly Brit Airman through commissioned senior Wing Commanders. Contrary to my family's folklore here's a little gem from my time in Germany
for your amusement: In early 1979 I attempted to fly home to California on a military transport (space-available)
and rank sure hath it's privileges. I had to wear my dress-green uniform to fly with my Spec-4 rank sewed on both sleeves. The SNAFU that ended up being Space-A at Ramstein U.S.
Air Force Base, Germany, where I spent one
whole week out of the two I'd taken waiting around the terminal for an
open seat that I kept getting bounced out of every time the loud speaker called my name and some fucking junior officer or NCO who'd
just showed ran up to
the counter and took my place, which by day 6 and 12 flights later, my uniform a wrinkled mess and smelling like I had been in the field for week (showers not part of the waiting area) sent me into fits of rage that even the Air Force S.P.'s had a hard time with. That botched attempt
had made the 'World' (California)
a place that only a commercial jet could take me, that I couldn't afford a round trip on then, 3 months in pay
alone, with no spending cash. The experience made me very hostile to fuck-heads with more rank than me, and Space-A
a means of travel I never tried again, or ever will. Benefits maybe for Colonels but misery for
troops who got their hands dirty for
a living. FTA, or Fun Travel & Adventure my ass! Try Fuck
The Army is
what it really stood
for, and during my tenure in Germany
was the most common acronym found from lowly latrine stalls to truly masterful works of camouflaged art meticulously incorporated onto some huge tactical vehicles, that the brass just walked right by admiring, totally oblivious to the obvious (hidden in plain sight) insult, while Privates busted-up for reasons which they
failed to comprehend! With that bad-attitude I knew me & the Army
were heading for a divorce as soon as my time was up, by then less than year away and boy was I counting days and ducking duty, a real rebel @
that point! But that was my last few months in Germany, so I need to back-track 2 years to times when I just shut
up and did my new job very well.
It was common knowledge that Rhineland
Kasern was a Nazi base, built in 1897 it has played many roles from a garrison for troops to a hospital,
an officers academy dating back to W.W.I
and the Franco-Prussian wars before
that. It had a (not so) secret
and vast underground motor pool full of rusted Panzer tanks, and
equipment above our one. Permanently sealed after prior U.S. scouting
fatalities into it. Emplaced 193?
by the Nazis, maintained then buried and booby-trapped by their retreating forces in 1945. It was built by local concentration
camp slaves from a little known camp at Bad
Herrenalb in the woods just north of Ettlingen, that the older Germans thought
nothing off, as they were literally
worked to death excavating it, and building what is still today a thriving trout farm just outside of the now leveled
camp. Most adult ex-Nazi Germans
I knew when I was there fully
understood what "deportation" meant
and did nothing but condone
it, or even facilitate it! They were
the respected senior Polezi Captains or Bankers
when I hit das Fatherland. When
I left in 1979, I knew that my German girlfriend's father had served in a regular Nazi artillery
unit, which had sent many allied soldiers to their early graves. Do that or get deported/gassed,
simple choice really! I came to like the old guy and he was a good, kind person at heart. Captured by the Americans
in 1944 he swore that an American
POW Camp was far superior (and
safer) than normal German Army life. Most regular army troops had enough of the 1,000 yearReich
by 1944. However, two trips to Dachau convinced me that Dresden is not something any
German needs to complain about.
My regards to the W.W. II Jewish Vets everywhere. I didn't hold my generation of German friends to any blame for atrocities committed before their births. Most knew the word genocide, and were
truly ashamed of the actions of their forefathers. I have no idea what their generation-X kids
thinks now, but I would bet it's anti-something. U.S.A. in 1st place, of course!
In retrospect I was in Germany when their American-style hippy 60's culture was born nearly 10 years after it emerged from places like Greenwich Village and San
Francisco in the States. "Das ist Groovy
Man!" We also knew
we were targeted by conventional
(high explosive) and chemical and/or nerve-agent-tipped
Soviet missiles, artillery and fighter bombers which could reach us in supersonicminutes from launchers and airfields only 50-100 kilometers away. Our only protection against a chemical attack was: "Put
on your (M17A1) protective
mask, wet weather pants and top, leather work-gloves, rubber boots and nylon poncho!".
Any nerve-agent would have soaked right thru the gaps left unprotected
or the porous fabrics we counted on to save our lives. Not a warm-fuzzy feeling,
especially knowing your protective-mask and
any Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) testing kits or antidotes were locked in an NBC room next to our basement armory, also locked-up tighter than any bank vault. I seriously
doubt that any of us would
have even made it out of our bunks, let alone made it into what primitive NBC protective gear we had if a nerve-agent tipped Scud
or a dive bombing jet had hit the Zoo!
The Bader Meinhoff gang often used
the place for target practice and we scrambled to man our large perimeter, locked & loaded by the time they
were miles away and laughing about it over beers. I didn't see a true NBC
protective system/suits (the Mission-Oriented Protective Posture or MOPP suit) until I reentered service as a Medic in 1980. For anyone who has worn that
thick charcoal lined suit for days
at at a time in hot weather, it is
without a doubt miserable, generating
many heat casualties the longer
you stay in them and turning all skin charcoal black. We often deployed with a full combat load including live
ammo, mines and explosives. Meaning we were 'ready' to meet our (massive) Soviet counterparts
in a battle we had little chance
of surviving, let alone winning. Our primary targets were the bridges
that crossed over the east-west bound autobahns. There were steel plates that once unlocked we placed charges into, the idea being to drop the overhead bridge
onto the road below, denying the fast moving enemy armor divisions an easy rush thru, while laying booby-trapped
anti-tank mines all around to destroy those tanks that tried to circumvent the barriers, or crews who dismounted
to defuse them. We could hit our primary targets in about 30 minutes, with fallback or secondary target bridges
stretching all the way back to France and the Rhine river, a major natural obstacle we intended to blow any bridge
that spanned it, in a perfect
stalling maneuver, which didn't
take into account the Soviet Speznatz airborne
commandos dropped behind us and
attacking our rear, who would have made that one very difficult/impossible task. Another defensive move is called an Abatis. Rig each large tree along a wooded road with det-cord to cut through them, stick a chunk of C4 on the side (kicker-charge) that faced towards the enemy, and blow them in a synchronized chain-reaction, so as
each tree fell it formed an impassable road block like a tangled inverted letter
V pointing at the avenue of approach.
Only heavy moving equipment could dismantle that mess, then string Claymore mines in the trees still standing to take out Soviet sappers who tried to breach through. I've only blown one for real, and it was an awesome sight but a REAL bitch to clear away, eagerly gobbled-up by the locals for fire wood after we had cut them into nice little logs for them. Throw in a large Soviet Air Force, rockets and artillery and our 'delaying actions' would have turned into a bloody route even if nukes, chemicals or bugs
were not used. REFORGER or Return Forces to Germany
was (is?) an annual exercise to see how fast U.S. forces could get back to Europe to help us. We all knew that
not much could deploy from worldwide bases fast enough to prevent the Soviets from repeating what the Nazis had done in 1940. Our last fall-back was Britain, but by then it would have gone nuclear and we'd be long dead. The constant uncertainty and stress
turned many of the more crazy troops
into dangerous boozers and/or drug
addicts. A few months prior to my arrival some
crazy bastards blew up the mess hall because the food was so bad it gave half the battalion Hepatitis-A. No fatalities, just bull-dozed
it flat, put up G.P. large tents
for temporary mess halls and fed the troops field rations until a brand new building was erected right before I
arrived, that still served shitty
chow that made us sick. New arrivals were regaled with the true story about a young lieutenant who walked in on a barracks hashish party. They grabbed him and locked him in a steel wall locker, then threw him (inside it)
out of a 4th floor window to his death on the cobble stone street 15 meters below. Many of my fellow Humps had been given a choice by a judge, "Go to jail, or join-up son". Many took
the Army way out of doing hard time
and brought their illegal habits/ways with them. Like crazy PFC Clay a black thug
from Brooklyn who blew a German
taxi driver's brains out with a .357 magnum
"Just for the thrill of the kill man!"
stoned on cocaine. He was handed
over to the German Polizei and
probably still rots in a German
jail today. Many of the troops had personal hand-guns shipped to them from home, a perfectly legal action, and
we all carried folding knives
or for some, switch-blades. Finding a dead body (OD-ed on heroin or shot/knifed
to death) on the grass during morning
physical training was not
unusual. We had rich loan-sharks
with their own BIG collection goons
who'd break a no-payer in 2 for
non-payment. Simple pay-day loan with 50%
interest per 2-week loan! Two lines formed each pay-day, one to get your dollars from Uncle Sam, and the other to pay-off the loan sharks. Pro-drug dealers, Privates richer than Corps Commanders made a fortune there moving kilos, cutting it and their mules did the distribution for some of
the product for their troubles, from heroin
to cocaine to hash. These were ruthlessbastards I avoided but was forced to room with at times. 6-man rooms were common. Say anything about it, oh
well, training accidents happened to any who did. It had similarities to any prison I guess. There were no Military Police stationed at the Zoo, they were 20 miles away, as were all our our
officers and senior NCO's with their families who lived in Smiley Barracks family quarters. A recent article I read about that place tells me off base Smiley Barracks is now an al-Queda safe zone, not the Karlsruhe I remember, where German teen street-gangs were our only stalkers. September 2007 and
the German cops busted a bunch of al-dick-heads planning hits on bases and off-duty areas frequented by our troops still serving there. Crime was
rampant with all male E-4's running the show when the 'lifers' went home at night, leaving a handful of on-duty NCO's and one officer to watch 800
men as Charge of Quarters and
Officer of the Day. 6 NCO's and one
junior officer who were (normally) too scared to leave their posts. Our own men guarded the main gate, so that
meant anything could and did pass
in and out. A platoon of armed M.P.'s
couldn't have stopped the criminal activities that was daily life at the Zoo. Black marketing U.S. anything from cigarettes to booze to stereos to (even) Harley
Davidson motor bikes was the norm not the exception. I smoked my cigarette
ration up or had them bummed from me long before I thought about selling the 4 cartons a month we could buy. There
was little money to be made and much effort/risk in buying up a full monthly ration of Jack Daniels or Jim Beam
to black market, so I seldom transferred
any to the 'Rads', our derogatory term for all Germans, short for comrades, as in commies. Most months I didn't even buy my limit, and when I bought hard liquor I normally drank
it up with my road dogs (jail
talk for friends), or gave a few gallons away as gifts which ensured a good home cooked meal at a German friend's home or a perennial holiday/birthday gift
to the non-American friends I had plenty of. Law abiding/rule quoting, non-partying troops stood out and didn't last long there as everyone thought they were CID (under-cover M.P. detectives) ergo narcs, and a few were. E-Z to spot because they refused to use drugs or get involved in the crazy stunts that made reputations and riche$ for some and corpses out of others. I still feel very sorry for those few young law abiding, non-drinking, non-smoking, drug free, honest
guys, some religious or just brought up with morals that most of their comrades lacked, and tried SO hard to live a quiet life but ended up thrown
into a room full of real bastards,
then got shunned or worse
for no reason at all. I hung with
the 'acceptable' drinking crowd
and smoked hash infrequently (a buzz I didn't even like) giving no one reason to suspect I was anything but 'normal' in a unit full of many crazies.
The first time was within my very 1st week there with a loaded revolver pointed at my head in a barracks room full
of users & dealers who said basically smoke this or die. Just a way to test any new face out, so unlike Bill Clinton I inhaled deeply and passed the test. I later found the guy with the the gun (alone) and broke his jaw with a simple
round-house Karate kick, telling
him if anyone ever pointed a gun
at me again, they would not live to repeat the stunt. A big gamble that ended any more scrutiny or confrontations. Earning me a status as a tough
guy who other thugs now tried
to buddy up with, wankers all.
One night most of our windows blew in after someone rigged our only flag-pole with C-4 and det-cord.... just
for kicks! It didn't fall over,
just bent in half. Limp-dick
style! The next morning our furious
Sergeant Major lined the whole battalion up and chewed our ass for
an hour. He wasn't pissed that someone had tried to blow up the flag pole, (TREASON!) but because they'd failed! Claiming how could we take on the Russians if we couldn't even blow-up a simple fucking metal pole. Good point made to whoever tried it, perps
remained unknown but to God and
themselves. Many Humps took C-4 chunks back to the barracks after a demolitions
exercise. Useless without blasting caps, that only the craziest would steal. Like gray putty it could be molded & stashed in any place and never found. Short of starting a (visible for miles) camp-fire in the boonies, it provided us a quick, very hot and not so visible portable heat source. Lit it burned
hot like Sterno and we used it to heat our C-ration cans up in
the field, long before the Army introduced MRE's, or what we named Meals
Rejected by Ethiopians! Then our middle aged Sergeant Major ran us into the ground to the Rhine River 15 miles away and 15 miles back!!!
Longest run of my life ever! I was
one of the few who made the 30-mile all morning run in heavy black leather combat boots,
the only P.T. footwear we
had at that time, with few problems leaving a trail of half dead drop-outs all the way back to France! I'd been there a few months, Elvis died, so we went on full alert! No shit!!!The Vietnam legacy was still
affecting soldiers who had never
even served there, but spent almost
entire tours deployed, every time presidents Ford then Carter got the jitters, or the Soviet Bear roared
and we rolled out locked & loaded with some VERY potent stuff that blows anything to bits to a VERY uncertain fate.
Playing Poker with the Cold
War U.S. Army and I ended up with:
A.C.E.'s in
their (fox)
Holes!
Charlie Company was the unit designated
my new home and was the U.S. contribution (Combat Engineers) to the Allied Command Europe (ACE)
Mobile Force. AMF was a conglomerate 'strike force'
of multi-ethnic military personnel
from most nations in NATO. ACE
Mobile Force was (at that time) NATO's
fire brigade. Mission: Put out any communist fires
before they spread anywhere in NATO.
Mobile and deployable anywhere fast.
Also a unit designed to slow any Soviet jaunt
through the Fulda-Gap, the ancient invasion route into Europe used
since Atilla the Hun first
used it. Joke!In reality almost none of our equipment,
languages (biggy!) or personnel
were compatible, and we spent much
more time deployed than any
of the other companies in the Battalion
trying to work the bugs out, all over NATO. Memorizing each piece of friendly and hostile equipment
were standard, long and repetitious garrison classes I can still recall with dread. Knowing us to be gambling freaks, the brass issued us playing cards with good-guy/bad guy equipment decks, complete with detailed
descriptions of each NATO and Soviet aircraft, tank, etc., on every card's face, and psyops/trained us even on our sparse off-duty time. I hope they finally did work the bugs out. That unit was deactivated in 2002 and transformed into another air-mobile all NATO strike force,
with terrorists not Soviet divisions their new targets. I even got
to train back in England, but
it was no vacation spent on
freezing Salisbury Plains with British troops who were better Combat Engineers than
we would ever be! The British, Norwegian and German
AMF units were superb soldiers, in comparison to the rest. The Danish conscripts stayed stoned on hashish and were fun to be around, but soldiering was something few of them took seriously, with their hair-nets
stuffed under their helmets!
The Italians conscripts (not so
good at soldiering) had small bottles of wine in their rations packs which we traded anything for during deployments. I have already touched on the 'quality' of the French
conscripts, many were outspoken communists.
Then there were the Turks who
held hands with their buddies in uniform
(!) as they walked together, normal for Muslim friends, but blowing our homophobic minds. We trained in Denmark, and at the end
of the 4-week exercise we were given a 48-hour pass to visit Copenhagen. Great! One Danish soldier told us to head for an old W.W.
II bombed-out part of the city called Chritiania, "where the party's were". So most of us lower enlisted took off there ASAP. The place was covered in wonderful murals and the garb was jeans, long
skirts for the gals, ponchos, T's and long hair with every guy sporting a huge beard. A separate part of the city,
no cops could enter named after Queen Christine (an ex-Danish monarch) and an independent town within a city run by
hippies, from the shops where hashish was sold to anyone, hard drugs if you wanted, you name it. The crime of Germany's cities
did not even exist there and no one robbed or harmed any of us. Peace & love took on a new meaning for 2 days.
They ran the theater, the school, all the bars, restaurants and even a health clinic. All sitting on about 5 square
miles of the dock lands, it was any hippy's dream come true. Most of our 100+ man unit got smashed there, I got way too drunk and passed out
many times. 3 of our men never
came back, deserted and stayed there. I wonder if that 'hippy heaven' still exists today or if 3 middle-aged
ex-Yank Humps still live there selling dope or running a store. That
was my favorite deployment with AMF
period. This patch was the only
distinguishing accouterment
to our work or dress uniforms, on the left front breast pockets of our O.D. (Olive Drab)
fatigues, field jackets and
Class-A or dress uniforms. As did all of our NATO AMF counterparts
on their uniforms. Cold War warriors.
Or Word War III as those who served
throughout it realize only too well.
How very close we came, and how very few even knew it.....
One of our more unusual and potentially suicidal missions was providing security , or playing infantry, scout, sniper etc., for the 12 Echo or 'Atomic
Munitions Demolition Specialist'. These guys didn't even barrack with us and just showed up, with entourage from Smiley Barracks,
20 miles away and home of the 21st Support Command. Those poor radioactive
saturated sods only function was to transport a back-pack
sized low-yield atomic bomb to a coordinate. Live ammo was issued, use of deadly force briefs issued, then we were either driven to or brought in by a Chinook, aka 'Shit-Hook' heavy-lift helicopter. Then we began our job which we got real good at, allowing our 12-Echo to do his Top Secret work while
we guarded him inside a hasty defensive perimeter and a squad dug our fallout ditches/shelter up-wind of the bomb.
The kind of missions Rangers pull
now. We maintained that posture
until the coded radio orders came
to either detonate it, or pack it
up and call it a day. Some of the longest hours/days of my life. The 12 Echo was the only soldier
who could set it ticking. A nice
surprise (hopefully) for a big fat
Soviet Army Group passing by. Meanwhile we were supposed to be 'safely' in pre-dug
cammo-ed slit-trenches 1-klick or
so away, like we would have survived
it had we blown it. NOT!
History shows we never used this weapon. Packing-up and going home was the happy end result every time we deployed with a 12E, thank God! Any (cold) war in Europe would have gone nuclear HOT very
fast! The only way we knew if it was a drill was if you placed your hand
against 'the bomb' and if it was
cold, it was training, whew!
At times that back-pack was warm and we quickly started writing those hasty last
letters home. Some clown probably put a heater in there to see how we'd perform, or it may have been for real. Who knows? That 'job'
has since been eliminated from the Army's inventory. The idea and the equipment are still something being sought
by terrorists, who would love
to get an old Soviet or U.S. version
of that weapon of mass destruction. Brrrr!
From Combat
Engineer to Combat Medic.
We were called 'Humps' by the Infantry who we called 'Grunts'.
We combined their 8 weeks of basic combat training (BCT) for any soldier along with the additional 8 weeks requirements for becoming a basic Combat Engineer learning infantry & engineer
skills from week one through week 16. But we never trained with them during that time. A Combat Engineer is a grunt who has more training in building
and destroying stuff on the front lines, and in the rear. But make no mistake, our primary skills were Infantry pure. Keeping us apart meant less dead trainees as we hated each other's guts. The reason we were called 'Humps', a nick-name we earned
was not by getting laid more often,
but by humping (lifting and positioning) 600 - 1,500 pound steel components of the W.W.II (British designed)
Bailey Bridge into a
solid robust structure. I learnt to hate that bloody thing! The constant bridge drills got old, dangerous (crushed or drowned friends) and repetitious REAL fast. Throwing one across the mile-wide Rhine river was some tough duty which was an annual exercise (BRIDGE-EX) in physical and mental endurance and always done in mid winter and in the dark! Back then Uncle
Sam paid $10-million
a day to our allies to close Germany's main river outlet
to the sea and trade, so we had to span it quickly and get it packed-up even faster. Any delays cost Company Commanders their jobs and some Humps their lives. Although most volunteered
for any DEMEX, or demolitions, mines
and booby-trap exercises. Big kids all.
At times we actually did helpful selfless acts for the town of Ettlingen. One winter we had a 100-year flood that
sent huge whole big-ass trees, V.W. Bugs, dead animals and a few bloated human bodies crashing down the river that
flowed through town, smashing ancient stone bridges into rubble. The Germans freaked as the water level rose and flooded streets and cellars. We mobilized and in 3 days filled 1.5 million (!) sand bags,
building a levee which prevented disaster. We even threw a Bailey Bridge across their river and left it there. It still is there today and for a week no Hump could buy a meal or a beer in a VERY thankful town we saved, who gave us all
we wanted for free, well almost everything!
Great time for one night stands!
The sheer effort required to emplace a mile of sand bags on both sides of the river was a challenge compounded by torrents of unending rain, cold and
gale force winds, shared by G.I. & German alike. In November '79 I got out or ETS-ed as an E-4 or Specialist 4th Class. I had grown way disenchanted with the job, my Yank peers, the omnipresent crime/drugs and a life spent mostly in
the field doing the same things over and over again. When lakes in France start looking like ones in Holland and
England, mountains are just obstacles not stark beauty and all trees blend into green, you have seen enough that even the most magnificent
nature can throw at you pales into
setting up tents, fixing your gear and shitting in the bushes, hot or freezing cold.
Deployments equated to prolonged sobriety as the fastest way to lose a stripe (or your life) was being drunk (or
stoned) and trying to build a bridge or blow-up old deserted buildings, which the Germans no longer needed. Blowing
up an entire German ghost town
was a fantastic rush, but
we had to haul away what we destroyed using shovels, picks, manual labor, bull-dozers, back-hoe's and 5-ton dump
trucks, the less glamorous part of the op.
We trained, they gained in slum removal for free, making room for new German urban developments. I do not even
count those few initial years as anything that had words like responsibility, duty, loyalty, honor or commitment
connected with them. Survival
maybe, amid dangerous fellow soldiers, often hostile German street gangs and huge Warsaw Pact opponents waiting to strike. I was just one tough
worker-bee in a job I grew to
hate. I knew 40 year-old E4/Specialists in trades like carpentry, or plumbing who had served almost 20 years doing
the same job they'd done from day 1 in uniform. In those days a Specialist-4, 5,
6 or even 7 was a non-leadership job that many soldiers who had no desires to lead troops, but had unique
skills/trades stayed put at that pay-grade and retired happy as lower to mid level enlisted workers/techs. Up or
out came into Army doctrine around 1980. I may have worn a soldier's uniform but it held no pride for me. In retrospect
I was no mentor or a leader, I had regressed not advanced, and my Chain
of Command wrote me off as a rebel biding his time to get out, especially after the
Space-A SNAFU when I tried to avail
myself of a benefit the Army promised all it's troops, but in reality was only the domain of the brass. I managed
to make 20 years without a single
reprimand, or run-in with an Article-15
or Courts Martial punishment that
awaited those who screwed-up bad,
lost stripes, pay and their freedom for. At times I came close when I lost my military composure and shot back with insubordination, but I knew who to pick my fights with, and
when to shut my mouth even as a senior NCO nearing retirement. When it came time to leave Germany, I had second
thoughts about it and actually thought about staying put as a civilian. But I had a Mother in America who I had
to return to after a 2.5 year absence. I had learnt not only the language
fluently which seemed to come naturally to me the more I heard it spoken over the years. I watched ZDF T.V., or read Der
Spiegel newspaper not the Starts
& Stripes G.I. Joe newspaper, and
I also had fallen in love with
the place. I spent more of my off-duty time with Germans than with the Yanks the longer I stayed in-country. I
have many pictures of those days. I had forgotten about pocked-marked London and anti-German sentiments. I ate German food, drank their
beer and schnapps, and by 1979 I had more German and a few British (migrant
worker) friends than I did Yanks/G.I.'s. Life
was safer that way! We called it: "Gone
Native". Some G.I.'s did exactly that and stayed there as civilian ex-patriots. Especially the got rich drug dealers and black marketeers. One guy we called 'Uncle Harold' (the richest loan shark we had) had so much cash
he bought a German disco in Karsruhe
and made a mint legally
but was still loan-sharking
on the side when he got out. This fella never deployed, he paid off medics (for non-deployment, non-existent medical conditions) to corrupt company
commanders (short on change) to pull permanent rear duty, and his room/loan office in the barracks was
palatial complete with total room service and 24/7 body guards the size of pro body-builders, with the morality of well-paid assassins.
Returning to my Mother's new home in Santa
Rosa, California, and the family I had in Petaluma, it didn't take me long to discover that there weren't any job opportunities for guys who blow stuff up for a living in the civilian community. 12B10 converts to civilian laborer. Sod that! The local Mafia didn't have any openings at that time for demolitions jobs (joke!), so six months
later I reentered service; this time as a Medical Specialist (91 Bravo).
My recruiter filled my head with dreams
of pretty nurses in nice warm hospitals. I could retain my rank (E4)
and not have to revisit Basic Training. PERFECT!NOT!!! I did my medical training at Ft. Sam Houston, TX, and was promptly flown to
the (now deactivated) 9th Infantry Division (Motorized), in Bravo Company,
9th Medical Battalion, Fort Lewis, Washington State. The first place
in America I had the chance to
actually work in, almost 4 years after emigrating! I was still a British citizen and remained so until ex-president Gerald
Ford swore me and about 400 other legal
aliens into American citizenship in Denver, Colorado, summer 1991. He was my Commander in Chief and the President when I first entered service. So for 14 years of my Army career I was a Limey serving in the YANK's Army. I wonder if that made me a mercenary? Who cares! I was on the same 'side' I guess. I was earning my own keep at
last and sending my hard working Mother what I could, until my bills
out-did hers, very soon
after I married a fellow military woman/medic who spent her pay and
mine before I knew it was even gone. Rambo I wasn't,
just doing a job that many folks born American avoided like the plague. If I could not have emigrated to the U.S., I would have joined (almost) anyone's army
to escape London; British, Canadian, Israeli, Aussie, Kiwi or South African. I always knew I'd be a soldier and I was right. As a brand new medic (1980) I soon found that
there were no pretty nurses
or warm hospitals for me, just
back to back field training exercises
with tough infantry, armor or
artillery units. Not much of a change from being a Hump! We also medically supported the crazy 2nd Battalion/75th Ranger Regiment at Ft. Lewis. One of myregular missions was ambulance coverage for the drop zone in 'Ranger Country'. One lazy afternoon I was the driver with a female medic on-board
in a 'Cracker-Box' field ambulance,
as the C130 aircraft came in for
a routine training drop. Two shoots streamered or tangled, and sent their human cargo plummeting to their instant deaths. Tag and bag the splattered
remains. The female medic threw her guts up and was useless screaming in shock and shaking like a leaf. I got better & faster help from the (non-medical) Rangers who converged on me ASAP. I then reevaluated my idea to reapply for Jump School and discovered I didn't like mixed or male and female field units. With very few notable exceptions, the hardest labor was always the male medic's job. Setting up a large tent-city field hospital or clearing station
was more like Combat Engineer
work, and I knew that very
well. Same pay but most of the fairer sex gotover as much as they could. "It's too heavy!" became an excuse I got
fucking sick of hearing.
Shower runs for women who stayed
on their periods for 30 days (!!!),
depriving male medics any
showers for 30-day durations and forcing us to stay funky, washing ourselves out of our steel helmets flipped up-side-down and filled with cold
water, a 'whore's bath' was the
common name given to that 'hygiene'.
Dual standards always disgusted me. Especially when a female medical service
corps officer or (worse) a senior female NCO was calling the shots for her gals! Or the pre-deployment pregnancies that always preceded any major training exercise, and were nearly always aborted the moment the last troops drove out the
gate, were moral busting slaps in the face
for those who did deploy. All male Infantry units were tough
and (Thank God) not complicated
by most female's limitations, excuses or lures. Totally different
opinion of female medics in hospital 911
ambulance & E.R.'s. Many knew more medicine than some (commissioned) nurses and taught me much about my trade. My attitude about the Army had changed drastically, and I knew I planned on making it a career, instead of just another
adventure. Good timing as the entire
U.S. military had just introduced a urinalysis for all drugs. That
alone weeded out (no pun meant) the
'Nam-era dopers, changing many into boozers, an acceptable
addiction if you stayed sober
on duty. The days of the '2 beer lunch'
(more like a 6-pack!) were abolished. I complied with the rules and went for a career. I could run like a gazelle and was in my best physical condition of my life. It was at this time that I became
the adrenaline 'junkie' that goes with being the first person on the scene of some poor
soul who had been injured or
killed, and everyone (still
alive) now looked to me for help. No longer as a Combat Engineer bystander. Suicides were frequent throughout my career (I'd seen many
in Germany) from start to finish of my 20 years. My first real casualty was at Ft. Lewis, WA in 1980 a few months after I arrived as a brand new medic/E4,
ex-combat engineer field trooper.
The victim was a young way-depressed
Hispanic Medic who'd taken a loaded M-16 to
his barracks room after a night
firing exercise, unbeknownst to
anyone. Sticking his mouth
over the barrel, he literally
blew the top of his head off when he pulled the trigger. Needless to say he was very-dead
before I even arrived, hearing the shot
in the quiet of the barracks night
while on duty as Charge of Quarters,
or CQ. The place was suddenly
crawling with everyone from Military Police to our Commanding General. Very bad P.R. We were ordered
to clean his room afterwards, and that was worse than any cleaning
job I had yet encountered.
What a bloody mess that I became used
to as the years rushed
by. This began a stigma which was
to follow me through the next 17 years. I detested and barely tolerated hospitals, except when operating out of Ambulance
Sections or Emergency Rooms/Departments. That was where the life
and death 'action' I craved existed. And for my sins, they managed to slot me right where I belonged. Whether operating out of an M5 (30lb) aid bag,
a G.P. Small tent (Battalion Aid Station), a M577 Mech Aid Station
on tracks, a tent-city field
hospital ala MASH, or fixed modern military hospitals over the next 17 years,
saving lives became my passion.
I made E-5/Sergeant my first year
back in uniform. I can honestly say that over the next 17 years I saw almost every
possible way that a human can die (something that still haunts my dreams) as I progressed through the ranks and became intimate with emergency
medicine. I had found my true
calling in life and it was more demanding than any Combat Engineer mission where physical agony was now compounded with emotional trauma. Easy to deal
with, pop a beer (or 6) and try to forget about the ones who died on your
watch that day. And boy did I ever see some badly messed-up patients over the years on a very regular basis.
Reality Check!
Few civilians realize that continuous
real-world military medical missions or intense training, generates as many casualties as some quick and
famous conflicts like Grenada or
Panama did. The Pentagon just released a medal that few young military members
will ever get to wear. The Cold War Medal.
Some have called it the not so cold
World War III, and it produced a
LOT of dead, from Korea, to Vietnam to the thousands pushed beyond their limits, where the cost of fielding a new
weapons system was bought with much
blood. The coldest day of my life
(emotionally not weather) was looking across the DMZ at the check-point @ Panmunjong, while North Korean
soldiers stared back across barbed/razor wire, mine fields and guard-towers, knowing I was meters away from certain
death. None of the units I was in when major combat went down participated.
No longer a member of an elite 'mobile strike force', if your highly effective
unit (e.g. the urban light fighters
of 25th I.D.L.) were not called upon to engage the enemy when a
closer unit could and did, we didn't. We trained to fight future wars, where I have seen a many of my
old unit's patcheson T.V.
war coverage from Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile although Emergency
Rooms and 911 runs were
as exciting
as hell, few deployed from MEDDAC's in the pre 9/11 dayz. The Army didn't just shut down a major
military hospital when whole divisions were going off to war, especially one that's receiving plenty of inbound casualties! Many of my peers and supervisors thought I was nuts for volunteering for any and all combat duty wherever it happened. "Death-Wish
Murph" became my nick-name.
I tried desperately to get some
of Desert Storm. Constant calls to the Division Surgeons Office got me nowhere, and only a handful of my junior medics, Privates
all, went as last-minute replacements. One young and talented African American medic, Private First Class (E3) Clark
returned to us with a Silver Star.
He'd crawled out through an enemy mine-field in the dark to retrieve a wounded U.S. soldier under constant Iraqi
fire, and dragged him back under more enemy fire saving his life. I lost him real fast upon his return, promoted to Corporal overnight, he became the Commanding General's driver,
24/7 on call. The conditions were he had to wear his dress uniforms with that Silver Star as his highest award (and all the other Desert
Storm medals/ribbons that came with the conflict to include the coveted
Combat Medic badge he certainly
earned) everywhere he went
with our CG, even into field environments
where no one would even dream of messing-up a set of ($400) Dress Blues or even Class-A green formal uniforms, so our CG
could show off the only 4th
Infantry Division soldier who went to Desert
Storm to be awarded a Silver Star from a division that did not even deploy. He hated
that job and a beeper that he had
to carry at all times, but
enjoyed the comforts afforded
any 2-star General tag-along.
I asked for my medic back
and ended up having most of my ass
ripped off by everyone in
my chain of command. Seems they had no need of another Medical Platoon Sergeant in Iraq, and in 100 hours
it had ended! The 4th Infantry Division
(Mech) I was in was 'out of action' for upgrades to newer (Abrams) main battle tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Any
of this information is available all over the Internet, so I am divulging no secrets! Hint, look up Battle Streamers for the 4th
I.D.(M) and realize my situation. Desert Storm/Shield is not one of them. By the time we'd made the
long transition and the troops
had learnt to use their new equipment (11B
to 11M), Desert Storm was one year-old history. The 4th I.D.
(M) is now one of our finest armored/infantry units with a LOT of experience in Iraq. Ironic that 1st or 'Raider Brigade', my old unit in the 4th
Infantry Division, were the guys who dug Saddam (now worm-food)
out of his hole some years after
I left them. Nice catch! A peacetime Army trains in conditions which are
often as dangerous as most combat! Gung-Ho
Hot-Shot Generals ensure that. Whether I was taking fire from hostiles during drug eradication operations or illegal alien interdiction ops, reacting to training gone badly wrong, generating hundreds of real-world mass-casualty (MASCAL)
patients, rushing into burning
buildings or vehicles with ammo and/or
gasoline cooking off to save lives,
pulling casualties and bodies
from a frozen Korean reservoir after half the unit skidded off an icy mountain road 1 K above. Triaging &
treating casualties from military
and civilian vehicle or aviation
disasters like the Aloha Airlines 'T-Top' when it landed at Honolulu International minus it's forward roof section (and some passengers) which
peeled off after it left
Hilo (April 28, 1988), or going
downhard in an auto-gyrating
Chinook helicopter that lost power
to it's huge front rotor on a MEDEVAC mission.
I'll bore you no more with themany way-dangerous situations (war stories) I've found myself confronted with over the years. In my
humble opinion I did my job well as others now do theirs in a very public war on terrorism. I should have
been killed for some of the stunts I pulled, but survived when those around me died or got mangled. Most of our
military now ply their skills under much harder and more frequent hostile situations than I ever faced. Watch your six and trust the good NCO's! This IS prolonged war, and we have not lost this many troops to combat since Vietnam.
Hello! Read the fine print!
I did, and understood the consequences involved in our profession peering
through binos at our Soviet
or North Korean 'friends'. If you get bored run a search on
training fatalities/accidents, suicides, homicides, etc, ('80-'97) then add 6 years of U.S. Army (MEDDAC) hospital ER /ambulance duty, with patient
loads of thousands per month, and get back with me. I was at many of the real bad ones. The U.S.
Army had 20 years to send me off to war and didn't, even when I asked/begged
to go, so I have no medals or honors that decorate those who were chosen to go. My mind and body had
gone through countless
battles, saving lives on a
VERY regular basis. I have done enough way-hairy thingsthat almost got me killed many times, injured me often, in places which made few
headlines, produced no awards for heroism, yet generated many real casualties, or fatalities! All combat or accidents result in the Medic being called on first to salvage whatever is left. I have saved thousands, but lost many over my medical career who no medical care could save.
No matter how many times you see death (morticians excepted I guess), it is impossible to become immune to it's impact.
Medics who treated death and suffering with flippant attitudes I made a personal point of removing them from their responsibilities. Injured, sick, dying or sexually molested children
left the deepest scars on my psyche. On the flip-side probably the most rewarding
experience ANY pre-hospital/EMT
medic can perform is bringing life into this world. Something I've done so many times at homes, offices, in the back of speeding ambulances or MEDEVAC helicopters. The care I gave both mom and baby has at
least two kids (I know of) named 'Sean'
after the happy event. Poor sods! Thank God for umbilical cords, the only thing that held Mom to her new-born baby when my over-zealous drivers took those 4-G turns! Those who say you get used to daily gruesome trauma, IMHO,
lie! The burn-out rate
for even civilian EMS jockeys is amongst the highest of any
job a person can choose, and hope to retire from happily married, sober, sane, or even alive! Nancy
Cody (RN), Major, ANC you showed me how to endure when the horrific unfolded and we were left to deal with it as a team of two, even after seasoned first responders
were losing their composure (and lunches) with sights so graphic and gory that they fled, but you kept me focused and guided me through situations no human should see or (God forbid) even remember. If there is a
heaven, I know you have a first-class
seat in the front row waiting for you. Your courage was only equaled by your skills and Texas tenacity.I count you as my finest medical mentor period! May you read these words one day.
Around 1/2 way through a 20 year military career if you start in your late
teens, and you understand the military is not a normal job that you can quit when the going gets tough, and it
does starting around day 1 in boot-camp, but a calling only few civilians choose, that requires you take it very
seriously striving to be the very best you can be in so many skills and positions, you reach a point where mentally
& physically you are peaking, or you have already been booted out for any number of reasons, or quit after
your 1st, 2nd or 3rd enlistment, wounded and discharged, or killed in action or accidents. Sure there is always
more to learn, more responsibility to grab, but when you can run 5 miles every morning in 45 minutes and not break
a sweat, max your P.T. score, hump forced marches for 20 kilometers with a 70lb Alice ruck-sack on your back and
a 30lb M-3 aid-bag strapped to your chest, (100lbs of extra/vital kit strapped to my 160lb lean body) push yourself
and those you lead further, faster and better than your peers, help the injured as they dropped, then catch up
with your unit after calling in a MEDEVAC
helicopter dust-off. Be it day, night, baking hot, freezing cold,
dry or wet then you
are ready for anything, and this was me a 29 y/o young (Staff-Sergeant) platoon sergeant with 30-40 medics I was
charged with leading, training and molding into great medics, rewarding/promoting the good and getting rid of the
slackers. You get nowhere fast if you don't volunteer for the tough missions that ended up in my lap, and lead
from the front, or ahead of it in a Huey helicopter if I needed to get in fast. With 3-years behind me as a Combat
Engineer I knew so many non-medical tactical skills that amazed the Infantry I was integrated with, add 7 more years as an Emergency Medical Technician 91-B Medic, maxing every medical/tactical
or administrative skill in the field, or in a fixed hospital Emergency Room/911 Ambulance Section, to mechanized
or motorized field evacuation hospitals/clearing stations, and cross-training in skills from communications to
helicopter operations and able to drive (and maintain) any wheeled or tracked military or civilian made to tactical
ambulance or cargo hauling vehicle, then pass those skills onto my men. I had been trained in weapons and tactics
few medics ever encounter, and in the shot above I am setting another record that lasted for a few years: Task: Disassemble, then reassemble, then perform a functions check on the M16-A1 rifle
in under 2 minutes. I did it in 58-seconds, to the amazement of those who made me repeat this with the basic tool of my trade,
so someone took this picture, few knew I had trained blind-folded many times to make this weapon just an extension of my mind and body, for me it was easy,
for others I was becoming a best-by-test celebrity model medic/soldier and raising eye-brows at high levels. That
record stood for a few years until some young super-infantry/airborne Ranger @ Ft. Benning (home of the Infantry) beat my time by 3 seconds. I was
making rank before my peers, breaking records, inventing rules or procedures in their absence (like the Combat Lifesaver program), that later became
U.S. Army doctrine now trained to all medics & many non-medical soldiers, rising fast through positions I soon
mastered as a hard charging soldier/medic which was not lost on those who placed me into ever tougher positions
of authority, only to find out that in 6 months I had skipped a step, or 3, and now was working for the Division
Surgeon, or one of the major area Medical Commands (MEDCOM) in charge of the peace-time and war-time medical operations
for units of 20-30K soldiers and maybe 10K DOD civilians. Mass-casualty exercises, evacuation missions, drug interdiction,
humanitarian-operations, peace-keeping ops, medical plans, operations and training became my forte and the (Cold-War) world where many nations were
communist ones was where I was
forged. You may think I am bragging, I don't brag, but to rise so fast and walk away from so
many real life disasters when others who I knew and called them my friends didn't, and I buried them took it's
toll in many ways. Never happy at home, married more to the Army than my wife and relaxing for me was reading a
Field Manual then teaching
it to my troops. Those who chose an easier path through their careers seldom made it to retirement, or were never
trusted far from a nice warm office or motor-pool, always wondering why they supervised no one, had 1 or 2 medals
and 10 years in were told "Don't bother to enlist for another 3
years, it will be denied." Only 15 out of 100 who start as PVT/E1
make it to a 20-year retirement at a much higher rank, and when you are getting close to 40 you maybe glance at a chest full of ribbons
& badges putting on your dress uniforms and know why that you did take a hard road and left your name in every
post you served at, the privates you trained are now fine senior NCO's with their own units, but your body tells
you that you pushed it very
hard with every joint that pops or back pain that lingers all day reminds you that you have past your prime, or
you take an easier path and are forgotten; just did enough to get by probably never hitting a retirement ceremony.
Now it matters little, as a Veteran time served equates to nothing if you end up minus your legs 6 months into
your 1st tour of duty. So I do take the discomfort and thank my Lord that I walked off that final parade field
on my own 2 legs with a tear in my eye for those who should have too.
Married Life & Other Relationships.
The 9th Medical Bn., was where I first met my wife to be. Her name is Ilia. She was my Training NCO. I gotGREAT training!!! Panamanian by birth, also a medic and cute with one more stripe than I had. My
senior by 7 years and with 3 kids from a failed marriage, GOD what was I thinking? Even she warned me that I was about to get a lot more than great steak dinners, but what did I care?
We were married in Madigan Army Medical Center Chapel on 16 January
1982. Me at the age of 24 and her aged 31. I loved (or was it lusted?) after her? She'd come down on orders for Hawaii. My only
way to follow her as her was as her husband, and leave a unit I was moving up in (fast) and starting to like. I chose Ilia, seven years older than me and
her three young children (18 months, 2 1/2 and 7 years old) from a previous failed marriage to a Mexican
American fella who bailed on her. All of my friends told me I was a fool, but love/lust is oft
blind to common sense and major
family warnings. To cut out all the fun
and games of many more
years of married Army life, monumental arguments, moving every few years,
with it's (few) ups and (many) downs, a book in itself, we move on to less happy times. After 15 years of a stormy marriage, and helping raise Ilia's children
(all boys), it went sour and I left her in October '97, to finally
divorce her 2 1/2 years later, 6 June 2000. By October '97 all our 'family relationships'
were on the rocks, we were in deep financial
trouble and the confrontations
became more aggressive. It takes
two to tango and I had my faults too, my continued and increasing alcoholism did nothing
to help matters. But fate had other plans for me. Leaving almost everything I owned I returned to my family in California in my old Jeep Wrangler driven/rescued by
my cousin Cathy, who my Mother
had flown in to take me home.
I was too trashed-up to even walk let alone drive and blacked-out numerous times from concussion and blood loss all those 1,500+ miles home. A real thank you double-teaming cowardly 2 on 1 assault I received (and lost) from two of Ilia's (then)
well built and methed-out teenage
sons when we moved to Portland,
Oregon. My crime? Asking the eldest to stop making long distance calls to his girlfriend in Arizona, which
we could no longer afford to pay for. A good reason I guess for him to try to kill me and his brother to help him out. Portland, Oregon was a place
that was supposed to be our
'New Start' and almost ended in
my death by their hands per the police report I still have on file stating: 'Attempted
Murder', 'Assault with deadly weapons' and my blood
used to scrawl hate-filled words
upon the walls, ala Manson, which
even made the police who found me unconscious on the floor in a pool of my own blood, a shocker for them! My wife
bailed them out and they walked but hid out. Phone calls from Latinos I did not know started : 'Stick around mother-fucker
to testify, and you'll end up dead real soon!" Not idle threats coming
from the armed gangsters they hung with. So I fled. Get over it and move on,
learning from it. Suffice to say we did not
part on friendly terms, and it
took years to mend what I
could, starting with my credit
in ruins. Out of her brood
IMHO only Joshua E., turned out O.K.
He is building an honest life for himself and his family and calls me at times.
God only knows I have tried
to reestablish something close to a normal friendship with Ilia, my ex-wife who I last saw in person in 1998. Returning home presented me with my Mother dying of a terminal illness she had hidden from me until the last 6 months of her life.
She had become a shadow of the woman I left 20 years before and I felt truly helpless to do anything for the first time in my complex life. Helping to raise a dead-beat father's 3 kids is an expensive, frustrating and often (new) marriage ending exercise
I would not repeat.
In the case of my lover's adult
son my plans for our interaction do not
go beyond friendship and mentoring. In my current relationship there also exists a son of the woman I love, but
not of my creation, he is nowhere close to the personalities which evolved in the three step-children I helped
to raise for 15 years, but still lacks the maturity to bond with me as a mentor, so for now he is bound to Kathy. I can only hope that with time this
young man and me form some type of meaningful relationship, I will not repeat the mistakes I made giving total
control to wayward kids to the point of my exclusion from the formative input I must be allowed the latitude to
mentor or teach good from bad in any step child who enters my world. It leaves me with a warning for those who try. The term: "You ain't my dad" often cuts right
to the bone when used to correct
misbehavior. Doubly compounded
when their bio-Mom (or Dad) agrees with their delinquent offspring! No wonder I spent more time at work than most
and had months of accumulated (unused) leave by the time retirement came, putting me out of service and on terminal
leave 3 months prior to my actual retirement date. At that point I was no longer needed in the equation. Something
I was reminded about every
day I stuck around. Ironic
that my marriage lasted 3.5 months after the active duty checks stopped rolling in and were replaced by 1/2 that
amount for a normal 20-year retirement salary for an E7. I'd out-lived my financial usefulness, and was relegated
to constant threat, fights and sleeping on the floor in a spare room on a mattress during my final weeks of their hospitality. I can forgive but I still dream of those
days as nightmares. Recently
a much more understanding living in the present, not the past Ilia calls me for my holidays or just out
of the blue, and we actually have fun calls now we don't go back down 'Memory
Lane' a stormy path best left buried, I hope that marks a new start to a friendship which will never move back into
the days best left forgiven and forgotten. Right now she is doing a state by state road trip off seeing America
and playing a middle-aged hippy, and has recently written some very profound poems she may get published. I wish her happy trails. Deceit is a bitter pill to swallow, when it's the first love of your life who dumps you
as a teen after three years of being 'her bloke' it burns icy cold, or that
same now grown woman who finds you after three decades of living apart and out of touch, with a grown son at home
who (make no mistake) is the
man any suitor will
play 2nd fiddle to as
she plays you for all
she can get from you, then dumps you when she tires of you is her promiscuous and fickle ways. The pain is real and the emotions they elicit are that I hope what she caused me twice in my life (emotional pain) returns
to her for the rest of her life in every relationship that she enters into, tires of, then ends. Finding a good
man, she may get lucky, keeping him is something she will always fail at. Now in her fading charm middle ages she struggles to find love, (sex
is a 1-night/week/month fling with no strings attached adventure many have tasted before and will in the future
with her) then she destroys any real feeling of love you may develop for her amusement only and it is as transient
as a sunny warm day in her
life set up to rain again.
Just another trophy for her
collection of used-up and discarded mates. In my case a 3-year broken 1st love as a teen in London, then her return into my life in America 2003-9. Her 6 trips out to spend time with me (2007-9),
leading up to a traditional Polynesian
joining ceremony (or a wedding without all the legal legitimacy of a formal one) in October 2008 and a 1-year anniversary Hawaiian celebration (October 2009) was just
her playing me and my friends
into her charade of the loving
English rose who turned with no warning into English razor sharp thorns
with her 'Dear Sean'E-Mail just 3 days after
she got safely home and decided she had tired of me.... again. This woman is not worth a single tear or a wit of remorse. Kathleen I. Steel you are a vile creature
who soiled my life with your
lies, deceived my friends who welcomed you into their lives with your broken promises and your well practiced con-jobs
that punctuated periods of my life with the lures of better times to come. Promises as false and shattered as your ability to ever maintain a lasting faithful relationship
with a man you do not dump after you have tired of him, then deflection of the real cause onto the 'wrong bloke' sob-story you play so well, a skill you have mastered. Blaming him for every mistake you can dream up, and wallow in the comforting
sympathy of those few friends you still seem to maintain who have not
yet seen through the fickle duplicity of a common pub tramp yet, or condone that loose E-Z lay life-style you have regressed into. Like a black-widow spider, you use your mate for one reason, then poison him.
Stay away from me for ever and
grow old alone. Sex is a luxury
you can afford to pay for now if your hits on decent men who may be very wary of
the reputation you have built
up in a decade of some pretty
strange companions that defines
your played out pick-up tactics before you hit on me, and are probably plying again. Like a worn-out car with
too many miles on it, few but desperate
blokes would take a long drive (down the roads of relationships) with you driving them far down the roads you want
to travel, or put up with the total control trips you'll lay on them. Real love can not be bought, but hard-up fellas will help you spend
what you dole out to keep them around and your bed warm! True lasting monogamous love will forever evade you because you use men as play toys, break their hearts for your twisted fun, spite or dump them for 'greener
pastures' and move onto another gullible stud. Thank God you are gone and certainly not missed in my life. This narrative is for others to read. It stays on my home
page for as long as it exists,
as a warning that to court Kathie
is to enter into a disastrous deception ending when she tires of your company and you get replaced by another.
Hi to Dartford, Kent! BT keeping
tabs on this page does not escape
my JAVA hit-counter :-)
In retrospect I was never a man to settle down with an average/normal
house-wife, perform a routine normal job for my entire life, raise a family and coo over grandchildren all linked to me by a happy
yet mundane: "Honey I'm home!" relationship. The normal way that so many
relationships evolve, even if 1 in 2 marriages end in a split-up sooner of later. The military kept me moving for
most of my productive and virile years and the women I lay with outside of wedlock were satiating a mutual basic
instinct with little desire to enter into a lifelong monogamous union by both me and the gals who shared our nights
& beds together. My 1 shot at a lasting union with a mate was not destined to be a match made in anything but
a joint convenient financial arrangement, or 15 years of fights and feuds while both of us were trying to be super-soldier/medics
1st and parents when we could. Short-term lovers I have had a-plenty from my teens through my latest protracted
disaster. I find the women who I admire the most and have stuck with are those who I have never gone beyond the
platonic with. My closest friend is Donna (a strong woman) who started being a good friend in 1980 and 30 years
later is a woman I love dearly as the sister I never had. To think of us any differently would not be normal and
to take what we have and try to turn it into a sensual or romantic endeavor would mark the end of an inviolate
bedrock strong friendship. Her friendship means more to me than any step further that neither of us would ever
enter into. I am now at a time in my life where any woman who I hit it off with with is probably loaded with emotional and real
baggage I do not wish to take on board. An ex-husband, 3 kids, and tangible property is what I walked into marrying
(7 years my senior) Ilia, 15 stormy years later it blew-up and I find that in my middle age life I have had about all I can take with
failed ex-lovers and ersatz shams of even wanting to start a-fresh with their leftovers from another failed union mandated tag-ons to incorporate
into the mix. I have none of those to burden them with. I do have much caring and knowledge to share with the right
woman, BUT I will not entertain a mate who has not left her past life's demons or dramas behind her. I lead a life I form by my own decisions and choose who I allow
into it, and how deeply, without having to concern myself with being obligated to put a new family's needs above
my own again. The kids I care about are the progeny of those few people I completely trust in my life, and those bonds
took years
to form, so I am a surrogate 'uncle' to some very special young minds and a mentor to them when I can fill a gap without tying any knots
or becoming a husband to any woman who if I admire her I would rather have as a good friend, not a lover with a
whole different set of rules that change when a friend becomes a wife and her past life/progeny/debts or morals
become mine to care for or about. Having tried casual to formal unions all ending in disasters like (most recently)
Kathy, the woman who convinced me that long distance relationships fail, and giving all of my love to any woman
is a recipe for disaster and emotional turmoil if I let her into my inner soul and she causes damage by abusing
that vulnerability I have opened up on a hope that she is not another 'Gold
Digger'. So far each time I have let a woman get that close
to me I have been hurt and once almost destroyed, as in killed to escape it's coils. So I choose a bachelor's life
and if recreational good times bed-mates are in my future, it will be with an intelligent, kind and independent
woman my age who understands from get go that we are both just having fun times together without all the complications
most long term relationships eventually involve and the restrictions that come with formalized cohabitational unions.
I am not
looking for a wife, but that does not mean I won't satiate my libido
with a good woman if one crosses my path and we hit it off,
as long as she is not looking to move into my life full time, or wants me to uproot into hers, control it or expecting
me to take on the huge muti-faceted responsibilities that makes normal relationships a joy or a living hell/trap
for others, been there and those days will not be repeated with another woman. Such a unique woman is much more than I have yet to find in any mate so far in my trek through life.
Fate will guide us together if that be the trails we will walk through this life, I am not out there looking for
her. The good thing about being my age is I don't need sex or a live-in mate to survive. I am 100% self-sufficient
and washing clothes, cleaning house or cooking is as normal to me as paying my bills, staying moral and legal,
or fixing a broken item from a computer to furniture or a busted-up human body. I don't need to be supported nor
will I support a mate who is in a relationship with me only for my financial stability. I have had plenty of sexual
experiences (all heterosexual!) in my years and the best have been short term and noncommittal affairs that started and ended well.
The worst were the ones I thought would be long term and I set my sights and put all my energy into making them
work, they never did.
The few women still in my life who have been in it for any length of time (decades) work out well as we have never taken it beyond
the platonic. I have grown beyond wanting or needing an extended family, especially someone else's to raise, like
instant food, just add a constant flow of $$$'s and it may work, that time passed by me around the age of 35, and has not returned.
Out there somewhere is a mature, moral and smart woman who probably feels the same way I do, does not want any more than a kind/smart/traveled
lover to have fun with, and no serious involvement wanted or her prior relationship(s) & baggage a caveat of
the relationship I MUST accept. If our paths cross who knows what will bloom or where it will go? When I was younger a woman's cute sexy charms was the main attraction, now it is
what is inside her mind and soul that entices me. However I would not find a slob or a boozer/doper worth my time. Beauty is
in the eye of the beholder even for the discriminating single guy like me, and a woman who has taken care of her
body will probably be more appealing to me than a 300lb couch potato even with an IQ of 200! When the cute wears off, and it does, there better be something more important
left (like intelligence, genuine caring, LOVE and a desire to still have some fun together) or that relationship
has surely
stopped being anything close to working out well. So that wraps up my experiences to date with the women I have
loved as mates, lovers or as purely friends only. It sure is nice being a free agent again and one who values a
less complicated life that I control to any where I am heading in my path through it, master of my own destiny
and not having to commit to the kind of women so far in my life who have all used me and then split when it suited
them after they had drained, taken or stolen what they could from me.
Personal Tragedy!
Six months after I arrived back in California (23 October '97), my Mother died a slow and very painful death from Lupus
at the age of 69 on 3 April 1998. Ironically my ex wife's birthday! Upon hearing of my Mother's untimely death, her first words were:
"She did that purposely to ruin MY birthday!". Those kind words of condolence echo in many
ears to this very day and echo down the years. Totally devastated, I lived alone in the mobile home she left me, and felt cheated by the loss
of the only person I had ever
truly loved in my life. My beloved Mother who had sacrificed SO much to raise me well and provided me the
means to escape from England and a 'father'
who I would have probably
killed if he ever touched
my Mother in anger again. I was depressed,
becoming lonely and bitter. The regret I felt at not having spent
more time visiting her throughout my Army career is a painful place for me to go. Fact is, the day I put a ring
on Ilia's finger ended any
hopes for grandchildren, that Monica Murphy would have loved
and spoilt rotten. I was confused
and compensating badly for an event
that shook my world like nothing else ever had. A state that existed for the next four strange and complicated years of my life.
Much clearer when 11 months after
her passing I finally sobered-up and started grieving properly. Leading up to that I had lost the will to live
as problems like her death, creditors who hounded me daily for money I did not have, a foreclosed V.A. home I found out about after I could do
nothing to quit the lease, an unexpected diagnosis of Hepatitis-C and constant alcoholic withdrawal seizures racked my life. It took a failed suicide attempt to bring me to my senses. Hauled away
by the police, dried up for 2 days, I awoke in a padded room laying on an exam table and I cried out to God to help me, as I could not help myself.
I had hit my bottom and He answered
my plea at last. I returned home and chucked every ounce of alcohol away, had my last booze withdrawal seizure and so began my new sober life. I spent a lot of newly sober time feeding ducks and geese, contemplating life up at Spring Lake, CA. One of the most peaceful places in my travels.
That's where I finally came to terms with the loss of my Mother, although the pain never really ever left me, even
to this day. I just wish she had lived long enough to have seen me sober. I can honestly say few days go by without
my mind wandering back to my Mum,
and many others who I knew, loved
and lost. Doting on the past
is something I now try to avoid. Holidays and anniversaries are still very hard on me emotionally. Even if a lot of my negativity is on this web-page, this
is my life story not a 'woe is
me' deal. At times married life was GREAT, as was motivating troops to excel where other failed. Being the best God-damn medic in any unit I ever served in are
not regrettable facts. It is an incredible feeling to save someone's life,
to do so on a regular basis
is almost Godlike snatching the patient back from untimely death.
More addictive than any drug! I know I left my mark all over this world, and so many people are alive today only because they met me when their lives/health
went way-wrong. These things drove
my engine on legal off-duty boozing.
Other times it turned deadly. I had
a very complex and demanding married life coupled with the demands
of constant military missions which became more important than my disasters @ home.
Live hard, it takes a toll. Choose
a safe profession and I hope you: "Live long and prosper".
Changes.
So back to Santa-bloody-Rosa: I was going nowhere living in a rapidly deteriorating Mobile Home park, where Spanish was the common lingo and becoming more dependent on alcohol. I had plenty of family in town and California State,
most of whom (after my Mother's funeral) avoided me like a leper when I needed their emotional
support the most. One ex-convict
cousin moved in as my Mother's personal effects were being divided amongst certain members of my family who cleaned
shop with the finesse and speed of a pro repo team, and Patrick settled in just adding to my misery with his criminal acts and free-loading moocher ways. That was and still is (by most
accounts), a cousin called Pat. None
of my business how he comports his life or if he gets off on beating up women, or cops. You are not welcome in my 'hood', so don't even try a surprise visit when (or if) you
outstay your welcome in California,
a place I have put far behind
me. It was time for me to move on. On 4 March 1999 I finally pulled
my head out of the bottle and sought
treatment with the V.A. I have remained
totally sober ever since.
Only member of my family on either side
who ever beat what still consumes
many of my kin. I have no desires
to ever touch that poison again while
I live. In May 2001 my closest friend in California (Vince Esleeck) a happy drunk even when lit-up, died of a heart attack, a year older than me when it hit and killed him with no warning. We had gone through 12 Bravo Basic Training together in 1977 and gone our separate ways after. He got out after 1 tour, I came back in to make
mine a career and only chance brought us back into friendship 19 years later as he lived where I had moved to.
Now feeling truly alone, I decided
that there was nothing left for
me in California but bad memories.
So in July 2001 I came to Spokane,
as mentioned earlier, or the "Lilac
City" for the show nature puts on every spring. Spokane also means
'Children of the Sun' in the local
native American language. It is also the tribal name of the Native Americans who do well here. Fighting fires in summer and clearing snow
in winter. They also do well in the casino business. One reason for the move was to escape the constant hot California climate and sprawling bustle
of the area, as well as a disinterested and distant local 'family'. Another attraction was I had already served two years on the Washington coast at Fort Lewis, and liked the place!
I had some 'Army days' friends who have lived here for many years. We had stayed in contact (on & off)
throughout my military career, into my retirement and at least one who never wore a military uniform is still there
for me as a true friend. I also
did a cyber-recon of Spokane and based upon their feed back to help
me choose where I now live, I flew in here on 17 July 2001, never
having seen Spokane except on
a computer screen in California.
A moving game I knew all too well from my Army days. I could not have asked for a better apartment (location
and interior) and I think fate did me well on that part of my journey through life.
It was a wise move for many reasons. I needed a moderately sized
town (population around 195,000)
in the middle of a pristine wilderness
to relax and enjoy the luxury
of my close proximity to a large military base (Fairchild Air Force Base), a close excellent Veterans Administration Medical Center to treat the Hepatitis-C I
had contracted due to multiple
dirty needle-sticks and exposure to
my patient's blood over the years,
amongst many other problems
20 years in the Army had left me with. Spokane's (newly expanded) V.A. MedCen is one of the best Veterans facilities in the U.S.
In comparison to the closest V.A. MedCen
to Santa Rosa, 60 miles away in
San Francisco, which was (in my opinion) a non-professional mess, aka
Dachau II, this place is a 4-star facility that out-classes most active duty Military Medical Centers
I ever worked in, or have been a patient in. However many medical procedures are only available 270 miles away
in the V. A. Medical Center in
Seattle. Instead of 'out-sourcing'
care into the private sector in Spokane, the V.A. wastes a lot of cash sending their sickest on expensive & long trips to far off, over worked,
under-staffed V.A. facilities, when they could save a bunch sending that patient down town to 3 large hospitals and numerous clinics which cover
all facets of medicine. My
disability settlements consist of a 20-year Army pension, some V.A.
disability and Social Security
disability benefits, making me retired/unemployable by age 44, that was a ruling made in 2000, with the body of a man who burned out on a fast-paced life. Spokane
is the type of community that only exists when you escape the ever growing urban
sprawl that rings our coastlines and major inland cities. Yet every year
it seems to grow larger. It has attributes that were not close or even available in Santa Rosa, California. Downtown
is Bohemian in many ways. The
local casino offers the best buffet in town for only $15 for all U can eat, and famous bands play there often. It's homes are both new and Victorian. $150K may get you a small old fix-er-upper 1900's house, or a nice new trailer in a park, but nice newer models in better parts
of town start at $200K! The wildlife here is varied and available right outside the back door patio of my (1,200+ sq. ft., carpeted & tiled, ground-floor/walk-out,
2 bed, 2 bath, walk-in closets, large living room with fireplace and air-conditioner, dining room, both with great views, washer/dryer area, plus a full modern kitchen and loads of storage space) built in 1988 apartment. Unlike a high rise beast, they are more like rows of country cottages, and the place is maintained year round. I have an enclosed garage/work-shop/storage area
right up front and a forest full of wildlife out back. I have numerous
passive and active intrusion detection systems running 24/7 for anyone foolish enough to visit me uninvited. This apartment worked just
fine for my humble needs. It's a middle class-ish environment for families, military, students, professionals, retirees and folks who no longer can
(or want to) maintain large homes with huge yards or land. The otherdraw-back
is 80% of my neighbors move in
(or out) annually, yet about 20% are long-termers like me. My building used to be more the domain of the more stable, longer-term tenants
than the others, which suited me just fine.
Now a unit is seldom rented by one person/family more than a year and then they are gone, oh well! I have looked
at other apartments in town and have yet to find all of what this place offers me. It is going through changes
but I think they will be for the best. It's a decent E7 Senior Enlisted
Bachelor Enlisted Quarters (S-BEQ) off-post set-up, with a wonderful view.
I don't want or need to live in anything larger and I have enough 'stuff' that anything smaller would mean ditching
some items I do not want to part with, I have nice items throughout the place I live and it is full but not cluttered.
The constant new faces is like most Army
units I ever served in. It makes for (some) short-term but good friendships, but many folks I never even speak
to or even know as familiar faces. Then there's a few retired folks or civilians and (transient) military who call
this place a home too. Another reason this also works for me is all the interior and exterior maintenance are part
of my lease, as is unlimited fresh water, sewerage, garbage removal, something that will change to a pay-for extra
bill when my current lease expires in June 2009, no big I'll pay the extra $20-30 a month for something that once
was free and any home owner
must pay for, plus more like
yard upkeep or roofing, the list goes on and on. Having owned many homes over my 20 years of military life fixing them up and selling them off every time
the Army moved me and even after retirement, I know that few places offer free everything. But that is what most
home owners pay for on top their mortgages, insurance and taxes, did I mention neighborhood covenants or zoning
regulations that can get brutal? If an appliance breaks down inside here, it's fixed for free or replaced at no charge. Owning equates to buying a new
replacement which I don't have to worry about. Carpets are cleaned for free for all if they want and complete interior
repainting is by request, although I pay for that service when I want it done not when I am told it will be done
at someone else's time and conditions. What I pay for gets a much better job done than what the management offer
as normal rugs and upkeep cleans. We have a full club-house, swimming pool, gym, sauna, full-sized pool table and
communal center all rolled into one on site benefit, with a roaring fire kept lit in the long cold months. Rising from the gutter, in the slums of London, I have no intention of returning to it paying what I do per month for a respectable place to park
myself here. Unlike owning where you are stuck with a potential dick
for a neighbor (been there once for 7+ years straight in Hawaii, and it sucked) for the duration of ownership, or you get lucky and ALL your neighbors turn out fine.
I haven't lived anywhere like that ever! But this place is better than most I've
lived in but that is changing fast, the pros still outweigh the cons. In 2005 I bought (online) over $600 in medical
equipment to finally reconstruct the best possible aid bag any first aid responder could dream of owning. I no longer have the right to do the medical procedures I took for granted
as an EMT, so the entire 40-pound jump-bag is geared for procedures I am allowed to do from splinting to CPR to wound care. I am now the official 2nd responder
to the 102 units in our complex. 911 will get an ambulance in 10-20 minutes depending upon the weather, but I can
be at any neighbors front door in 2 minutes, and those are often the critical seconds that mean life or death.
This is something I volunteered for and expect no reward other than a "Thanks!", and has made me a real medical asset for my neighbors, which they didn't have
before. Hopefully all my aid bag does is gather dust, but I have a feeling it won't be long before my phone rings and I do what I do best, save lives
that can be saved. My journey continues and I don't think it is finished yet. Vets are always the silent casualties of any war. No one gave us our freedom. If us Veterans got busted up in the process of maintaining
the long peace and waging
the short wars while I served, then the U.S. government should (by law) compensate us for the physical and emotional scars it left us with.
Learning to cope with disabilities I never thought I would end up
living with.
Life here continues to heal me and help me grow in so many ways, and other times slams me hard. On 16 June 2005 I was diagnosed with glaucoma, very atypical for someone my age and not a disease found in either side of my family
tree, which leads me to believe that something, maybe ionizing radiation exposure, which was the norm in clearing
any patient through an Emergency Room
with an in-tact spine gave me years
of unprotected exposure to X-Rays
with every patient who me and another medic had to hold in place while multiple gamma-rays
were shot through their necks, and us unshielded fools holding head and feet taught for a good clear C-spine shot, sometimes that meant 15 tries before a young intern would or could see
no cervical spine fractures so we could treat their other injuries without breaking their neck moving them. This
or maybemany of the gasses I encountered in 20 years of everything
from tear-gas to burning petro-chemicals
on site as 1st responders with no face masks or breathing barriers, or time to wear them even if they were issued
which they never were to us 911 jockeys and get the casualty out of whatever gassy messes we found them laying unconscious in. Now for the meds used to treat me: Travatan eye-drops for the duration finally
had the desired effect by November 2005. Relieved I thought this was one less medical problem for me to stress,
just keep taking the eye drops until I croaked. On 21 September 2007 I was given my first ever ultra-sound of my optic nerves to a depth of
3.5cm's, a new imaging device which shows what no other form of imaging can. It showed normal optic nerves, so my optician took me off all eye-drops. I was retested in December 2007 and even though there is still mild elevation in the pressures of both
eyes (16 left & 15 right with 10 in both being the upper normal range), it was thankfully decided to leave me off any eye-drops. In 2009
I did not even bother to see the eye clinic, my graduated bifocal glasses work fine and 30 mins in the chair will
only show slightly elevated
inter-ocular pressures, which I have had for 2 decades. On 26 June 2008 I visited the V.A. for two reasons, another
ultra-sound of my liver, which showed some damage from the years of Hepatitis-C it has endured, but was in much better shape than I had feared it could be. Kidneys and spleen were
normal. I also hit optometry and the intra-ocular pressure in both eyes had dropped to a 13 & 13. No more eyedroppers
and follow-up in 1 year 2010 maybe! Good news from both departments, but my high viral load still saps the energy I have badly some days then teasing
me with a few days of almost normal levels of endurance, meaning I can get in my car, drive and visit or go somewhere
with enough energy left to make it home.
My genotype or 'flavor' of Hepatitis-C
is 3A, the easiest to
treat with a 75% 'success
rate' after 24 weeks of Chemo, (if
the infection is new to a younger body than mine is) and at my stage of this disease I doubt any radical chemo
would even clear it. It is NOT something I am willing to endure due to the very negative side effects I know await any patient on that poison. Most of those I know with it tried and failed Chemo, some so depressed already they failed Chemo by blowing a hole in their skulls, something my V.A. shrinks fear I may terminate treatment
with, so the will block all
V.A. avenues to Chemo even if I wanted it, yes I have come to very real terms with my own mortality. I have dealt with hundreds of Chemo patients over the years and many asked me to end their suffering. I never did, but
wish I could have on late stage wrecks
who suffered in utter agony
until they passed. In reality most Hep-C
patients go through the treatment, some clear the virus and a few years later it returns. The longest anyone has survived virus-free post-treatment is only 10 years as of this date.
The easiest way to describe Hep-C is imagine waking up every day with a very bad case of the flu, and it never going away, some days I don't have the
energy to do anything but stay home, sometimes those days run into months, and at other times I seem to have periods
where it effects me only slightly, a brief pause of normality then another dive into a relapse again, that has
been how my last decade of life has played out. Newer and less radical cures (protease
or polymerase inhibitors) are being developed and in testing with the Food and Drug Administration. Problem being
is it takes normally 10 years
before a drug is invented, kills off 1/4 million test animals and passes the rigors of safe to use on humans or
FDA approved available to Jo-Public
thru a doctor Rx! They act by sterilizing
the virus with a designed DNA injection
or pill, preventing it from duplicating itself. Vertex is getting real close with it's trails. When this treatment hits the V.A. system I will be amongst the first to go for it. Projections
for introduction are 2010. If it becomes available in another country first, that's where I'll go for 2-weeks of
treatment and come back cured. Thanks
to my years of sobriety, my genotype and a moderate level of hepatic scarring to date, I may still have the latitude to wait for something which will soon become the only way to treat all genotypes of a disease that affects over 4million Americans and more have
Hep-C than AIDS, where the drug companies make a mint. Veterans are a large
demographic group of Hep-C infected people. Our use of pneumatic 'shot-guns' to immunize our soldiers in-masse in the 70's & early 80's was a prime vector in the transmission of Hep-C and HIV to many Vets who were ever inoculated using that abomination. We infected
our own!!! It took decades for the
U.S. Army to admit that terrible mistake and they stopped using it
when HIV became the big scare, circa
mid-'80's. A mistake we had warned our superiors about so many times, and fell on deaf ears until then. My face still bears the light-colored scars of multiple staph infections
I picked-up with every tour in disease infested Emergency Rooms, like badges of my old trade, I would miss
them if they were gone. I signed on the line and like so many others, and my ass belonged
to the Army. I try to lead a normal life but it's hard to do when my
mind tells my body to act like it is still fit and normal, when in fact I am rated 100% disabled by both the Department
of Veterans Affairs and the Social
Security Administration for a laundry list of debilitating conditions which
both re-looked in 2004 and left me rated still at 100% disabled. Next relook won't show improvement in any area.
I am dealing with worsening back problems, my Hep-C is now symptomatic with fatigue that for many days or weeks kicks
my ass. In 7 years I have lost 4 inches (!) in height, my spine is shot and looks like the letter 'S' viewed from behind. It is basically collapsing down upon
itself, and the pain is something else at times. A bone-scan I had done on 1 May 2006 shows a hip fracture waiting to happen. I love good news like
that :-) The bone scan showed no sign of the multiple fractures that the
V.A. had documented from 1998 through my most recent exams with both X-rays and Cat-Scans, but the level of scanning I had done looks for bone density only, not fractures, old or new. Although my spine
is still twisted, causes me grinding pain, the bone scan shows no osteoporosis in my spine but in my pelvis. My
left knee is blown with very little joint left and I use a walking cane much more than I care to. It sure feels
like I can't do a fraction
of what once came with little or no effort. Ever debilitating Hep-C fatigue, a deformed spine, little of a normal joint
left in my knee make ambulating a constant battle with pain management, frustration and exhaustion making life
so much fun at times..... I
just stay in bed. Tinnitus, or a crippling ringing in my left ear often
induces incapacitating headaches that grind me to a 2-hour halt, often following a loud noise like a sonic boom,
a child's scream or a car-back-fire. Add the 3-D Technicolor dreams of horror
my mind conjurers up for me most nights from the emergency medical world I thrived off for 17 years, and my quality
of life is restrictive to put it mildly. One trial (February '06) of a drug called Ambien the V.A. prescribed for my midnight screamers almost killed me with just one tablet, so
I'll deal with my nightmares and
never touch that poison again. My liver enzymes have dropped from an ALT high of 340
in Jan 2005 to 195 as of May 2007
and 65 as of 12 December 2007. On 7 July 2006 I had my first ever Hep-C
viral load drawn which showed I had 4,960,000 (IU or International Units per milliliter) of Hep-C infection. As of 7 September 2007
it now stands at 10 million, as
mentioned earlier probably related to my immune system fighting off an infected
ankle and not working full time on my liver. A high number (high is 5-25 million) but on the low end of counts
that can rise into hundreds of millions with gross infections, and End
Stage Liver Disease (ESLD)
that kicks-in at 25 million IU's, (Very High)
and often goes higher the more the disease takes over. It was what I
expected. Since February when I ended-up in hospital I have lost 30lbs,
WOW! I have a Hep-C infection all
right, but my body will not allow it to overpower my natural immune responses, yet. For that I am blessed. This puts me still 'High'
but nowhere near where I was in spring 2002 when the V.A. had me taking some (over the counter) arthritis meds that were screwing up my liver
fast! My ALT dipped down fast when I refused to take them! A flare up common with Hep-C. My once photographic memory has given way to scribbled
notes and post-it stickers. But
when I look at a Veteran with legs
missing or blind, I do count
my blessings that it could be a whole lot worse, so I try not to bitch, just document my health status here for any who care to know. I can
only imagine with dread what the
next generation of Veterans will suffer. Christ! In February 2007 I developed pain in my left ankle, thinking I had sprained it, but not knowing
how or when I used ice packs and elevation, but it was the start of the venous-stasis ulcer that made living hell. The varicose veins that plagued my lower left leg for my last 3 years in the Army and ended up with
a limiting permanent physical profile, meaning granny hose, no more running, and for my semi annual physical fitness
test I had to speed walk 3 miles in under 30 minutes, versus running 2 miles in 16 minutes. The Army did not help
with my varicose veins and started messing up my lower legs early in my career for years of morning P.T. running many miles each morning in
leather combat boots (looks Macho)
BUT will do a # on your lower extremities, a concept lost on the new Army
with their Nikes or New-Balance proper running foot-wear they
get to use now. Lucky sods :-) Humping 500lb steel bridge parts and later some patients just as heavy
also took it's toll on my lower leg circulation. Now I have a resolved ankle ulcer directly linked to that stupidity. But I dare not throw that at a V.A. comp & pension board as I may come back with less disability
rating than I already have with a back-log of fresh severely injured Vets returning from our wars in much worse shape, so I sit it out. I wonder
just how many other Vet's suffer the same, if they served in the Army prior to the change to healthy running shoes,
I'd guess millions! Wonder how many get any disability for it? Maybe 100 if they lost both legs to the same thing that attacked my left ankle, or so the V.A. ratings per condition
mandates, no legs, service connected up it from a 0% to 20% and buy a wheel-chair. Thanks again! During my last meeting with my assigned V.A. shrink on 22 May 2009 I asked her to remove the every
3 months one hour long psychotherapy sessions I have been making with a shrink who works with Vets who have problems
coping. Found out he was booked solid thru August (3 months out!!!) and his case load was mostly very new to civilian life and very PTSD-ed out much younger Vets than me. I was no
longer getting anything positive or helpful complaining about the weather or the price of cable T.V. all minor
concerns that compared to the Vet who 6 months ago was watching their buddies getting blown to bits, or blowing
the heads off 13 year old terrorists with AK-47's pointed at them, no other option or their trip home is in a bag,
and struggling to even survive that kind of guilt or self doubting that is a natural reaction to the situations
our military are faced with every day they are in combat or even close to it, and with suicide bombers there are no real safe 'in the rear with gear' areas where they
can let down their guard even for a minute. They are losing battles to do basic non-violent tasks like finding
or keeping a job, trying to pick up a relationship with a loved one who has no idea of what they endured and the
Vet no way of making them see or feel even close to the boiling rage that consumes them, or even get acceptance
back into society or even their own families who see they have changed and don't know how to cope with what came
back from the loving good son/daughter who left to go to war full of good intentions and came home changed beyond
anyone they can relate to. In comparison my gripes were and are petty and she agreed, so I now no longer have to
waste an invaluable hour that can be used by some poor WAY
messed up Vet who needs their time and skills much more than I do. I told her should a crisis develop in my life that requires I need
some feed-back very fast I will make a B-line for their Urgent Care Clinic or Emergency Room (24/7/365) and seek that help. There were times early in my sobriety and not long after I had become
a civilian again (something I don't think I will ever completely transition back to being even if I wear their
clothes and act like a normal person in the company of all I interact with, that 1 + 1 was always making 3. Now
over a decade later I have moved beyond that level of crisis, I still get angry at silly petty things then I reach
down and self-analyze my own reactions or seek feedback from Kathy my lover, or Donna my best friend of 3 decades
and I get common sense no nonsense genuine caring alternatives to problems I was wrestling with and getting nowhere. Thank God none
of them gives me pity or condones 'stinking thinking' as that is not a way to help me in any form. But not even these friends can take away the faces
of the thousands of dead, dying or mangled patients from a life time of treating them and constant exposure to
the very worse things that can happen to humans when things go very wrong. I still see, hear and smell and at time
interact with them as if they were still alive and sitting on my bed asking me why I could not save them, phantoms
but very real ones that make sleep tormented in my dreams most nights, or the hermit like life I can very comfortably crawl back into watching
back to back reruns of every
gory war movie until I know the
scripts by rote. I still (and probably always will) sleep with a loaded pistol hanging off my bed post and I never
leave home without a layered level of defensive articles that I may use if I see a turban wearing bearded terrorist
aiming a rocket grenade at my local Wal-Mart! These pivotal people in my life to include my trusted friend Andrew
have provided me a life-line
of supportive or corrective solutions I accept from them as they know me better than any V.A. shrink who sees me
for 1-hour every 3 months, sits there quietly and asks me the standard leading questions taking notes and nodding
his head every few moments to show he is not sitting there day-dreaming: "So
how did that make you feel?" or "Is there a way around this problem that does not mean rushing into it full speed without thinking
about all the consequences or who may get hurt other than you emotionally?"
and 99% of the time these folks I know and trust who are not V.A. staff have given me exactly the right coping skills to get me thru my minor storms in tea-cups, and I still see the chief of Behavioral Health
Services every 6-months so she can do face time with me to make sure
I am tracking, not a threat to myself or others and refill my meds that do help keep me level headed and rational thinking even when some of the obstacles I face seem insurmountable.
That is the only recent change to that treatment-plan worthy of noting here. PTSD does not go away or get better,
like any disease you live with it and compensate or you end up in a world of legal hurt very quick if you don't.
I have too much to live for to ruin it all with one episode of a melt-down & the common sense to see it coming
and back off, seek help and if need be call in the pros to take me somewhere very safe. Pity the 30-50 Vets of
every war since W.W.II who suffer from varying degrees of PTSD kill themselves or others every single day in some place in these United
States because they have run out of any other option but a dangerous and terminal one, when just maybe the hour
I gave back to the V.A. could
have turned that all around for them.
NOT MUCH BEATS A WELL MAINTAINED SHARP RIDE!
For the first time in 2 decades (!) I treated myself to a new car on 10 August 2006, trading
in my 1996 Suzuki Samurai Sport JLX
(sigh!) with 73K on the clock
and a transmission ready to quit on me. Spokane winters are not
kind on sub-compact sedans, and I have seen SO many Honda Civics or V.W. Bugs totaled by sheet-ice,
with 2 feet of snow on top, and
inexperienced drivers or old age plodders pushing them like snow-cats to their final resting place, or crashing into other drivers who DO know how to drive in weather
where snow chains are sometimes the only way to cross a mountain pass, or U-turn and head home Jack! Not required with the all weather/all terrain tires on this stud-mobile! The
2006 Grand Vitara Premium (4WD) is loaded with all the power I need, a V6 engine built around one of Japan's best made and safest SUV's that allows the driver
to drive, not a 'smart gizmo that
drives the vehicle the way 'it
thinks' it should be
driven. Auto drives and me don't get on well @ all! I have a VERY bad ingrained habit from many
years of driving stick-shifts of clutching in on an auto drive break pedal fast to download gears, not comprehending in that split second that autos don't have clutch pedals to slam to the
floor! Only to find I just slammed my left foot hard and fast
down onto the brake @ 65 mph (!!!) and spin the bugga almost into a flip. IMHO auto-drives are for kids
who never learnt how to drive a stick-shift, and more power to them if it works for them, or drivers my age or older who like the idea of only 2
pedals to mess with. With a killer 6-CD changer in-dash stereo & 6 hi-end speakers, A/C, cruise control, room for 5 and lots of cargo in the back, air-bags all around front & back, security features from an alarm to VIN # etched windows
don't make this an E-Z vehicle to jack. It has most vital controls laid out in a sensible (keeps your eyes on the road not the stereo!) steering wheel button(s) and dash board
array, that has nice touches like power everything, and even internal and external temperature LED displays, a 100K full everything warranty and fast
road-side assistance for 6 more years with just one call. I have found the best SUV for my needs and at a $21K price that can't be beat by anything built in America. Sorry the truth hurts, but our $35-50K Jeeps or Fords
don't impress me. Behold
a beautiful work of art in
automotive evolution, the 2006 Grand Vitara Premium: 1/2 SUV, 1/2 computer! The V6, 185 horses under the hood,
All Wheel Drive, poetry
in motion, on or off road, in all weather. Her name is Serenity. She only has 2,000 miles on the clock since I bought her new, making
me probably the least frequent driver in Spokane. I got her checked at 1K miles and she passed with flying colors. I needed a rig like this
in my working days not my retirement days when a long trip is 7 miles (and back) to visit Donna, or a 2 mile round-trip
trip to the local supermarket. Trips to and from the V.A. hospital are what puts any 'real' miles on her,
on the other side of town. I have high hopes this dude & car love affair will be a long one. And if I ever upgrade it will be to another Suzuki Grand Vitara model. Two years after I drove her
off the lot and with only 2K on the clock she continues to be one hell of a nice ride in all weather or surfaces.
Critters!
On 18 May 2007 my 17 year-old diabetic cat Missey met the end of
her path through life as a sick and feeble animal. I will mourn her passing but not her last few months of hell that she came out of
that boarding (March 14-23) suffering from the equivalent of a feline nervous breakdown. For 2 months she suffered
in utter mental anguish and lost all quality of life, getting worse with each passing day, and crying in fear every night.
The pills (Amitriptyline) my vet sent me were traumatizing her even more just to force down her throat, she would not take
them wrapped in anything that cats love to eat, so they failed to do much but make her shake with fear every time she saw
me, spending more of each day hiding under the bed in fear. I told my vet to keep her remains, I do not need an
urn of ashes to keep reminding me of her, she lives on in my mind. Missey now gone from my life has not sent me
into any woe-is-me
downer trips, I do think about her, maybe more than I should, but her loss does not consume me and I am staying
busy cleaning this place up and I donated her useful items to folks who still have healthy cats. To prolong her
suffering was not
moral or ethical and even her vet agreed that she was too sick to save. Her passing was kind and without pain,
1st a tranquilizer shot, then as we stroked her she began to purr as she slipped into a humane sleep and then one more shot ensured her peaceful
passing. My lifetime of owning pets has ended. I grow too attached to them and their passing causes me too much
pain that I won't endure again. A new kitten who may live 15-20 years will outlive me and have me tied to an apartment [again] or boarding the cat
which is no way
to endear any cat to a loving owner.
My closest friend was
Missey, an aging spoilt rotten calico cat
who I loved dearly. Found abandoned as a kitten outside my front door in
mid-winter Colorado Springs in 1990. She soon joined the two beautiful AKC championship rough collies ( Lassie look-alikes) I owned and loved then. After splitting from Ilia in 1997 that was the last time I saw them. She did not
keep them, and I don't want to know about: "The good homes she found
for them.", when I think a quick death was their real fate. Those were the
loved ones I cried for headed south on I-5 in '97. In 1998 Ilia gave me a phone-call ultimatum, either take our cat or she would
put her to sleep, so she flew down and dropped off the only pet I was able to salvage from Ilia's killing spree.
From 1998 in California thru the move to Spokane in 2001 and 6 years here I became her only owner and she my best
live-in friend. Missey went through the feline equivalent of a nervous breakdown while I was in hospital 14-23
March 2007. She was boarded for 8 days in a good facility, but for her aging diabetic scared of her own shadow self those 9 days in cat time must
have felt like months in a small enclosure she had never been in before full of strange smells and noises and people.
Upon her return to me she became a shell of a desperate and unsalvageable animal whose suffering just spiraled
down into a recovery she could not hack. For 2 months she refused to leave the spare bedroom and cried all night
in distress. I tried vet recommended feline anti-anxiety pills which she would neither eat nor tolerate, so on
18 May 2007 I took the only humane and ethical next-step and she was put to sleep without knowing anything as the light she was in life finally was extinguished by her vet
of 4 years in my home. She passed in no pain just drifting off into a peaceful sleep after 1 shot to tranquilize
her, then another she would not awake from. I know I'll ever own another pet, as I grow way too attached to them. I've owned, loved and lost
too many, and it's never easy letting go. Their lives go by so fast and the emotional anguish their passing
causes me is not something I want to repeat. I will still love animals, but in their environment, not cooped-up in my home. Not something new to me. I was into fish and
aquatics for 20 years, but I left that hobby in Santa Rosa complete with a fully stocked 50 gallon aquarium for
the person (jerk) who bought my mobile home. Since I came here my daily hobby has been watching, feeding and watering the many varieties of avian 'customers' I take care of at Murphy's Seed & Peanut
Bar!" I've taken photos of every species and that's
a lot of pictures. My bird
feeder is an ornate hanging green
metal tube. My squirrel feeder is a green
painted 2" x 4" post, with a green
metal feeder on top, 3 feet off the ground, complimented by an attached climbing ladder, so they don't have to
play flying squirrels to
get what they want. I had to remove the ladder in June 2009 though. What started as a cute displaced by near-by
construction distant cousin of the smaller gray and black squirrels, became a pest when these fat slow moving ground
squirrels or marmots invaded my feeding area starting in the spring of 2009. First just a few, then groups of 8
to 12, older and their some with their kits were hanging out directly outside my back door and displaced every
other form of animal visitors. They soon found ways to climb (not natural climbers, they can use their teeth and
front claws to hoist themselves up a 4-foot high two-by-four post) with the use of the ladder and drained a whole
container of (expensive) peanuts in one gorging 5-minute session, leaving nothing for any other critter to eat
and making my trips out back to refill the container more times per day than my normal once in the morning and
once at night. Too much of any good thing sooner or later turns bad and I could see the potential for these ever
hungry and ever breeding rodents to caused me to be told to remove the squirrel feeder for good. Their larger tarry
black droppings were becoming apparent upon other neighbors patios and they chased off their smaller kin turning
themselves into true pests and a nuisance, that only removal of their ability to get at the food would force them
to move on. I do not like withholding food but this had the potential to cause my neighbors to complain. Instead
of appreciate the status-quo of what normal responsible smaller squirrel feeding nearly always brought them joy
to watch or photograph. I will not have an invasion of deep-woods larger ever hungry and very prolific critters
ruin what was once basic and tasteful, it did the the job. The marmots split and the smaller squirrels have little
use of a ladder as they just leap right on to of the feeder from ground level. Below is a picture I took of one
of the culprits:I have seen and photographed 40 bird species total (so far) in my own back yard, if you count the migratory humming birds, falcons, ducks and geese. Bats flit by at night. Eagles and hawks soar in the skies above me. Then there's the playful gray
squirrels who populate my wooded back yard all year long and eat a 1/2 pound of unsalted peanuts out of the
shell everyday. The birds tear-up 50-pound sacks of premium
bird seed, consuming around 1-3 pounds a day depending on the seasons and any other takers, like nocturnal skunks, raccoons, deer or even (once) a moose and her calf!
I keep a large heated water bowl
out there too, which is unplugged during the warm months, and (when plugged-in) remains unfrozen even in our coldest winters. Doubling as both a source of fresh drinking and bathing H2O all year round for them. And I thought maintaining a 100 gallon hexagonal free-standing
salt water aquarium was expen$ive in Colorado! When they get too greedy, I cut back the feeding. The beauty of this hobby is if I'm not around, the outside critters will all find other sources of food & water without my help. I have created an aviary and sanctuary which entertains all who see it. My neighbors and the apartment managers love it. I keep my sanctuary well maintained and clean. A hobby that brings me
joy and peace that no big-screen plasma T.V. or Enya Celtic
ballad could ever deliver. Here's
a young baby gray squirrel pup who is a friend of mine and loves
thosepeanuts that he seems to be asking for more of below.
A young baby gray squirrel after a yummy peanut
he took right out of my hand.
Friends & Crazies!
Friends come and go in my life, never having lived in one
place long enough to really cultivate the bonds that tie normal folks for life. Most are transient hopes oft shattered by let downs or the realities
that even when someone calls you "Like a brother." The 'like'
part can be as fragile as the first real problem. I am proud to call Donna my closest American friend of 1/4 century, with me in and out of her life since crossing paths in the early 1980's and playing Cupid in what would turn her into a married
woman with an Army buddy who meant a lot to me once. Many years apart, except by phone, snail-mail or e-mails, until my move to Spokane where we are almost neighbors now. Her two children are my 'surrogate' nephew and niece who I've watch mature and come to love as an 'uncle' of sorts over the last four years. Like marriages, lasting
meaningful friendships take work,
with compromises on both sides,
or they crash. For me, Ilia
and our 3 children, Hawaii was our wake up call to the real rigors
and hardships of married couple Army careers which began in
earnest the day we arrived in 'paradise'. Loads of field time
with Ilia in an artillery unit as a medic for a brief stint. But for Donna who came with us to Hawaii, it would
have failed before it even began, our Nanny and so much
more. Too tough a life for Ilia so that didn't last long until she found a MEDDAC clinic job (again) on post that put her back in the clean hospital white uniforms
she loved, and me back with my
infantry again deployed more than
home and learning light-fighter skills
from my new friend and fellow medic Pat. My first duty assignment there was to the crazy 1st Bn, 35th Infantry Regiment, 'Cacti'.
One of 3 battalions in the 2nd (Warrior)
Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division (Light). What is crazy? Way-too much to tell here but here's a good example: One young
gung-ho guy just got back from
jump-school, paratrooper qualified, he stood on the 3rd floor balcony screaming "Airborne!". It was 9am formation, daily inspection in
ranks, and our Sergeant Major came
charging out of his office
wondering what all the screaming was about. "Look at me Sergeant Major
I'm Airborne!", so our senior enlisted soldier, a Command Sergeant Major, and veteran of the daring but failed Son Tay U.S.
POW rescue mission in 1970, who in his prime must have been one natural born killer, cried out: "Prove it Airborne!". So this way-over-zealous infantryman launched himself off the railings, landed badly on the tarmac 30 ft below, broke both his legs and was medically boarded out of service. Our entire medical platoon stood
at rigid attention as witness to this madness. Our Command Sergeant Major swaggered back into his office laughing and an ambulance arrived to haul the (no longer) airborne
soldier away to the E.R. I wonder how much money (3 weeks in jump-school) that cost the Army for the stupidity of an E4 and an E9 (!) who always smelt of day-old booze? Me and Pat became best friends on and off duty and were
both a pair of talented and tolerated scoundrels. Major drinkers off duty we always sobered up for duty and long deployments were dry
ones , unlike our old Vietnam-era ex-Special Forces SFC/E7 Medical Platoon Sergeant Fletcher, who nipped from
a bottle of booze he kept in his
locked office throughout each working day, until that caught up with him and he was transferred to lighter duties
at the Division's Medical Battalion.
I moved up to fill his shoes as a brand new Staff Sergeant/E6 in charge of a 40-man light fighting Medical Platoon and took to it like a duck to
water. Prior to that responsibility and as a lowly senior line medic, stunt's like spotting wild pigs
down-range for our Four Deuce infantry
(heavy) mortar platoon was the real
fun, but not always the designated
target! Next day making life or death decisions after a mortar round stuck, cooked-off and exploded in it's tube, taking anyone within a 50 meter radius with it. VERY realistic
'training'! Triage, call-in a Dust-Off bird, or ground-evac and work out your M5
aid-bag till the 'cavalry' arrived. So us field medics learnt a lot of procedures and exams that were normally NOT the domain of a lowly 91Bravo Medic to ensure our patients got good care
in garrison and especially in the
field. It didn't take us long to
bond through the nature of being
Light-Fighter Infantry Medics,
(heavy off-duty partyers!) and depending only on each other to take care of hundreds of soldiers daily. We were great at what we did and soon earned the respect of the infantry soldiers we trained and lived with, following
wherever they led. 20-30 mile forced marches through dense jungles, barren deserts, rice paddies, frozen tundras
or heli-borne ops became our forte.
I didn't know it at the time, but my successes and exploits as the new Cacti Medical Platoon Sergeant were
raising positive interest at the
Division Surgeon's level. I thought
up an idea to train company-sized units of infantrymen in more advanced medical skills, ran them through a week
of intense field medical training under simulated combat conditions and divided heavy (1-liter normal saline) I.V.
bags with (needles, tubing & tape) started kits that each Grunt learnt to infuse on his buddy (probably the hardest part of the 1 week training even
for ex-combat hardened troops), bulk bandages, cravats and splints all dispersed amongst the grunts to increase
how much of that life saving gear a medic could count on, instead of humping it all himself when a mass casualty
situation went down for real. They learnt litter carries, manual carries, splinting, bandaging and even starting an I.V., which many balked at.
It involved MEDEVAC operations,
culminating in a grueling litter obstacle course that mirrored the medic's EFMB badge testing. Within two months of that training a real
MASCAL went down on the big island of Hawaii, a truck roll-over, and instead
of infantrymen being bystanders, they saved more lives than one medic could have ever done by himself, it worked! That idea turned into the Combat Lifesaver program adopted by the entire
U.S. Army worldwide 5 years later, and was built on my model. I was given a pat on the back and a (cheap) medal,
but I started something which over the years has saved countless lives in war and peace to this very day. The brass were tickled pink @ that successful integration, unheard of until then! The Division Surgeon's current NCOIC (an
E7) was not working out. R.O.A.D. (Retired
On Active Duty). Out of many Medical Platoon Sergeants
(all of whom out-ranked me) within the Division, I was chosen to replace him as a Staff Sergeant/E6, a first (I think) for someone of my (E6/Staff Sergeant) pay-grade. All done with the blessings of the Lieutenant Colonel Division Surgeon,
LTC Geiger. Like General Patton
once said: "Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way!". Our first home together
was an ocean-view beauty in the
hills of Makakilo, Oahu, Hawaii overlooking fields of sugar cane and pineapples.
Beautiful and affordable on a
joint military income. It was an
off-duty luxury where many of
my unit came to relax or party. Once we even lodged a squad of Australian medics, rescuing them from their on-post barracks life during their 4-week rotation to train with us and forming good
but transient friendships. Great folks. On a home page that shouldn't get much longer, I need to let the reader know that leaving the crazy Army world of Germany behind me in 1979 didn't
change much even 6-years later on the other side of the world, Oahu, Hawaii. So here's a true story for those who
think we were all a happy, all-buddy, all-volunteer Army of one.... my
ass! Inter-unit rivalry was and has always been encouraged within fighting
units like 20-30,000 soldier divisions, comprised of numerous Battalions each hell bent on doing something/anything
better than their arch enemies, or as Commanders called them 'sister units'. Example is two U.S. Army light infantry battalions that had competed against each
other for decades, through 2 World Wars, Korea and Vietnam. Armor had their rivals as did most combat arms troops.
But Infantry units normally
had the deepest superiority psychosis's called 'Esprit de Corps' by our brass. Off duty this fierce loyalty could trash up enlisted clubs and leave battered troops for round-up/arrest
by the Military Police. On duty
it made for some incredible performance pitching one unit against the other. The 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment
(Cacti) traced it's first battles
(and name) back to the cactus-ridden deserts of Southern
Arizona in a place called Nogales fighting off Mexican bandits under Pancho Villa when the 20th century was young.
However their arch enemies were the 27th Infantry Regiment, Wolfhounds, who had been in the soldiering game since their activation in 1901. The Army's solution:
integration, place both their barracks
in the same buildings/quadrant and not expect it to become a war-zone of sorts. Which is exactly what happened.
No love was lost on (or off duty) between 2 units who hated each other's guts, but were forced to barrack, live,
work and train side by side. Well the Wolfhounds had a real wolfhound dog they kept in his own large chain link
enclosure in the middle of this living/feuding barracks area (D-Quad) of Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. He was called
'Kolchak' the XXII'd, or some
number, suffice to say his blood ancestors, all Kolchak's accompanied the 'Hounds wherever shit took them. The mutt was named after a (White/Royalist)Russian Cossack, Admiral Kolchak who'd fallen at the hands of Lenin's Red Army in the Russian revolution. Why name a dog after a pompous Russian aristocrat who'd been
shot in Moscow against a wall was unknown and as mysterious as the whereabouts of the Holy Grail! A Battalion run for either unit meant running 7
miles uphill to the top of Koli-Koli pass and back down, an all morning 14-mile gung-ho affair. Something the Wolfhounds always brought Kolchak along with them leading the
pack of 600+ men. The poor sod loved it. We had nothing so grand (running with a cactus would just not do!) and
they (almost) always beat us to the top of that damn pass. Bastards! As I was getting ready to rotate out of the Cacti, it was about to be deactivated and
assimilated into the dreaded/hated Wolfhounds as their 4th Battalion, the 1st Battalion were already our next door
neighbors and hated enemies. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions were assigned to other divisions Army-wide. Rumor hath
it that it was a traitorous Wolfhound
soldier placed on extra duty mucking out Kolchak's pen who did the dirty deed, but suspicion hung heavy on infuriated
Cacti perp(s) as the real culprits. No one was ever nailed for the deed or he'd have been lynched by the 'Hounds. About a month before the Cacti colors
were to be officially retired a (bonding) Battalion run for both units was scheduled by the Brigade Commander,
and that morning the Wolfhounds found Kolchak bouncing off his cage with what they thought was enthusiasm. The
autopsy later done on the poor beast showed someone had fed him a speed laced something. The morning arrived and
Kolchak took off like Speedy Gonzalez, to the roars of the Wolfhounds. Kolchak did in fact reach the summit of Koli Koli pass first, then
keeled over and died on the spot. Heart attack! On our way back down the hill we saw them carrying their dead 100-pound
dog (with all the grief and reverence of the body of Achilles borne from the ruins of Troy) and we cheered his demise. Things started to go very bad very fast! I must confess I too bellowed some hurtful words which as
a Staff Sergeant I should not have indulged myself in, but did anyway! A brawl of Gettysburg proportions was only avoided by the two top NCO's
of each unit, the Command Sergeant Majors
of each unit standing toe to toe in a Spaghetti Western stare-down preventing the Wolfhounds from attacking the
jubilant Cacti Battalion. I was on my way out moving up from the Cacti Medical
Platoon Sergeant job to take charge of the 25th Infantry Division Surgeon's Office NCOIC position looking after
an entire division's enlisted medical needs, as mentioned above, so I never disgraced my uniform with a dogs head
unit crest, and after some 'settling-in'
a murder or 2 and some other crazy
shit, both units swore fidelity to the Wolfhound Infantry Regiment and life returned to normal. I include this true story in my home page as eye witness
testimony to what happens to young testosterone charged troops who in 1985 would have rather shot at each other
than anything the Russians or N. Koreans could throw at us. 'Nec Aspera
Terrent' (Frightened by No Difficulties) the Wolfhound Regimental motto. God, we were a wild
bunch that few dare write about the times we almost mutinied over changing
our beloved cactus unit crest
for a dog's head one. The stuff
you don't read about in Stars and Stripes.
Move out, draw fire! And we did :-) On one exercise I covered, a Cacti
company was pinned down and getting ready to be over-run by Wolfhounds. We'd been hammered and chased all day by
a relentless opposing force of Wolfhounds. The sun had just set and tempers were high at how easily we had been out-flanked and encircled by more experienced troops. Out of
blanks, no water left and privates screaming at Platoon Sergeants. The young West
Point, first time company commander gave the order to: "Fix Bayonets and Charge!" Delighted that's exactly what they did, and as the senior medic there,
I was yelling "Check-Your-Fire, CEASE FIRE!!!!" to no avail. The unsuspecting 'Hounds ran up to our positions demanding surrender, instead out popped an entire infantry
company, fire in their eyes &
with real bayonets fixed they started the carnage. In 10 minutes clearer minds prevailed, it stopped but the moans and screams persisted with multiple
cries for "MEDIC". I
set up a casualty collection point, and began triage. 3 died of wounds, bled out, 20+ were wounded, and a young
captain was sent to Ft. Leavenworth.
I was calling in Huey dust-off's
all frigging night for a real MASCAL
that never made any newspaper or radio/T.V. report, Pohakaloa Training
Area (PTA), big island of Hawaii.
Training to the NTH power! Enough
war-stories, moving on to friends
to lighten it up! Since arriving
back in Washington I have made new friends I live around, a few new enemies, and I value their refreshing friendships or dodge others attempts to fuck with
my life. Newer friends may not have known me long but that does not make them any less special to me. Newer enemies
shouldreally think twice before declaring
war on me and I leave that as a simple warning. I hope I get to know my new friends as well as some names I've already covered.
Cool Runnings!
With 'civilization' two miles down the road I lack for no places to shop, dine, get entertained and enjoy
the culture of Washington State
without the sprawl of it's cities
along the coast. It gets cold here
in winter and bloody hot in summer,
with (brief) spring and (early) fall being my favorite seasons in this mountainous region with it's many lakes, rivers and streams. The western foothills
of the Rockies. Canada is 100 miles north and Idaho is a 30 minute drive east of here. There are a lot of
Veterans here. Vets generally
respect each other and help each other out, especially towards those who still serve in so many ways at so many places. Patriotism is ripe here and Spokanites are generally more friendly than most other places I've blown through. I
do however miss the sea. I spent most of my life living very close to
it. My favorite place in the entire world is the island of Kauai in Hawaii,
which I may see again and
stay for good this time. Reading books from the classics taught to me in my school days to tearing thru the next (Jack Ryan series) of Tom Clancy techno-dramas was my entertainment
throughout 20 years in uniform, and now as I pass into mid life I find new meaning in Dickens, Shakespeare and
others I would never have
touched 20-30 years ago. I have always enjoyed astronomy and have a nice Mead 6" reflector telescope, which pales in comparison to NASA Online deep space shots. My friends here recently adopted the hobby
with a 3.5 inch refractor they received as their 2005 Christmas present, and they are chomping at the bit for the
clouds to clear in a place where
they seldom do! I used to love gold panning in Arizona and Colorado, but as my spinal problems worsened, I had to give that hobby up too. Constant
bending and lifting is no longer fun,
just an exercise in back and knee pain
management. This place still has
much gold in it's many rivers or streams, but I won't be the person
who finds it. I'm a good
artist (acrylic on canvas) and I occasionally paint and draw when
the mood takes me (it always
came naturally to me), although I have given away all my best works over the years, or they still remain decorating
the inside rooms and barracks I painted with murals over the years and around the world. The best book ever written
(IMHO) is The Lord of the Rings, which I was re-reading by age 12 when
it was an unknown book in the U.S.. Great
trilogy movie, but the books are much better. Think I read them about 30 times in my youth and it influenced much
of my art work even through my latest works today. I loved early Tom
Clancy novels and read each one hot off the press. My favorite movies include:
"We Were Soldiers", "Pulp Fiction" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" (British comedy-noir at it's finest) to name but a few in my 2,000+ movie collection. I think Meg Ryan is a sexual Goddess. Mahjong, Chess
and Scrabble are my favorite board
games. I also collect British
coins and bank-notes that go back to George
III, the fella who lost his mind, and some of his colonies too. I also collect some weapons; ranging from many antique swords, knives, axes, to a few guns, a compound bow, cross-pistol (smaller than a large cross-bow & much easier to handle) and martial arts weapons of all types. My collection is complete now, and adds to the inside 'decor' of my home, plus it's security from any 'invading hordes' of beer crazed Canadians! Doubtful!I've lived here for over 8 years, and no apartments have been burglarized, but crime
seldom calls ahead to warn that it is coming your way.
On 27 May 2009 I signed a new 1-year lease that
will run from 1 July 2009 thru 30 June 2010.
My home is now tastefully decorated in what I call Medieval Contemporary!
I enjoy digital and video
photography. My 9 year old Sony Mavica digital/still camera has captured thousands of real good pictures I keep
on 3.5" floppy disks. I just picked up a nice Nikon Cool-Pix L15 palm-sized digital still & movie camera which is about the size of a box of
cigarettes but takes over 8K normal sized JPG's or with it's 1GB memory stick over 30 minutes of hi-def movies, runs off 2 AA (alkaline) batteries and has novice to pro functions. For cam-corder
needs I use a Cannon Elura mini-DVC set-up which I can pull audio/visuals from and manipulate with the latest addition
to my cyber-kit a Roxio Media Creator Ver. 10 which
is a complete movie studio inside my main computer. Very nice bits of photo kit that go where I go. I'm still a
VHS hound, even after I was finally introduced to DVD's for Christmas '04, and they have the neato functions any VHS lacks. I may even get a under the
T.V. DVD recorder when giants like Sony
and JVC figure out what format will
be the standard for the next 10 years, double-sided blue or terra-byte silver. IMHO Joe Public
is getting dicked around
with every upgrade making the one before it obsolete. O.K. for equipment designed to last 5-10 years, but not when
a each (annual) 'new and better'
DVD recording hi-fi, extra special effects gizmo costs big buck$. Good movies (old or new), or HBO series like Generation
Kill, too real action packed story of the first Marine units to enter into
Iraq and find themselves soon persona non-gratis. Always been a Star
Trekkie & I'm a Dune fan period. My latest Sci-Fi addiction was a 12 part series called Firefly, and the movie that followed it called Serenity. If you have not seen it yet, you are in for a refreshing relook at realism in a possible
future universe. I cherish good true friends, who are hard to find, even harder to hang on to, and a genuine pleasure to be around. I have had my fill of
fair-weather 'friends', and I can
spot them in hours not years now. The friends of old I have here are busy folks and time has diminished
what started off as regular visits to their home became once in a while swing-bys. Some of them are still people
I care deeply about and when I
can fit into their schedules we try to make the best of it. Like marriages, friendships take work to maintain. But when long time friends stop giving a shit about me, so do I about them. On to other
matters that I feel like telling the reader (YOU) about me. I
collect and listen to a variety of music CD's
from Reggae to Celtic (my
favorite music) to Classic Rock to New
Age and select more. Rap
or hip-hop are major turn-offs! I think the Beatles were the finest rock/pop band ever and still love their timeless melodies that filled my youth. For American music, I'm a Doors main-liner. I owned every vinyl album Genesis ever made, and left them with my ex, when I cut & ran from certain death in Portland,
Oregon, 23 October 1997. Now 'The Best of'
them, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Neil
Young, the Alan Parson's Project, and so
many others still hypnotize me.
The Chieftains, who I have seen in
concert many times, move me into deep rooted moods of joy and sorrow, as Celtic musicians, them, Clannad
and Enya (who used to be in Clannad)
are my main-stay. Several cable T.V. & Internet feeds are continuous commercial-free music channels I like, with Adult Alternative being my favorite. Web-radio feeds also keep me happy while I'm online and save my T.V. usage. Not too hard and not
too soft music from my youth through today. No Barry bloody Manilow!
Great feed! I pipe that through
my stereo and listen (sometimes jam)
to the tunes while on the computer, or just for kicks as I do chores or entertain the (few) guests who stop by.
I recently changed the interior decor from astronomical charts to fantasy
wall art and it looks completely
different, and more mystic.
I dabble with Tarot Cards and
seem to have an uncanny ability to read a person's fortune pretty accurately. It's a gift I believe I inherited from my maternal Grandmother who was a natural
psychic. It's a gift that came when my mind became unclouded by booze and
grows the longer I stay clean and sober. Spooky but true!
My cards bring hope to some, and warnings
to others. I am only a conduit
and call the cards as they fall. Some who come back to me on a regular basis can verify that pretentious claim.
Others I've read for get too spooked
to try again, ever! I do not dabble with Ouija-boards or the darker sides
of my gift, it's just not in my make up. There is enough evil in this world without inviting it into my life, again.
One of my father's most stupid stunts was to bring a Ouija-board into our home when I was young.
The evil that was him found a gateway into our home and if I were to try to even describe a possessed place, which
took a priest to finally cleanse, I doubt you'd believe me, but there was no scientific explanation of the utter horror and the very real damage it causes
that I can't describe in 1,000 words without you thinking it fiction. It was
truly terrifying to even dad's evil-incarnate damned soul and he feared nothing (mortal), until windows burst open, foul smells filled rooms then vanished,
freezing rooms on hot summer days, furniture flew against
walls, doors slamming open & shut, and screams from our loft had even our neighbors spooked, culminating in
our dog bolting and staying gone until the priest did his thing.One month of stuff I still can not explain.
With the recent problems being encountered by Windows users all across the country, people are begin to ask themselves if windows is a virus. In response to the high
demand for an answer to that question a study was done and concluded the following.
1. Viruses replicate quickly. Windows does this.
2. Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so. Windows
does this.
3. Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk. Windows does this.
4. Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. Windows does that too.
5. Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow (see 2) and the user will buy new hardware.
Same with Windows, yet again.
Maybe Windows really is a virus.Nope! There is a difference! Viruses are well supported by their authors, are frequently updated, and tend to become
more sophisticated as they mature. So there! Windows is not a virus. It's
con-ware in pure form!
OK! Enough techno-geek stuff, I don't wear a pocket protector and I
seldom even read the instructions to the hundreds of heavy-hitting programs I use on a regular basis with the skill of a Microsoft Level II Systems Administrator. I don't work in a tiny cubicle at WinDoze central and yet I do seem to have the IT
savvy of any customer rep who picks up a phone and asks in an accent like I'm
calling the Calcutta
office; if my computer is turned on! WOW!
That thought never crossed my mind, thanks for the houronhold!
(Sounds familiar?) Now we have Windows 7 to look forward to like some Microsoft designer virus,
if it flops just like Vista does then I will probably change my computers to Mac or Linux, Microsoft is losing
clients and their operating systems stopped being fun or even easy to use when they retired Windows 98SE.
Out and about with my SUV and sporting the 'Grizzly Old Vet' look.
Veterans.
In 1789 President George Washington said: "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any
war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive veterans of earlier wars and
how they were treated and appreciated by this country."
An interesting fact to start this section off with, according to data from
45 states, 6,256 men and women who had served in the armed forces took their own lives in 2005 - that's 120 suicides
everyweek, twice the average for never-served
in any capacity civilians. Those rising numbers are now higher with older Vets from long
past wars, just as suicidal as younger fresh off the battle-fields teens, which leads me to deduct that the prolonged
stresses and echoes of military
service are causing many Vets to take terminal
decisions with lives they no longer see worth living. Having tried that once 3 years out of service/retirement
in 1999 and drinking heavy to dull
the pain that would not go away, I
can relate. Now 9 year totally sober and with people and things to live for, I do
not seek out anything but life.
I also have to be very careful how
I word any conversation with
any V.A. provider! Just to even mention the 'S'-word, when as a medic death was a daily 'matter of business' is often all
it takes for them to over-react and
assume I drove 14 miles across town, waited for hours just to make a public statement to those who would lock me away if I did tell them I planned to off-myself. That is somewhat ridiculous,
if a Vet has his or her mind set
on checking-out, they will manage it and few give off any signs it's going down in their plans.
As we reach the 4K KIA'd level of troops killed in action since 9/11 it is way
overshadowed by the FORTYTHOUSAND silent
and now very dead Vets this war has created to those who could not live with what they did, saw or the hopelessness of further
living in a daily spiral of hell, depression and drug/alcohol abuse that has killed-off the equivalent number of
soldiers it takes to man a large
Infantry Division. Food for thought indeed!
I'm a 10th year member of the American Legion and a lifetime member of Disabled American Veterans. I take an active role in many Veterans issues, helping fellow Vets when I can to improve their quality of life by educating them on what is theirs by law and by virtue of service to this Nation.
Many don't have a clue until I turn their paperwork into real benefits. I contact/lobby politicians who work for
Veterans and I lambaste those
who don't without threats. I purposely
don't park in Disabled Parking slots even though I have disabled plates, as there are always folks in worse shape than I am, and I can walk, but not for miles. I'm not in a wheelchair yet! I seldom visit Spokane's V.A. MedCen without helping some Vet in some small way, like helping a badly disabled
or crippled old Vet to make his or
her appointment on time, and missing mine by doing so. No big, reschedule and try again. I call it injustice when some of our Veterans are discarded to
poverty or relegated to the brutal hardships of street-life. The war against terror is now filtering in to
our Veterans facilities with a
new generation of young and badly disabled Vets. I hope president Obama doesn't forget the cost
of war, or maintaining the long peace, paid by the patriots whose lives it changed, degraded or ended. In ten years we better have a great
way to take care of Vets who are
inhaling depleted uranium for
years per tour into Iraq and the MAJOR
problems that will cause. Cut Veteran benefits more and a nation may ask it's current or next president WTF went wrong as they remove him or her from
office by the very laws that
gave them onus and custodianship of our military, our only line of defense. The depleted uranium shells, bombs, etc., used anywhere in combat or training are toxic to any living cell with half-lives measured in millions of years! Everywhere we or our allies have used DU weapons is now a deadly HAZMAT environment
for hundreds of thousand of troops who have fought and are still fighting there. No clean-up is even planned!!!
Then add millions of 'natives' who now live with it and die from it. Inhaled, ingested or in close
and constant proximity to it
emits alpha and (deadly) gamma radiation, making multiple tours in and out of those areas, IMHO a gamble on a medical
discharge board and cancer,
or progeny with serious birth defects eventually. This is per a documentary called Battlefield:
21 Days on the Empire's Edge. 2004, 1 hr, 21 mins, showing on Showtime (global) for all to see. Follow that with a look-see @ Fahrenheit 911 U go find if you doubt my words or the content of both Michael Moore's chilling documentaries. After watching them, I question many things no secret to anyone with a TV., radio or Internet connections. As wars go this is IMHO turning into the most unpopular one
so far, that may make Nixon's
woes in 'Nam look calm in comparison the longer we stay. But
what or whom will we deal with if we just pack-up and turn these places into safe havens for those who won't be
happy until the dream that was America lays in ruins? If this war has only one positive spin is it keeps our enemies
tied-up fighting us half a world away, not streaming up in-mass up from the Mexican border and into our vulnerable towns and cities unchecked. An Arab can look very much like a Latino. Learn a little Spanish
and pass thru a boarder crossing with a fake I.D. is a scary prospect. Drive across a desert with
no fences in a vehicle loaded with terrorists, explosives, bio-toxins or chemical weapons could spell real disaster as they drive up our freeways
to a-Q safe houses and targets.
I hope to God it never happens, but if it does, I hope someone with the right codes starts turning parts of select
Muslim nations into atoms this time.
Interests & Personal Philosophies....
Too many to list and not fill the page up even more than it
already is. I have a ton of survival equipment and the knowledge to use it. Living on the San Andreas fault line in Santa
Rosa for 4 years, I figured I'd need it one day. It remains packed in a
closet, my garage or in the hasty
survival locker/kit in my SUV. The
U.S. Army managed to make camping
(however luxurious) one of my least favorite hobbies; having spent 8 of my 20
years in service doing just that all
over the world for a living! Most of it in conditions which make a fox-hole with a snow
covered poncho on top seem adequate.
I am a perennial member of the
National Rifle Association. I support the right to bear arms, or is it arm the bears? If I see
bears toting AK-47's, I'm out
of here! Seriously. I've been trained on many weapons systems that most civilians normally only see on T.V. or at military show & tell events. The infantry always let their (good) medics play with their toys! I have been trained in safe and effective marksmanship
since Boot Camp. As an NCO I ran many ranges throughout my career
whenever my medics needed certification on their weapons. I have seen what guns
do to humans too many times, so I take gun ownership responsibility very seriously. Our jails are full of people who don't have that training or common
sense. Indoor and outdoor ranges did excite
me; now I'm all ranged-out, another
ex-hobby that got old. I haven't been to a range in years, as
to me it's wasting time, money and ammo when I know I'm always right
on target when I shoot pistols. My guns include a nice Springfield XD-9 (9mm)
semi-auto pistol. Small and powerful,
it's my concealed-carry permit weapon
of choice, in areas where such a
privilege is legal, with my permit, but seldom
ever even needed. Spokane is not
a shoot-em-up town like some I have
lived in (Southern Arizona!),
and I don't cruise bars, bus depots or trailer parks
at night. Next comes my Beretta 96F
(40cal) with pistol grip laser sighting as a big powerful back-up. Too large
for true concealed carry but my
favorite range fire weapon and the
first thing I'd grab if a predator breaks into my home. I sleep with
both (loaded) right by my bed. It's the next larger caliber Beretta used by all our Armed Forces, whose pistol is the 9mm
version, or M9. I recently bought a used but in great condition Walther PPK/S-1, semi-automatic .380 cal pistol
for concealed carry, but as a back-up to my XD-9. It shoots larger rounds than the XD-9 but each magazine only holds 7 rounds, so I carry 1 'in
the spout' and one 7-round mag loaded with the safety on, plus 3-4 seven-round mags in back-up. It came to me from
the estate sale following George DeGeare's passing and was his personal concealed carry weapon of choice. A well
made German pistol (relic of the Cold War) but in the days when MI-6
secret agents go up against terrorists firing 600 rounds-per-minute
full auto machine guns, I fail to see why 007 would want a weapon that only shoots 8 rounds before you have to
reload it. It is a nice small and powerful close quarters combat knock-down weapon, which at the range would be
fun to shoot out to maybe 30-meters, but it's main use is my self-defense. My only other gun is a Mossberg 500 12-gauge shotgun with folding/combat
stock. Nice to have just in case,
but only an idiot thinks that owning
a gun gives them carte-blanche
to act irresponsibly with their
deadly possessions. Fastest way to end up in jail for a long time, or
dead. I used to shoot targets only, as I do not believe in killing for sport. I DO regret helping to atomize
some Hawaiian wild pigs in my
20's with HE mortar rounds! Killing an animal for my survival/food would bother only my conscience and hopefully not
the law. If I have to rely on
hunting to eat, then I think America will have hit it's bottom. I don't hunt and I don't plan on looking for grizzlies
unless it's for a long-distance photo shoot! Using a weapon as a VERY last resort
in self defense of myself, or others who need 'lawful' life saving help in the absence of police and their lives are being endangered by others, qualifies on a 'reasonable man' jury judgment call to use minimal force required to stop the situation from turning deadly. That could go right or
very wrong the second I react,
or don't. I hope I never have to make that decision, but I would opt to protect myself if imminent death or serious injury were the only other options. With that sobering right means I have to know what is lawful and what being stupid is. And I do!
My latest acquisition is a 1-million volt stun-gun the size of a box of
cigarettes that fits into the palm of my hand, and gives me a non-lethal option to stun any attacker, knock them
out cold with just one discharge for long enough to leave or get the police to help. Even when they come around
they have little muscle control and are disorientated, not a threat to anyone for maybe an hour until the effects
completely wear off, also great if an angry dog charges me to attack too. Even if I am touching the person when
I zap them the volts do not pass into me, they go straight to the attackers nervous system and not their outer
body or even clothing. It will even stun & incapacitate anyone through a jacket. It was not cheap, it is very well made and charges from a wall jack
charger that holds the charge inside sealed lithium/cadmium batteries, waterproofed. It is good for 60 zaps before
it needs a re-charge, and even comes with front facing white LED lights so in the dark I can hit one button to light up the attacker(s), find out the
best spot to touch it to them and slide my finger up to the next button which shoots out a 1-millionvolt charge, enough to incapacitate a large bull let alone a human and no lasting
damage done. Drops them like a sack of potatoes and is so small they would never see it coming. This IS a legal
in WA State self-defense concealed
carry item. Cost $130 to get it legally mailed to me from a U.S. vendor. Knowing when, where and how to keep it
legal is just as importamt as any
fire-arm, too much stun will end
up being a bad legal rap and only
an idiot would drain it on a non-moving/out cold perp.
The very legal non-lethal 'Street-wise' KNOCKOUT stun gun.
The 'smartest' citizens
keep their skills, tricks and
weapons legal, to themselves, and
only use them when there is
no other option, or for legal sport. I have found that those who seek
confrontations are normally not so good at it, unless they add some 'liquid courage' (booze/dope) and/or bring their friends or a weapon as back-up. I have worked in many ambulance sections for years with Military Police and their Criminal
Investigations Division units, dodging
bullets from perps at crime scenes, so I know their jobs well handling volatile situations that we both responded to hundreds of times, me working 911 EMS calls, them bagging/dropping armed perps. Thankfully I live in a part of Spokane where those goons stick out and one call to
911 sends them running. I detest bullies, liars, bigots, thieves, free-loaders and obnoxious drunks/dopers. Social drinkers... more
power to you! You can go where I can not.
I keep alcohol for my visitors
who want a drink, not a free booze-binge. I try to avoid folks with drug and/or booze problems, or emotional time bombs set to explode with one wrong word, but I know some and their problems have destroyed
our friendships both old and new. I prefer the company of people who control their habits and minds, instead of
their habits or psychosis's controlling them or desiring to manipulate me into their delusions. My last remaining bad habit
is cigarettes, and EVERYONE I have met tells me that all smokers finally quit. Black Humor!!! I hope I can kick that nasty habit too SOON!
Not a way I want to check-out!!! I
live alone and like it that way.
Me and an old friend enjoying time together.
Congratulation, you have been reading for about 2-4 hours and
now know a little more about who I am, where I started, where I've been, and where I am now.
Bitching! This is a brief (Liar!) and somewhat convoluted summary of
my life, that may make an
interesting book if I ever decide
to pour it all out in length and detail one day. That will be a very large book. As long as this Home Page is,
I haven't even begun to tell it all yet, which would fill volumes. I wonder if your
life has been as 'different' as mine
has been, and still is. Maybe it is
and I congratulate you for surviving
long enough to read my humble Home Page!
Heads-up you Ghost Writer types. After reading this (LONG) page you may have
questions, or better yet we may
have met somewhere and want to
stay in touch, which is what this Home Page
is really designed for. Several major search-engines now carry this
page, and that's global! You can follow my ongoing Odyssey, and I might
be able to catch-up on yours.
I update this page as events occur in my life and changes in the lives of those who I care about. If you made my
page by name, I think you are special
in some way to me be it good or
otherwise. If you want your
info removed from this page, e-mail me, and I will comply, unless you are an ersatz Vet advocate in our government and continue to screw my fellow Veterans. When you are voted (or booted) out of office I'll remove your name. 'K!
My Mother and me in happier times.
I just wish to God her life had been easier.
1929-1998. May she rest in peace.
Military Assignments and Consequences
This is a list of U.S. Army units I served in that will fill in the blanks I skipped during the intro to this Home
Page: 1977-1979 C Co., & HHC 78th Engineer Bn., Demolition's Technician,
& ACE Mobile Force member,
Ettligen, (then) Federal Republic of Germany. 1980-1982 B Co., 9th Medical Bn.,
NCOIC Ambulance Platoon and Company Communications NCO as an additional task, Ft. Lewis, WA. 1982-1885 HHC 1st
Bn., 35th Infantry, from a Senior Line Medic to their Medical Platoon Sergeant, Schofield Bks., Oahu, HI. 1985-1986
HHC 25th Infantry Division (Light), Division Surgeons Office NCOIC, Schofield Bks., Oahu, HI. One very successful year into that position it
was time to reenlist for four more years and my only option was to change from being the Division's enlisted medical 'top-dog' to MEDCOM, a hospital! Reason per
FORSCOM, the 'Combat Command' of the United States Army:
I'd been with the Infantry way toooo long. I craved
what many others went out of their way to avoid! I made a B-line
for the closest E.R. and went looking
for a job. 1986-1988 US Army Health
Clinic, Schofield Bks., NCOIC Ambulance Section, Oahu, HI. 1988-1989 Tripler Army Medical Center, Ambulance Section,
Oahu, HI. Both jobs provided major
EMS action running constant 911 calls into Schofield Barracks or Honolulu (city and airport), Hickam Air Force Base and Red
Hill military housing complex (The
Crater) refining my medical skills nicely. Then I discovered Mech Infantry! 1989-1993 HHC 2nd Bn., 12th Infantry, 1st (Raider) Brigade, 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) 'Lethal Warriors',
Medical Platoon Sergeant, Ft. Carson, CO. I loved that unit and it was the most intense and rewarding position
I ever held. Mech was new to me,
but it sure beat marching to an objective 30 klicks away! Even if being inside a large metal box on tracks with
blazing red crosses all over it made for an inviting target. Not
a concern with light infantry
who can vanish and regroup. Mechanized force on force
exercises are an awesome experience.
The price? A LOT of Motor-Pool time fixing those beasts! The other cost is Mech
exercises often generated many nasty
real-world casualties when pushed by hot-shot Full Bird Colonels. At the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in Death
Valley, 1991, California we were the first unit to ever complete a 30-day force on force rotation ending in a 0% DOW or Died of Wounds
rate. In non-medical terms, we
evacuated all'casualties' within one hour of a MILES (run a search yourself!) 'injury'.
All under the watchful eyes of Observer/Controllers and the Death Star,
a large building which is where real time/GPS decisions were made and monitored. All
high tech and as close to real as you get! Watch the bloody History Channel! OPFOR or Opposing
Forces (the 'enemy') whose
backyard it still is, normally
whoops-ass on any visiting unit! They took a thrashing at our medical audacity! How we did that is a whole book in itself! Lethal
Warrior coin number 213.I remember some great [tough] years
serving with a young Staff Sergeant
Premdas, my evacuation point man,who I made contact with when he retired
as a Master Sergeant, but like
all of my old Army M8's you are now too busy I guess to reply to my e-mails overtures, but I did get your Christmas card in 2007, 'K.
Good luck in your new life Prem. That
team included the finest MSC officer I ever served with: 1LT Andy
Roybal, or (Physician's Assistant and Battalion Surgeon) P.A. CW3 Pat Campbell, who taught me more real medicine
in 2 years than most doctors learn in 6! We were one hell of a medical team! 'Meat
Wagon' Six-Actual! MEDNET flash call! We rewrote the rules or 'improved' existing
ones to beat out the best and amaze the brass! "Thinking on your feet", was a common bullet comment
often used in our enlisted and officer evaluation reports, or award citations. Or
in non-military terms, making the right decision in the absence of orders that turned out to be the perfect solution
for all concerned.
Then Ilia was medically discharged for asthma at 18
years of service, or just 2 years short of a regular 20-year Army retirement! A
ignominious way to end the career of a Senior
Medical NCO with a good service record. She started her career as a WAC. An
iconic (W.W.II - 'Nam era) Womans Army Corps that no longer exists, in an Army that now has females serving in front-line combat rolls. I had just been offered the NCOIC position
of the 4th I.D. (M) Division Surgeons Office,
as I had in another Infantry unit some years before. I declined and rented-out our beautiful home right off base. It later foreclosed and I lost my V.A. guaranteed home-loan option for life while I was in California dealing with the death of my Mother, and back then I didn't
give a shit about much. In 1993 I applied for and was granted a compassionate
reassignment to (HOT) Arizona,
following Ilia's medical discharge. It was a place that helped her asthma, got her out of the cold, but halved our income until her disability started trickling in, most unbeknownst to me hauling
ambulances through deserts, training areas and towns Code-3 daily to all kinds of FUBAR real-world emergencies.
Ilia's disability rating from the V.A.
and Social Security guarantees her a good quality of life today, if she could just manage her life and find some modicum of happiness, I would
be very happy for her. Moving
down to the Mexican border only
turned her 2 of her 3 teenage sons from major drug users into hard drug dealers with very lethal connections. We arrived in the summer of 1993, and I was back in a MEDDAC at Raymond W.
Bliss Army Community Hospital, Ft.
Huachuca, Sierra Vista, AZ.
First as NCOIC of their Emergency Department for 2+ years, then to my final (retirement) position as NCOIC of 111th Military Intelligence Brigade Clinic. A unit I became more attached to than my own hospital Chain of Command. I was the only MEDDAC soldier to receive the 111th M.I. Brigade coin for my efforts (at that time) with a patient load running 3-4,000 per month. My loyalties always remained with combat and combat support
units. Something my hospital Chain of Command could never fathom. My rank at retirement was Sergeant First Class or E7. I could have
gone further (sober), with no Hep-C,
but 20 years was all I wanted to secure a retirement income as a civilian, go back to school for a Bachelor's degree using my untouched 4-year G.I. Bill education benefits, and start a new career in Information
Technology, a skill I learnt on & off duty. I tried that in early 1998
(still boozing) and after 2 weeks
in Santa Rosa Junior College I realized I was not even able to grasp the curriculum, so I quit. Daily physical training (P.T.) was getting harder for me to keep up with soldiers young
enough to be my own kids, and doing more with less was taking it's toll on retention and morale.
Many of my mid-90's peers took the tempting early retirement bulk-sum buck$ way out at 15+ years into what were supposed to be 20-30 year careers, ending in full retirement status, with monthly retired pay-checks for life, and so many other privileges
they were not entitled to
once they'd taken the early-out money and run. My closest military friend (an E6 Medical NCO who didn't know when to shut his mouth) did exactly that after a poor NCO Evaluation Report (a career ender at that time) and spent
it all within a year. He ended-up
miserable/divorced and flipping burgers in a fast-food joint
off-post for minimal wage the last
time I saw him! It was the Army's way of culling the herd and downsizing, again. Bill Clinton
didn't think we'd ever fight another major
war and many units and posts
just ceased to exist. No one in the big chair was listening to the to the other desert storms brewing in another radical Islamic nation, even after the 1st hit on the WTC, our Embassies in Africa, the USS Cole and the ignominy of mutilated naked American commandos dragged thru the streets of
Somalia! Special-ops mission(s) could have taken their whole al-Queda leadership out with simultaneous preemptive strikes at each stronghold (that's what they are trained to do for God's sake!!!!) before
they even knew we were in their 'hood'! The CIA was screaming imminent danger a whole year before 9/11, but no
one listened. It wasn't cricket then old
chap! So Bill C. launched
a few cruise missiles at the dump
and thought that was all it took
to eliminate Osama bin Dickhead. By 1996 I'd already pushed myself too hard and too fast and
had Hep-C unbeknownst to me. One year out from 20 years active duty years I submitted my retirement packet, already
infected with Hep-C and wondering
why I had no energy! I'd already
been given a career-ending P3 physical profile for acute varicose veins making me non-deployable. The Army didn't even know I had Hep-C (no
test done), but found me "fit for duty" during my retirement physical
with: "High liver enzymes"
and what they thought was early glaucoma, a taste of things to come, both now major health concerns I didn't have
before I enlisted. Fit for duty but non-deployable are GLARING contradictions. Hmmmm! I started counting down the days and praying I'd make it. Life at home was in major
crisis. Threats were being made on
my life on an alarming & regular basis, not by the crazies I responded to in an ambulance anymore, but by the teenage thugs I was living at home with, and their associates
. Joshua, you have grown-up and changed your ways, but those last few years you and your brother made my last 4
years in uniform a miserable existence.
I can forgive but never fully forget those 'dog days' of a 20-year Army career and a marriage gone so wrong.
KudosandShining Moments
As I stated earlier, my first 3 years in service distinguished
me in no way. No medals, no
honors, nothing but a honorable discharge at the end for my time in NATO. That all changed so fast when I pulled my head out of my ass and started taking the U.S.
Army seriously, finding I had untapped skills which this time I applied,
not dodged. That's when the U.S. Army
started taking me seriously, so we got married I guess, and oh
what a perfect union it became :-) My awards and decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal, 1st OLC. An 'OLC' is an acronym for Oak
Leaf Cluster and denotes
a second and subsequent award of the same medal. The Army Commendation Medal 3rd OLC, the Army Achievement Medal 3rd OLC, the Good Conduct Medal with silver knot or 6th
award, the National Defense Service Medal,
the Humanitarian Service Medal, earned
while fighting wild fires in California
with the 4th Infantry 'Raider Brigade'
assisting the overwhelmed local fire-fighters. Casualties were hourly throughout that 2-week mission. Raider Brigade coin #
382 for that fiery op. The
NCO Professional Development Ribbon
with numeral 3, the Army Service Ribbon, the Overseas
Ribbon with numeral 2. I was also honor graduate in all my military courses starting as Honor Graduate after advanced medical training (91B10), Fort Sam Houston, TX, (my second run through
Advanced Individual Training/AIT) in summer 1980. I was Honor Graduate of my first Basic N.C.O. Leadership course with the 9th Infantry Division '81. I placed academic
first in every Emergency Medical Technician course I ever attended and maintained that certification throughout most of my medical career. I went on to teach that course,
when mission allowed me that latitude. Openings for EMT courses were scarce and my new medics needed it more than me, so I lost my certification for a few years so they could add that to their
credentials. Providing me better trained medics in return. Not bragging
folks; just telling you the truth.
When I attended schools or courses my instructors learned I had a natural ability to memorize everything they threw at me, they started assigning me as a
'Peer-Counselor' for those who
were having problems cutting the grades. My tactical skills were normally
well above the level of my clinical peers who had seldom served in infantry or combat arms
units by virtue of their fixed hospital-only medical specialties. I'd spent most of my military career in or with the Infantry
or as a Combat Engineer. This doubled my workload throughout the courses. Many senior enlisted soldier/medics owe their careers to the hours (and days) of additional
time I spent coaching them in all courses I attended, while others were off having weekend fun then wondering why they washed-out and got booted-out of service upon return to their parent units. I was getting 'groomed' for an early E8 selection board I'd never see. Being
a Platoon Sergeant (E7) is the BEST job in the Army, period! It's the last real chance to actually lead 40+ soldier/medics on real-world missions and way-tough training in conditions which make or break Battalion Commanders. I was awarded the 25th Infantry Division (L) Medical Master certification in '85. Master certification started in the infantry jobs or MOS's and soon progressed into an award that meant by
test you had proven superior proficiency in whatever field you
tested. Many tried but only the very
best earned that coveted distinction.
I tested-out as Tripler's 'NCO of the Year'
in 1986 and placed 2nd at Ft. Sam Houston, TX during their annual Army-wide Medical NCO of the Year competition the next year. Tripler Army Medical Center's Commanding
General gave me a Tripler AMC coin for my efforts, which now lays under the urn of my mentor and Godfather, Master Sergeant
Eddie Facundo in the Military
Cemetery of the Presidio of San Francisco. I could live with being the #2 'best' medical NCO in the entire U.S. Army. I already had a set of Dress Blues (shown
on this page) and one Meritorious
Service Medal, the prizes for 1st
place. In 1992 I made Honor Graduate
of MEDCOM's Advanced Non-Commissioned
Officers Academy, back at Fort Sam
Houston, a place all career medics revisit, making E7 shortly thereafter. I went through lengthy Equal
Opportunity training in Arizona, becoming the Equal Opportunity Coordinator (an additional responsibility
to my main medical mission) for the MEDDAC
unit I was assigned to from '93 though retirement in '97. Gender or racial problems came from the top as often
as it emerged from the bottom of my chain of command, forcing me to put many a 'peer' or sometimes a superior
back on track, or worse if
they repeated the offense. I'm a recipient of the 9th Infantry Distinguished
Soldier Award. I also earned the Expert
Field Medical Badge (tough!) and placed first in all the skill level and written tests required to earn that badge,
except the final 12 mile march, coming in loaded with 40+ pounds of basic infantry gear at 2 hours, 25 minutes.
Some jack-rabbit 1st Lieutenant
MSC officer made it in 2 hours
flat and ran the whole way! We had 3 hours max to make the last part and after 2 weeks of testing 16+ hours a day,
plus coaching others, I was physically beat-up by the end event but made it huffing
& puffing. After many thousands of miles driving everything from Jeeps to Gamma-Goats,
to Cracker-box Front-Line Ambulance's, to Hummers, to 2.5 and
5-ton trucks, and most models of civilian EMS ambulances earned me the Drivers
Badge (W, or wheel designator). Annual weapons qualification always earned me an Expert Pistol Marksmanship Badge. My 'skills'
with an M16 were never asgood
as my skills with pistols. I do miss the M1911 Colt 45, that was
one hell of a knock-down Medic's weapon. I was also an American Heart Association
Basic Life Support Instructor/Trainer
throughout most of my medical career, and have trained hundreds of Instructors in
CPR and obstructed airway management. God
only knows how many lives that saved c/o
their students and their
classes. I ended up training many Combat Lifesavers years after I created the Army-wide program. I have enough awards and decorations to fill an entire
"I love me" room! However
I put a few trophies out, like the skillfully hand painted mug with my retirement rank on it, that my cousin Dave
made for me as my latest addition, but I still keep most of the Army medals, plaques and dayzzz out of view. They bring back bitter sweet memories of a past I am no longer an active part of, and deep concerns for those who still serve this country. 'Support
our troops, but question the politics by voting!' is my credo. Those who
now serve our country are the finest
soldiers, marines, sailors, airmen and 'coasties' that this nation has ever fielded. To send them into any combat without orders to destroy anything that gets in their way is a policy of defeatism. Infantrymen and Marines are not cops or Farsi fluent
experts in maintaining peace under fire. They are generally trained to engage an enemy and destroy it. Time to
stop playing by (outdated) rules of engagement that have no meaning to those who exploit ours. I also salute our internal security services from spooks to police to boarder-patrols. You too
help defend our nation in so
many ways. You have to as we don't have many troops left @ home to do that job anymore. BTW your phone/e-mail taps
on my lines are sloppy, and I don't have anything to say but express my 1st Amendment rights to friends near & far. So go bug some Saudi here on a 'student visa' buying-up chemicals to make explosives, or taking photos of our civilian nuclear reactors then e-mailing them back to his kin in Syria, and stop
wasting your time with me :-)
Plain text ONLY and no attachments, no HTML, or it gets auto-filtered-out
unread
by my Yahoo web-mail settings, and
I don't even open Yahoo e-mails with 'no subject', or the infamous anagrams Viagra has mutated into.
A word of
caution to those who send spam, Yahoo filters it out before I even see it, and Yahoo goes after anyone trying to send me infected e-mails which never hit my Yahoo Inbox, but will get you traced, and your ISP will probably do the dirty on you for sending it.
A felony
cyber crime
they will prosecute, as will our FBI.
Some of my dearest
living friends have asked me why
pictures of them, or their full names/addresses, etc., do not show on this home-page. Simple,
it is because I care too much for their safety. I make it very clear
that I think the world would be a much
better place if Islamic radicals
were disposed off permanently. Final solution style. That wins me few friends
except with those who share my views, great folks like Marine Corps
snipers! "Reach out & touch some one!' My hit counter tells me I get plenty of hits from regions of the globe where these cowardly brain-washed fanatical
scum check in on me, and I will not endanger the lives of those I care about by posting friends images or (current) personal
data about them here. If 'Abdul
Mo-IED' wants some of me, bring it on, but I will not
make it easy for your goons
to go after innocents by proxy who I care about!
Which IS your proven and cowardly way to 'punish'
those who think you are sub-human
filth and you shame anything good left in Islam.
One of my dearest friends is a female convert to Islam, she is a gentle, kind and caring soul who I admire and
she exudes the qualities of her faith, not the prejudices which many associate with the angry closed mind Mosque-bobbers
of brainwashed hatreds to all non-Muslims.
My most useful 'office in the sky' & hope for life to those who
were running out of it fast.
Xing-loi G.I.!
Most of all I
wish our forces were home and safe, and then turn most of our enemies hold-outs into glass c/o
our very
large unused nuclear arsenal! Collateral, yes we worry about that, but who we face doesnot,
with (much more terror than anyone can handle) terror as a counter to terror works as any historian will bear out!
We have the ability to make Hitler
look like a petty thug, but I ask myself if your enemy goes to ground, deny him any ground to go to, and if that means depopulating this planet with fissile terror and billions dead, then we have the means [but not the
will] to change this world to fit our needs, or wait as sheeple and some radical Muslims
will surely
change our America by destroying it
if we continue to wage war just how they want us to, conventional, bloody, protracted, costly and lacking the terror that a first strike of nukes would change the world we
know in a day and eliminate many of those who would do the very same to us with just a fraction of our nuclear
arsenal when
not if, they get their filthy hands on some and figure out a way
to deliver them. Or vote a pacifist president into power and wait for what is coming, radical Muslim goals to destroy us where we live and no
real reason to stop pursuing those goals. Since the 1979 Iran hostage SNAFU that has been the plan, and 9/11 was just a horrible taste of how bad we may be stupid enough to allow things to get if we still think waging wars does not include making
examples out of the places our enemies are comfortable hiding out in.
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