Growing Up

     Three years before my days in Vietnam I worked in a machine shop.  It was only a summer job between school years in college.  Didn't know what waited for me up the road.  I recall we had a contract to make primers for 105mm howitzers.  'Spose I could see some kind of irony in that but choose not to.  For me it was just a way to make a buck and a half an hour with lots of overtime.  Hot summer.  Most of us ate lunch out in the parking lot to cool off under a ninety degree sun.  Could be all the machine oil that soaked my skin in the heat of '66 also sealed me off from agent orange.
     The business was already old school back in the days we now consider old school.  The machinery seemed in good shape though the building that housed it was probably built at the beginning of WWII, maybe earlier.  That we were making armaments didn't phase me a bit.  What did catch my attention was loading the machine I worked.  Every twenty seconds a finished part had to be removed and a new one inserted by hand.  A little slow and I'd either miss a load or get a machine carved finger.  It was a rare hour that I didn't miss a few loads.  Not sure if it was 'cause I wasn't fast enough or simply cautious.
     Looking back on that year it seems to me I was just biding my time.  Treading water till my life found its course.  That happened the next summer when I bought my first car.  It was my brother who kick started my life.  He worked at a car dealership, found me my wheels then a couple of weeks later got me a summer job running cars from the lot to the mechanics.  Good job, decent money and opened me up to possibility.  A car'll do that.
     Back then the Domino Theory ruled the government's efforts in the world.  Should we give up on a country such as South Vietnam it'd lead to a chain of events with one country after another falling to Communism like toppling dominos.  Don't know if that was true but my life sure followed the pattern.  The car led to me getting a driver's license.  Then to a job.  Then to dropping out of school for a quarter.  Falling in love.  A dead end.  Volunteering for the draft.  Training, Vietnam and marriage.  All in a little over two years.  A story no doubt told a million times back then.  Seems like a bunch of us grew up fast.  Went from the supposed, carefree teenage years of the mid-sixties to carrying a load of guilt and confusion in the blink of an eye.  Then came home as outsiders.
     And even today it feels like we're still pariahs.  Not a president served in Vietnam.  Or Korea for that matter.  I'm not bitter about it but sure feel it says something about our country.  I'll let you be the judge as to what that is.
   

Plans for the New Year

     Got a phone call from my son-in-law this morning about a future trip to the Boundary Waters.  Blame it on Gary Paulsen and his writings for tween-aged boys.  A while back I found a copy of "Hatchet" and gave it to Jakob as a present.  I'd read a couple of Paulsen's adult books and had enjoyed them thoroughly.  Took a chance on "Hatchet" and it turned out to be as advertised.  Not having read the novel I'm not exactly sure of its connection to the BWCA but somehow it perked up Ryan and Jakob's interest.
     Of course I'd like the trip to be a 'Wow, it was everything I hoped it would be', kind of thing.  But you never know.  Nothing's predictable when it comes to spending a few days with Mother Nature.  Weather, bugs, fishing, campsites, all of them have their own way of doing things.  Hope I can strike a balance when speaking of the trip.  Warned but not terrified.  Excited but not overly inflated.  Ryan had mentioned a couple of days.  I figure three nights.  Half day in, half day out, two full days of fishing.  One portage would be enough.  Small water better than big.
     Sure didn't see this trip coming.  Ryan's back is always a concern.  Year's past he's feared what sleeping on the ground would do to it.  Seems he resolved the issue with a "Yeah, my back will hurt and I'll deal with it."  Hope Jakob doesn't mind carrying his Dad over a portage 'cause I'm way too old for those kind of shenanigans.
     Enough for now.  Gotta tell you, I'm excited.

What To Do ?

     I need to rewrite this blog.  Also need to get the first two Army entries out of my fishing blog and over here.  If I knew how, I would.  Maybe I'll check with the internet.

Easter Again

     Don't like Easter.  Can't say I ever did.  Maybe it's the ham?  Or going to church.  Not a fan of that either.  Without going into details I'll simply say it's not my happy spot.  All kinds of things run through my head and inevitably I find myself in a warehouse waiting for a bus to take three hundred of us to a plane that'll eventually land in Vietnam.
     The message in church invariably runs along the line of Christ died for your sins and then rose from the dead.  I knew a few men who also died for (because) of our sins.  Only difference is they're still dead and in a box that was once covered with a flag.  Doesn't piss me off like it once did.  Doesn't make me happy either.  It's just the way it is.

What to Tell the Grandkids?

     Jakob called me on November 11th with a "Happy Veteran's Day".  Nice of him to do so even though his Dad was standing alongside prodding him on.  Uf dah, it's not easy saying a simple thank you when there so many conflicting thoughts running through your head.
     What can I say?  The war sucked?  I didn't really want to be there?  It was an ugly war that should never have been fought?  Can't say I'd have understood such ideas back when I was eight.
     Whatever I did say probably reflected my jumbled mind.  A little stammering, a stutter or two, then a  simple thank you.  Before I die I'll have to have a heart to heart with all my grandchildren.  Let them know what the war in Vietnam was like from a grunt's point of view.  Doubt very much their high school history classes will get it right.

Woolwine IV

     Sometimes I'm incredibly stupid.   Awhile back I received a comment from the son of Bobby Woolwine.  Sure didn't see that coming.  And don't know how he found this blog unless he did a lot of digging.  Regardless, he did write me a note concerning his dad and though Jason's words have stuck with me over the months, I've haven't written of them.
     From what Jason wrote, Bobby Woolwine's life was greatly affected by his time in Vietnam.  Still had shrapnel in his body and eye. has suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome and is now passing through dementia.  Seems like those who went through the worst shit during the war were doomed to live through the worst shit afterwards.  Not a whole lot of justice in that situation as far as I can see.
     Over the years I've searched the internet for Woolwine and a few others with nothing to show for my efforts.  Don't know what I'd do even if I did get a few hits.  That was then and this is now.  Doubt I'm even the same person I was in those olive drab days.
     To this point in my life I've found it best to turn my memories into words and store them in this blog.  Better here than festering away in my mind.  So, I'll sign off for now and maybe do an internet check of Bobby's name.

Easter

     Yesterday was Easter.  That means I was on one of my rare visits to a church.  Even spiffed up a bit.  A disguise to wear into the valley of death in hopes of warding off evil.  As usual it's a reluctancy.  Stuffed in a building with a crowd of people singing about things I don't believe in.  Don't find true.  Makes me feel guilty I'm in the building and not in the open air.
     There's an up side.  Church moves me inward.  I drift off to other locations and times.  Kinda like being in the Army.  My body in one place, my mind in another.
     Seeing as how it was the day it was, my drift begins in the direction of Oakland Army Base, 1969.  Guess that's forty-five years ago as the crow flies.  Left for Vietnam on Easter sunday.  Nothing gets me out of where I am at the moment like that day and the months that followed.
     Lacking the ability to hold onto a single train of thought, my airhead moves elsewhere from the Nam.  Yesterday my drift was with my Uncle Emil and the tale I recently rough drafted about him.  Being in church I got to thinking that maybe he could be my mouthpiece concerning belief.  Hate to put the man in that off-putting position but better him than me.  Dragging that kind of stuff out in the open riles up my nerves.  Makes me think no matter what I say it has no weight.  Just guesswork in a world floating on belief and calling it gospel.
     Can't say my attitude in church started in Vietnam but it sure had a few nails driven in over there.  Since then nails have just kept on coming.
     On a similar level and definitely related were the times we stood in formation to honor those who'd been killed in a previous operation.  Bayonetted M-16 stabbed into the ground, helmet on top, boots to either side at the base.  Much like the man without the body.  Then a brief speech by Bravo 6, our CO, that drew on our mission to stop the spread of Communism.  The boys had not died in vain.  Amen.
     Gotta say those memorials tended to piss me off.  To me the deaths didn't have much of a point to them.  Coupla guys got caught in the meat grinder and would just have soon been alive and home.  Don't know how the others felt 'cause there was no way the subject could have been brought up.  Life in the big war.  Suck it up, keep your mouth shut and head back out to the field.
     In short, it's my problem, for better or worse.  And not something easily spoken of in polite society.