Preface..

Corrections and updates...

Prologue..

          I came slinking home to Maple Shade, NJ, in May of 1967 after what turned out to be a not-so-successful attempt at a Freshman year at college. Some people are ready for their turn at higher education at 18 or 19; this cowboy was most definitely not. To my eternal shame I had blown over $4000 from my parents and from various government loans and back then that was BIG BUCKS.

     I stumbled around for eight months, discovering that very few employers were ready to risk taking on a young man who was about to be classified 1-A by his friends and neighbors at the local draft board. So, in December, I made the leap and enlisted in the U.S. Army on a 90-day delayed induction. My thanks to old hometown friend Bob Weidel, a Navy vet who understood my situation, who helped make those three months memorable and somewhat legal.

     I had the Army's smiling guarantee that I would, after Basic Training, study Audio Engineering (a skill in which I already had considerable skill, experience and knowledge) at Ft. Monmouth and then be suitably assigned.

     As I think back now I have to laugh at my naïveté. See, buried deeply within each of those enlistment contracts back then (and, I suspect, even now) are the magic words "needs and convenience of the Army". This meant that, while my obligation to the Army was to turn over control of my entire physical being to them for three years, their obligation to me was to do what they could to follow through on their promises, but if they needed Mike in another job, anywhere, anytime, then that's what was gonna happen.

     The Army followed through with their deal, until the end of the Audio School at Ft. Monmouth, when, along with two other classmates, I was "levied" into Military Intelligence and sent to Arlington Hall Station, just outside Washington D.C. They had NO idea what we were supposed to do there, hadn't even been notified that we were coming, and we were essentially told to just find something, anything, to occupy our time until an idea eventually occurred to the Commanding Officer. What we found to do included pinball, basketball, swimming and as many three-day passes as we could cadge. Somewhere along the line I installed a PA system in the tiny USO on the post.

     The CO's idea was remarkable...get rid of us! And so orders came down transferring the three of us to Ft. Devens, MA, just in time for Winter. A New England Winter, with ice and snow and all that nasty stuff. Dan Polinski (now a Sergeant Major in the Reserves and the Godfather of both of my biological children) and Bob Carnicle wound up doing something I don't remember.

     I wound up running a language lab.

     And, no, in case you're wondering, I have NO language skills beyond American English. Each day that I sat playing incomprehensible tapes and watching Green Berets learn Cambodian ("Why in the world," I asked myself, "would they need to learn Cambodian?") sent one more tick upward in the frustration-o-meter. I really wanted to work in the MOS for which I had enlisted and had been trained: recording and mixing audio on tape and film. I was also really dreading shovelling Massachusetts snow.

     I searched Ft. Devens for any slot even remotely related to my Primary MOS and found none locally. But I did eventually find an opening with an outfit called the 221st Signal Company. Upside: it was in a warm locale and I could work fully in my MOS. Downside: the warm locale was Sunny Southeast Asia, specifically the Republic of South Vietnam. I took a deep breath and volunteered for the job. Orders came down almost immediately.

     But first I had to take POR (Process Overseas Replacement) Training, several days of needless harassment during which troops headed out were conditioned for their new assignments. Army Security Agency RVN assignees were required to go through additional "training" by Hawaiian and Oriental-American troops (called "minniehoonies", as I remember) masquarading as NVA interrogators, in the event they were ever captured. I was headed out of the ASA and didn't have to go through all that.

     Imagine taking that kind of training for an assignment in Vietnam during a brutal Northeastern blizzard...we lived for three days in a field tent (the temps were around or below zero) and attended outdoor classes and weapons training. I qualified Expert on an M-60 machine gun firing at a target I couldn't see because of the storm; good thing I had already qualified with M-14 and M-16 automatic rifles! I figured my orders had been changed and I was headed to Korea!

     Nonetheless, I was considered suitably trained and arrived home just before Christmas 1968 to spend my thirty-day leave with family and friends before I rotated overseas.

     And during this time, some amazing things happened to me. First, I became a Married Person. The less said about that, the better, except that from that marriage came two wonderful, exceptional children. Regardless, I needed to get the woman to whom I was now married photo'd and id'd as a military dependent, and so we were off on the thirty-minute drive to Fort Dix NJ, where I would also get my necessary round of immunizations for service in Southeast Asia.

     As we drove through the post, I looked out my window and lo and behold saw that the MP motioning me forward was the guy who had been my college radio GM almost two years before, Ed Simmons. MP SGT Simmons, now, and we stopped all traffic while we reunited. On to my travel shots, when I discovered that while she was pregnant with me my Mother had been exposed to TB and that's why, to this day, when I have a TB test, it's always positive.

     Tuberculosis Mike, just like Typhoid Mary. At least I'm immune.

     We obtained the necessary ID and military allotment certification for the (then) wife and drove back to the ancestral home to wait out my flight.

     Life was suddenly a drag. Married and all at 20 and headed for Vietnam, know what I mean?