When growing up, a natural Saturday rite of passage was going to the barbershop with my father. While he was in the chair, some of the reading material would include "Men At War" and other magazines. Generally they would show a muscled up Sargeant Rock type of guy with no shirt running in the Phillipines with a machine gun in one arm and a nubile woman being rescued from harms way in another arm. It was sort of an at war version of Tarzan and Jane. My dad caught me reading that when he got down from the chair, jerked it from my hand and said it was all bull%$!*. I didn't ask what it was all about and he wasn't telling.
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Charles "Bud" Bowman was my grandfather. He gave me more than I could ever repay. Not money, just guidance.
When I was young, the world was being reshaped and driven by the WWII veterans. Hitler was still very much in the forefront of newsreels and history lessons and combat movies did well at the box office.
My Grandfather was a World War One vet. When I would go through his drawers I would find medals from his service. The closest I could ever get to any mention of this service or combat was watching the annual Army-Navy game. And combat was never mentioned. I was very curious about the combat thing as a child because it seemed to be lurking in the background. I never pushed the envelope with Bud. I was at the Rodeo Parade in Phoenix as a very young kid and wanted him to buy me a poppy from a street vendor, and I was told in no uncertain terms that he did not approve or want anything to do with a poppy plant or its byproducts...which at the time confused me. After all, it was just a flower. I had no idea of the relationship between the poppy and heroin.
What I did find out from my mom years later was that Bud was gassed in the trenches in France and was buried alive. The WW One was the great coming out party for nerve gas. I guess that would explain Bud was a tad high strung. How could you not be from that experience? It has to be hard to shake the memory of being buried alive with hundreds of your dead and dying friends while you are suffering from nerve gas. That is dead center in the smell of death. Yet he always had patience with me and taught me so much. He basically said in so many words that war sucked and that there was no romantic part of the Army during intense combat.
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My Father, Richard, graduated from High School at age sixteen. He went to John Carroll University in Cleveland on a Mathematics scholarship. He grew into his frame that year and was tired of going around having people call him a slacker for not being in the service. At seventeen he had his mom sign his enlistment in the Navy.
Richard went to the Pacific Theatre of the second world war. As opposed to the European War, this part of the war did not get the publicity or at least as much publicity. When the war was over he played on the all Navy football team featuring Hall of Famer, Joe the Jet Perry. They beat Doc Blanchards' all Army team. This was a period when your best players were all in the service. Richard went on to star at Arizona State with another great, pro football Hall of Famer John Henry Johnson, and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers.
Dad never mentioned war and made it very clear that he wasn't going to. One day I pushed him and he said "How would you like to be blown out of the water and have to retrieve both halves of your best friends body? How would you like to go to his house and tell his parents while you transport his remains?"
Dad didn't think there was anything cool about combat, never walked in a Veterans parade and avoided a return trip to the San Diego Naval Yard like the plague, even though our family was on the west coast. His bumper sticker on his truck read "Send Batman to Vietnam." Dad helped Veterans on a one on one basis but never went to the VA for medical help. He never let me know about the help.
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Who are the angels that come into our lives and give us something and disappear? I was stuck in the middle of a very busy intersection at LeJeune Road and Highway 101 in Miami. Severe Traffice was all around. This young lady came up and gave me a push. During the push, my car knocked out two of her headlights. I offered to repay after she pushed me out of harms way. I never saw her again.
In 1969 I was going to enlist and go into the Army. My friend, Bob made a pact and we were going to go down to the recruiter and sign up in the morning. My boss at the pool I worked as a lifeguard was named Ralph.
Ralph was from New York City. He asked me if I was nuts. He told me before I gave up a scholarship to Miami, to stand over by a six foot block wall. He would be right back with some pistols and rifles. He would shoot at me and just barely miss. He said if I enjoyed that to go and enlist. I went to Miami.
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Eddie Morton will never come back to the high school re-union. Eddie and I jumped off roofs onto the grass while our parents were working. Eddie lost his life in the jungles of Vietnam fighting for the US Army.
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The EMT's were a band we put together at a car dealership (Emergency Musical Technicians). Sugar Bear, a Vietnam Amputee, asked us to play on memorial day at the Houston VA compound. We agreed to play for free. After Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee spoke, we came on a played a good hour set before a few thousand. For a change we were really on and the crowd liked the stuff like Hendrix's "Hey Joe". It will blow your mind how many Vietnam Vets are still mentally still over there. The Vietnam Vets and the volume of them with alcohol and substance problems blew my mind. The next time you see a guy who is a vet living on the street old and grizzled, salute him. If you can spare some money, give it with no stipulations or ego involved. Our government has thrown these guys to the curb.
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Fast forward. James said yesterday in a meeting I was at "If God comes back right now as a human being I will kick his a#%. I had two kids I know well yesterday burn to death in a fire yesterday. I knew those kids and their family well. And if somebody tells me it's Gods' will I will kick their a#%. Anger is how I deal with these kinds of problems. It brings me back to Southeast Asia and all the things that shouldn't have happened. Don't come up here and tell me it's God's will."
Have mercy on our veterans and all the traumatic experiences they have experienced.
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