Our Veterans, absolutely no room for error.

March 4, 2007

I watched some of the Sunday morning Talk shows today. George Will is still irritating and brilliant. “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert was actually objective today. Within the past few days, a terrible revelation has surfaced. The horrid conditions at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C. came to light.

The Veterans Administration (VA) and it's performance is a subject near and dear to me. It is not immune to political fortunes in terms of leadership and an active commitment to the success of the VA mission in our country. We owe each and everyone of these Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airman lifetime care for their service. Period! Arguments about the efficacy of the United States invasion of Iraq are and will remain a painful question. The Veteran's responsible care is now in serious question also.

Two points have my attention here. First, and of course foremost is that beyond the initial medical care provided wounded Veterans, the VA care system goes from an initial river of care to a mere trickle in terms of facilities and aftercare. Second, the lack of critical and then preventative investigations into conditions at the Walter Reed hospital and across the country. There had to have been complaints from families and patients about the facilities and care. Why was there no action taken? Where was bush and his cronies. He (bush) is quick to commit United States resources to danger, consequently, the following question is needfully posed, where was the equality of "quickness" when these young Americans were spewed out the other end of this neocon dream after their war experience? Also, in the past five years, where was the oversight with a Republican led Congress? This oversight is not an option, it is a constitutional duty. This is shameful and disgraceful. Then there was Abu Gharib. Congress and bush have much to answer for. This says nothing about sending Soldiers and Marines to Iraq not properly equipped, multiple tours, suspension of Habeas Corpus, electronic phone and email monitoring, torturing prisoners, and starting a war with what has been verified as lies and misrepresentations. There is much more, but this is enough. I’ll stop.

I will say this about my fellow countrymen. I ask the often asked question, where is the outrage? It is a good question that demands an answer in my view. I think we are complacent. We must demand that proper care and facilities are available for our returning Veterans. The Executive and Congress need to stand up and be counted.

The voluntary military without a draft, I think, is a large part of the perception problem. Even if the mindset is "those military personnel are volunteers" and they knew what they are getting into is put forward, the need for meaningful and substantial quality care is still present. I’ll say it again, isn’t it our duty to provide it?

Now, here I go. It seems to me that this logic can be applied to the war itself and to the consequent occurrences. Case in point here, Walter Reed Hospital. I am nearly moved to tears when I think about trying to express what I feel in my gut every time I read yet another obituary about a 21-year-old dying in Iraq: What a waste of humanity, of bravery, of patriotism... of a future that will never be. We now find that we are not even providing complete care for those who are injured, and will survive. We also learn that they are laying around in infested and otherwise substandard facilities. Finally, we learn that bush has formed some bullshit commission to look into the problem. American's, I ask you again,

Where is the outrage?

The Vietnam experience, for me, demonstrated the awesome power of the American people when sufficiently motivated to take responsibility for their countries actions. Protest against our actions in Vietnam were taken to the street. The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was a horrible mishandling of a protest by a brutal Police force against a organized antiwar movement. We saw the tragic over-reaction of the National Guard against war protesters at Kent State in Kent, Ohio on May 4, 1970, where four students were killed and nine injured.

As I mentioned, the protesters in that era were motivated. There were many reasons but two very prominent ones were the draft and the full news coverage of the coffins with the war dead being filmed daily arriving at in Washington D.C. These two factors made this everyone's war. There were many, many other contributing factors involved here, however those two that I mentioned, during that time frame had the most horsepower. We do not have those motivators now. Our Iraq and Afghanistan dead are flown in under a press ban that is tightly regulated and adhered to. We do not have a national draft. The wasting and sacrificing of our national treasure, our youth, is pushed back from the forefront because it is an all volunteer force. I regret saying this and I would love to be wrong, but it is very easy for a busy and non-critical thinking American to say to themselves, "Well, they volunteered". I regret deeply writing something like that about my fellow countryman, but I fear it is at least partially true. That statement does make it easier to not take to the street and take command of this national disgrace perpetrated on our country by a cabal of chicken-hawks who assiduously avoided Vietnam and other conflicts.

The single most important question facing us is are we going to take action (Legislative or protest or both) to put an end to this "all hat no cattle" President's messianic pipe dream? Our national character is at stake here.

Remember the publishing of the surreptitious photographs of the Iraq dead? Here is one of them. The Photographer was proscecuted.

With apologies to Paul Jamiol, I offer this to some of my good hearted, but uninvolved fellow Americans.

High School's over. Look out world.

College or the Military or the nexus of want and reality.

Part un

Let me set this up. It is June, 1962. High School Graduation was over. It is time for this young man to get cracking. Life was out there waiting and I wanted a chance at claiming some of it. Because of application deadlines, I was faced early on with the decision of whether or not to attend Sierra Junior College in the Fall. I was tired of school for a while, so I chose to either find a decent job or go in the military in the Fall. This decision brings me to the following narrative which I would like to share with anyone interested.

This is rather lengthy, so I have split it into three separate pieces. Don’t be to serious here; just have some fun following this kid through his process.

With High School graduation over, it now was time to start making some moves towards getting my adult life phase moving along. I went to work for a man who was breaking ground for a Highway rest stop near Verdi, Nevada. This was to be a last chance type of facility for travelers returning from Reno, and was situated right before the California border on the westbound lanes of Interstate 80. This sounded pretty good and so I signed up. When I arrived for work in the morning, I was the only one there. The owner handed me a pick and a shovel and showed me where to start digging the footing trench for his building. I'm still looking around for the rest of the workers or the backhoe. There was just me. I looked at the building stakes and this building was huge. I started digging and moved along fairly well. It was kind of tough going. There was a lot of hardpan, but, I had done this kind of work before and knew you had to be patient. At lunch, I asked the owner if there were other employees. He said no, I should be able to handle the footing trench. With raised eyebrows, I said OK. At the end of the day, I had about had it and the owner comes up and says "I need three times more than you did today at the end of the shift tomorrow." I handed him the shovel and pick and said "Have at it; I'd like my time". He shook his head and said "I can't keep you guys on the job" I thought to myself, no small wonder there. I made $16.00 for that day's labor, and I was out of work.

I then went down to Truckee, CA and found employment at a sawmill. They put me on the Greenchain. I'm here to tell you that will make a man out of you. Teams of two men stacked the newly sawn green lumber readying it for insertion into the kiln for drying.



The illustration shows the stacking racks and to the right are the conveyers that bring the green, freshly cut, lumber down to the racks. One man was stationed at each end of the racks. These boards are extremely heavy and you have to quickly develop a coordination of movement symmetry with your partner or you will fight each other and end up working each other to death. Watching those experienced men was a thing of beauty. It didn't appear that they even broke a sweat, so smooth they were. When I started, it took quite a while to get on to the system, but before the day was over I was told I had become barely tolerable. I took that as quite high praise. The first two hours, though, my partner wanted to throw me over the fence. I did manage to keep my big mouth shut and did the best I could to pick up the rhythm. My partner’s arms were the size of my legs, and he, in no uncertain terms, told me he would come down and whip my ass if one of his fingers got caught between the boards. It is amazing how attentive to instruction you can become with the proper motivation. I really enjoyed this job because once you got into it, your mind was freed up to speculate about other matters. But, having achieved minimal success, I had already come to the conclusion that I needed to be doing something that was a little more thought provocative.

Now in my limited experience that need for challenge manifested itself as a desire to do something else in the sawmill. There is some real ambition! I checked with the Mill Boss and he said he needed a Pond Monkey. I told him, sounds good to me. When I answered him, a quizzical look registered on his face, but He said show up in the morning at the log pond. Bright and early the next morning found me at there standing tall and the Mill Boss handed me a twelve foot Pike pole.

Continued in Part duex

I become a Pond Monkey

Part duex: Continuing the Summer after Graduation.

This pole is used in the Logging industry to manipulate logs in water. There is a spiked point and a hook shaped barb on one end. The pole is made of wood or aluminum.

The Mill Boss told me what my duties were at the log pond and then he was off to other matters. My purpose in life was to feed floating logs onto a conveyor chain, wherein they were conveyed into the mill for cutting. I stood on a floating pier and with my pole, remember the hook on the end, and directed the available logs up the ramp quite professionally. Well, it just so happened that eventually, I ran out of available logs. "Hum? What to do?" It becomes obvious that I will have to walk out on the floating logs and pole them over to the pier area.

This was not a problem. At Fresh Pond, California, the company my Dad previously worked for had a great millpond and I had walked the logs many times as a lark. I considered that experience made me quite competent for the task. The poling technique, I figured I could just develop. All of this turned out to be true. I was doing OK.

Now life shows us, on occasion, curve balls. Said curve balls began showing their ugly head immediately. Here is the scene. Young "Studly Cool breeze" (I was a legend in my own mind) is dancing around on the millpond using that Pike pole with deadly efficiency and herding those logs up that conveyor with dizzying speed and with flair. I was quite sure the girls passing by on Interstate 80 were maintaining control of their vehicles with only the greatest effort. In my mind, I had become a danger to public safety. That is how cool I was. I had to find a way to tone it down. (Stay with me here; tongue in cheek. :-))


As it turned out, the Mill Boss’s brother assisted me in this effort. I was out on the logs doing my thing, and I noticed the brother had fired up what was called the "966". This was the Caterpillar model number of the front end loader that the company used to unload the logging trucks that had hauled their loads in from the woods. He grabbed the entire load with the 966 and unceremoniously dumped it in the log pond. Two things happened here. One, it was pretty awesome to see a whole truckload of logs hitting that water. Second and entirely the opposite of awesome, the wave that was created proceeded to toss my, oblivious to the danger, Butt into the water. I use the term water loosely here. Millpond water can be described as runny black Jello with beetles, bugs, rotted foliage, and a host of other smelly and disagreeable ingredients. I got the whole treatment, head under Jello and all.

What emerged from that pond was not cool anymore. My appearance, you can well imagine. I swam or sort of pulled myself through the goop to the shore and emerged, with my pole, Ignominy was to be my lot today, because the brother and the truck driver were standing over by the truck and, by the vernacular, were “laughing their ass off”. This was a catastrophe. " Studly Cool breeze was gone. My co-workers were laughing at my expense, and to top it all off, the Mill Boss came out of the mill raising hell because there were no logs coming into the Mill. He took a look at me and, shook his head and turned around and left. I proceeded to get with it, but I wasn't cool anymore. Three days later, I did see some justice, The brother drove the 966 into the millpond. Completely submerged it. Now, I was “laughing my ass off.” That was awesome!

Continued in Part trois:

I make my decision. Anchors Aweigh!

Part trois:

Summer after graduation continued.

My tenure as a pond monkey was short. I had made application with the US Forest Service to work on the resident Fire Crew at the Truckee Ranger station. This opened up and I jumped at the opportunity to work on the fire fighting crew.

I lived right at the Ranger station. The Fire crew bunked in a barracks type building at the rear of the compound. We were on duty seven days a week around the clock. There was some accommodation for a social life, but it was made clear that during the fire season, don't expect a lot of slack. My Girlfriend Ginger and I were able to do quite a bit and I really liked that. She was working also, but we did manage to socialize some.

The fire crew would respond to fires in and around our district and on occasion we would loan out to other districts that needed extra assistance. A "treat" for the crew was when we were inserted by helicopter to remote lightning strikes that had the potential to become full fledged forest fires. These insertions would , every once in a while, turn into a boondoggle.

The leader of our crew was a dedicated fly fisherman. He always carried a collapsible pole and associated equipment in his pack. If our lightning strike occurred near a promising Trout stream, we knew that the crew would be spending an extra day on this job. We also knew that a big fish fry was a natural consequence of this extra day. Mop-up, simply took longer than anticipated. Those native rainbow Trout dipped in flour, salt, and pepper and fried were more than enough incentive for me to accept things as they were.

One guy on the crew could imitate Elvis and Harry Bellefonte. He would get fired up after the fish fry and we all had a great time appreciating his talent. He really was quite good. I loved that job. I would have worked there forever if they would have let me.

I worked at the Ranger station for the rest of the summer and, predictably, at the end of the fire season, they let all of us go. That was a real disappointment to me, because a lot of my needs were fulfilled by that situation. There was a unit psyche that appealed to me. A great deal of inner security could be drawn upon from the group. We were all good friends and really looked out for each other. It was with sadness that I went down to hill to town.

My folks were now living in Carson City, Nevada. I went back home to figure out my next move. I bummed around for about three weeks and finally decided to follow through on my often stated goal in previous years and excercise one of the options I had given myself at the beginning of the Summer. I decided that Because of inspiration from my Uncle Gayle Sparlin, who did a hitch in the Navy, I would go ahead and fulfill that goal and join the Navy.

There was also a real world consideration going on here. In April of 1962, I had registered for the national draft at the draft board for Placer county, located in Nevada City, CA. In the luck of the draw, I had a very selectable number. I was willing to serve, but it just made more sense to me to serve in the Navy vice the Army. Vietnam was kicking up about this time and I knew where I would be headed if I was drafted. Mom liked my decision, Dad did not say to much. He was glad, however, that I was moving forward with my life. Ginger was tacitly supportive. She did understand that the draft was something young men had to deal with. Despite some self-centered behavior on my part at my send off, she remained a loyal and trusted part of my life throughout my Navy hitch. There were times, because of immature lack of attentiviness, I didn't deserve that loyalty but in the end, I was very honored that she chose me.

Soon thereafter, Dad and I went into Reno and I went to the Navy recruiting office and started the process of joining up with Uncle Sam's Navy. This process took the last two weeks of September and the first week, in October of 1962. Soon thereafter, I got on a plane and headed for Recruit training in San Diego, California.

Me and Henry Johnson or The Crucible of Puberty

Between my Freshman and Sophomore in High School I worked at a Summer job on a working Cattle ranch in Northern California with two High School classmates, the Johnson brothers. This story will unfold against the backdrop of this Job. I have to give you a little background here to fully appreciate the mosaic.

A wealthy family who resided in Los Angeles owned the ranch. The ranch was managed and operated by Henry Johnson Sr., father of my workmates. The Johnson family lived on the ranch in a separate dwelling. Johnson Senior, hired his two sons, Henry Jr. and Albert Robert for the Summer, and on their recommendation, he also hired me. Now earning the money was a fine motivation, but there were other forces at work here. It just so happened that the Owner's family included two high school age daughters, Melody and Barbara. Both were lookers and even better they were from L. A. To us, these were sophisticated women, not girls. I was determined to look into this phenomenon. Accordingly, I jumped at the chance for that employment. At the time of my hire, Henry informed me that the girl’s parents had departed the ranch and returned to Los Angeles leaving the girls in the charge of an Aunt. The possibilities here were exciting.

Lets get to work. Bright and early on a Monday morning, myself, Henry, and Albert Robert mustered with Johnson Senior. He issued our work orders for the day. We were going out to fence off a section of creek bottom about two miles north of the Ranch House. He said the fencing materials were already on site, so all we would need to do is transport the tools and other equipment. I was assigned to drive the Jeep which would carry everything and Henry and Albert Robert decided to ride horses out to the job. This was fine with me. I was young, but Dad let me drive his Jeep all the time, so I was a pretty good driver. In truth, I had never ridden a horse. I had been around animals a lot in my life, but my horse experience was lacking. I was greatly relieved when I received my assignment. That was definitely in my "Cool" parameters. Consequently, the girls would be able to see a real “Operator” in action. This was really working out. Firm in our, self perceived heroic roles we got ready to go out to the job. The girls were not outside at the time, but I am sure that each of us harbored a phantasy that placed both girls at windows, breathlessly peering from behind curtains and marveling at the aspect of three such handsome and competent young men. I noticed, at the time, Henry Sr. was standing there smiling and kind of shaking his head. I now understand why.

As we were preparing to leave the ranch yard in all our glory, it occurred to me. Hum??? Three boys-Two girls. It dawned on me that we were going to have “bloodsport” because of the numbers discrepancy. What motivated these thoughts was Sr. announcing that the Aunt and the girls were going to come out later and say hello and watch us for a while. His charge was "Don't do anything stupid and for Christ's sake, act like gentlemen. "No problem, SR." Off we went.
At a point about three feet outside the ranch complex gate, the male jockeying for the superior position began. Remember, in our testosterone brains, the girls are watching us from behind the curtains. I neglected to mention that it was 7:00 AM. I had the advantage of speed which made me very cool in the short term. That advantage melted quickly when we reached country that was difficult to navigate. The horses then definitely had the advantage. However, round one went to me because Henry and Albert Robert's advantage didn't kick in until we were out of sight of the ranch house. Even so, I continued to compete, but I had to relent because I was throwing all the equipment around by trying to go too fast for the terrain. In fact, I had to stop once and pick up some stuff that had bounced out. No big deal, if the girls didn't see it, I was still very cool.

When we arrived at the creek, we decided to take a break. Understand we were a "Band of Brothers"; however, that competitive manly undercurrent was ever present. Simply stated, "I would do anything for you, my brother, but I would gleefully step on your face to get the girl." This was the situation that Summer day. The Johnson boys had somewhat of an advantage because they already knew the girls and had interacted with them to a degree. I was not put off by this advantage, but I did realize that I had some territorial making up to do. Also, I had never built range fence before, so I was at an additional disadvantage because of that. As it turned out we were really lucky, Johnson Sr. and a hired ranch hand had come out earlier in the week with the Jeep and a power take off Auger attached to the Jeep and had dug all of the corner post holes. We were only going to have to hand dig a few in areas where they could not reach with the Auger. As the new guy, It was expected that I would man the manual post hole digger. I don't know if you have ever experienced this peculiar pleasure, but If you haven't, avoid it. Bad career path.

We had spent the first hour or two on the job getting set up, bull-shitting, and in general screwing around. At some point, we went to work. While we worked, a discussion developed about what was more useful for ranch work: A Jeep or a horse? In the brutal arena of teenage boys vying for a superior position, reason and common sense can become casualties. My position was that the Jeep could accomplish anything that could be done from a horse. Now, I know I am in trouble with that stance, but I’ve got to go with it. I am operating from a weak position. I am the relative newcomer. I don't have a background of growing up on a ranch and I have never ridden a horse. The question is, will I take a subservient role to the Johnson boys? Not on your life! The argument continued divorced completely from any reasonable viewing of reality. No one would give an inch. Henry and Albert Robert were working me into a bad spot though. Little by little, they kept heaping on examples of what can be accomplished with a horse. Their superior experience was beginning to expose me. All I had to throw up was, The Jeep can get there faster and haul the gear too. It did not occur to we three Einstein's' that the two tools complemented one another.

The morning went on in this fashion and then it happened. I was finishing up digging on a dead man and one of those moments that teenage boys dream of when in an adversarial situation. I looked up and saw the girls and Auntie come into view. They were about fifty feet from us. I also noticed, first in shock, and then in glee that Henry was over by a tree, in full glorious view of the ladies, peeing. I swear, it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. Upon discovering his dilemma, I thought Henry was going to beat himself to death getting that thing put away. He also managed to pee all over the front of himself. Every bit of cool that he had built up and hoped to build up dissipated into that morning air. Besides being funny as hell, of course, I was loving it. The playing field of Henry and I had changed in that instant and tilted towards me. I could not have been happier. I would take this opportunity and step on his face. It was a beautiful moment. Ah! The puberty crucible.

Both Albert Robert and I lost it. Henry was hung out to dry, and he was giving his brother some kind of wounded look; you know, the what's up, you're my brother, how could you? The looks I received were murderous. (He had already perceived my interest in one of the girls.) By this time, the girls and Auntie were upon us. After greetings, Albert Robert and I suddenly became extremely busy with the work at hand, leaving Henry to dangle in his embarrassment. He had two immediate problems. 1. His full view peeing. 2. The front of his pants were very wet. This was bad. Albert Robert and I had deserted Henry to handle the social amenities and we were not going to help him. His position was now disgraced, and for me life could not have been better. He could hold a roll of wire in front of him only for so long. It was heavy. The girls were great. There was a good amount of snickering and side-long glances at the front of Henry.

Because of previous conversations, I had discerned that Albert Robert and Barbara were pretty solid. That narrowed down the field, obviously to Melody. That was not a problem with me. She was a looker and very congenial. Before this morning, there had been that pesky Henry, but fortuitous events had changed the landscape. Henry's discomfort was becoming more and more evident. By this time Albert Robert started paying attention to Barbara and effectively removed himself from the strife. I kept up displaying my delight and made sure Henry knew I drew great satisfaction from that. It finally did appear that this might turn into a fight between Henry and I. However, Auntie frowned that notion out of existence. Finally, Auntie took the pickup and went over to the Dredger pit to hunt for prehistoric sea shells. The girls stayed with us. I took this wonderful opportunity to move in on Melody. It might have been viewed as a bit presumptuous, but I had to seize the moment. She seemed interested. This was going to be a fine day. Melody gave me the sweetest smile, I’ve ever seen. I decided then and there I was going in.

(More murderous looks from Henry)