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2/24/2007
Ch 144A Overseas Assignment A Simple Twist of Fate
Dress Uniform Yokosuka JP, Camh Rahn Bay Air Force Hospital VN, Training exercise Mt Fuji, JP
For example old college roommate who later stood up at my wedding (they all served military duty), Pete (Howard) France, and e-blog buddy enlisted in the Marines and took a shot in the head (& arm & leg) on May 5, 1968 just a couple weeks into combat in the Vietnam War. They gave him a Purple Heart and Gold Star (in lieu of a second Purple Heart) to make him feel better, but it has taken many years to adjust to the experience. Even so, I've got to think that the injury was a good thing, a lucky ticket home, considering the alternatives. He left the two week Battle for Dong Ha near the DMZ as just ONE of the 1000 Allies wounded in the battle, while another 300 Allies paid the ultimate price as KIA's there. Because Pete was facing the sniper, the 30 caliber round glanced off his right temple (still visible today). If facing left, right, or a couple inches over, then other consequences.
The ironic thing is he never seemed much like the macho gung-ho type to me; a political science kindof left wing liberal who was conservative about risk taking. How does a person like that end up volunteering to put his life on the line. Although pretty much opposed to the Vietnam War, he did have a strong desire to be a pilot. Just prior to college graduation another guy in our house, Bruce Madonna had decided to join the Marines. He didn't have a car, so Pete happened to be available with a car to give him a ride to the recruiting office. Although Bruce wasn't allowed in (medical) Pete received an impromptu spiel from the recruiter, and signed up. That boyhood dream to fly that conveys such feelings of power and control led him into just the opposite situation. A place where he was overcome by superior firepower, where he was always at the service of others, and where a perhaps random shot determined his future.
When Pete was taking weapons from one dead enemy NVA regular, he felt sympathy as he found the guy's trigonometry correspondence notes in his rucksack. This was just about the same time I was taking my final exams in calculus at SU as I'd stayed on an extra year to pick up a second BS degree. In fact, I also had a gun shot (.22 pellet) wound to the temple to attend to that year as I was voted house president and had to deal with an attempted failed suicide by a student.
I asked Pete last week if he regretted joining up. He said no, it was a valuable life lesson even though he'd rather not have gone through it. He had just wanted to fly! But things worked out differently. I'm reminded of a powerful scene with Jack Nickolson in "One Flew Over the Cuckcoo's Nest" where Jack takes bets from the other mental patients that he can lift up the bolted down water basin and throw it through the window for an escape. They all say it's impossible. They all watch as Jack grabs the basin straining to lift, his teeth gritting, his veins popping out of his neck, his back and neck arched. It wont budge. As Jack walks off with everyone still blankly staring he says, "But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that." If you think about it, isn't there a little bit of a mental patient in all of us?
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