Morristown, NJ and Vietnam

 MORRISTOWN AND VIETNAM

 

I consider Morristown as my home town. I lived here from 1958 through 1976 and graduated from MHS in 1966. I was a member of the very first class at County College of Morris.

 

But I would like to share a few things about Vietnam and the town from a Vietnam-era veteran’s perspective.

 

I never heard of Vietnam until I was a sophomore when my European History teacher, Joseph Dempsey had us write a paper about Vietnam. I focused on the Buddist monks who committed suicide by pouring gasoline on themselves and then setting themselves on fire to protest the South Vietnamese government. It was an assignment Mr. Dempsey gave for several years and it helped many of us understand a little about the war that became so divisive. (More about this later).

 

I turned 18 in September of my senior year registering with Selective Service that day without a thought of military service. It was legal proof that I was18 years old. In those days the legal drinking age was 21 in New Jersey but 18 in New York. Many of us would head to the Northern border to places like Greenwood Lake or the Village in the city. Very few of us thought about getting drafted. That same year, military recruiters came the high school. I was a competitive swimmer and had lifesaving, instructor and SCUBA certifications. I spoke to the Navy people about becoming a frogman and doing underwater demolition. I was told it was impossible due to my eyesight. I asked about lifeguarding and teaching swimming but those posts went to NCOs and it would take several years to become one. I also called the Coast Guard office in Newark about search-and-rescue and was told the same thing about my eyes.

 

After graduation, I worked at a couple of office jobs in Morristown and one Saturday, I picked up a copy of the Daily Record to read on the Green and learned one of my best friends, Tristian Hayes, died in Vietnam. It was a shock and I thought about this brilliant, wonderful guy who wanted to be a soldier since middle school had sacrificed his young life in a war very few cared about. At the end of this article you will learn much more about him.

 

When I started at CCM, I was a few years older than most students, but all male students had to be registered with Selective Service. I appeared before the Draft Board to request a student deferment claiming I could not afford to go to college until CCM opened. My request was granted. This was in 1968, a very controversial year with the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. With the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the war heated up under the Lyndon Johnson administration. I became something of a wanna-be hippie and attended campus protests and an all-night vigil on the Green.  I never did drugs though. A high school classmate, the son of a very popular MHS teacher, took LSD and killed himself by putting his head on the railroad tracks and was run over by a Lackawanna train near the Morristown station. I was too terrified to try them. I had enough problems with self-control.

 

While at CCM, I began working as a freelance newspaper reporter for the Morristown Daily Record covering town meetings in the western part of the county. Since I was a college student and registered for the draft, I was assigned to try to cover Nixon’s draft lottery. “See if you can find someone who has a high number,” the editor told me.  I started to listen to the lottery and had absolutely no problem finding someone. I was number 2. 

 

Many months before, I had gotten on the waiting list for the local Army Reserve unit and I went to their office and asked the Sergeant if it was possible there was an opening available and he gave me the Army’s version of an IQ test. 

 

There was. I could become a drill sergeant! 

 

The unit was designated as a “training” unit. The concept was that if there was a need for cadre to train troops, we would be activated. I would go through Basic Combat Training, a month-long leadership preparation course, Advanced Infantry Training (Vietnam) and Drill Sergeant school.

 

So I had a choice: Enlist in the regular army for three years, the Navy or Coast Guard for four years, get drafted and wind up in the Army or Marines (!) or spend seven months to become a “shake-and-bake” drill sergeant and spend two days a month and two weeks in the summer for the next six years. I chose the drill sergeant opportunity.

 

And so on Jan. 3. 1970, about 30 of us from different parts of our 78^th division, a/k/a “Jersey Lightning” boarded a Delta Air Lines jet to New Orleans and then transferred to a 1950s era Trans Texas Airline propeller aircraft where the pilot welcomed us by telling us the aircraft had flown half a million miles without any problems. But then he introduced our stewardess who was wearing tight denim bell bottoms and a tight blouse. She got a wild ovation from us.

 

After deplaning, we got a different reception from Drill Sergeant Russel and friends who began screaming at us to get into and dress up our line. After finding temporary barracks, getting dinner and falling asleep, we were woken at 0-dark-30 to do KP. Later that day, we were given haircuts. Unlike previous weeks a new regulation went into effect as of the new year stating we didn’t have to get our heads shaved, but long hair was long gone. Following the unpublished “Hurry up and wait” regulation, we stood on line to get our uniforms and vaccinations. The next day, was perhaps the funniest day of our orientation. We had an ice storm. You had to understand that we were in the South and many of the base’s permanent party had never seen snow or ice. Soldiers were falling all over and we Jersey guys laughed our butts off as we saw several cars spin out of control, one slamming into a fire hydrant.

 

So much for fun, that night we were moved to the barracks of Alpha-one-two and revived our acquaintance with Drill Sergeant Russell and his friends. We were divided into four barracks. Barracks One was National Guard people from Texas, We Jersey boys were in Barracks Two, and Barracks Three and Four were draftees and enlistees. 

 

We learned to march and do other drills. In about a week we stated to march to rifle ranges. We were introduced to the command “At Ease, March. Drill Sergeant Russell set the pace. He was about 6’3” and had long legs. He set a very rapid pace that had us either tripping or jogging to keep up. By the time we reached the range, we had many people puking up their breakfast. The next day, many of us changed from fried eggs and bacon to a hard-boiled egg. toast and juice.

Most of our training was with the M-16, which included an automatic fire mode we rarely used. We also used the Korean-war era M-14 and Colt .45 caliber pistols. 

 

But the most interesting part of our training was with hand grenades. In the morning, we played with practice ones that we could toss at targets. We also were introduced to grenade launchers that were attached to M-16 rifles. That afternoon, we got to throw real grenades. We stood behind a bunker with a sunken area to take cover in in case someone dropped their grenade before tossing it. In turn, we would throw our grenade over the 8’ wall. I wasn’t thrilled about the distance mine went because I compared it to a baseball. I really didn’t see how far it went. I then watched the guy next to me throw his. Instead of going out, it went way up. I immediately dropped to the pit on the ground with my hands covering my helmet liner. The grenade exploded on the other side of my wall, shaking me off the ground. But I was alive and the guy next to me was given special instructions (500 pushups) from the range sergeant while other cadre were laughing about my duck-and-cover elementary school drills were so well remembered. 

 

We marched to cadence, with a sergeant calling out different songs that we repeated, many of them ribald. But everyone’s favorite was our countdown. “X more weeks of polish and brass, then Fort Polk can kiss my ass!” And finally came the day it could. We participated in a graduation parade with about 1,000 others. The parents of three of my Morristown comrades showed up and treated us Morristown men to lunch.

 

And then it was time to return to the real world until I was to return for more training. I took a bus to the New Orleans airport and flew to Newark. Then I took the train to Morristown and since Mom moved while I was away, I went to her law office next to the Chinese restaurant, showing up in my uniform. They gave mom the rest of the day off  and we went to our old place on Wetmore Avenue where I picked up my car and then went to the new place in Jacob Ford Village. 

 

Leave was spent renewing friendships and girlfriends. Mom came home early and threw a fit when we were caught in bed.  Mom, born in 1908 to an Irish Catholic family, wasn’t so upset about our bed activities as she went wild because the girl was Jewish. I had no clue she was so prejudiced. 

 

After that, I took my car, an eight-year-old Rambler convertible, to Seaside Heights to sort of clear my head. On the way down, I came across two girls hitching and eventually they asked why my hair was so short. I told them I was on leave from the Army. 

They started talking to each other and in a few minutes they asked to be let out. As I pulled away, one of them screamed “baby killer.” Hell, I never had been to ‘Nam, much less was involved in combat. I only shot at paper targets.

 

I spent most of the day on the beach and headed home early to avoid traffic. Around Mt. Kimble Ave. and Colles Ave., there was a girl hitching so I said to myself “what the hell, why not!” I pulled over and seven MHS kids piled into the car. They were heading to Morris Plains and we drove twice around the Green yelling and screaming. As we drove down Speedwell Avenue, we talked and they learned I was in the Army. They started to welcome me back and as they left the car thanking me for the ride, one of the girls kissed me. Morristown people had made a bad day fantastic!

 

When I was in town, I went to the First National Iron Bank at the corner of South Street and Madison Ave. to get some cash from my checking account only to discover it was suspended for inactivity. I showed them my military ID and they re-opened the account with a promise to not close it. On payday, I sent my mother a money order to add to the account. But I had purchased some civilian clothing from the PX with a check that bounced and there was hell to pay until I gave them the business card of the branch manager and they confirmed what happened. 

 

I returned to Fort Polk for Leadership and infantry training, then to Fort Knox for Drill Sergeant School. About 18 months later, I was activated. I returned to Morris County but lived in Randolph and Roxbury, only to spend some days visiting my mother after getting married and living in Queens.

 

After 33 years of marriage, we divorced and I roamed the country for many years. But when in the East, I spent much time with my 1966 senior prom date. We went to our 45^th and 50^th reunions together and lived together coping with the Covid-19 lockdown. When we decided to break up, I moved to Florida and stayed with another classmate while finding an apartment. One of the things I bought was a “Vietnam-Era” baseball cap and people frequently thanked me for my service. 

 

But before I end this, I want to share one last thing about Morristown and Vietnam. It was probably the finest moment of my life.

 

***

TRISTIAN

I graduated from Morristown (NJ) High school in 1966. During that time, I was on the school’s stage many times: receiving athletic awards, appearing in plays and in concerts as a member of the school chorus.

 

But the proudest moment of my life happened on that stage, about 45 years after graduation. 

 

Before I describe that moment, it is important to understand a little about Morristown. It has a long and proud history. The town headquartered George Washington’s revolutionary war army during two winters, one of them being the worst in the colonial era’s history. Throughout the town there are many statues and three areas of a National Historical Park:  the Ford mansion headquarters, The troop area in Jockey Hollow, and Fort Nonsense at the highest part of the town. It was there that I lost my virginity to a Morris Township girll and got married to a Brookyn woman.

 

The center of the town has a green that is the site of many parades and festivals. I also remember attending an all-night anti-war protest there. There were several Memorial Day parades when I marched with my Boy Scout troop.

 

Samuel Morris invented the telegraph here. Thomas Nast, the newspaper cartoonist who fought Tammany Hall and gave us the images of the Republican Elephant, the Democratic Donkey and even Santa, lived here. The house I lived in was built just after the Civil War and it featured many of the ideas advocated by women’s magazines at that time which included the early concepts of childhood and adolescence. 

 

In other words, the town is very aware of and promotes its past. 

 

When I attended the high school, the main entrance featured a dual staircase, called the “senior staircase.” Its use was restricted to senior students and during the school’s last week of every year, there was a “senior skip day” when the seniors decided not to go to school. On that day, the juniors would “rush” the stairs and occupy it for a brief time as they made their claim to it for the next school year.

 

Since then, the school has a couple of expansions and the stairs no longer occupy the central status it once did. Instead, it has been changed to a “Wall of Fame” where distinguished alumni, teachers and athletes are featured on plaques. I suppose it means little to the current students, but visitors can share memories and inspiration from the many names there. 

 

The school hosts an annual “Heritage Day” where those who are to be added to the wall are honored and announced at an assembly. When I learned about this new tradition, I was quite pleased especially since the senior stairs concept had ended. I never liked the undemocratic “clique” system that had created so many rivalries and emotional pain for those who weren’t permitted to use the stairs simply because of their date of birth. 

 

So anyhow, I had some unfinished business with Morristown and I made it my job to see that Tristan Whitney Hayes, class of 1967, would have a plaque there to honor him. 

 

I met Tristan when I was a freshman and he was in eighth grade. We were both in the same boy scout troop and I was a patrol leader and he my assistant patrol leader. We planned many events such as campouts together and also became close friends. I remember we once visited Times Square in New York City and browsed many stores. He was especially interested in the metal soldiers representing historic battles such as Napoleon’s downfall at Waterloo. Even at that age, he wanted to be a soldier. 

 

We grew apart as our interests in school varied. I was into sports, debate and drama while he was more academic, though he played football. Without a common interest, we drifted apart.

 

During those high school years, the war in Vietnam began to heat up, especially after President Kennedy was murdered and Johnson replaced him. In 1963 and 1964,Joseph Dempsey, our European History teacher, had us all write papers about the war that was starting to involve more forces. In retrospect, those papers gave us some information about a war that would become so divisive.

 

Tristan graduated a year after me and as soon as he graduated, his family moved to Massachusetts. The last I heard about him was a brief newspaper article that he was killed in action in Vietnam; quite possibly the first from our town to die in that war, but certainly not the last. 

 

Many years later, I was chaperoning my son’s eighth grade trip to Washington, DC, and visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall. I found out where Tristian’s name was listed and spoke about him to the students and how he was more than just a name. Many adults gathered around while I was speaking and listened to Tristian’s story.  

 

A decade or so later, I looked him up on the Internet, which had finally become a major research and social phenomena. His story was incredible. Then a private first class, he was on patrol with his platoon when they were ambushed by the Viet Cong. His sergeant and platoon leader were cut down by enemy fire and Tristian carried him out of danger to safety. Carrying a several more soldiers, he also took over the platoon and led them to safety. In doing so, he was wounded and died a few weeks later. He received a bronze star with valor, purple heart, Combat Infantry Man’s badge and Vietnam service medals as a result of his actions. 

 

In the early 2000nds, I became a social studies teacher and every Friday before Memorial Day weekend, I had my students look up Tristian’s name, reminding them that he was my best friend at their age. This was after 9/11 and I hope it gave these students, who lived under the shadow of the World Trade Center, an idea about the middle east war.

 

In 2010, after separating from my wife, I contacted the school’s alumni association and asked about how to nominate Tristan for the school’s wall. I got the forms and sent them in. In March, 2011, I got a call from the president of the Alumni Association.  Tristan would be given the award but there was no one to make a speech on his behalf. An only child, his parents were long dead. He died at 18 years of age and had never married so there were no children. There was a distant cousin, but he had never even met Tristian. Would I do the speech for his award? I suppose there really was no more qualified person, so I agreed. 

 

 

So in April, 2011, I returned to the stage. I was the first one to speak and began by asking the audience to stand. 

 

“Attention to orders,” I barked out in my best drill sergeant voice. I then read his citation.

 

“For exceptionally valorous service in connection with military operations against a hostile force. Private First Class Hayes distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on 9 September 1968 while serving as a rifleman on a combat operation in the Republic of Vietnam. When artillery rounds began falling into the company's surrounding area, numerous casualties resulted. Seeing that his squad leader was missing and that his squad was disorganized, Private First Class Hayes immediately directed his squad to dig in. He then left the safety of his position to look for his squad leader. Upon finding his wounded squad leader, he carried him to safety and to medical aid. Several times Private First Class Hayes left the comparative safety of his position to carry wounded comrades to safety and to medical aid. As a result of his unceasing determination and concern for his comrades, the wounded received the medical attention they needed. Private First Class Hayes' personal bravery and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.“

 

I then began to speak. I pointed out an aging Mr. Dempsey, sharing how he forced us to understand Vietnam and educating us to be able to make choices about the divisive war. 

 

Then I said: “Mr. Dempsey, once an all-state football player for this school in the 1940s, also coached Tristan and me. One day, during practice, Tristian stopped chasing someone. Mr. Dempsey grabbed Tristian’s face mask and told him ‘you keep playing until the whistle blows.’ It was lessons like this that gave him the incredible courage he displayed in Vietnam.”

 

I thanked people; told them they could be seated. They didn’t and I left the stage to a standing ovation. I suppose timing is everything because my cell phone started ringing as I walked off the stage as the ex started demanding money. I turned the phone off and sat down next to a friend. As I sat in my seat, I thought that since Tristian’s family had moved away, a long-delayed need for the community to say good bye to its hero had finally been met. As I said, it was the proudest moment of my life.

  MORRISTOWN AND VIETNAM

 

I consider Morristown as my home town. I lived here from 1958 through 1976 and graduated from MHS in 1966. I was a member of the very first class at County College of Morris.

 

But I would like to share a few things about Vietnam and the town from a Vietnam-era veteran’s perspective.

 

I never heard of Vietnam until I was a sophomore when my European History teacher, Joseph Dempsey had us write a paper about Vietnam. I focused on the Buddist monks who committed suicide by pouring gasoline on themselves and then setting themselves on fire to protest the South Vietnamese government. It was an assignment Mr. Dempsey gave for several years and it helped many of us understand a little about the war that became so divisive. (More about this later).

 

I turned 18 in September of my senior year registering with Selective Service that day without a thought of military service. It was legal proof that I was18 years old. In those days the legal drinking age was 21 in New Jersey but 18 in New York. Many of us would head to the Northern border to places like Greenwood Lake or the Village in the city. Very few of us thought about getting drafted. That same year, military recruiters came the high school. I was a competitive swimmer and had lifesaving, instructor and SCUBA certifications. I spoke to the Navy people about becoming a frogman and doing underwater demolition. I was told it was impossible due to my eyesight. I asked about lifeguarding and teaching swimming but those posts went to NCOs and it would take several years to become one. I also called the Coast Guard office in Newark about search-and-rescue and was told the same thing about my eyes.

 

After graduation, I worked at a couple of office jobs in Morristown and one Saturday, I picked up a copy of the Daily Record to read on the Green and learned one of my best friends, Tristian Hayes, died in Vietnam. It was a shock and I thought about this brilliant, wonderful guy who wanted to be a soldier since middle school had sacrificed his young life in a war very few cared about. At the end of this article you will learn much more about him.

 

When I started at CCM, I was a few years older than most students, but all male students had to be registered with Selective Service. I appeared before the Draft Board to request a student deferment claiming I could not afford to go to college until CCM opened. My request was granted. This was in 1968, a very controversial year with the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. With the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the war heated up under the Lyndon Johnson administration. I became something of a wanna-be hippie and attended campus protests and an all-night vigil on the Green.  I never did drugs though. A high school classmate, the son of a very popular MHS teacher, took LSD and killed himself by putting his head on the railroad tracks and was run over by a Lackawanna train near the Morristown station. I was too terrified to try them. I had enough problems with self-control.

 

While at CCM, I began working as a freelance newspaper reporter for the Morristown Daily Record covering town meetings in the western part of the county. Since I was a college student and registered for the draft, I was assigned to try to cover Nixon’s draft lottery. “See if you can find someone who has a high number,” the editor told me.  I started to listen to the lottery and had absolutely no problem finding someone. I was number 2. 

 

Many months before, I had gotten on the waiting list for the local Army Reserve unit and I went to their office and asked the Sergeant if it was possible there was an opening available and he gave me the Army’s version of an IQ test. 

 

There was. I could become a drill sergeant! 

 

The unit was designated as a “training” unit. The concept was that if there was a need for cadre to train troops, we would be activated. I would go through Basic Combat Training, a month-long leadership preparation course, Advanced Infantry Training (Vietnam) and Drill Sergeant school.

 

So I had a choice: Enlist in the regular army for three years, the Navy or Coast Guard for four years, get drafted and wind up in the Army or Marines (!) or spend seven months to become a “shake-and-bake” drill sergeant and spend two days a month and two weeks in the summer for the next six years. I chose the drill sergeant opportunity.

 

And so on Jan. 3. 1970, about 30 of us from different parts of our 78^th division, a/k/a “Jersey Lightning” boarded a Delta Air Lines jet to New Orleans and then transferred to a 1950s era Trans Texas Airline propeller aircraft where the pilot welcomed us by telling us the aircraft had flown half a million miles without any problems. But then he introduced our stewardess who was wearing tight denim bell bottoms and a tight blouse. She got a wild ovation from us.

 

After deplaning, we got a different reception from Drill Sergeant Russel and friends who began screaming at us to get into and dress up our line. After finding temporary barracks, getting dinner and falling asleep, we were woken at 0-dark-30 to do KP. Later that day, we were given haircuts. Unlike previous weeks a new regulation went into effect as of the new year stating we didn’t have to get our heads shaved, but long hair was long gone. Following the unpublished “Hurry up and wait” regulation, we stood on line to get our uniforms and vaccinations. The next day, was perhaps the funniest day of our orientation. We had an ice storm. You had to understand that we were in the South and many of the base’s permanent party had never seen snow or ice. Soldiers were falling all over and we Jersey guys laughed our butts off as we saw several cars spin out of control, one slamming into a fire hydrant.

 

So much for fun, that night we were moved to the barracks of Alpha-one-two and revived our acquaintance with Drill Sergeant Russell and his friends. We were divided into four barracks. Barracks One was National Guard people from Texas, We Jersey boys were in Barracks Two, and Barracks Three and Four were draftees and enlistees. 

 

We learned to march and do other drills. In about a week we stated to march to rifle ranges. We were introduced to the command “At Ease, March. Drill Sergeant Russell set the pace. He was about 6’3” and had long legs. He set a very rapid pace that had us either tripping or jogging to keep up. By the time we reached the range, we had many people puking up their breakfast. The next day, many of us changed from fried eggs and bacon to a hard-boiled egg. toast and juice.

Most of our training was with the M-16, which included an automatic fire mode we rarely used. We also used the Korean-war era M-14 and Colt .45 caliber pistols. 

 

But the most interesting part of our training was with hand grenades. In the morning, we played with practice ones that we could toss at targets. We also were introduced to grenade launchers that were attached to M-16 rifles. That afternoon, we got to throw real grenades. We stood behind a bunker with a sunken area to take cover in in case someone dropped their grenade before tossing it. In turn, we would throw our grenade over the 8’ wall. I wasn’t thrilled about the distance mine went because I compared it to a baseball. I really didn’t see how far it went. I then watched the guy next to me throw his. Instead of going out, it went way up. I immediately dropped to the pit on the ground with my hands covering my helmet liner. The grenade exploded on the other side of my wall, shaking me off the ground. But I was alive and the guy next to me was given special instructions (500 pushups) from the range sergeant while other cadre were laughing about my duck-and-cover elementary school drills were so well remembered. 

 

We marched to cadence, with a sergeant calling out different songs that we repeated, many of them ribald. But everyone’s favorite was our countdown. “X more weeks of polish and brass, then Fort Polk can kiss my ass!” And finally came the day it could. We participated in a graduation parade with about 1,000 others. The parents of three of my Morristown comrades showed up and treated us Morristown men to lunch.

 

And then it was time to return to the real world until I was to return for more training. I took a bus to the New Orleans airport and flew to Newark. Then I took the train to Morristown and since Mom moved while I was away, I went to her law office next to the Chinese restaurant, showing up in my uniform. They gave mom the rest of the day off  and we went to our old place on Wetmore Avenue where I picked up my car and then went to the new place in Jacob Ford Village. 

 

Leave was spent renewing friendships and girlfriends. Mom came home early and threw a fit when we were caught in bed.  Mom, born in 1908 to an Irish Catholic family, wasn’t so upset about our bed activities as she went wild because the girl was Jewish. I had no clue she was so prejudiced. 

 

After that, I took my car, an eight-year-old Rambler convertible, to Seaside Heights to sort of clear my head. On the way down, I came across two girls hitching and eventually they asked why my hair was so short. I told them I was on leave from the Army. 

They started talking to each other and in a few minutes they asked to be let out. As I pulled away, one of them screamed “baby killer.” Hell, I never had been to ‘Nam, much less was involved in combat. I only shot at paper targets.

 

I spent most of the day on the beach and headed home early to avoid traffic. Around Mt. Kimble Ave. and Colles Ave., there was a girl hitching so I said to myself “what the hell, why not!” I pulled over and seven MHS kids piled into the car. They were heading to Morris Plains and we drove twice around the Green yelling and screaming. As we drove down Speedwell Avenue, we talked and they learned I was in the Army. They started to welcome me back and as they left the car thanking me for the ride, one of the girls kissed me. Morristown people had made a bad day fantastic!

 

When I was in town, I went to the First National Iron Bank at the corner of South Street and Madison Ave. to get some cash from my checking account only to discover it was suspended for inactivity. I showed them my military ID and they re-opened the account with a promise to not close it. On payday, I sent my mother a money order to add to the account. But I had purchased some civilian clothing from the PX with a check that bounced and there was hell to pay until I gave them the business card of the branch manager and they confirmed what happened. 

 

I returned to Fort Polk for Leadership and infantry training, then to Fort Knox for Drill Sergeant School. About 18 months later, I was activated. I returned to Morris County but lived in Randolph and Roxbury, only to spend some days visiting my mother after getting married and living in Queens.

 

After 33 years of marriage, we divorced and I roamed the country for many years. But when in the East, I spent much time with my 1966 senior prom date. We went to our 45^th and 50^th reunions together and lived together coping with the Covid-19 lockdown. When we decided to break up, I moved to Florida and stayed with another classmate while finding an apartment. One of the things I bought was a “Vietnam-Era” baseball cap and people frequently thanked me for my service. 

 

But before I end this, I want to share one last thing about Morristown and Vietnam. It was probably the finest moment of my life.

 

***

TRISTIAN

I graduated from Morristown (NJ) High school in 1966. During that time, I was on the school’s stage many times: receiving athletic awards, appearing in plays and in concerts as a member of the school chorus.

 

But the proudest moment of my life happened on that stage, about 45 years after graduation. 

 

Before I describe that moment, it is important to understand a little about Morristown. It has a long and proud history. The town headquartered George Washington’s revolutionary war army during two winters, one of them being the worst in the colonial era’s history. Throughout the town there are many statues and three areas of a National Historical Park:  the Ford mansion headquarters, The troop area in Jockey Hollow, and Fort Nonsense at the highest part of the town. It was there that I lost my virginity to a Morris Township girll and got married to a Brookyn woman.

 

The center of the town has a green that is the site of many parades and festivals. I also remember attending an all-night anti-war protest there. There were several Memorial Day parades when I marched with my Boy Scout troop.

 

Samuel Morris invented the telegraph here. Thomas Nast, the newspaper cartoonist who fought Tammany Hall and gave us the images of the Republican Elephant, the Democratic Donkey and even Santa, lived here. The house I lived in was built just after the Civil War and it featured many of the ideas advocated by women’s magazines at that time which included the early concepts of childhood and adolescence. 

 

In other words, the town is very aware of and promotes its past. 

 

When I attended the high school, the main entrance featured a dual staircase, called the “senior staircase.” Its use was restricted to senior students and during the school’s last week of every year, there was a “senior skip day” when the seniors decided not to go to school. On that day, the juniors would “rush” the stairs and occupy it for a brief time as they made their claim to it for the next school year.

 

Since then, the school has a couple of expansions and the stairs no longer occupy the central status it once did. Instead, it has been changed to a “Wall of Fame” where distinguished alumni, teachers and athletes are featured on plaques. I suppose it means little to the current students, but visitors can share memories and inspiration from the many names there. 

 

The school hosts an annual “Heritage Day” where those who are to be added to the wall are honored and announced at an assembly. When I learned about this new tradition, I was quite pleased especially since the senior stairs concept had ended. I never liked the undemocratic “clique” system that had created so many rivalries and emotional pain for those who weren’t permitted to use the stairs simply because of their date of birth. 

 

So anyhow, I had some unfinished business with Morristown and I made it my job to see that Tristan Whitney Hayes, class of 1967, would have a plaque there to honor him. 

 

I met Tristan when I was a freshman and he was in eighth grade. We were both in the same boy scout troop and I was a patrol leader and he my assistant patrol leader. We planned many events such as campouts together and also became close friends. I remember we once visited Times Square in New York City and browsed many stores. He was especially interested in the metal soldiers representing historic battles such as Napoleon’s downfall at Waterloo. Even at that age, he wanted to be a soldier. 

 

We grew apart as our interests in school varied. I was into sports, debate and drama while he was more academic, though he played football. Without a common interest, we drifted apart.

 

During those high school years, the war in Vietnam began to heat up, especially after President Kennedy was murdered and Johnson replaced him. In 1963 and 1964,Joseph Dempsey, our European History teacher, had us all write papers about the war that was starting to involve more forces. In retrospect, those papers gave us some information about a war that would become so divisive.

 

Tristan graduated a year after me and as soon as he graduated, his family moved to Massachusetts. The last I heard about him was a brief newspaper article that he was killed in action in Vietnam; quite possibly the first from our town to die in that war, but certainly not the last. 

 

Many years later, I was chaperoning my son’s eighth grade trip to Washington, DC, and visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall. I found out where Tristian’s name was listed and spoke about him to the students and how he was more than just a name. Many adults gathered around while I was speaking and listened to Tristian’s story.  

 

A decade or so later, I looked him up on the Internet, which had finally become a major research and social phenomena. His story was incredible. Then a private first class, he was on patrol with his platoon when they were ambushed by the Viet Cong. His sergeant and platoon leader were cut down by enemy fire and Tristian carried him out of danger to safety. Carrying a several more soldiers, he also took over the platoon and led them to safety. In doing so, he was wounded and died a few weeks later. He received a bronze star with valor, purple heart, Combat Infantry Man’s badge and Vietnam service medals as a result of his actions. 

 

In the early 2000nds, I became a social studies teacher and every Friday before Memorial Day weekend, I had my students look up Tristian’s name, reminding them that he was my best friend at their age. This was after 9/11 and I hope it gave these students, who lived under the shadow of the World Trade Center, an idea about the middle east war.

 

In 2010, after separating from my wife, I contacted the school’s alumni association and asked about how to nominate Tristan for the school’s wall. I got the forms and sent them in. In March, 2011, I got a call from the president of the Alumni Association.  Tristan would be given the award but there was no one to make a speech on his behalf. An only child, his parents were long dead. He died at 18 years of age and had never married so there were no children. There was a distant cousin, but he had never even met Tristian. Would I do the speech for his award? I suppose there really was no more qualified person, so I agreed. 

 

 

So in April, 2011, I returned to the stage. I was the first one to speak and began by asking the audience to stand. 

 

“Attention to orders,” I barked out in my best drill sergeant voice. I then read his citation.

 

“For exceptionally valorous service in connection with military operations against a hostile force. Private First Class Hayes distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on 9 September 1968 while serving as a rifleman on a combat operation in the Republic of Vietnam. When artillery rounds began falling into the company's surrounding area, numerous casualties resulted. Seeing that his squad leader was missing and that his squad was disorganized, Private First Class Hayes immediately directed his squad to dig in. He then left the safety of his position to look for his squad leader. Upon finding his wounded squad leader, he carried him to safety and to medical aid. Several times Private First Class Hayes left the comparative safety of his position to carry wounded comrades to safety and to medical aid. As a result of his unceasing determination and concern for his comrades, the wounded received the medical attention they needed. Private First Class Hayes' personal bravery and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.“

 

I then began to speak. I pointed out an aging Mr. Dempsey, sharing how he forced us to understand Vietnam and educating us to be able to make choices about the divisive war. 

 

Then I said: “Mr. Dempsey, once an all-state football player for this school in the 1940s, also coached Tristan and me. One day, during practice, Tristian stopped chasing someone. Mr. Dempsey grabbed Tristian’s face mask and told him ‘you keep playing until the whistle blows.’ It was lessons like this that gave him the incredible courage he displayed in Vietnam.”

 

I thanked people; told them they could be seated. They didn’t and I left the stage to a standing ovation. I suppose timing is everything because my cell phone started ringing as I walked off the stage as the ex started demanding money. I turned the phone off and sat down next to a friend. As I sat in my seat, I thought that since Tristian’s family had moved away, a long-delayed need for the community to say good bye to its hero had finally been met. As I said, it was the proudest moment of my life

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nukes

The Badlands National Park area contains more than the incredible views dating back millennia. 

 

I often visited the area while working at Wall Drug, the summer tourist trap. My job was to sell toys. It was a lot of fun as most of the sales were from the sale of toy cap pistols and rifles. As a kid in the 1950s, I constantly wanted these toys a I watched Hoppy, Roy and Gene as well as the Lone Ranger and the Cisco Kid. 

 

Part of the area includes a now-decommissioned control station for a number of Minuteman nuclear missiles.

 

Open to the public, I was able to view a bunker where the orders to launch the missiles was executed. The top floor was the living quarters for the men who manned the station when they were off duty. But downstairs was the control room. It was configured like a bank vault that was mounted on heavy duty springs, which were designed to handle the impact of a nearby enemy nuclear explosion. It would not survive a direct hit.

 

The officers who ran the vault, and actually controlled the launch of roughly 25 missiles, were all single men who were childless. While they had to pass strict psychological standards, the thinking was the single men would have less reluctance to launch. There was an interesting touch of dark humor painted on the door. Taken from a delivery company, there was a pizza box showing a missile heading to the Soviet Union. Painted on the box was “When it absolutely, positively has to be delivered in 20 minutes or the next one is free.”

 

About two miles away, there is a decommissioned missile silo containing an unarmed, unfueled missile which is completely covered and includes a glass viewing area. I visited this area several times as I remembered the Cuban missile crisis as a high school freshman. I had a deal with my girlfriend that if missiles were launched as we ducked and covered in the hallway that we would kiss each other’s ass goodbye.

 

Anyhow, I ran a cash register and one day I had a customer who handed me their credit card. Per our rules, I also asked for a photo ID. I was handed a military ID and was stunned to read the name Paul Tibbitt’s.

 

Never heard of him? Then you’re probably under 60 years of age. We Baby Boomers knew the name quite well. He was the bomber pilot who dropped the first atom bomb over Hiroshima during the second world war.  He was also the commander of the air wing and supervised the follow-up bombing of Nagasaki. 

 

Well I knew the man standing before me wasn’t the same person. That pilot had to be well over 120 years old. It turned out he was the grandson, an Air Force general.

 

In another life I majored in history and was a licensed high school social studies teacher. I had my students do an extra-credit essay, imagining they were the ones to drop the bomb. How would they feel about it? 

 

Well, I knew for sure who my next ghost would be and after work, I visited the missile silo around twilight.

 

He appeared to me dressed in an. Army Class B uniform. It had many, many medals on the shirt, but full bird coronel’s insignia.

 

“I met your grandson today. You must be very proud of him.” 

 

“I certainly am,” he replied. “His duties are far more complicated. We dealt with one bomb at a time. If there is a war, we would be launching hundreds of them.”

 

As an eighth grader, I read “Hiroshima,” the definitive account of the bombing written by John Hershey. Other books included “Fail Safe.” “Alas Babylon,” and “A canticle for Leibowitz,” three classic fictional accounts about nuclear destruction written in the 1950s. I asked him about the mission.

 

He told me that preparation for the mission was classified until the very end. Keeping the secret was difficult over several years of training. He said there were two very scary parts of the actual mission. First was the bomb was actually armed during the flight. Among other things, there was some air turbulence and inserting the nuclear matter and its trigger was very exacting. He also said that the moment the bomb was dropped, the plane had to execute a 180 degree turn to avoid the blast. Surviving the shock wave proved to be very exciting as the plane rocked and vibrated as it moved away from the blast at top speed. 

 

Prior to the bombing, he had gone to Nevada to observe the first test. “I was amazed,” he said. “I was looking for a huge conventional explosion and the flash, shockwave and the mushroom cloud were unexpected by me. The colors were incredible.”

 

I told him about the essays I had assigned in school and asked him how it felt. 

 

“I was glad to see the test so I had an idea about what to expect,” he said. “I knew thousands would instantly die and many thousands more would die from radiation poisoning.”

He said he had to realize that there was a choice to either drop the bombs or invade Japan with troops, which would result in tens of thousands of deaths and wounds by American soldiers. He pointed out that the Japanese military would fight to the last man as had happened during the fighting at various Pacific islands. He also noted the desperation of Kamikaze pilots who would crash their fighter-bombers into American naval ships while sacrificing their own lives.

 

I noted that the plot in “Fail Safe,” revolved around a single nuke bombing Moscow. In order to stop an all-out war, we had to bomb New York City. The pilot committed suicide after dropping the bomb. 

 

“I did not feel suicidal. We had to end the war. My biggest regret was learning that a hundred American prisoners of war also died in the blast.”

 

I thanked him for taking the time to talk to me. As he started to fade, I saluted him and he returned it. 

 

 Just a pair of geezers

 

This is a story about a couple of old geezers but it needs something of an introduction. It’s not my story really. 

It’s 1:30 in the morning on a Thursday and I really don’t feel like writing. But for the past nine hours, my brain has been telling me this must be written. Two days ago, I was up all night without sleeping. This happens sometimes, usually when I am reading a book. This time was different as I was mourning yet another death of a friend. His name is Mike Woods and a couple of years ago he sent me a message asking me if I was In Army Basic Training with him. It turned out he was and we developed a relationship. I quickly learned he was dying and urged him to remember he was a warrior and to fight the cancer that was ravaging his body. I learned of his death on Tuesday morning and couldn’t sleep.

So anyhow on Wednesday, I didn’t wake up until about 1 p.m. And I had an appointment with my doctor in an hour. Grabbing a peanut butter sandwich and a carton of milk, I got an Uber to the doctor and got there on time. 

The appointment went fine but I was having a problem getting a ride back. 

It took nearly an hour for the Uber app to find me a ride and I would have to wait about 55 minutes. The driver then cancelled and almost immediately I got another ride from Francis, who was ten minutes away. He was on his way back to Sarasota from St. Pete and was just as happy to get a rider as I was to be one.

 

Anyhow, we both were in the Army. I was in the infantry and he spent his time shooting mortars. I learned he was in his mid-80s and told him how much I was encouraged by that. Anyhow this is a tale of how much different a decade can be. He was in the Army in the 1950s–too late for Korea and too early for Vietnam. I told him the story about how I was number two in the draft lottery and he laughed like crazy. Time had turned a disaster into a funny memory. I also told him how I became a drill sergeant instead and there was more laughter. 

 

So we spent the 45 minutes talking. It turns out he lived about 25 miles south of Gettysburg and I shared some of my experiences when visiting there. I told him how a visit to Dwight Eisenhower’s nearby farm had been a real treat. And Francis told me about the time he had met Ike. 

 

He went home on a weekend pass and was dropped off at Gettysburg. He then hitched a ride home. 

 

Now it’s important to understand two things about that time. First, military people were expected to wear their uniforms when on leave. And second, this was after the second world war and Korea. And soldiers hitch hiking usually got rides rather quickly by people who showed their appreciation. On his way back, Francis’ father gave him a ride to Gettysburg, where it was fairly easy to hitch a ride. These were the days before tubeless and radial tires and getting a flat on a long road trip was almost expected.

 

Anyhow Francis is standing on the road in front of a farm and suddenly he is surrounded by armed guards. It turned out they were Secret Service people and Ike was out for a walk. 

Now understand this: Ike was the President at that time (1953-1961) He was, in fact, Francis’ COMMANDER IN CHIEF. And Francis was nervous as hell. Now I’m the one who is laughing.

 

Seeing his uniform, Ike came over and emphatically shook his hand. Francis said it was the most memorable moment of his life. We arrived at my place and I told him ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t know weather to salute or shit.”

 

We both laughed as he left for home. 

 

There were some lessons to be learned here. Here’s what I felt was important.

 

Laughter is indeed a great medicine. The time together took me over the hump morning my buddy.

 

While we both were close in age, there was a huge difference in America’s culture during our service. Soldiers simply didn’t wear uniforms while hitching for fear of being spit on, given the finger or even attacked. The counterculture and opposition to the war made a huge social difference.

 

All it was a couple of old folks sharing a bit of their lives, but the genuine friendship we had was a good thing for two lonely old people who lived alone. 

 

Thank you for making my day so much better Francis.

***

How Richard Nixon screwed up my life.

 

When I was a high school senior, I worked as a lifeguard at the best hotel in the area. It was the venue for our senior prom and many other activities. More than 50 years later, It’s still very nice.

 

Anyhow, I was really hungry and I went to the kitchen to get a sandwich for dinner. I spotted Nixon in the kitchen talking to some other people dressed in suits. Nixon was glaring at me and I was asked what I was doing there and then told to leave. That was probably the night I became a Democrat that night and I voted against him on my first time voting in 1968. But he beat Hubert Humphrey, who was incredibly gracious to me when, as a reporter, I covered his campaign several years later.

 

Now a missed sandwich isn’t the end of the world, but two things he did screwed up my life. First, he tried to reform the draft by having a lottery. I was number two. Fortunately, I was able to join the Reserves where, in their infinite display of military intelligence, they made me a drill sergeant.

 

Then Nixon was attacked for not calling up the reserves. And so I was a member of one of two units he did activate. It was a pleasure to watch him be forced to resign. 

Free advice

A few years ago, I wrote a blog for aspiring journalists. I said that the prospects for earning a living as a journalist are not nearly as good as prior to Internet news sites.

But the idea of writing a book is booming thanks to Amazon. I have about 600 books on my Kindle, all of which I’ve purchased from Amazon. I get three e-mails per day from Amazon, BookBub and ManyBooks, all of which offer free or reduced price books. Most of the ones I buy are around $1.99 and until recently, when I became overwhelmed with books I have yet to read, I was buying around 10 per week. 

As a writer, I enjoy decent writing that will take me to a place I might be interested in. Places like the future and worlds of fantasy are among my prime reads. Many of the books I read are in the “young adult” category, and they contain many sequels. Amanda Lee wrote a fabulous five-book series about a college girl involved with the supernatural. She did six follow-up books about life after graduation and she’s done at least a dozen books involving a midwest witch coven with many comedic aspects, which led to at least a dozen  books about supernatural hunters under the guise of a traveling carnival. 

And that’s just the beginning. There’s also what I call the “duds.” They’re books that I don’t care to finish and others which I will finish but won’t re-read. 

Anyhow, I am a published author, but that is from journalism and trade magazine articles. I estimate that I have well over a thousand bylines, very few of which were in wide circulation magazines.

But I keep plugging away, writing whatever I damn well please in this blog and perhaps finally pulling together enough articles to do a book. Think about a travelogue with a twist. I’ve been all over the country and I keep running into ghosts. Sometimes they are personal and others are historical. For example, I encounter the ghosts of Custer and Sitting Bull at the Little Big Horn. They’re still arguing about how white people took over Indian lands. 

But the book, which had a strong start, has slowed down due to many distractions. One would think the the Covid Stay-at-Home confinement would give me every opportunity to write. It hasn’t. I was recently asked by a high school classmate for advice on writing a memoir. So here’s some advice, but remember that it’s free. 

Have you viewed “A Christmas Story?” It’s a tale about a kid named Ralph who lived in the Depression. More than anything, he wants a genuine Red Ryder BB gun. And it seems his entire world is against him saying “You’ll shoot your eyes out kid.” Jean Shepherd wrote the script and nattarate’s it. 

Shep’s far more than a one-shot deal. He hosted a PBS series called “Jean Shepherd’s America.” But long before that, he was a secret for my high school persona. Every night, he would host a radio show for an hour that was frequently ad-libbed. Out of it came many fabulous stories which wend into half a dozen books. 

And these are the stories that create great memoirs. Most of the time, it was what Shep experienced as he viewed his world. A New York resident and erstwhile Broadway actor, he loved the city, but teased the suburbs, especially New Jersey, as places of “avarage,” and little more. He would hold lawn decorations in special scorn, calling it “slob art” and on one hot, humid night, he urged his radio listeners to just leave their cars and go home , creating one of the worst traffic jams in the history of New York City.

Most of his stories had much in common. His youth and early adulthood were a main source. He would talk about his childhood and some of the crazy things he experienced. He also loved to talk about his adventures in the signal corps during the Second World War. Another thing was working in a steel mill.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

As I age, I tend to speculate on how much decisions I have made, which seemed small at the time, affect the person I am today, Like it or not, it was what it is. 

For example, I blew my knee when playing freshman baseball. Along with most of the other sports, I couldn’t play any more. I tried to play football as a sophomore and junior, but the knee just didn’t hold up. I was on the swim team and for two years my knee rattled while I was swimming, but it got better in my senior year.

We had a mediocre freshman baseball team. Sometimes we were stomped by scores of 17-3. I was a catcher. I had never pitched in my life. But the coach had me warm up to mop up a few innings. After watching me, he didn’t put me in the game.

But two years later, the school’s baseball program got an incredible boost as we got players from the township surrounding our town. One of them was named Chip and he was an incredible pitcher. When I was a senior he led us to the state Group IV championship. The next year, the team won the Greater Newark Championship, which combined all the groups in the state and was the ‘real’ champion. 

Due to my swimming, I became involved with many YMCA activities. The athletic director recommended me for the Y’s Springfield College. I was accepted, but couldn’t afford to go there. In the meantime, Chip went there and has the school record for most shutouts. 

Two years after I graduated, my knee was somewhat better and I tried out for the County College baseball team. I played in a couple of games, but my knee didn’t hold up.

Although I saw Chip hurl a 1-hitter against Wayne H.S., I never really knew him until recently. We get into deep political discussions on Facebook and while I’m on the other side of the political spectrum, we are one of the few who respect one another’s views. And as we came to know one another a little bit, we realized that I might have caught him had I decided to go to Springfield. 

At the same time, it was at CCM that I began my career as a journalist. 

***

Which brings me to another topic. I was somewhat of a loner in high school. But one night, our chorus did a show for a local civic club at a large hotel. On the bus back to the school,  I was sitting next to a girl and we began to talk and wound up holding hands. It turned out that she lived around the corner and we agreed I would pick her up and walk with her to school. 

The next morning, I met her father when I picked her up. He wasn’t very pleasant to me. I personally thought he was drunk. And there occurred a decision that changed my life. Prior to meeting her father, I had thought about skipping school and taking her to my mother’s apartment while she was working. I was thinking about a necking session and I think she was thinking the same. But I was also thinking beyond my hormones. She was kind, sweet, caring and unassuming. In those days, it wasn't unusual to get married in our late teens after high school. And if she became pregnant, I would have missed the draft. 

But both my parents were alcoholics and I decided I couldn’t handle another one in my life. Hindsight is sometimes too sharp. I had come to realize that I never gave the girl, who obviously was attracted to me, a chance. I ignored her the rest of the year. It wasn’t hard as we shared no classes. At the end of the school year, we exchanged yearbooks to sign and she wrote about the romantic night on the bus. It was the last day of school and as I read it, felt like the asshole I truly was.  She was pretty, but she was also kind and caring. I wanted to be with her, but did not have the wisdom or courage to face her father again. 

A couple of years later, I was in a corporate bowling league.  Early in the season, I discovered her working the snack counter at the ally. We talked a small bit about nothing of substance and I had to return to my team. That night, I scored the highest game I ever had, a 216. And it held up throughout the year to win me a trophy,

As I went home that night, I thought about her and wondered if there was still a chance for romance. I spent the entire week trying to figure out what to say to her. But she wasn’t there. She had quit her job. 

The night in the bus happened in January.  Had I not acted like a jerk, I might have taken her to prom. 

But here’s the thing: I’ve been living with the girl I did go to the prom with for five years, and we had been dating for another five years on and off while I travelled around the country.    

And so, like I said, the decisions we make can dramatically change our lives. . . .or not!