Happy Birthday

Duluth, 1937

Duluth, 1945

Puerto Rico, 1951

South Korea, 1959

South Korea, 1971

Yuma, 1987

Between a Father and a Son: Madras or Marinade

July 3, 1988

He didn't have much use for my madras sport coat. But, he started me on the road to a flank steak marinade that always reminds me of his grilling aesthetic. Mostly soy sauce. A cup or two. A glug of bourbon or two. Pour over a scored flank steak for at least six hours. Overnight is even better. In the years that have gone by, I've added a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil and a teaspoon of powdered wasabi. But the soy and bourbon are the guts. Madras will come and go but his grill is eternal.

Happy Father's Day

The Old Man's in the Angora V-neck. Korea, circa 1970. Information Officer for the 2nd Infantry Division. Shortly after my father died, I was contacted by the man on the right.

I was a young Lieutenant in Korea and your father was my boss in the information office. He was a great guy and I’m sorry to hear he’s gone. He gave me the freedom to do what I wanted to but also kept me out of major trouble. I enjoyed the year I spent with him in “Freedom’s Forgotten Fighting Frontier.”

Part of our job in Korea was to print the division newspaper. It was type set and printed by a Korean firm, the type setters understood NO English so a p,d,q,b all looked the same to them. As a result we spend a great deal of time proof reading. These pictures were taken at a picnic held by the Korean printing firm. The young lady was the only member of their staff that spoke any English. I’m the kid in the straw hat.

I remember when your Dad got the Topcon RE Super. I remember thinking how huge it was. He was proud of that camera and took some good pictures. As I said before I enjoyed knowing and working with Major T, he did a great job of keeping everything in perspective.

It's strange to see him in photographs I've never seen before. It's even stranger to see him so relaxed. I think I saw him smile three times -- and that wasn't so much a smile as a grimaced smirk. My first reaction was not hard to understand. He was relaxed and happy because he was away from his family. Thousands of miles away.

And it hurts to think that. So, I came up with another theory. He was tired of the bullshit in Special Forces. He was frustrated with the strategy in Vietnam. But he loved to write and he loved photography. He was finally doing what he loved to do, publishing a newspaper and a magazine. Far, far from home.

Military Relationships

Special Forces Detachment A-228, Vinh Thanh, South Vietnam, 1966

"The Koreans in photo with me and Team Sergeant, MSG Don Briscoe (splendid soldier and good friend) at my SF camp in VN (Vinh Thanh) were with the Korean "Tiger Division" who protected part of the highway between the coast and the 1st Cav base at An Khe. (Very tough soldiers; very competent.)

I was to their north (at the end of nowhere). We related well. They had minimal water and I had plenty (so they came up for hot showers, good booze and food). We stopped at their place for jars of Korean kimchi, "sticky rice" (marvelous large grains the size of rice krispies and ginseng adult beverage (with root still in the bottle). In all, I spent well over 4 years working with Koreans in the U.S., VN, and Korea. Relations always cordial and successful (old Army slogan -- Cooperate and Graduate).

I used the same dodge when working with the "hated" media. I never lied to them. I told it like it really was and even showed them the covered maps and let them talk to the troops without monitoring the conversations. If a media type noted this frankness and inquired, I'd remind them that I'd arranged for their helicopter to pick them up very late in the day. And that by the time they reached Saigon it would all be history. The good ones appreciated this. The losers, as usual, just looked vacant. Relationships really work!"

Comment from FM Tinseth on blog, 'I'm Here To Leave,' - November 28, 2009 2:53 PM

By FMT

Goddess of the Western World 1975



Three Wise Men 1973


Back to Camp 1972


Number One Figure(s) 1976


Cutty Sark Label 1973


Fire Crackers 1968


Still Life 1970


The Recline 1969


Bust 1970


Blue Square 1973


The DMZ 1970


The Throw 1974


The Relaxed Man 1968

He started with Relaxed Man -- Painted after returning home from Vietnam. He told me last year it had been the first time he felt relaxed since coming home, which is why I refuse to put a bow tie on him.

He created the fire cracker series by squeezing tubes of acrylic paint on strings of fire crackers. That got messy and loud so he filled old light bulbs with paint and dropped them while standing on a stool.

There was the ink block of the 'Three Wise Men' he cut for a Christmas card. But he forgot to reverse his initials. Corrected initials were added later. Three of his paintings are at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC. Several more were purchased for corporate collections.

We never knew what the Hell he was gonna do next. I get the impression he didn't either. I guessed the date by associating the piece with his assignment. Advisor to the Charlotte National Guard, Information Officer at NORAD, General Staff at Ft Monroe.

It wasn't easy having nude paintings on your living room wall in Huntersville, NC in 1969. He didn't give a shit but I did. Many friends thought I was going straight to H-E- Double toothpicks back then but times have changed and you can see the influence of the late '60s and early '70s in his work. He gave it all up. Don't ask me why.

Most of these paintings are gone and these color slides are the only proof they ever existed. That's the way he would've wanted it.

Seven Days of Memories: Phred & Anne

Phred and Anne, New Mexico or Arizona, May 1984

I called from Ft Bragg through a Watts line. I was coming home for a three day weekend just before ETS'ing and was gonna clear it with him. The operator answers and I tell her, "Sgt Tinseth calling for Colonel Tinseth. Please patch me through to..." and I gave her the home number.

He tells me he doesn't think it's a good idea. He and my mother are getting a divorce. Things just didn't work out. I hang up and break down. Sgt Murphy asks what happened. I tell him and he tells me to take the rest of the day off.

Four years later I get this picture. I am stunned. Not only at the beauty of Anne but mostly because he's wearing a name tag. He hated name tags and the disingenuous BS that went with them. But there he was. Obviously happy. Wearing a name tag.

He met her while she was painting a spare tire cover on the back of an RV. He thought she looked pretty good. He'd been in the New Mexico desert following old stage coach trails with a metal detector. I had this picture of him in shorts with black socks waving his detector back and forth in the middle of nowhere.

They never married but lived with each other almost 30 years until Anne passed away last November. He was positive he would go first. His last plan spoiled by Murphy's Law. His health declined rapidly but he lied to his children for fear he'd be a burden. He talked of assisted care and a trip to Sweden. And then he told me, "Being a helpless fucking fool is no fun."

Seven Days of Memories: Over The Top

Pvt. FM Tinseth, 1953

"You'll recall, that I was also an Army Brat for 18 years. My dad (your grandfather), a WWII officer and later Command Sergeant Major, almost never gave me advice on anything. I was expected to learn from observing his behavior -- both personal and with his troops.

Throughout his life, he and I never had a serious conversation. When I asked for his approval to marry (your mother) at age 18, (hoping he'd refuse), he simply wrote "approved." He complimented me on very few occasions: your birth, my university degree, my jump wings and Combat Infantry badge, my final promotion to "Lite" Colonel.

We're of Norwegian stock. Cold on the outside (not huggers), but warm enough on the inner. We care, we just don't show it. Main thing I learned observing your grandfather, was that an NCO or Officer's primary duties was "take care of your troops."

So, in "my" Army, as an NCO and Officer, you put your ass on the line to look out for your troops. Sadly, in today's Army, NCOs and Officers often put their troops asses on line in order to protect their own sweet, perfumed asses." FMT

He had been an enlisted man. He knew the ropes. He knew his men. Cared about them more than he did himself. More than he did his own family -- I'm guessing.

He drove up to Ft Benning to pin jump wings on my chest. After the graduation ceremony he was ready to drive me back home. Problem was, I had leave papers but they had not been signed by the company commander. A nasty little man who liked to call men, "Honey" and go on leave without signing leave papers.

I explain this to him standing in the hallway outside the 1st Sergeant's office. There's about 30 of my classmates in the same situation. We're all hoping the 1st Sergeant, or 'Top' as 1st Sergeants are known, can do "something."

He takes my leave papers and strolls down the hall. I see him knock on the door frame and enter Top's office. He's been retired just over a year. I'm thinking there's not much he can do when I see him walk out of the office carrying my leave papers and doing the silent whistle -- That purse of the lips with nothing coming out.

"Let's go," he says. "What?" I say. He hands me my leave papers and I see Top has signed for the C.O. "Grab your shit and lets get outta here." I look at 30 guys looking at me. "Do you think we could help them?" "We?" he snorts. "No, we can't help them." I follow him as he strolls down the hall past 30 guys looking at me.

He tells me somewhere on I-95 that Top was "chicken shit" and "scared shitless" he'd get his "ass in a sling" signing for the captain. He tells me the captain is a "fuck stick" for what he did but what Top did was worse. "It's a gutless fucking army." he moans.

I just realized that 80% of my vocabulary is in the above paragraph.

Seven Days of Memories: White Flags

Cpt. Tinseth, 1965, Ft Bragg, NC

With apologies to those who know the story...
Early one morning, I watched him stick the first of many white flags in our front yard. Made from wire hangers and a bed sheet, the miniature flags, over a week's time, filled our postage stamp yard and soon it looked like a putting green. No one ever asked him what they were for.

On Saturday, he invited the neighbor over for late afternoon beers and BBQ . Earlier in the day, I was treated to a top down drive in his Berkley, a chain driven British sports car that rarely ran, and slot car racing at the Hayes Hobby Store. We raced a blue Ford GT 40 with a Cox hand control. It also rarely ran. I wanted to ask about the flags...but didn't.

Later that afternoon he and the neighbor are drinking beers on the patio when the neighbor laughingly asks, "What's up with all those little flags in your front yard?" He takes a drag off a Marlboro, looks the man in the eyes and replies through a blue stream of exhaled smoke, "That's where your dog shits in my yard."

Seven Days of Memories: Sophie's Choice

Sophie's 8 x 10


What Sophie wanted

What Sophie got

His mother begged him for a retirement photo in dress blues. He didn't like the idea. Already displayed in Sophie's living room was a framed 8x10 of him from 10 years earlier. It was B&W but Sophie had it hand colored. He detested it. There was an air of the '40s about it. Not in a warm Kodachrome way but in a badly colorized movie way.

He was at Ft Belvoir while his family was stuck in Colorado Springs trying to sell a house he put too much money into. Instead of the kitchen or bathroom, he threw it into a finished basement with darkroom and wood shop. He even installed underground sprinklers. Down the street, a new model of the same house was considerably less. Donald Trump he was not.

My grandparents lived in Arlington, VA and he saw them every Sunday while stationed at Belvoir. Every Sunday Sophie begged him for the dress blues picture. Full color, textured and Olan Mills, would have made her day. He only relented when he realized he could do it his way.

An ersatz daguerreotype from one of the many cheap studios so popular in the '70s. Take your pick from Civil War costumes, saloon floozies or wild west gunfighters. He picked his dress blues. Only decorations were what meant the most to him. Combat Infantry Badge and jump wings. It was 5x7. Sophie mounted it into an oval frame. She was ecstatic. So was he.

Seven Days of Memories: Shooting

2nd Lt. FM Tinseth, First Row - Far Right, Ft Bragg (?)

"Keep the rear sights focused and the target fuzzy. Only Joe Shit the Rag Man needs to focus on the target. Always focus on the sights." FMT, 1973

He competed for a time. Tried for the Olympics but didn't make it. "Shot shitty that day." He'd tell you it was, "Murphy's Law." Whatever could go wrong -- would go wrong. He liked to remind me that, "When everything is going well, your plan is obviously faulty."

Years later, when something he was working on went terribly wrong he'd whine in a high pitch, "Why me, God?" He'd lower his voice to a dark rumble, "Because Phred, you piss me off." They were old gags based on older jokes. His father did this. So do I.

What made him unique was his odd take on almost everything. In the early '70s, he planned a new army at CONARC Command that was split in two. One half was admin and all that went went with it including parades, dress uniforms and other 'REMF' paraphernalia. The other half was only concerned with killing and winning wars. These men would be better paid, advance more rapidly and be spared the 'horse shit' of the paper pushers.

40 years later, special operations in all branches look similar to his vision. Sadly, the horse shit element is still pervasive. "Oh, well..." he'd say. Something for the, 'My Ass' file. As in, "Here, stick this document in My Ass."

Seven Days of Memories: His Sound Track

Major FM Tinseth, South Korea, 1971

A change - due to my father's death - is the ability to suffer fools. I've always considered myself the biggest. Impatience with others and myself have taken a toll. I find I'm a lot less judgmental and more aware than ever since his death -- No one is perfect. It's such a release, I can't understand why I never saw it before.

Maybe Monty helps. Sunday mornings my father made a foul smelling breakfast of garlic, eggs and onions to the cascading violins of Mantovani piped through our house. He loved jazz, folk, Bossa Nova and riverboat, but I think Monty was his favorite.

No doubt an early influence from his father, a sergeant major who managed Army radio stations and probably resembles, more than I'd like to ever admit, the easy listening, Sergeant Major Dickerson in, "Good Morning, Vietnam."

I picked up a taste for Montavani (Warning: Cheesy Video) as well. Listening to, 'The Very Best of,' while driving from Chicago to Denver one summer, the lack of lyrics lent a "closing credits" sound track to the two day drive past Iowa farms, Nebraska slaughter houses and too many hours of the Rockies.

But it's the Sundays growing up that I remember the syrup melody most. It must have soothed the old man. It does me. And as much as I like him, it is hard to listen to Joe Strummer as background music. Trust me, I tried.

But Monty allows conversation and rumination. And on a slow Sunday, with nowhere to go but a lazy crawl through newspaper, garlic, egg and onions, coffee and lots of memories, it ain't bad at all. Time. Place. Occasion.

Seven Days of Memories: Ft Bliss

1st Lt. FM Tinseth, Ft Bliss, TX

"... You, age 6 or so,
had seen me play records, but didn't notice the power had to be turned on.
You managed to get a disc on, but nothing happened.
You tried turning the disc by hand; nothing. You then continued turning
by hand while pressing very hard on the cartridge; nothing except you destroyed the very expensive cartridge and almost the player motor.
I think I came very close to driving you 100 miles out in the Mexican desert and dumping you."
FMT

He couldn't remember when when he first remembered him. Ft Bliss comes to mind. The desert, horny toads and tumble weeds pushed by a dusty wind were the back yard to their small house on post. But army posts blend into each other and it's hard to keep the commissary at Ft Bragg from turning into the commissary at Bliss. White fame, warning sign-yellow curbs, empty cement coal bins and asphalt roofed sameness.

He supposed it was Bliss. He was six and crew cut. His father was 28 and crew cut. One hot El Paso Saturday afternoon, he filled an empty brown beer bottle with water and joined his father and a neighbor on the small concrete porch. Their surprise turned to laughter when he sat next to them and tilted the bottle back. It was the first time he saw light in his father's dark brown eyes.

Little was said when his father came home. He heard the shaking of ice and knew it was a cold gin martini. Always Beefeater. He studied his father's after work ritual of a sipped martini and an inhaled cigarette for years. 44 years later that ritual turned into throat cancer. He would win that battle but lose the war. Too scarred and decimated from the chemo. Too pissed off to quit smoking or drinking. Too proud to allow his children to see him.

His father didn't give a crap what anyone else thought. A salesman sold him a car and threw his arm across his father's shoulders. "Take your fucking arm off me." said his father. Lots of things tried to kill his father -- Quiet pride got the job done but not before there was laughter.