Beautiful Bullshit

The French Foreign Legion, 1984, photographed by John Robert Young

I heard the platoon from my back yard.  40 men in white t-shirts, green fatigue pants and bloused black boots.  It was 1965 and I was eight years old.  I raced from my yard and caught up just as they turned left onto Sunchon Street in the Ft Bragg housing area called Hammond Hills.  I ran behind the platoon for a block or so before there was a sudden down pour.  The platoon sergeant lead the men under an empty carport, barked an order I didn't understand and everyone relaxed and lit up cigarettes.

I was mostly ignored as Zippos snapped around me.   One young black soldier smiled and I smiled back.  He lit a cigarette and stuffed the bright green pack of Salems back in his trouser pocket.  I don't remember talking.  Him or me.  But I see him clearly in my memory.  Tall, he was built like a "V" with broad shoulders and a narrow waist.

The rain let up and the run continued.  I ran behind my friend for a while but saw the border of Hammond Hills, shouted goodbye and veered off towards home.   I'll never forget that day or that soldier or the feeling I belonged… safe in the platoon.  I see it in my mind as a black and white photo on high contrast paper.  The black of the boots and bright white t-shirts…all in four straight lines.  My home... running away from me.  Ten years later I'd enlist.

Is Smoke Bomb Hill Kosher?

From Left: A couple A team sergeants and Dad on far right

Smoke Bomb Hill and Hammond Hills (click image to enlarge)

I remember him walking home. At eight, I was in my Hammond Hills bedroom researching an MG-TC. The Old Man was racing in the local SCCA club and I desperately wanted him to dump the Berkley with the chain driven motorcycle engine for a British Racing Green TC. For some reason, I look out my window and I see the swagger. More shoulder than hip - he had cocky written across his forehead.

The captain bars on his green beret glint from the sinking September sun. Starched jungle fatigues are cut at the waist with a web pistol belt. My Old Man is walking home from Smoke Bomb Hill with his XO who has less than seven months to live before drowning in the Son Toy River. Later that night, I'll fill an empty Budweiser bottle with water and wander out to the patio and stumble and weave in front of these two men who'll laugh their asses off.

10 years later I drank draft beers at the main post bowling alley with three of Dad's team sergeants from his tour in Vietnam. Two were still in Special Forces. The third had retired and spent most days sitting outside his trailer in Spring Lake, playing gospel music over a surplus PA system. The two sergeants told me how Dad used a Boy Scout wire saw to garrote VC. They laughed while the gospel lover just stared at me.

I was in the middle of zero month for the SF Qualification Course. Phase I at Camp McCall wouldn't start for another two weeks but I was happy fucking off on Smoke Bomb Hill. SF was a fairly loose group and I watched senior NCOs dry hump each other out in front of morning formations. There was so much dry humping in the Army that when I went back to college, still shitting army chow, I dry humped Roland Schumann who was bending over an ice box looking for a pint of chocolate milk. He turned and looked at me with this unmitigated terror in his eyes... and I realized he didn't get it. Neither did the 300 or so other students watching from the dining room.

Back in the Army, I knew I wasn't going to make it through Special Forces training. One of the few times I've accurately predicted anything. Of my class of 88, only three would get a green beret and they were all second term NCOs. The washout was so great, I was told my class was the last to allow anyone under E-5. But knowing I didn't have a prayer took a whole lot of pressure off and I Ghosted, disappearing to avoid details, whenever I could.

Another formation, more dry humping and names of the 85 "No-Go" are read. The 1st Sergeant repeats, "82nd Repo" over and over and over…until XVIII Airborne Corps goes to an PFC infantryman. Everyone looks at this bastard and wonders whose dick he's sucking. I'm wondering what the fuck an infantryman does at a corps headquarters and as I ponder the thought, my name gets closer and closer and the first sergeant, who's fond of saying to the formation, "You, in the green pants and black boots, come here," says my name and XVIII Airborne Corps. And everyone looks at me and wonders…

To this day, I still do. Before my father died a couple years ago I asked him for the umpteenth time, "Was it you? It had to have been you." He sucks on a cupped cigarette, inhales and blows out a pin stream of smoke and tightly wrapped words, "That wouldn't have been kosher."

Ft. Bragg, NC 1965

A family Polaroid taken by me.  My mother confident the picture would come out.   My father concerned I'd drop the camera.

Thinking of Camouflage

Sicily Drop Zone, Ft Bragg, 1976

Solid Shield, Ft Bragg, 1980

Green Ramp, Pope Air Force Base, 1978


What's fascinating about the current trend in camouflage is how the original intent -- has been completely reversed.

Greenwich Village, NYC, Summer 2011 - Photo by The Style Blogger

Travel to Exotic Places, Meet Interesting People & Kill Them

Entrance to EOC, Ft. Bragg, 1978, Photo by D. Konop

The charge of quarters woke me at Oh-Dark-Thirty on 19 November 1978.  I was told the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) had been activated and I might not return for a couple days.  I walked the block and a half from the barracks to XVIII Airborne Corps Headquarters and climbed three flights of stairs to a six inch thick vault door just to the right of the third floor landing.

Pressing the cipher lock  -  rocker switches numbered 1 to 5 and hidden behind a grey steel panel,  I pushed the EOC vault door open and walked along a dark narrow hall with darkened offices for 50 feet or so before it  turned sharply to the right and into a bright florescent lit room filled with steel desks and lined with maps, clocks, classified, secret and top secret cover sheets.

Cover Sheet

The duty officer, a major and a highly decorated helicopter pilot, told me US civilians had been attacked and killed by the Guyana Army. I sat at my desk as an operations assistant and was told I was one of the first to arrive while others were driving in from their homes on and off post.  The major handed me a telex with a Secret cover sheet stapled to it and told me he had a secure call to make.

I lit a Marlboro, tossed the match in an army issue glass ashtray and turned the cover page over. Following  the distribution of military and government offices, two paragraphs described how a US Congressman was shot and killed at the Port Kaituma airstrip along with hundreds of US civilians.  I remember thinking, "Why would the Guyanese Army do that?"

Port Kaituma Airstrip, photo credit: FBI

The EOC filled with men and talk of kicking Guyana ass and taking names.  The Airborne motto, "Travel to Exotic Places - Meet Interesting People - And Kill Them" was finally going to happen.  I was told by the ops sergeant that as infantrymen our lives as Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers (REMF) would soon be over and  we'd be re-assigned to a line infantry unit in the 82nd Airborne.

My stomach dropped just below my knees as I imagined coal black Guyanese commandos with machetes chopping my unprepared REMF ass into tiny bite size pieces and then fighting over my Rolex and boots.  At 20, I was a huge smart ass but I worked that morning without saying a word and wondered if I shouldn't leave my watch behind.

Time, December 4, 1978

It took almost four hours before a telex told the true story.  A US Congressman and five civilians, mostly media, had been killed at the airstrip.  The Guyanese, our enemy seconds earlier, were helping us and had reported 200 - 300 dead at a camp  of American farmers.  In another couple hours we learned it was mass suicide - Some 900 dead.  A G-3 officer wrote in red wax pencil over a Sortie board, "Operation Bag-A-Bod."  A call for volunteers went up to to assist 1st COSCOM with the body removal.  I called my father and told him I was thinking of going.  He told me not to and went into vivid detail as to why.

I learned a lot 34 years ago today.  I learned not to believe everything you hear or read.  I learned a an officer had his heels locked and his ass chewed over a Sortie board. I later learned he retired a major and I think I know why.  Mostly, I learned time changes everything.

Veteran's Day

My Fantasy, Ft Bragg, 1979

His Reality, Vinh Thanh, 1967

My father sent small B&W Agfa prints home during the war. His comments from that time were written in ink. I wrote a screenplay based on his experiences in Vietnam and during a visit in the 1995, I gave him all the photos I had from Vietnam and asked if he would share any memories with me. We sat on my patio after dinner and smoked and drank. He flipped through the pictures saying little. The next morning at breakfast he returned the pictures with comments printed in pencil.

No Horses - No Bayonets - One Bird

From left, MSG Ridout & Sgt Tinseth, Solid Shield, 1980

Belly Dancing & Plaid in 1980

Fayetteville, NC, 1980

It was a strange day.  I was about 30 days short from getting out of the Army.  I had just bought a plaid sport coat for college at the PX with the help of a buddy in G-2 who had worked in a haberdasher somewhere in Alabama.  I was asked to take pictures of my Sergeant Major's wife's belly dancing class.  I suppose they're all still waiting for prints.

One of the dancers, who was married to a huge MP, was having an affair with a buddy of mine. But he didn't have a plaid sport coat. It helps to have a plaid sport coat on a strange day.

It Says More About Me Than I Care To Admit

Special Forces Recruitment Ad - 1976

I sat across from Army recruiter Dusty Rhodes in early May of 1976. A wooden name plate flanked by SFC chevrons was centered on his steel desk. He chain smoked Parliaments that he put out in a giant Army issue glass ash tray and two finger typed at a computer terminal.

"No, doesn't look good. You're too short."

"Too short?"

"Yeah, you gotta be five-ten to be an MP. I thought it might have changed by now but no luck."

"You mean it might change?"

"Sure. Hispanics are suing for discrimination. That sort'a thing. Could be next month or next year."

I stand. Shake Rhode's hand and head for the Air Force recruiter down the hall ignoring the Old Man's advice, "Join the Air Force as an MP and you'll be freezing your ass off guarding B-52s in Minot, North Dakota."

In the hallway is a poster. The understated graphic lends guts to the words, "It says more about you than you'd ever say about yourself." Words of comfort to a boy whose father always said, "You can't do anything right" and a mother who complained, "Nothing makes you happy." I'll be a Green Beret and everything will change.

MGB Ad - 1971

Little did I know the power and deception of Madison Avenue. Not to mention the plagiarism.

Crazy? Take This Test...

From Special Forces Briefing, Ft Bragg, NC, 1978

Back in 2005, pal and crime writer, Wallace Stroby was looking for back ground on an ex-Army character he was developing for a third novel. Rather than winging it and creating a complete joke (Jack Reacher comes to mind), Stroby consulted my father who was kind enough to cc me in on their correspondence.

From: phred
To: Wally
Subject: Of Looney Tunes & Real Nutzos
Date: 11 May 2005

Looney Tunes goes with the territory of Special Ops people, cops, and similar "elite" (as they see themselves) in order to maintain the "glamorous" image portrayed in film and novels. Generally, this involves relatively harmless "prankster" stuff. The cop at a party who crawls under a glass-topped table to see if the woman sitting on it is wearing underwear. The SF guy who crawls up in the rafters in a bar and takes a "dump" over the ceiling fan.

But, then, there are the real Nutz with severe mental problems. At one point, you refer to the character as feeling "...no one is fit to judge him or his actions." That may be, but it's also characteristic of psychopaths and sociopaths, and then it becomes a real danger. In Special Forces, for example, precautions were taken to "weed out" the real nutz.

I remember taking a variety of psychological tests, including the Minnesota Multiphasic. Problem is/was that psychos are able to lie so successfully that they're most difficult to detect -- and can even beat a lie detector. I had such a nut on my first team. Was able to get rid of him before he did serious harm.

I understand that the shrinks are getting better with more effective tests than the simple multiple choice versions that attempted to catch people contradicting their previous answers. Here's a sample:

A woman, while at the funeral of her mother, met a man she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing, so much her dream guy she believed him to be just that! She fell in love with him right there, but didn't ask for his number and could not find him. A few days later she killed her sister.

Question: What is her motive in killing her sister?

Answer: She was hoping that the man would appear at her sister's funeral. If you answered this correctly, you think like a psychopath or sociopath.

By the way, if you got the answer correct, please let me know so I can take you off my email list -- unless that will piss you off, in which case I'll be extra nice to you from now on.

The Test

The main post pool was divided into 10 lanes. At both ends were 10 NCOs wearing green berets with the white training cadre flash. The test consisted of two surface laps in fatigues and boots. No kicking off the side. I thought it would be fun to do the laps underwater.

I earned the senior life saving card in high school. I told the old man who promptly suggested if I ever swam out to save someone I should take a 2"x4" with me. "Why?" I asked. "Cause when people are drowning they're gonna look at you like you're the pier." he said.

Half way across the pool my boots and fatigues turned into anchors. What was an easy underwater lap, with air to spare in trunks, was turning into no air with a quarter length of pool to go. I frog kicked harder and swam to the surface breaking water and gasping in front of a sergeant watching my lane. He smiled down at me, "Nice one, smart ass. Now swim back underwater."

My father reached the river that ran by Vinh Thanh and saw two bodies floating on the surface. He knew what happened before anyone said a word. An officer was drowning. A sergeant went to his rescue. The officer took the sergeant down. Two men dead because one man didn't take a swim test.

I nodded to the sergeant and went back down. I made it a quarter of the way before surfacing. I looked back to see the sergeant laughing and side stroked the rest of the lap. Checked off a clip board, I squeaked to the showers for a change into dry fatigues.

He stood in the locker room waiting for me. Parker was a medic and friend from East Texas. He asked if I would wear his shirt and swim his laps. No one would ever find out. I remembered my father's men, told Parker no and walked past him. He failed the swim test and never spoke to me again.

Merry Christmas

Hay Street, Fayetteville, NC

The bars were razed and the hookers who tagged along were dispersed. That was all the civilians wanted. To spread Hay Street across Fayetteville like margarine on Wonder bread.

Three generations of bloused boot paratroopers spent Christmas on Hay Street. Cheering beer and strippers in Suzy Wong, The Seven Dwarfs or Pop A Top Lounge.

30 years later I walk an unforgotten route and nothing's the same. Cocky paratroopers are replaced with the waddling middle class twirling pasta in ersatz Italian restaurants.


Santa poses for pictures and I follow him to my hotel bar. He joins a red head and she smiles offering him a saved bar stool. He lights a cigarette with a Bic and orders a drink.

I think of Christmas when I was 19. Offering a stripper a heart shaped Whitman Sampler in my Bullit black turtleneck. She smiles down at me from her stage. When I think of her... I smile at Santa and buy him a drink.

'When We Walked Above the Clouds'

When We Walked Above the Clouds by H. Lee Barnes available here.


H. Lee Barnes on far left with 57mm Recoilless Rifle and the Australians


Barnes firing recoilless rifle

Barnes in flip flops


Barnes (in Tiger Stripe fatigues) shakes hands with Charlton Heston. Heston was considering a film role that went to John Wayne.

H. Lee Barnes 2002

In 1963, H. Lee Barnes was an Army Brat living in El Paso and struggling through college. A disinterested and alcoholic mother wasn't helped by a radio announcer step father whose constant job searches would later be subsidized by Barnes himself. There comes a time in some men's lives when they discover they don't belong anywhere. This is usually followed with the recognition that they're pretty much alone. It's a ripe moment for an Army Recruiter.

Barnes enlisted in the Army and volunteered for Special Forces. "You know that song?" Barnes tells me. "One hundred men they'll test today --Only three win the green beret? I was the only one of 50 who made it." I tell Barnes only three in my class of 88 made it and I wasn't one of 'em. I'm looking for a laugh. I don't get one.

Memories of Ft Bragg in 1965 and '66 are seared into my brain despite being eight years old. The green beret itself was something holy to me. I revered the men who wore it. My father, his team members, the next door neighbor and all the men who inhabited Smoke Bomb Hill. This small corner of Bragg was home to Special Forces and was littered with white frame buildings from WWII stuck in the pines. I revered the place when I came back ten years later looking for my own beret.

Assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group at Ft Bragg, Barnes is sent to the small but promising hot spot of the Dominican Republic where Communists are trying to push over a domino. Barnes quotes a lifer's observation in the book, "Wherever Americans go, they turn the women into whores." It's easy duty, guilty even, so Barnes volunteers for Vietnam and winds up at SF Camp A - 107 in Tra Bong some 60 miles south of Da Nang.

Barnes specialty was Demo and secured the Spec 5 ($194 a month) two hazardous stipends of $55 each. One for jump pay and one for blowing things up or the more challenging job of keeping things from blowing up. This all sounds pretty sexy but life at Tra Bong is a thumping bore. As junior man on the team, Barnes gets the shit details...to include burning it.

Jame's Jones took tedium in the army to an art form in A Thin Red Line. A man's thoughts and memories of home in the book became film director Terrance Malick's flashbacks in the film version . A Walk Above the Clouds (author's blog here) takes us on patrols of surrounding mountains with a ruck and a weapon. But there's higher altitude.

Barnes mines his deeply personal reflections. Not only on his good luck, and the guilt that comes with it, but the value of a man's specialty over his value as a human being. Two senior noncoms whose alcoholism reflect a sad army tradition but whose honor and duty spoke to a responsibility the army instills. What Barnes calls, "An honorable action" and "Doing the right thing."

I ask Barnes if he can think of any traits unique to Special Forces members back then. He quickly ticks off a list: "A broken home. Poor. Rootless. Driven to be recognized. Bright and unstable." Tra Bong is one of three places in the world where Cinnamon grows naturally. It is also a place where Lee's captain was beheaded and three team members were killed. Barnes writes of the obsessive card playing with fellow team members, "Cards, like war, reduced to luck no matter a man's skills. No one wanted to be alone with his thoughts to think about that."

Barnes tells me he is done with writing about Vietnam and claims it's the hardest thing he's written. Not only because he was bound to the truth of it but because his team mates names were on it. These events occurred 45 years ago but they should be fresh on everyone's mind. War in a far off place and in a culture not understood. Where the object of "Hearts and Minds" becomes confusion over who the enemy really is. The surprising ending of this book is a reminder...sometimes our biggest enemy can be on our own team.

Army Surplus

The basement of I. Goldberg in Philadelphia is a diverse mix of mostly European military surplus with U.S. Alice packs and frames scattered in a corner. First thing you notice is the smell. Mildewed wool with Clorox added as a top note to an earthy base of foot locker plywood, protective mask rubber and Warsaw Pact leather. It's a damned good surplus store. One of the best I've ever found.

I can't walk through this place without thinking of people I knew in the Army. Names I still remember, but better, the characters whose names I forgot -- Sometimes before I even got out. These memories can come out of nowhere. Cued up by a smell, a stenciled box of rations, the feel of a poncho liner or stories from another soldier.


Mudbone was a 15 year Spec 5 clerk who boasted of catching VD six times and being busted in rank at least four. His face was pock marked, his head had missing chunks of hair that never grew back, but he had a huge smile and a warm voice. At 5:30 every morning, Mudbone supervised barracks clean up. Dressed in a short silk dragon robe he purchased in Korea, he stood at the end of the hall drinking a can of beer and smoking a Newport.

Mudbone had a nobility despite his life being as bad it was. Maybe he just didn't give a shit. Which is ironic. Mudbone shit in his pants on almost every jump I made with him. We'd be hooking up static lines and suddenly, from somewhere in the plane, there was that unmistakable whiff of Mudbone.


In Basic Training a farm boy from Nebraska or Kansas, can't remember which, asked for a General Discharge. He'd tell anyone who'd listen that he made a mistake. I remember thinking we all made a mistake. He pushed and pushed the Drill Sergeants for the paperwork and they finally relented.

A week before he left, I saw him endure more harassment than I endured in my four years. A moment didn't go by that a Drill wasn't screaming in his face, hitting him on his helmet liner with a cleaning rod or just sucker punching him in the gut. And, egged on by the Drills, we fucked with him too. One night on Fire Guard I watched him sleeping in his bunk. He lay there like a peaceful mummy on his back. His hands perfectly folded on his chest. I thought it took balls. He didn't give up on giving up.

My bunkmate in Basic couldn't read. He wanted to go Infantry but didn't score high enough on the ASVAB tests and settled for cook. The only job in the Army where you could be stupider than an infantryman. I wrote letters to his wife and read hers to him. He had jet black hair, a huge head, and to make matters worse, he was fat. But he was my bunkmate and I rooted for him while most others knew he wouldn't make it. His wife seemed to know too. She was always worried about him. Afraid of what the Army could do to him. I was happy for her when he was discharged.



A SSgt in the 82nd asked me to join him in asking a couple ladies to dance at the main post enlisted club. We stood at their table. He asked. They looked up at us, shook their heads and went to back their conversation. He interrupted and asked if we could join them.

A blonde with Farrah Fawcett hair said she didn't think so and turned back to her friend. The SSgt interrupts again and asks if we can buy them a drink. The blonde is pretty pissed off at this point, looks up at us and says sure. "Fuck You!" the SSgt screams and walks away. Leaving me at their table. I look at them and smile. They go back to their conversation.

Later that same night, he unzipped his fly at our table and told me to move my boots. After which, he urinated under the table. I'd run into many more like him. A craziness that was OD Green. If something like this bothered you...? You were in the wrong place.


Claggett was tall, attractive, built and lucky. One of the luckiest men I have ever known. Hookers on Hay Street extended him credit until pay day. Bartenders bought him drinks. Everyone in the company liked him. Even the officers.

He had a '63 Dodge Dart that we took to the Fox Drive In on Bragg Blvd to see porno movies. We'd use the hood as a card table and played Black Jack while ignoring the movie. It wasn't until someone would yell, "Les scene!" that we'd all stop the cards and watch in respectful silence. Claggett met a wonderful woman and married before he ETS'ed. I hope he's still lucky.


Drill Sergeant's Hunt and Stokes would force march my company out to the rifle ranges. Usually 10, sometimes 20 miles. We'd leave in the morning and wouldn't see the range until noon. During the march, there was an accordion effect where, if you were in the back of the company, you'd have to run to catch up to the front of the formation. Then you'd stop dead in your tracks waiting for the people in front of you to move forward, only to run again when the march stretched out and the accordion repeated itself...over and over.

While we were qualifying on the range the other battalion Drills, usually four at time, would cram into a car and ride around smoking pot. I'd watch the car return, see Stokes get out along with a cloud a smoke and another Drill would take his place. We were told the first day of Basic we would never -- never -- forget our Drills names.


Ken was from Indiana, pursed lipped with wire frame glasses and hair parted down the middle. He was every bit the Volunteer Army stoner. During a field exercise in the Pisgah National Forest or it could'a been Uwharrie, they looked the same to me, we found out from some guy in a Signal company that there was a general store close by that sold beer. We pitched in and sent Ken on a beer and Doritos run.

Ken finds the store is mobbed with troops. He waits in line a half hour and pays for the beer. Walking out, he realizes he forgot the Doritos. He asks the girl at the register if she'll watch the beer for him. Sure, she says. And he puts the case down on her counter. When he comes back with the Doritos, the beer is gone. Ken asks where his beer is and the girl says she doesn't know adding she's pretty busy. Too busy to watch his beer.

Ken offers that she shouldn't have offered to watch his beer in the first place. She tells Ken something like, whatever, and continues to ring up other customers buying beer. Which, as you can guess, this little market is selling a whole lot of.

Ken goes to the back of the store and grabs another case of beer. He stands in line for another half hour before he pays -- for the Doritos. The girl tells Ken he has to pay for the beer. "No, I don't." says Ken and he points his M16 at her head. There's a huge, "Whoa!" from the guys in line behind Ken. He looks at them. Then her, and says, "I'm leaving with my beer now." and he walks out.

Before Ken got back to our tent, two MPs showed up and asked if we knew Ken. We told them we did. They asked where he was and we told them he was on a beer run. They asked if he was coming back and we said yes. One MP told us Ken had robbed the general store. All I could think of was -- was he stoned? Someone asks how they know it was Ken and the MP tells us he was in uniform. Name tag, rank, company unit. Wasn't too hard to find him.


I had to testify at Ken's court martial. As it was, he got off pretty light. His parents were there along with the store owners and their daughter. I guess if you were them, you'd reckon Ken got away with scaring the bejesus out of their little girl. Or, if you were on the court martial board, you might suppose she should'a paid closer attention to Ken's beer. I don't know.


People came and went in the Army. Despite those intentions of keeping in touch -- I've only stayed close to one. About once a year we get together for dinner, drink too much and remember. Sometimes we tell the same stories. Sometimes we discover something new. Something he knew that I didn't or the other way around. We do agree on one thing. We love Army Surplus Stores and there just aren't many good ones around anymore.