Seeing the Elephant

West Palm Beach National Guard unit at Camp Blanding summer campIt was the summer of 1975. Saigon had fallen and the Vietnam War was over. My draft lottery was high enough that I wasn’t called, even though my draft status was 1A for a brief time in 1969.

I talked The Post into sending me to Camp Blanding with a local National Guard unit for a week of summer camp. I wrote about the experience in 2012. On this Memorial Day weekend, my thoughts turn back to that era.

National Guard was a safe haven

West Palm Beach National Guard unit at Camp Blanding summer campThe unit was a mixture of young guys with long hair who wore wigs over their tresses serving alongside men with gray in their hair. One guardsman wore jump wings on his cap and sported tattoos on his arms listing almost every major battle in the Pacific during World War II.

Seeing the elephant

West Palm Beach National Guard unit at Camp Blanding summer campThe phrase “seeing the elephant” popped up in many Civil War letters and diaries, but Curator Jessica said it’s been around longer than that. G.W. Kendall, in Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition in 1844, wrote, “When a man is disappointed in any thing he undertakes, when he has seen enough, when he gets sick and tired of any job he may have set himself about, he has ‘seen the elephant.'”

I didn’t know much about the background men in the unit, but I could see in the eyes of some of the guardsmen they were looking way beyond the pines and palmettos of north central Florida. What was a war game to most was very real to some.

2000-Yard Stare

West Palm Beach National Guard unit at Camp Blanding summer campLife Magazine published a painting by World War II artist and correspondent Tom Lea in 1945. The 1944 panting of a Marine at the Battle of Peleliu – the site of the highest casualty rate of any battle in the Pacfic –  became known as the 2,000-Yard Stare.

Lea said of his subject, “He left the States 31 months ago. He was wounded in his first campaign. He has had tropical diseases. He half-sleeps at night and gouges Japs out of holes all day. Two-thirds of his company has been killed or wounded. He will return to attack this morning. How much can a human being endure?”

Memorial Day is more than picnics and a day off from work.

 

 

 

 

How Soon They Forget

Lindley Hall Ohio University 02-27-2013Today is May 4. I’m going to be disappointed if I don’t hear from my old chief photographer, John J. Lopinot, today. He always sends me a message on May 4 that says, simply, “Never forget.” He’s referring to the killing of four students at Kent State on that date in 1970.

I’ve published pictures of the protest era over the years and am working on putting together a photo exhibit for May 2014.

While I was killing time before speaking at a photo exhibit of my Martin Lutheran King National Day of Mourning pictures, I wandered around the Ohio University’s Main Green, feeling a lot like the old geezer in Catcher in the Rye who went back to his old school to see if his initials were still carved in a bathroom stall.

When I stood in front of Lindley Hall, a dorm on Court Street, I had a flashback to 1970.

May 15, 1970

Ohio University protests that led to closing of school 05-14-15-1968After two nights of tear gas and rioting, Ohio University closed and students scrambled to get home.

Anxious parents descend on town

Ohio University protests that led to closing of school 05-14-15-1968Frantic parents clogged all the streets in town trying to pick up their students. Every breeze would cause tear gas powder to rain down from the trees, causing red eyes for blocks. National guardsmen, some with bayonets affixed were spaced all over the downtown and campus area.

Incredible wave of emotion

I climbed to the landing where I had taken the photo above and felt an incredible rush of emotion. I was transported back to that time. I can’t explain why that particular location triggered the feeling.

Did something happen here?

Lindley Hall Ohio University 02-27-2013While I was coping with that and composing this photo, two coeds ran squealing down the street and jumped on the back of a male student. There was much high-fiving and quite a reunion going on. Finally one of them saw me with a camera and gave me a friendly wave. I returned the wave and walked down to them.

“You know, the last time I stood on that landing and took a picture looking down Court Street it was May 15, 1970. Tear gas was wafting through the air and there was a National Guardsman with a rifle spaced about every 25 feet.”

“Really? Something happened here?” one of them asked, giving me a “is this old geezer harmless?” look..

If I don’t get the message from John, I guess it’s a sign that we really have forgotten.

My initials were gone

KLS iniitals on OU Post darkroom door 02-02-1970-5 3

I didn’t carve my initials on the wall of a bathroom stall, but it was a tradition for the photo editor of The OU Post to put his (they had all been male up to that point) initials on the darkroom door. The white arrow, top left, points to my “KLS 68“. I was killing time waiting for that night’s demonstration or other madness to start when this picture was taken in 1970.

Baker Center, where The Post lived, is being remodeled and the basement where my initials were scrawled has been gutted no telling how many times over the years. That’s the way it goes.

 

National Guard Camp

 

Every Memorial Day, I feel a twinge of guilt. High school and college deferments, plus a high lottery number, kept me out of harm’s way at a time when 648,500 guys my age were drafted and sent to Southeast Asia. Draftees accounted for 25% of the troops in country and 30.4% of the combat deaths in Vietnam.

National Guard Camp

In 1975, I talked my boss at The Palm Beach Post into letting me do a story on the local West Palm Beach National Guard unit’s summer training camping at Camp Blanding, Florida. I wanted 10 days; he said he could only spare me for five, and that I’d have to do it on the cheap. That was hurdle one.

The  company commander said he’d have to clear it with the Higher Ups, but they’d love the coverage. I could ride up in the convoy and catch a ride back with someone who needed to come back to town about the time I did. That was hurdle two.

I explained in an earlier story that two days before we were going to leave, I got a call from the Master Sergeant saying that I could go to the camp, but that I couldn’t ride in the convoy. I’d have to go POV (Privately Owned Vehicle). That was going to nix the story because of expenses. You’ll have to read this story to see me in uniform and hear how I got to ride in the convoy.

Long-haired guardsmen

Several of the men in the unit wore wigs to cover up their long civilian hair.

The Mobile Riverine Force Association has lots of interesting information on the war. The MRFA site says that only 6,140 National Guardsmen saw duty in Vietnam, out of 2,594,000 personnel who served within the borders of the country between 1965 and 1973 (101 died).

Mixture of ages

The unit had a mix of ages, ranging from college boys to men sporting gray hair. One man wore jump wings on his cap and sported tattoos on his arms listing almost every major battle in the Pacific during World War II. All of the guys took the field exercises seriously, but you could look at the way some of the guys moved through the palmetto bushes and be pretty sure this wasn’t their first time in a jungle.

Other Memorial Day and memorial stories

Photo gallery of National Guard portraits

One of these days I’ll publish more general shots of life in the camp. For Memorial Day, though, I decided to concentrate on portraits of the guys. I’m pretty pleased with some of them. Of course, it’s a lot easier to play combat photographer when there’s no danger of getting shot. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

Scouting Is Fun and Other Uniforms

Almost every kid in Cape had a crack at radio and / or TV fame. I can remember going to the KFVS radio studio to sit on Santa’s lap and to tell him (and the whole world as I knew it) what I wanted for Christmas.

There was a local radio quiz show called Know Your City Quiz that would ask questions about Cape’s history. I’d sit there with my second-grade-level picture history book frantically rooting for the answer to such questions as, “When did Cape get its first fire engine.” The book had all kinds of stuff about some guy named Washington crossing some river in the middle of the winter, but not important stuff like Cape’s first fire engine. (What was that guy doing standing up in the boat, anyway? Even I knew enough not to do THAT.)

My TV debut

I think my TV debut might have been during Scout Week in the eighth grade or my freshman year. Boy Scout Troop 8 was supposed to have someone tap out “Scouting is fun” in Morse code, but the guy who was supposed to do it backed out at the last minute for some reason or other. I could send like a demon (but couldn’t receive worth two cents), so I was sent in as a sub.

Dad set up the family’s 8mm camera to record the moment off the Zenith television in the basement. For what it’s worth, he had a guy working for him who could read code who pronounced my transmission flawless. I’m not sure who the Scout was looking in awe over my shoulder.

The whole escapade ended with future debate partner John Mueller being interviewed. I’m sure he said something about how important being able to send Morse code would be in an emergency. Unspoken was the fact that my buzzer couldn’t be heard on the far side of the room and that the little light on the key was a tiny flashlight bulb. I guess it was OK for close emergencies.

Switched to different uniforms

A couple of years later, John and I  traded in our Scout uniforms for suits and ties to be undefeated members of the Central High School Debate Team.

Here’s a bunch of us getting ready to wreak havoc on the teams from the smaller schools in the area. That’s John on the right. I’m to his left. I see, in no particular order, Mike Daniels, Rick Meinz, Andy Scully, Shari Stiver, Vicky Roth, Jim Reynolds, Becky McGinty and Bill Wilson, among others whose names are lost in the fog of years.

We didn’t make it as the Three Counts

I’ve run this before, but some pictures deserve to be resurrected from time to time. John, Rick Meinz and I got dragooned into dressing up like this for a church play at Trinity Lutheran Church.

Someone Higher Up (well, not THAT higher up) cut my best line, “We’re the Three Counts: Count de Bills, Count de Checks and Count de Change.” I lost enthusiasm for my part after that. Heck of a note when the only line you can remember from a role is the one they wouldn’t let you deliver.

That’s not really MY National Guard uniform

I made about as good a soldier as I did a Lutheran Reverend and donned the uniform just about as long.

I wanted to do a story on the local National Gurard contingent going to summer camp. The Higher Ups (does this sound familiar) wouldn’t let a civilian ride in the convoy, so an enterprising Master Sergeant said, “I’ve got it all worked out. Come on by and get fitted for a uniform. You’ll look like everybody else. Nobody’ll know.”

Here’s the brief story of my National Guard career. I’ll have to scan the photos one of these days, even if they were taken in Florida. I’m happy with several of them.