My leave at home with the family was a severe culture shock. Many things had changed, particularly women’s fashions and attitudes. Knee length dresses and skirts were out and mini-skirts were in. Loose baggy shorts were out and hot pants were in. Garter belts and stockings were out, panty hose were in. My first experience with panty hose convinced me that they were the conservative’s answer to the changing sexual mores. They were the new version of the medieval chastity belt. I found it impossible to remove the things from an old girl friend and still maintain any semblance of being cool and debonair. I had no objections to the hot pants and miniskirts.
I returned to the USA in 1970, to Fort Story at Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach was the place to be in 1970. It was a major tourist town and the Crossroads of hippydom. All kinds of people could be found on Atlantic Avenue and the boardwalk. Rednecks and Hippies, tourists and locals.
What a beautiful night! A cool ocean breeze, plenty of people out enjoying the evening, but not enough to be overly crowded. I think I'll hang out at the donut shop for a while. I see the Jesus Freaks are showing the free movie on the post office wall again – free coffee and donuts, might as well hang around here. They might pick up some converts tonight. A free movie and donuts will do better than what the Hari-Krihnas are offering.
Good movie, but time to move on. Guess I'll try the boardwalk and see what's happening there.
A group of hippies smoking pot, a few rednecks drinking beer, only the hippies are watching the phosphorescent surf. It's really bright tonight, like the wake behind a ship at night; Day Glow surf. Mix plankton with air and, "Let there be light." Someone's playing a guitar – sounds pretty good.
Virginia Beach had not yet turned into the Las Vegas style tourist trap. There were a large number of souvenir shops and small bars on the main street close to the ocean. The sidewalks were filled with tourists in the daytime and hippies at night. It was far better – to me – after September and the tourists and weekend hippies were gone. The bars needed to stay open in the off season and with far fewer customers there was a lot of competition. Most of the bars had specials on one night a week – and they were arranged so no two bars had the same night. On Sunday we would go to Tom’s for all the spaghetti you could eat and all the beer you could drink for five bucks. On Monday it was the Zodiac for chili and beer, on Tuesday it was the Mustang – and on through the week.
The waitresses were instructed to go slow on refills, but as our crowd had wives and girlfriends working as waitresses it didn’t apply to us.
Fort Story was a very small post, consisting of less than a thousand soldiers and WW II vintage buildings. It did have some fine beaches, old coast artillery bunkers for parties and a very good NCO club.
My job was to have been with a unit running LARC Vs, a truck that could carry five tons of cargo over land or water. It would have been good except for a strong personality clash with the Commander. I can’t recall what brought it to a head, something he said about “those damned Viet Nam vets” - he had not gone over, but stayed in the States the whole time. I was soon sent on Special Duty to the Headquarters Company, where I was assigned as an E-5 Platoon Sergeant, normally requiring the rank of E-7. My job was with the Post Engineers as a scheduler/analyst, a civilian slot for a GS5 and took most of the workload off my boss, a GS12. I scheduled all maintenance and repair for the post, and worked with a 2nd Lieutenant on writing contracts. It was good 8 - 5 duty, and I learned a lot, and worked with a good bunch of people, mostly civilians
I had the privilege of working with a very fine Captain. The Captain took over as the new Post Engineer. He was straight from a Combat Engineer unit in Viet Nam and he loved to blow things up. He was lost behind a desk. We swapped war stories now and then at lunch, and this led up to his first really happy week. We had to put a door in the side of an old WWII bunker. It was several feet thick, and made of reinforced concrete. We suggested blowing a hole but the command turned us down. We put a team of men with jackhammers on the job, and after a week they had cut a line of holes where the door was to be – exactly to the Captain’s specifications. Not much progress.
The Captain looked at it and commented how it looked like blasting holes. The General told him to go ahead and blow it.
He hit the drawing board and got the explosives from the local Navy SEAL team. He calculated how much to use and how the charges should be timed.
The big day arrived, and a crowd of onlookers assembled. The Captain outlined a "safe area" with white tape in front of the soon-to-be doorway. It was just as wide as the doorway, and extended out about 20 feet. He told everyone to stay outside the line; we stood at the edge of the line about 10 feet from the bunker. He twisted the detonator. There was a mild blast and a cloud of dust. Not a single piece of debris fell outside the tape. There was a sharp edge doorway in the bunker. The man knew his stuff. A few months later he blew the Post Theater when it was scheduled for demolition. It was a classic implosion - everything dropped within the foundation.
I met a young and slightly pregnant woman at a party one night. She followed me home and I decided to keep her for a while. I didn’t know how old Debbie Saunders was before I married her. I found out when we applied for the license. She was 17 and I was 25. It went something like this:
Clerk: “Now young lady, I need your parental consent letter.”
Me: “UH?”
Debbie: “But I didn’t need one the last time I was married!”
Clerk: “The last time? You’ve been married before?”
Debbie: “Yes, twice!”
Me - “UH?”
Clerk - “Well, that’s different. Here’s the license, and - good luck sir.”
The marriage lasted six months.
Debbie called me at the office about a week before my birthday. She wanted me to give her $500.
“What?”
“I need $500.”
“Why do you need $500?”
“I can’t tell you. Just trust me.”
That was a bunch of money in 1971, nearly a months pay. I ended up giving her the money and she promised I would have it back in a week from her tips. She busted her buns that week, and sure enough – I had the money back in a week so I could pay the bills – I also had my birthday present. A 1957 XL Harley Davidson - it needed work, but I finally had a Harley! That Harley was a god-sent.
I craved excitement and a little danger, and being a pencil pusher at a desk was about as exciting as watching paint dry.
I was finally brought to the promotion board in the fall of 1971. If I impressed the members with my military knowledge and bearing I would be promoted to Staff Sergeant. That would mean more pay and a lot less people who could order me around.
The big day came. I had a military style haircut just for the occasion. My uniform was starched and all my ribbons were bright and new. I entered the room, saluted the board and sat down. I was ready for the questions. I had studied the regulations, special orders, traditions, customs and courtesy.
I needn’t have bothered. There was an ex-Special Forces Sergeant Major on the board. He was the only board member wearing combat ribbons. He immediately noticed that I too had been to Viet Nam and that I had been wounded in combat – then he saw the tattoo on my arm.
The tattoo was two Vietnamese words “Sat Cong” that would guarantee my never being captured and paraded around in a tiger cage. The Sergeant Major casually asked me if I knew what the words meant.
“A poetic translation would be Death to the VC.”
A huge smile spread across his face. He jumped from his chair, ran to me and slapped me on the back. He opened his shirt and showed the other board members the same tattoo on his chest. He praised me, we swapped war stories and soon my allotted time was up – and I had been asked only that one casual question.
I maxed the board points and was placed on the promotion list.
Debbie and I began to have problems. She was meeting a lot of guys at the bar and most fell in love (lust?) with her. They were romancing her while I treated her like a wife. She also had a problem with the Harley and some of my friends. The Harley riders scared her. I guess she had watched too many grade B biker movies. Some of the people did live up to that reputation.
We had an amicable divorce and still dated; we just couldn’t live together. This led to some humorous encounters. We had been separated for a few months and still getting along great. This day I was returning home from a bike run to the mountains. I was flat broke, out of gas, dirty from spending several days in the woods, and had several days’ growth of beard. I pulled up to the bar where she worked and parked the Harley. I entered and saw there were only two people, Debbie and one customer. They were holding hands over the bar. I sat near him and Debbie immediately came over to me and held my hand, stretched over the bar and gave me a kiss as I held her breasts. She then gave me a beer at no charge.
“Hi honey, what you up to?”
“Been to the mountains, now I’m thirsty, out of gas, and out of money.” She went to her purse and gave me a hundred dollar bill. Her latest boy friend looked at us with more than a hint of fear in his eyes.
“It’s OK – we’re married”
Maybe Debbie should not have phrased it quite that way. He jumped to the far end of the bar.
“Hey! We’re still married – but separated. We’re getting divorced.”
