Interviewed by Neena Anthony and Serena Chen
TW: drug abuse mentions
Well, I enlisted in the army, and I was doing Vietnam, early Vietnam. The five of the guys, one guy was too young, he had to wait a week before he could join. The other guy flunked his test and a year later he got drafted. I think the scores were a little lower for draftees. The military tests were very simple. There were levels of it. My buddies scored high enough, and I didn’t score high enough. Basic training was tough. We were all physical guys. I went to easy school, it was tough up here. Crew chief, mechanic. They went to the infantry. One guy went to Vietnam, nominated for silver but was awarded the bronze star. Was a good guy. When he got out, he worked for Diamond Furniture Store in Pennsylvania.
A third of us went in, basic training. I volunteered but for some reason, nerves, blood pressure, I don’t know, they wouldn’t accept me. So I winded up in the aviation outfit. Went to school. I think I was accessed and they got me out. Went to Fort Benning. I said I volunteered for Vietnam and they sent me to Germany. That’s it. I was over there for about seven months.
As I recall, I had bipolar depression, or something like that. Actually I had a breakdown, a psychotic episode. They sent me loose on the street. I was very sick. I went to a psychiatrist, for one week I was in the Veteran’s Hospital. I was there for nine months. I got better. I was there on a lot of meds. It’s been really all manageable since then. But alcohol was the main catalyst of all that. I was alcoholically insane. I could never drink. I still have chronic schizoaffective bipolar. I probably always had it, but it wasn’t that bad. I was catatonic two times in my life. Then I got a heart condition.
Got married, had a kid. My buddy, when I met my wife, said what the hell did she see in you. My daughter had a kid. I tried. I went to school. I got a GED. I got an Associate’s in Automotive Technology, which is just a big name for a grease monkey school. I applied for the post office. I scored high, well, I think I scored high. I scored a 95 on one test, and a 92 on the other, and an 82, and they wouldn’t hire me. So I figured, maybe they’re discriminating against me. I headed down to the Equal Opportunity office downtown and they said no, and what could I say? I have a permanent disability. I did work. I worked about 40 years, over a seven year period, as a volunteer both here, and in two other hospitals as a laborer.
We used to have yearly get-togethers. There was this one guy--he wasn’t in the service but he was kinda successful financially--and he lived in a mansion. 8-iron fence, 2 acres of land, we had parties out there. I don’t drink but they never bothered me. I was at one around Christmas.
I moved back to Pennsylvania, and there’s the white junkies. I got robbed twice. One time, I didn’t see him. I woke up to find myself robbed. The guy did fess up, and I had him charged. Another time when I was at Mass on Easter, they robbed me at 12 o’clock. There were 5 or 6 burglaries. Lots of cocaine there. They’re gonna have to knock that down. The drugs are terrible. You might see 15 people laying around, getting high. I was going down the street one time and I saw this lady shooting heroin in her neck looking at a mirror. It’s an epidemic, worse than the 60s.
I’m an AA-er now, 35 years. I slipped a couple times. They’re loaded with junkies. And look at the bars. The bars are closing. That’s the sign, a cop told me. Bars, banks, when they close, you watch out.
When I was younger, I boxed at a few clubs. I was a novice, had 8 fights and lost half as many as I won. The guy who won went into the Marines and was in Pennsylvania with me. I was gonna fight some more, but they cancelled it for a rock concert. I liked getting hit. I was legally blind, and fought under severe handicap. Now I had an operation and I can see fine. I met my opponent many years later, in AA.
Where I was stationed, you were either going to Vietnam or coming back from Vietnam. And in the company I was transferred to, about 75% of the vets were back from Vietnam. Back in 61, people lost their leg, spin we called them, I don’t know what he did to lose his leg. But I’m putting this all together, my memory about the prep and generation for war, I don’t know. But I know almost all the vets that came back, no matter what rank, V5, V6, they had brand new cars, they wanted to get married. I wondered why they went to war in the first place. Maybe in the 70s, morale was fighting against socialism-communism. That’s what I think the psychology behind it was. I don’t know if it was right or wrong, but I like freedom. I can’t see why anybody wouldn’t like freedom.
I got most of my tattoos before the service. Oddly enough, back then, nobody had tattoos. Now, everybody’s got tattoos. My grandson and my daughter’s got tattoos. People thought I was lower class, like the cook thought that. Of course, I didn’t have all these back then. Maybe I got drunk from nights out. I don’t think I have a favorite one. They’re all the same. Well, maybe my family. I have my daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter’s name.
I was born in Pennsylvania, bred in South Carolina. My first recognition was in South Carolina, about one or two years old. My grandfather owned a farm there, a slave farm. Well they gave the blacks down there 27 acres or 30 acres after the civil war. Somehow, he bought some off a black man. He was a moonshiner, mechanic farmer, and had four sons. My grandmother was a flapper, like the flappers back in the 20s. They had a picture of my father, my biological father, when he was about 5 or 6 months old. And this is another story in itself: my father and mother kidnapped me drunk when I was about 7 years old and took me to South Carolina.
I became religious. I’ve been on mass for 43 years. Now, I know people who don’t believe in god, some who are atheists, some who just drink and die. I have no prejudice against people who don’t believe in God. But I would say the biggest part of my mental illness was the lack of God, and what I call now faith, trust, and confidence in God. Although, when I get off medication, I do tend to freak out more. I hallucinate, I get flashbacks, and I lose a lot of weight.
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