By Julie Titone This powerful work by artist Grady Myers is not among those included in his memoir "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War." This Memorial Day seems a good time to share it. Perhaps the soldier he imagined when he created this survived his battlefield wounds, as Grady did. Perhaps he lived with the pain for decades, as Grady did before his death in 2011. Sadly, Grady never had a gallery exhibit of his work. But it's good to know that most of his war-related art is included in the collection of the National Veterans Art Museum.
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By Julie Titone I remember it as a bedtime story, my dad recounting how he flew over Europe and looked down on a mountain lake. The reflection of the night sky was so perfect that he became disoriented. He was flying over the moon. John Titone served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a co-pilot on a B-17. When his nine kids were young, he told us precious little about his experiences in World War II. The memories he did share were simple, like the fact that the English grew Brussels sprouts between runways. And where were those giant tin-can American bombers going when they lifted off between the vegetables, laden with deadly cargo? Before I studied history, my only clue was a map of Europe painted on Dad's leather bomber jacket. Every mission was marked on it. As co-author of a war memoir, I've thought a lot about the power of story and how it can help combat veterans. Grady Myers regaled his friends with the stories that went into our book, "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War." There's not a doubt in my mind that with his humor -- sometimes dark and ironic, sometimes wise-crackling -- Grady was coping with his memories of being a machine gunner. Tell the good stuff often enough, and the kill-or-be-killed stuff loses some of its power. Yes, Grady nearly died in battle. But he survived to participate in hospital hijinks and to buy that classic Thunderbird he was lusting after. An artist, he drew engaging pictures of his time as a reluctant but able warrior. Among his works that have been displayed at the National Veterans Art Museum, a whimsical one featuring a monkey was a crowd-pleaser. We all need comic relief. Almost every vet's experience includes good stuff: adventure, friendships, confidence-building, pride. "In many ways, that year was very exciting," says a friend who suffers from war-related stress 50 years after he was in Vietnam. "We were young, in great physical condition and full of piss and vinegar. We were in a very beautiful and exotic land with a culture none of us could have imagined. And we did things we would never tell our mothers, and survived. Even the real bad times had a positive edge because you never feel more alive than when you are close to death." Another friend told me his Vietnam service was the best year of his life. He might have exaggerated, but I don't think by much. His eyes glowed when he talked about the problem-solving involved with being a Marine mechanic in a combat zone. "It was something new every day. Every day." He came back in one piece but had a close brush with death-by-military-vehicle. It's a story he tells with relish, probably because no one else died, either. I'm writing this on Veterans Day. I can't think of a better gift for people who has served in the military, in combat or not, than to let them know you'd like to hear their stories. Just open a space in the conversation. Did anything funny happen to you? Any buddies you'd like to see again? Whatever happened to those pictures you brought back? My father has outlived his bomber jacket, which was loved a bit too much by one of his sons. When asked, Dad will recall his time in the service. He told me how he fell off an airplane wing during training and broke his thumb, which delayed his deployment (I may well owe my existence to that accident). And how sick he got on the heaving troop ship that brought him back to the States. With the war in Europe over, he expected to be sent to the Pacific. The Japanese surrendered before that happened (I may owe my existence to that, too). Grady was telling stories up until his death in 2011. Even the serious war episodes, as he told them, didn't feel like a burden to listeners. I think the smiles of his audience brought some measure of peace to his good heart. If you want to honor a Vietnam vet, you could pick no better hat to doff than a boonie, aka a bush hat. The brimmed cotton topper was a point of pride for infantrymen like Grady Myers. As Grady recalls in "Boocoo Dinky Dow,: My short, crazy Vietnam War," he found his on a dusty parade field in Dak To. "Bleached by the sun from green to tan, it had a narrower brim than the newer bush hats. It would definitely give its wearer that old-timer look, and I was pleased to find that it fit my big head. "The baseball-style cap I’d been wearing was scorned by many of the infantrymen, who associated it with training. But I had creased its bill and roughed it up to make it look reasonably veteran-ish—enough so that Johnson, who had lost his hat during guard duty the night before, was delighted when I passed it along to him." At a recent "Boocoo Dinky Dow" book reading, veteran Ray Heltsley showed with pride a camouflage pattern boonie that had seen two tours in Vietnam -- first on the head of a friend, then on his own. The word "SURF" is stitched on it.. When I asked Ray later for details, he replied: "The boonie hat was given to me by a former O'Dea High School classmate, Tim Crowder, who went to Vietnam as a Marine in 1966. He told me that he won it for taking 2nd Place in the Da Nang Surfing Championships. The fluorescent pink material inside the hat is a piece of an aircraft signalling panel. When the hat is turned with the panel pointed upward, you can pop it open and closed and it becomes a visible signal so that an aircraft can spot your location." The back of the hat is trimmed with luminous tape called following tabs, Ray added. "They glow in the dark, so that the person behind you can follow you silently without losing track of you and breaking silence by calling for you. It's all pretty much Ranger protocol, and most of the people in the line units didn't do this kind of stuff." Vets like Ray are delighted by the detailed descriptions Grady put into his memoir. The hats, the knives, the ham-and-lima-bean meals remind them of their time of intensive living in Vietnam -- which, along with its profound miseries, had traditions and habits they will never forget. Ray Heltsley is a retiree on Whidbey Island in cool Northwestern Washington. In 1969, he was in tropical Southeast Asia, a U.S. Army adviser working side-by-side with the South Vietnamese. Ray, who will join me at a Nov. 6 reading of "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short crazy Vietnam War," got a perspective on the Vietnam War that most American soldiers were denied. He got to know individual Vietnamese, developing friendships and professional respect for them. Ray was a lieutenant; Grady Myers was a private. Ray went to 'Nam as a college graduate; Grady was a dropout whose professional training was still in the future. But when Ray read "Boocoo Dinky Dow," Grady's memoir, he related strongly to many of Grady's experiences, starting with the moment he stepped off a plane in Vietnam. In "Boocoo Dinky Dow," Grady recalled: "It was the second evening of our long day when we arrived at Tan Son Nhut airfield outside Saigon. When the jet door swung open, it let in a blast of hot air. When I stepped outside, I felt as if a damp blanket had been thrown over me." Ray describes the experience this way: "When I got off the plane, I thought 'I have to get away from this plane exhaust.' But when I went in the terminal, it felt just the same." Ray arrived in-country with some understanding of the Vietnamese language, politics and culture, thanks to Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Assigned to work with the South Vietnamese troops -- many of whose officers had fled North Vietnam -- he got a strong figurative and literal taste of the culture. While other GIs were told not to eat food prepared by locals for fear it might be poisoned, Ray learned what was safe and scarfed it down. "I ate monkey and dog," he recalls. "I kind of drew the line at fish soup that has eyeballs." Ray also experienced combat. Felt fear. Identified lots of bodies. He, like Grady, had to decide when to fire his weapon. He recalled choosing not to kill an enemy who was caught literally with his pants down because it wasn't the way HE would want to die. Ray went on to a law enforcement career. But he studied journalism in college and that training is evident in his own well-written 85-page Vietnam memoir. In it, he summarizes his experiences in a way that could've come from straight from Grady and the other veterans who've been kind enough to join me at "Boocoo Dinky Dow" readings in Grady's absence. He writes: "I have lost the sharp memory of the order in which my adventures unfolded, but they lie jumbled in the corridors of my mind, stark and real memories of an experience that I wouldn’t have missed for the world and would never want to repeat." I'm always fascinated to learn which parts of "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War" strike a chord with readers. For Ed Bremer, it was the story of the soldier who set out to kill his dog. Ed is news director for KSER-FM. When he interviewed me about the book I co-authored with Grady Myers, he asked me to read Grady's anecdote about Stiletto and his ailing puppy. The grunt in question was a gung-ho, let's-kill-Charlie type. He had an affection for knives -- which is why Grady dubbed him Stiletto. It wasn't a knife, though, but a .45-caliber pistol that Stiletto borrowed from Grady the evening he decided his dog had rabies and had to be dispatched. Things did not go as planned. Things went badly. Ed saw that episode as a reflection of trauma and conflicted emotions of many American soldiers in the Southeast Asian conflict. You can listen to the KSER interview here. The Stiletto story comes shortly after the 34:20 mark, where Ed is asking me if I had a moral or lesson in mind when I was assembling Grady's tales for publication. Ed asked lots of questions. Among them: Did Grady suffer from PTSD? Did I leave any of his war stories out of "Boocoo Dinky Dow"? How did the book come to be written? How did Grady's children react to it? One of Ed's memorable observations was that Grady struck him as a man of integrity. Which I agreed was definitely the case. Another memorable moment for me came right before the interview started. That's when I reminded Ed that as a writer and former journalist I would, truth be told, rather be the one asking the questions. "So would I," he replied with a grin. Then he put on his headphones and switched on the microphone. The Grady Myers drawing "Still Life with CIB" is on display in Surrealism and War, which opens this Memorial Day at the National Veterans Art Museum. The work is among others from the NVAM's permanent collection that are included in the six-month exhibit and series of special events. War is almost by definition a surreal enterprise. That's certainly the impression I got when listening to Grady tell the stories that we captured in his memoir "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War." It's interesting that Grady chose the Combat Infantry Badge as the subject of this, the most abstract of his war-related works. Among his military decorations, he was most proud of the CIB. It meant he hadn't just served in the Army. He'd seen battle -- and, as this piece suggests, paid a price for that experience. This disheveled soldier does not fit his clothes and seems disjointed, harried. He has seen a lot. Are his eyes closed against memories of violence and fear? Surrealism, write the exhibit curators, is "an attempt to revolt against the inherent contradictions of a society ruled by rational thought while dominated by war and oppression. Surrealism seeks expression of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason and free of aesthetic and moral preoccupation. It is this same absence of control exercised by reason that many combat veterans seek to explore and express after their experiences in war." "Still Life with CIB" is one of four pieces that Grady created in the 1990s for a traveling exhibit of work by Vietnam veterans. That project evolved into the Chicago museum, which is the repository of Grady's original Vietnam-related artwork. That art is reproduced in "Boocoo Dinky Dow." But the small-format book doesn't do justice to the original poster-sized works. It's wonderful to know they are occasionally brought out for public viewing. Like the recognition due to Vietnam veterans, it was a long time coming. But the audiobook version of "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War" was worth waiting for. Grady Myers was a consummate storyteller, with a voice full of inflection, sound effects and damned-if-it-isn't-true panache. The audiobook narrator does Grady justice. He is Jeffrey S. Fellin, who is both an actor and a military veteran. He spent decades as a U.S. Army and National Guard helicopter pilot and instructor. Though Jeff was too young for Vietnam, he served with many pilots who flew in that war. He heard their stories and "Boocoo Dinky Dow" rings true to him. And he enjoys Grady's sense of humor. While he was recording the book, he emailed me to say: "Today I had to go back and edit out my laughing at Grady's writing about the animal names in his Basic Training battalion." Jeff got a double dose of basic -- first, in the Air Force in 1976. Then, after he finished college, he did Army basic in 1986. Another thing he shared with Grady was suffering in the line of duty. Jeff suffered a severe back injury while serving in the Germany. Plus, like Grady, he towers over most of us. Jeff is 6-foot-4, just an inch shy of Grady. "Reading this memoir I feel strangely connected to Grady, and lament that I will not be able to meet him in this life," he told me. "We share many parallels, like both being Medevaced half way round the world in a C-141, both recuperating at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver." He added: "My goal is to do PFC Grady proud by telling his story." He's done just that. The audiobook is available through Amazon, Audible and iTunes. When a squad leader in Vietnam assigned Grady Myers to design a logo for the men's helmet covers, he became one of many people who sought the favor of Grady's artistic talents over the years. One of the first to do so was his pal Bob Benzon, an Air Force veteran who also served in 'Nam. Bob and Grady knew each other as young teenagers back in 1963-65. They were classmates at Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts, where their dads were stationed. They lost track of each other after that. It wasn't until Bob learned about Grady's memoir "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War" that he knew what became of his chum. In a recent letter, Bob described Grady as a natural artist. "He doodled in his school notebooks all the time, and did little sketches for me, but only with a bit of prodding. He could knock these things out very quickly in a style I could characterize as 'hurried realism.' The art people probably have a better name for the genre. No erasing, no modifications, just straight from pencil to paper, and that was so cool to me. His drawings (mostly of WWII subjects) put a person right there ... if you get my drift." Bob said most of the "Air Force brats" had at least a passing interest in the military. "Many followed in their father's footsteps into various branches, often over the objections of their parents. My theory on that is that most of our dads were WWII vets (boys back then wanted similar experiences), but the dads knew what combat could do to a person inside. So, when we went in, the dads were proud, but scared. "I served as a 2nd then 1st lieutenant pilot in the 362nd Tactical Warfare Squadron flying airplanes much older than I was, Douglas EC-47s. My war was quite benign ... take off, stooge around for a few hours fixing targets with radio triangulation, call the shooters in, land the airplane, over and over again. I was stationed at Da Nang, we only got hit once in the air. We got rocketed out of our beds once a week or so on base, but I cannot imagine what the Army guys out in the jungle went through." Guys like Grady, who came back with a Purple Heart and lots of stories. Bob, who lives in Virginia, returned from Vietnam without a scratch. A sharp salute to him for tracking me down to share his memories -- and, of course, for his six years of military service. By Julie Titone "I’d been on the hill for a day when the cook decked out the food hut with Yuletide bunting. Choppers flew in with bins of hot holiday meals. Along with the food and mail came tasseled, tissue-lined, gold-lettered menus. Each one was stamped with a red and green shield of the United States Army in Vietnam and an address indicating the forthcoming turkey a la king had made its way to the front lines compliments of Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of all U.S. forces in South Vietnam. " -- Grady Myers recounting Christmas 1968 in "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War." As Grady goes on to explain in his memoir, the fancy dinner amid the squalor of Fire Support Base 30 came with a nasty little surprise from the enemy. Here's the U.S. Army menu from that day and the message that Abrams sent the troops. It begins: "Christmas has a special meaning for the soldiers who serve in Vietnam. Amid the tragedy and ugliness of war, the Holy Season reminds us of the joy and beauty of peace." Peace in Vietnam was a long time coming -- seven more years, in fact. But on Christmas Eve 1968, high above the madness of war, Apollo 8 astronauts were sending stunning photos from lunar orbit and their season's greetings "to all of you on good Earth." |
Julie Titone is co-author of the Grady Myers memoir "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War." Grady was an M-60 machine gunner in The U.S. Army's Company C’s 2nd Platoon, 1st Battalion, 8th Regiment, 4th Infantry Division in late 1968 and early 1969. His Charlie Company comrades knew him as Hoss. Thoughts, comments? Send Julie an email. Archives
November 2018
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