Service with a smile at the JBLM Library It's an adventure sharing "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam" with the world. One of the best ways to do that is to get the memoir into libraries, which is why I love it when readers ask their local library to order it. That can be done online by looking for the "contact us" information on the library website. But I highly recommend strolling in to the building and asking a librarian face-to-face. They're the nicest, most helpful people in the world. Among them is Jane Cherney, acting chief librarian at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, pictured here. Because Grady went through training at Fort Lewis, I stopped by the base library to donate a copy of his memoir this fall. Jane was delighted to add it to the collection. She invited me to come back and give a book reading. And she spread out a map to show me how to get to the old barracks that show up in Grady's tales and to newly remodeled base museum, which I added to the must-see list for my next trip to Western Washington. Another reason to visit libraries in person or on-line is to see what kind of books about Vietnam are available. With the 50-year commemoration of the war under way, there's extra incentive for the library to provide the community with stories about this important episode of our country's history.
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I'm heading out to book signings today in Pullman, Spokane and Moscow (Idaho!). I know I'll hear some good stories as people stop to tell me what they did during the Vietnam era. "We were in the dorm when we got our draft numbers ... went running down the halls because we were so happy ... but other guys weren't." Or: "I when I was in the 'Nam, the guys in my squad called me Chief, because I'm Indian. Nobody else got to do that. But with them, it was OK." Or, often: "Sign one for my uncle. He served, but he never talks about it." Sometimes I visit with people who've already read "Boocoo Dinky Dow." Two couples told me they read it to each other in bed. Wow ... for a writer, it doesn't get any better than hearing that the stories you sent out to the world are part of people's most intimate lives for awhile. In "Boocoo Dinky Dow," Grady -- known in Vietnam as Hoss -- tells lots of passed-along stories. One has to do with platoon mate Teddy Fisher holding a microphone to record sounds of a battle at a previous firebase and being wounded as a result. Here's a version of that 1968 story from Patrick Flanagan, who was there when it happened. Patrick was assistant machine gunner to Andy Day, the fellow whose M-60 Hoss inherited. After reading Grady's memoir, he wrote to say: "On page 78, the account where Fisher was holding a microphone was actually me. I was outside taping and pretending to be Walter Cronkite as the jets were dropping bombs and we were getting hit by mortars. Fisher might have been outside with me; I can't remember. All I remember is the sound of an incoming mortar and jumped into the bunker. I got grazed slightly. Fisher might have gotten a bit more. You could hear on the tape "I got hit." We put in for Purple Hearts but were rejected as word got out that we were taping outside and endangering government property, us. Court martial offense so we gave up on the Purple Heart. This was way before the major battle on FSB29. Wish today I had that tape. It was great." Patrick sent the photo here, showing In the back, left to right: Andy Day, Brent Longest and Steve Stotka; he doesn't know the soldier in front. Here's Patrick in front of that bunker at Fire Support Base 29; it was later blown away. He writes: "After the battle on FSB29, we escaped and built FB25. I left the unit then to start the first mobile PX and pretty much stayed at Dak To or Blackhawk where most of the survivors of the ambushes ended up. There weren't very many left at that time." Patrick, who lives in Virginia City, Nev., shares stories of his own on the Charlie Company website. In his 1968 U.S. Army training at Fort Lewis, Washington, Grady was housed in World War II-era barracks like these still standing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. There were once 5,000 of these buildings. Now there are 2,000, and those are slated to be demolished in the next two years. Nearby are huge, modern, multi-story dormitories, like those on a giant college campus. Photo by Julie Titone The barracks are an important setting in the training chapters of "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War." In this drawing, Grady depicts himself and a fellow trainee peering down at other men who are carrying footlockers as part of discipline meted out by the drill sergeant. Grady Myers, aka "Hoss," never made it to the Charlie Company reunions, which began in 2006 as part of the annual Veterans Day festivities in Branson, Missouri. But he would've loved the spirit ... and probably have designed a logo. Shown here, from left, are Butch Mauldin, Andy Day, Bob Robbins, Frank Wernet, Van Dyne Waugh, Robert (Bud) Langan, Pat Carnes and Teddy Fisher. Butch, Andy, Bob, Bud and Teddy were involved in the March 9, 1969 ambush in which Hoss was wounded. Frank Wernet, Van Dyne Waugh and Bob Robbins carry the Charlie Company banner in the parade. You can learn more about the unit's history at its website. Bud Langan was injured in the same ambush as Grady. And now he's riding about in a big red wheelchair -- just like Grady did in his last few years. In the reunion pictures provided by Bob Robbins, Bud has a huge grin on his face. Ever since the war, Alan Lee has wondered what happened to Grady Myers, the big guy with thick glasses who went through advanced infantry training with him in the fall of 1968. Every so often, he'd try to find Grady. When he went to Boise, Grady's hometown, he'd check the phone book looking for his name. He even looked for Grady's name among the dead and missing listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial when a replica of the Wall came to Lewiston, Idaho. Lewiston is where Alan has lived all of his life. He was reading the local paper recently when he saw this photograph of Grady, just as Alan remembered him. That's when he learned Grady had survived the war. The picture illustrated an article about "Boocoo Dinky Dow" that was published before my book reading in nearby Clarkston, Wash. Alan had to work that day, but his wife came and asked me to sign a copy of the book for him. Alan and I chatted on the phone this week. After expressing his sadness that Grady had died last year, he told me what he remembered about Grady. One thing was that Grady was always hungry -- most of the guys were during training. The food, in Alan's words, "wasn't the best," and Grady describes in the memoir how men were never given enough time to finish what was on their plates. One time, the trainees got a rare chance to leave Fort Lewis and couldn't wait to chow down on restaurant food. "We went to get hamburgers and Grady ordered three of them," Alan said. Unlike Grady, Alan was wasn't wounded in Vietnam. Still, he said, "It was a tough year." Looking back, he doesn't know how he handled the living conditions, including constant dampness. "Once, I wore the same clothes for 63 days." The only thing he changed was his socks. "They would drop us clean socks from helicopters." That was one thing soldiers in Vietnam all had in common ... counting days and hoping to survive to 365. The late Art Marin, a squad leader in Vietnam, snapped the 1969 photo of Second Platoon, Charlie Company that I used in my first blog post (scroll to the bottom of this page). Grady Myers, aka Hoss, is the red-headed dude, fourth from the left in the back row. After the war, Art became a teacher and remained friends with fellow soldier Bob Robbins, who also served in Second Platoon. Bob was very kind and helpful when I told him in 2011 that I planned to publish Grady's memoir. In the 2004 picture above, Bob is at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. The plaque that he's leaving there features Art's Second Platoon photo. Bob says of the photo:. "Art brought me a copy of it many years ago and we tried to look at each face. We decided the over 1/2 of these soldiers had been wounded or killed during their tour. This was a group of men seasoned in combat." The picture, he added, contains "more memories then we can understand." Steve Orr in a TV interview about Vietnam The Vietnam War was a different experience for every soldier, sailor and pilot who fought in it. The chance to share more than one man's story is part of the pleasure in having a veteran participate in my public readings of "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War." Case in point: Steve Orr, who will read a passage from the book at this Saturday's reading in Clarkston, Washington (see the events page for details). Steve was at the same bookstore, And BOOKS, Too!, in 2008 for an event focused on "A Patch of Ground: Khe Sanh Remembered." Written by his friend Michael Archer, it recounts Steve and Michael's experience in Vietnam, which was even more intense than Grady's. They fought in the Battle of Khe Sanh, in which 6,000 U.S. Marines were surrounded by 40,000 North Vietnamese, under continuous fire for 77 days. Steve is the police chief in Lewiston, Idaho. My first "guest veterans" was my former journalism colleague Dan Webster, a Navy veteran who read in Spokane at Auntie's Bookstore. Dan, a movie critic, said his experience in Vietnam was more like "Apocolypse Now" and Grady's was more like "Platoon." D'Wayne Hodgins, a retired University of Idaho writer and instructor, read with me at Book People of Moscow. Like Grady, he served in the Army. D'Wayne poured emotion into his presentation, clearly still feeling his personal losses from the war. I couldn't be more grateful and moved by the willingness of these men to share their own stories and join me in honoring Grady's. Gold Star Mothers are those who have lost a son or daughter at war. Today is Gold Star Moms Sunday. It brings to mind a note from my friend Stan Mrzygod. Stan related how his 92-year-old mother, a World War II Women's Auxiliary Air Corps veteran, participated in an Honor Flight. On these one-day adventures, vets are flown free of charge to Washington D.C. -- in her case, from Chicago. Writes Stan: "I was treated like a general," Mom said. She was one of 84 veterans and one of two women vets. She was selected to present a plaque at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. After being awake for 22 hours and constantly interacting, she was very exhausted but also very grateful. The statement that affected me the most was how several of the 90-year-old vets knelt before the engraved names of their sons on the Vietnam War Memorial, touched the granite stone and wept mightily. How sad it is that we forget so quickly. Doyle McClure of Moscow, Idaho, sent the following review. Many thanks, Doyle. - jt This small, intense book can be read on several levels. Most directly it is Grady Myers’ unsentimental “I-am-a camera” account of his approximately 18 months in the US Army as a combat infantryman during the Vietnam War. This culminated in a chaotic firefight in which Grady was seriously wounded He received a Purple Heart, then spent many months in Army hospitals undergoing surgery and rehabilitation, ultimately being left with life-long disabilities. The memoir might also be regarded as the coming-of-age story of a 19-year-old genial giant who, after a brief, unrewarding sojourn at Boise State College, volunteered for the draft and was almost immediately sucked into the maw of the U.S. Army. The book reveals his determination to “make the grade” when subjected to the Dr. Strangelove-like world of Army training and battle. Although nearly blind without eyeglasses, Grady became an expert marksman. He was given the nickname “Hoss” and the assignment of manning a 23-pound, M-60 machine gun. In addition to being an extra burden on the hot, steep terrain of Vietnam, the M-60 made him a special target for enemy fire. The book's approach is “this is how it was." It is largely unencumbered by opinion or any indication of bitterness. On another plane, however, the book might well be regarded as an anti-war expose, carried by a chaotic succession of “crazy” events. As suggested by the title, which is GI shorthand for the Vietnamese beaucoup dien cai, generally translated as “very crazy in the head,” the book recounts a cascade of frequently bizarre actions of troops and officers. Although in many cases such actions endangered (and wounded or killed) both troops and innocent Vietnamese civilians, in the climactic battle scene a medic and other men in his brigade heroically rescued Grady at great risk to themselves. Only in the final paragraphs do we see Grady’s post-war perspective on Vietnam. As explained in the preface and epilogue by his co-author (and prior wife) Julie Titone, and as shown by the many illustrations, Grady Myers became a talented commercial artist, beloved by friends and family. The dramatic human aspects of the story rest both on his reporter’s eye for detail and on the ability to impart vivid imagery. In no small part, the power of the story also rests on the abilities of writer, Julie Titone, to structure and translate the oral stories to the written page, retaining the drama and bringing to life the many individuals who populate this compelling narrative. Doyle McClure_ |
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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