Beginning the Dark Trek

I suppose all being said things after the Marine Corps was fairly confusing and sometimes just down right dark. I suppose if I had been blown up in Vietnam, lost a leg or an arm, I might have been able to understand the struggles that laid out before me. When I came out of the Marine Corps I was unqualified for much of a civilian life. I was still married, the father of a two year old and had another baby on the way. I looked around for employment but, even with a father-in-law working at the employment service pickings were slim. I decided to do what men had been doing since World War Two. I went to college on the GI Bill.

In those days, the GI Bill was truly an aide to veterans. All my schooling and books were paid for during the next four years of school. On top of that there was enough left over to provide a modest living income. I enrolled Oregon College of Education (now, Western University of Oregon) in Monmouth, Oregon and began classes in September 1970. To say my educational experience was less than stellar would be an understatement. The first year was pretty decent and I finished that year with a 3.5 GPA. However, the signs of my unraveling were everywhere. Hostile anti-war sentiment was everywhere. People flew North Vietnamese flags and openly cursed veterans. I remembered the anti-war stories I heard in Vietnam so I quickly sought to distance myself from the veteran image. I grew my hair long, sported a shaggy beard and wore the tattered clothing of the hippy.

Midway through my college experience, I discovered marijuana. At first it seemed like I had discovered the panacea to my emotional pain. My memories of dead friends and betrayals disappeared in a haze of green smoke. Unfortunately, my grades plummeted. What "saved" me was my ability to pick courses that required little real work. After all, it was the 70's and people were just trying to find ways to get along. Before I knew it four years had slipped by. I didn't learn much but I did have a degree in Behavioral Sciences. I also had a serious drug problem. I had experimented with LSD, speed, opium and, of course, more marijuana.

As I came to find out, no one was interested in my degree and employment did not occur until 1975. My wife and I argued constantly. Another baby had come along. Mutual violence was a theme rather than a nonoccurence. I was eventually hired as a (Are you ready for this?) Juvenile Corrections Officer. My first day on the job I reported high on LSD. My first wife and I divorced in 1976. The drugs and other erratic behaviors caught up with us. I began to bounce from job to job. I moved to Astoria where my cousin lived. Pete and I were like brothers, so close that even today people call us by each others names. Over the next ten years, my life spun further out of control. My relationship with my children deteriorated and disintegrated. I did not realize for some time yet how my early childhood and Vietnam experience was acting like a black hole pulling me deeper towards an irrational crash. But that is for another day.

Vietnam

I was in Vietnam from October 1967 to November 1968. It would be easy to call this my Vietnam Period however, Vietnam began for me in 1962. My cousin, Sergeant Major Peter Gorczewski, joined the Marine Corps in 1961. With this event Vietnam began to take center stage in my life. My cousin was the kind guy I wanted to be, a real man's man. In the ninth grade, I wrote a paper based loosely on the political policies of the time. Therefore, the paper was slanted towards the right of the United States to be in that country to "stop" communism. From that point on, I was a "Hawk" and no one could say anything. I was in support of our fighting men and everyone else who failed to share my beliefs, the "Doves", were traitors.

As I have previously stated, my life before Vietnam was fairly miserable. I lacked so much confidence and belief in myself I eventually came to believe my life would be forfeit in the cause of freedom. Then, when I was remembered my death and therefore my worth would be associated with a great cause. I would later come to understand the "Trickster" has a way to find you no matter where you go. Marine Corps training was much more of the same messages I had grown up on. The final humiliation was failing to qualify on the rifle range. A mortal sin for a Marine, it probably saved my life. After boot camp I was assigned to an Automotive Training Program to become a mechanic. After graduating from this school, I went home for three weeks. When I returned from the break, I went into staging for transportation to Vietnam.

From the time I graduated from High School to October 1967, I had met, wooed and married a now pregnant Bonnie Wondree. Bonnie was beautiful and funny. She was also one screwed up chick. So, there I was, 19 years old, married, expecting my daughter, Karen, and off to Vietnam.

When my plane landed in Danang, Vietnam a rough looking sort stepped to the front of the plane and told us our life expectancy was in minutes. Getting off the plane we were hit with heat and an almost intolerable stench of waste. They were common factors amplified as my time in country progressed. I was assigned to the 3rd Military Police Battalion walking guard duty for this very small prisoner of war compound. I found out a short time later that our group interrogated select prisoners of varying higher ranks. Walking guard was boring and I took the first opportunity to get re-assigned.

At first, it seemed like no big deal. A walk in a very beautiful and lush park. When I changed jobs the park became a killing zone. I became a lead driver (target) for a three man support team assigned to pick up the prisoners after combat and bring them in for interrogation. It was a good job that took my team in harms way. Mostly, it was a support job that generally missed the main actions. My combat experience consisted of "backwater" sorts of stuff. Then, came TET 1968. From there on the stakes were for real. We rarely took any meaningful casualties but that changed in July of 1968 culminating in serious casualties, WIA's and KIA's.

My last action was particularly brutal. Three friends died. Jerry Weimer was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Doc was killed doing what he did. A Corpsmans job to be in the killing zone saving lives. I volunteered to go back and retrieve Doc. When I got there I noticed Chris Chambers was dead. There was a fatal hole in his head. Doc was alive so, I picked him up and carried him to the evacuation site. When I returned to the action zone the fighting was just about over. Later I would find out Doc died of pneumonia on his way back to the States. I also discovered I had been recommended for the Bronze Star for actions during combat.

As October 1968 rolled around I was getting pretty short in country and then my rotation date came up. I had survived. All I had to do was get to the end of that month. I was approached by my Company First Sergeant with a deal. If I would extend for six months he would make sure I would get the Star and a promotion to Corporal. I figured I had run out of luck so it was home for me. I would later discover my First Sergeant to be a vindictive person. Instead of the Star he had my award downgraded to a Commendation Medal.

I spent another year and a half in the Marine Corps at El Toro Air Station. I was eventually promoted to Corporal and, then, Sergeant. My time at El Toro was long enough for me to decide the Marine life was not for me. It was a decision I came to regret however, the deed was done and in August 1970 I returned to civilian life.

Moving on.

Upon inspection it would seem life had a harsh reality growing up in Woodburn, Oregon. Yes, harsh it was and there was no way to escape the type cast of early pattern installments. It appeared as if the best choice was to accept the assigned role making life a little less violent. The unfortunate outcome of this acceptance was never really knowing who you were or that there was potential to become something else. My role within the family, and so it seems my community, was a fixer type person. Inside my family, I was charged with diverting attention away from systemic problems due to the inadequacies of my parents ability to parent. In my community I was the someone to listen to other peoples issues there by helping them to find appropriate fixes. You see the problem don't you? I rarely received the positive attention necessary to help me develop in to the best John Howe possible. It would be years before I found out there were other possible personal outcomes available to me.

I won't bore you with the many examples of the fixer inside my family. My repertoire of techniques generally involved creating some kind of ancillary distraction to, as I said, divert attention from the real problem. I could do this through disruption of family norms, general misbehavior, or by appearing to excel in school. I say appearing because in reality I was a C+, B- student. I simple had the good fortune of following one year behind my sister who was a real in school problem for my parents. By comparison, I appeared to be a straight A person. I played sports and was okay but nothing exceptional. It was enough, however, promote effective diversions. At home, a simple misbehavior was consistently blown out of proportion often leading to intense physical abuse. Then, John was the problem needing the focus. This negative attention was not something you went looking for but, it was better than no attention at all. I came to truly understand the meaning of "a child's place is seen and not heard". As I grew older, I refined these roles. They remained, or so I thought, effective for me even after the violence began to abate.

With my peers I became the class clown and pseudo confidante. Just like the Pagliacci the clown character from the opera of the same name, no took me serious and I was not worthy of a girl friend. When the time came a nice girl showed interest I could not believe nor see myself as good enough for her. Oh, they would seek me out to talk about other students, boy friends or girl friends who were doing them wrong but, it was never for friendship. My personal life was awful. So much so, I started making up elaborate stories for strangers even to the point of changing my name. And this was the way it went. When I came to the end of my high school days I was still the after thought person in social gatherings. I was the one with no feelings or respect.

The end result of this fixer role was that by the time I reached 18 years I had no clue who John Howe was. I tried but, always failed to break out only to be slammed back into my roles. All through High School I drank heavily trying to dull the emotional pain. I figured the only way out was death. Suicide was a "sin" against God and Heaven knows my parents never missed an opportunity to tell me how much I had pissed him off. So, I settled on Vietnam. I would go and not come home alive.

At The Beginning

One does not remember the beginning. When you are here, you know there was a beginning. I suppose it is for the best. After all, who would choose to remember the birth trauma coming from the tight squeeze of the birth canal. It's quite interesting that the most frightening of my early nightmares was an unseen force rolling down on top of me squeezing and smothering. Many were the nights I woke up in dread fear from that nightmare. "Fortunately", we move on and the fears of those early memories give way to the very real fears of life on the edge.

At times it seems as if I was born on the edge. My oldest sibling, a brother, died a few days after birth from a lung trauma. Easily repaired in this day and age, it was fatal in 1946. My parents never recovered from this innocent death and it stayed with them through there own deaths many years later. I was preceded in birth by a sister. I arrived in September 1948 to a world of fear and hostility. My parents lived in fear another of their children would die. They reacted to this by keeping their distance, a decision that prevented love from being given or displayed. In fact, there was never much attention unless I screwed up or showed weakness.

A few months after the above picture was taken, I received by first "spanking". Spanking was the name my parents gave the beatings I got. I did not know that difference until later in my childhood. I did not know other children were not hurt that way. Of course, I know now children can do nothing that warrants that kind of intervention. Needless to say, the ideal world portrayed in the picture disappeared dissolving into chaos and fear. For sure, there was love and moments of genuine concern. It is just that, for a child, you never knew when and where the trauma would come from.

It seems I lived most of my early childhood on the edge. An edge you could never tell when it would collapse underneath you. Walking on egg shells became a way of life. There were people I knew but I never really had childhood friends. There were cousins and we were close but, they had their own traumas. I came to hear my mothers words reverberate over and over in my head, "A child's place is seen and not heard". Over and over and over and over.

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