FOREWARD

................"on August 2, 1969 in the heavy jungles of the Vietnam-Cambodian border at 6:00 AM our unit was ambushed by a Vietcong guerilla force. I was on point and closest to what later turned out to be a Vietcong base camp and training center so we were hit hard. When the dust had settled and the smoke had cleared I had taken seven hits and was in critical condition. It was then that I was drawn into the light and from above I watched everyone running around in a chaotic frenzy void of any sound. A few clicks away was a clearing where choppers would meet us. The men reorganized, set up a perimeter with ground cover, wrapped me in plastic, and carried me out of the jungle..........."

From that moment on I knew I was living on borrowed time. After years of grappling with this incident and fighting the demons I accepted the gift of my existence and began my life's work. A story, some of which you just read, is etched on a plaque that hangs ominously next to a painting in a National Museum. At the time words were not enough to convey my feelings and emotions so I painted a picture. I dedicated the painting to the men that saved my life and gave me a second chance, the men of DELTA-5-12.

My first day in the Army, I took the oath at 

Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn New York

In Basic Training I could do 30 pushups
with Peter Frazzetto on my back.

My New York attitude was not welcomed by my southern Drill Sergeant and he let it be known. After a day of harassment I had enough. The next morning at formation I went after him in front of the entire company. It was this spirit that the army was looking for in a fighting man and it was their job to harness it. I spent the rest of the day in my dress greens saluting the toilets and addressing them by name. For the benefit of this exercise each toilet was giving a women's name as I called to them in a particular order. The following day was spent scrubbing these very same ladies after the entire platoon was finished with their morning dump using my very own toothbrush.

Playing stickball in New York gave me the advantage when it came to choosing sides. Here we are all bested by a recruit after he yelled fingers and touched the top of the toilet plunger. We were deciding the order for guard duty. The swatch of missing hair on the right side of my head was the result of a bayonet wound received when a hand-to-hand combat session got out of control. I received eight stitches.

The sixties was an amazing time to grow up and everyday was an adventure. The Civil Rights movement was in full swing accompanied by riots, marches in the South, and the assassination of Civil Rights leaders. Along with these riots were anti-war demonstrations which in many cases turned into riots. The music revolution ushered in The British Invasion and Music festivals sprang up the likes of which haven't been seen since. Students were shot and killed by our own militia for exercising their first amendment rights. We had Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, Russian missiles in our waters, we walked on the moon, and even the Mets won the World Series. We saw the assassination of one president and the impeachment proceedings of another and between those two historic events was a twelve year war. Sex, drugs, and Rock and Roll - Welcome to the sixties!

I graduated from Bay Shore High School in New York at 18 years old. I was an average student but a formidable athlete which proved to be both a curse and a blessing. The Army, loving the athletic type to fuel their war machine, sent us outdoor athletic types directly to Vietnam. It would be this same athleticism that pulled me up by my bootstraps when I needed it most.

I arrived in Vietnam in early spring during the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive, called just the Tet, was an all out assault on South Vietnam and was considered the bloodiest fighting of the war. My first job during the Tet Offensive was to protect Saigon from the south in the Mekong Delta. We ate, slept, and lived in rice paddies with mud that was sometimes up to our waist. By early summer the Tet slowed down and my unit was sent to the Vietnam-Cambodian border on special missions. We were a Light Infantry unit living out of our backpacks and we were trained to survive on our own without the benefit of a base camp. In other words we were on our own. The only recourse we had because we were a special unit was the ability to call in an air strike on a moments notice. Weither it was air, artillery, or a destroyer in the South China Sea it was at our disposal. Our mission was to cross over the border into Cambodia and carry out search-and-destroy missions on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Caches of munitions and supplies were coming out of Laos and into Cambodia heading south. When they were far enough south they would enter South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply the Vietcong. President Nixon wouldn't declare Cambodia an enemy combatant for another 18 months thus our missions were secret.

On August 2, 1969 while on poin we were ambushed and my unit was pinned down. I was out alone in triple canopy jungle and separated from my unit trying to hold down my position. Before the firefight was over I was shot seven times and left for dead by the Vietcong. When my unit came they wrapped me in a plastic poncho liner as quickly as possible and carried me out of the area. I was in critical condition and fading fast when the choppers arrived. My last conscious thoughts was of the soldier in the rack above me gurgling blood from a gunshot wound to the throat. Splattering down on me and mixing with my own the medic had his hands full just trying to stop the bleeding. I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again I was in Japan in a totally white environment. Tied down and unable to move I tried to understand where I was and why I was there. A month had passed and I had flown across the South China Sea without a single conscious thought. There were bandages everywhere including my entire head with four little slit holes with tubes. The rest of my body was a combination of bandages and casts with ropes and trapeze equipment dangling everywhere. I slipped in and out of consciousness for a month and my daily activity became remaining conscious. I was eventually given a pad and pencil to write and thus I assumed my hand was the only working appendage. I scribbled the word mirror and the nurses seemed to ignored me. Again I wrote and again I was ignored. Finally I realized I was shot in the face and the overwhelming feeling of helplessness took hold of me outweighing all else I was trying to process. At their mercy, I was frail, alone, and thousands of miles from home.

My first day in Vietnam-scarred and alone I took

this picture outside the welcome center. 

"Welcome to Vietnam, tropical paradise of Southeast Asia,"

They yelled at us FNG'S as we stepped out of the plane.

I found comfort with an older women in ways
that young men only dream about.

For the next year I was transported from one hospital to another whenever I could summon the strength on route to my final destination, St. Albans Military Hospital in Queens New York. There I remained undergoing operations and physical rehabilitation almost on a daily basis. There were no rooms only huge open wards with as much as one hundred beds in each. It was a scene that can only be described as Biblical in nature. No arms, no legs, burns and shrapnel on skinless bodies and yet there was a camaraderie of sorts. The guys with no arms pushed the guys with no legs and the guys with no legs read to the guys that couldn't see. In healing, as in war, we were in it together and no one was allowed to enter our defenses and one dare try.

During my tenure at St. Albans to help with the rehabilitation and alleviate the pain I was given morphine on a daily basis along with muscle relaxers and sleeping pills. There was also black market drugs being sold by the staff for additional relief. After a year of this medical onslaught I was now addicted to drugs and ready to leave the hospital. Still on crutches and sometimes a cane I was given orders to report to West Point Military Academy in West Point New York. For whatever reason there may be and for whom ever made the decisions I was not permitted to leave the military. I was given several days to report to my next duty station.

Having no contact with society and even less for the news and political agenda's I was unaware of the tensions and political climate stirring around the country. Unbeknownst to me I was about to enter a world of unrest and anger. Outside the hospital, as in almost every other government facility in the country, there was a demonstration of anti war activists. As I left the gates shaking from my drug addiction and physical deterioration the protestors approached me and began spitting. Taking turns as they passed they assaulted me verbally between their saliva fueled rage calling me a murderer and a baby killer. I left St. Albans more of a psychological basket case than when I arrived.

My drug addiction followed me throughout my time at West Point and when I couldn't get drugs at the dispensary I got them off the street. Drugs at West Point were as plentiful as they were anywhere else in America in the sixties. Waiting for me at the front gates the CID (military FBI) arrested me for possession of an illegal substance. Because it was West Point and the crown jewel of our military system they made an example out of me. I was Court Marshaled (trial), I was found guilty and sent to prison. I spent the remainder of my military career locked up in a jail cell a broken man at twenty years old. At a low point in my life I sat alone and thought about my teenage years and realized they were gone. My only consolation for whatever it was worth was that it was all over, the nightmare that was my military career was over or so I thought.


My last day in St. Albans Military Hospital, St. Albans, New York.
St. Albans was run by the Navy and a Rear Admiral gave me my medals.
I was getting stronger and gaining weight so I was being discharged
from the hospital with orders for West Point. I was now up to 120 pounds.

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