Pro Bono - Chapter 2

Pro Bono

Chapter Two

The Murders

It was a cold Monday evening at the KMTV newsroom in Omaha, Nebraska and the reports that typically fed their telecasts were as flat and frigid as the snow-covered plains outside. There had been
no extreme weather, no upcoming events, and nothing affecting the farming community, which were the usual news items in this typically bucolic part of the country. With the holidays over, it was going to be more of the same until spring thawed the stillness of the news.

The reporters often filled the time learning how to use the motion picture cameras they had only recently received. The cameras were a necessity for television news, which was typically not regarded with the same prestige as the well-established print media. If the local station hoped to compete with the newspapers, it would have to give the public what still photographs and typed words could not. But with no news stories in motion, nothing could be filmed.

The slow Monday ended and the executives went home. The few remaining technicians and reporters scrabbled together whatever they could to fill news stories that night. In the meantime, the station
gave way to the Huntley-Brinkley report out of New York and Washington. It was a slow news day for them as well. The local Unitarian congregation was kicking off a fund drive to build a new church, the national debt was nearing $280 billion, and their lead in for the evening was “World’s Greatest Cartoons.”

Mark Gautier, alone in a dark control room upstairs from the bright lights of the studio, turned the volume of the television up to tune out the buzzing of the machines behind him. They were supposed
to bring in information, but now they were only causing a useless racket.

Then he noticed a lot of chatter coming from the police radio on the shelves above the TV. It was unusual to hear much more than an occasional smattering of reports referring to domestic disputes and traffic problems coming from the box. What he heard now caused Mark to get to his feet and grab a pencil. He wrote what he heard: “Be on the lookout for a 1949 black Ford. Nebraska license
number 2-15628. Radiator grille missing. No hubcaps. Believed to be driven by Charles Starkweather, a white male, nineteen years old, feet 5 inches tall, 140 pounds, dark red hair, green eyes. Believed to be wearing blue jeans and black leather jacket. Wanted by Lincoln police for questioning in homicide. Officers were warned to approach with caution. Starkweather was believed to be armed and presumed dangerous.

“Starkweather is believed to be accompanied by Caril Fugate, fourteen years old, female, white, 5 feet 1 inch tall, 105 pounds, dark brown hair, blue eyes, sometimes wears glasses. Usually wears hair
in ponytail, appears to be about eighteen years old. Believed wearing blue jeans and blouse or sweater. May be wearing medium-blue parka.”

It was 5:43 pm, January 27, 1958.

* * *

John McArthur heard the news report on the radio in his office the next day. He was a news junky, often listening to what was happening while at work, only to come home to watch a more in depth
recap of the day’s events on television. This time it was the opposite way around. There had been sketchy information about a triple homicide the night before, and now they had further information about it on the radio. A 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old boyfriend had disappeared, her family was discovered murdered, the parents’ bodies left in a chicken shack behind their home, and a baby’s body was in the outhouse; its head had been crushed by a rifle.

The sheer audacity of the murders was shocking enough to catch anyone’s attention and everyone turned on their radios and televisions to learn what was happening.

John didn’t have to turn far to reach his radio. Only a short swivel brought his legs into contact with a wall, or filing cabinet, or some other piece of furniture. Though John was a thin man, even his
gaunt frame barely fit through the narrow passage into his office. If a drawer was open, he had to duck under or climb over it. If his partner Merril Reller wanted inside the office, it became a back and forth dance for one to enter and the other to leave. A chair rested outside the doorway because when clients came to visit they had to sit outside the office looking in.

The report on the radio was interrupted by a break in the case.

The police had surrounded a farmhouse near Bennet, approximately 20 miles east of Lincoln, where Charlie was believed to be holed up. His car was parked in front, and no one answered a call to come out, not even the farmer who owned the property. A small army of police officials slowly moved in on the home, guns drawn.

* * *

Blackie Roberts and Dick Trembath, two of the reporters for KMTV, stood in the still, gelid air beside their car at the Meyer farm outside of Bennet. They had rushed from Omaha, more than sixty miles away, to film the capture of the two fugitives for KMTV.

Before them, the police formed a wide perimeter around the house, and waited for the dispersal of tear gas before moving in.

Scattered among the men in uniform were farmers with shotguns, eager to see the young murderer captured or killed. They knew that August Meyer, the man who owned the farm, would never
willingly aid a killer, even though Charlie had been a friend of August for years.

August, who was seventy, had allowed Charlie to hunt on his farm from time to time. He had seen Caril whenever Charlie brought her with him, but he barely knew her. Now no one could discern what was going on inside; if the two were preparing an ambush, or if they would surrender as soon as it got hot.

“How come all the local people?” Blackie asked one of the sheriff’s men. “Did you form a posse?”

“No, that’s something else,” came the reply. “They were just in the area and came over to help.”

“What else is going on?”

“A couple of teen-agers from Bennet were reported missing last night and the neighbors have been out looking for them.”

A patrol car engine roared to life. It was the signal. “Let’s move out!” someone shouted. “Spread out and stay low!”

The police car moved forward, and the men in uniform surged ahead. When the car rumbled into place in front of the house, it stopped. The men got out of the car and took cover behind the doors.

A loudspeaker squealed to life. “This is the police! We know you’re in there! We’ll give you five minutes to come out of there with your hands in the air!” They were met by silence, and police answered with the loud cocking of their guns.

A half dozen troopers ran as they spread out across the front lawn keeping low, carrying their stubby, wide barreled guns. Half way to the house they dove to the ground. A white flash trailed from one of
the men, and a moment later a window crashed. A thin trail of smoke slowly began to snake its way out of the hole as the farmhouse filled with tear gas.

The troopers charged the home from every direction. The front door was kicked open, and as the smoke poured out, they rushed in, guns at the ready.

One man called out from the back of the house. It was not what they expected, not a shout at Charlie to drop his weapon, or a signal to tell the others where he was, but a genuine scream of disgust.

The man who had called out was at the doorway of a small, white shed attached to the back of the house. Inside was the body of August Meyer. There was no sign of struggle, no visible bullet
wound. The only evidence of his death was a thin layer of blood peeking out from under him.

Blackie Roberts, who had followed the police inside, now shot a whole roll of film for the news. This was certainly a change from their usual photographs of placid pastures and town meetings. He just
had to get past the crowd of police huddling around the house.

August’s brother was among the officers outside. One of the policemen who had seen the body confirmed what they had found.

“Oh my god,” was all he could say.

Dick Trembath, also outside, walked down the lane to take photographs of Starkweather’s car, which was stuck in the mud just down the street. There was nothing unusual about it, except that
Charlie had collected tires in the backseat.

As Dick was returning to the Meyer place, he was approached by a farmer who asked where he could find a policeman. There were plenty available, which Dick pointed out, and he asked the perplexed
man what was happening. The man waved him off and continued toward an officer. Dick stood close enough to hear, but not so close to scare them away.

The man’s name was Everette Broening. The night before he had heard a car accelerate at high speed around 10 pm. The next morning, after hearing about the missing teenagers, he had found a pile
of school books along the side of the road a few miles up. All Dick heard him tell the officer after that was, “They’re in the storm cellar.”

* * *

The police stood on the pale, frozen ground surrounding the cement entrance of the storm cellar a couple miles from the Meyer residence. One civilian stepped up to the entrance, looked down
inside, then covered his mouth and turned quickly away, his shoulders heaving.

Dick tried to make his way to the doorway to get a photograph.

He was stopped by a trooper a foot taller than him. “Come on, I’ve got a job to do,” Dick said.
“You don’t want any pictures of what’s down there,” the man told him gravely.

The two teenagers who had been reported missing the night before, Robert Jensen and Carol King, lay at the bottom of the cellar.

The girl was naked, her body lying zig zagged across the floor, her breasts and groin fully exposed, her face as contorted as her body. Her blue jeans were bunched at her feet around her white bobby socks.

One arm, still attached to the sleeve of her jacket, was wrapped around her back, while the other arm reached down to her knee as if making one last attempt at modesty. Her small hand rested in the fold of her leg. A blood stain led out of her buttocks and trailed down her thigh where she had been raped, and then stabbed. Her body was on top of her boyfriend, Robert. A pool of their mixed blood ran down the floor away from them.

Lancaster County Attorney Elmer Scheele soon filed first degree murder charges against Charlie Starkweather. After what they had seen of the King girl, there was reason to believe Fugate was
probably dead as well, and they expected to find her body dumped along the side of the road.

Neighbors were warned, posses were formed, and farmers from across the area converged on the narrow, unpaved main street of Bennet, a town of 490 people 18 miles southeast of the capital city of
Lincoln, where the primary police headquarters was set up. The search centered around a line of police headlights and moved out from there into the dark, vast reaches of the nearby farmland. The heavily armed men stretched out into the night, some almost shooting one another as they spotted shapes in the dark. One officer was fired at when he tried to approach a farmhouse to warn the residents about Starkweather. It appeared they already knew, so he continued on to the next house.

Back at the KMTV newsroom, Ninette Beaver, a junior reporter, speculated that Charlie could have gone to the closest major town, Lincoln. “I doubt that,” Mark Gautier told her as he got his jacket to leave. “If he’s not holed up somewhere around Bennet, he’s probably made it out of the state by now.”

“Good lord, I hope so,” Ninette said. Her sister Joanne lived in Lincoln, and if Starkweather was going there, who knew what would happen. She waited for Mark to leave, then quickly called Joanne.

* * *

County Attorney Elmer Scheele had to duck his head slightly as he entered the magniloquent home of C. Lauer and Clara Ward. He was often the tallest man in any room. Though thin and introverted,
his presence was imposing, and his gaze through his black, horn rimmed glasses was focused and intimidating.

The murder spree had gone from bad to worse. Only one day earlier Scheele and the Nebraska police had thought they had Charlie pinned down in a farmhouse, only to find its owner dead inside the
house. And then they had found two teenagers brutally murdered, their bodies left locked in a storm cellar near a school. Never in the history of Nebraska had there been such a chain of killings, and now it had moved from the scattered small communities of the rural farmland into the more densely populated city of Lincoln. And even more disturbing, it had come to the upscale neighborhood near the country club.

Lincoln was a conglomeration of many small communities that had grown together over the decades. The resulting contrast in wealth and class was visible as one passed from the less developed north side of “O” Street to the more affluent south side of town, where the houses were larger, and the vast yards stretched out greener. For this type of bloodshed to enter any part of Lincoln was shocking enough. For it to enter the home of such a prominent figurehead was downright unthinkable.

Yet there was Mr. Ward, a well respected businessman, president of Capitol Steel Works, and a friend of the most influential people in the state, just inside of his front door, dead from a shot at point blank range with a shotgun. The last person to see him alive, in fact, was his close friend, Nebraska Governor Victor Anderson. Lauer Ward's wife Clara was found dead upstairs, a knife sticking out of her back, and their maid, Lillian Fencl, was found with her hands and feet bound, a gag in her mouth, and a knife embedded in her torso.

Scheele was a professional at hiding his feelings, but outrage was beginning to boil over as the pressure was building. Charlie had eluded every road block and patrol that was out to stop him, and now he had to be stopped before panic spread. Something else disturbed him; a smell overwhelming the second floor of the house. It was more than the stench of death, which Elmer was used to. When he followed it to its source, where the odor was strongest, he found the body of Mrs. Ward, bound and gagged and lying dead between the two beds.

Then he identified the aroma. It was perfume. Someone had tried to cover the smell of death by pouring it all over the room.  Mrs. Ward’s drawers and closets had been ransacked.  Women’s clothes were scattered all over the place, as if someone had been shopping and had left the discarded apparel behind. Among them was Carol King’s jacket. Elmer was incensed. Up to this point he had
been expecting to find Caril Fugate’s body in a ditch somewhere. But now it was clear. She was alive. And she was traveling as Charlie’s companion.

Outside, Merle Karnopp, the county sheriff, was talking to reporters. “Well, since discovering the last three bodies, which makes a total of nine that we know of so far, Mayor Martin and I have made
an appeal for all adjoining counties, including Omaha, to send all available help they can to Lincoln. It is our opinion that the car is still in this vicinity. We know he has been for the last three days, and we want to cover Lincoln block to block.”

* * *

James McArthur was a junior in high school at Union College Academy, a small Seventh-day Adventist school of about eighty to a hundred students that was squeezed into the fourth floor of the Union College Administration Building. The lower grades had not been allowed to recess because of fear that Starkweather was in the vicinity.

Now that Charlie was known to be in Lincoln, the school immediately sent all of the students home. Lines of cars driven by armed parents appeared at Lincoln’s schools. At Lincoln High School, one student was almost lynched when his bright red hair caused him to be mistaken for the murdering
teenager. Inside homes, children were told a key word that, if the parents spoke it, would mean that they were to run and hide.

At Whittier Jr. High School, students raided Caril Fugate’s locker and kept her possessions as souvenirs. Few had ever paid any attention to this tiny, reticent girl, but now dozens of students grappled over who would walk away with her belongings now that she was an infamous fugitive. Many who had ignored her before now made claims to have known her well, and claimed that she had always been a trouble maker.

James and his little sister Linda piled into John’s truck and they headed home through the madness. Along the way they witnessed stores closing, people getting into their homes and bolting the doors,
some boarding their windows. Lincoln had been a town where few ever bothered to lock their doors, but now the entire city was digging in as if under siege. Police from Omaha and the surrounding
communities converged on the capital city. Even the National Guard was called in by Governor Anderson after he learned that his good friend had been murdered. Soldiers piled out of their armored vehicles and marched in formation through the empty streets of downtown.

A posse was called for at the courthouse, and so many people showed up that some had to be turned away. Those who left mostly went to gun stores, which sold out within an hour. Small groups of
private citizens spread into Lincoln neighborhoods to search for Starkweather and almost shot each other. Armed civilians subjected individuals who drove cars similar to the one Charlie was now driving to repeated searches.

Reports of Starkweather sightings rolled in from places as near as the county courthouse in Lincoln to as far as the western end of Kansas.

In one small Kansas town, police were rushed to the airport for reasons they could not be told. Some thought they were being sent to capture Starkweather, and they pulled their guns to be ready. When
the airplane landed, they found that it was President Eisenhower, who was flying in to Kansas City for the funeral of his brother Arthur, but had been diverted to the smaller airport due to bad weather.

The sightings the police took most seriously were those of the Ward car with a single teenage occupant. This led many to believe Starkweather was now alone, and a new search began for the body of Caril Fugate.

One reporter for the local newspaper, the Lincoln Journal, appeared at the office while he was supposed to be shadowing police officers. When asked why he was there, he said, “Just look at me!”

He was red headed and had a freckled face. Worse yet, he drove a Packard, just like the one Starkweather was reportedly driving. “I’m double parked and I’m not going out there,” he said.

John Jr. drove his brother James and sister Linda home from school as fast as he could. Once there, James turned on the news to watch the chaos. The rest of his other brothers and sisters trickled
home rapidly after that, all of them sent home from school, and their mother, Ruby, didn’t allow anyone to go outside the rest of the day while she waited anxiously for her husband to come home. John returned late in the afternoon and joined James at the television, watching the historic chaos.
KFOR, a Lincoln radio station, reported that Starkweather had been seen at Capitol Steel Works, the company where Lauer Ward had been the president, but it was an incorrect report by the Associated
Press who had misinterpreted the events of the day. It was easy to do.

New information was coming in so quickly it was hard to know what was fact and what was gossip. The news team had to not only keep track of new stories, but also corrections to previous ones. It was
especially difficult for a continuity writer such as Joanne Young to keep track of the most recent information. She was juggling correcting copy with answering the flood of calls from reporters all over the world who wanted to know more about what was happening.

KFOR was pre-empting every show they had, and using the radio not only for information to the public, but also to give police as much information as was coming to them. This wasn't the usual job
for the press, but this incident was different, more terrifying. Their evening radio announcer, Bob Asky, had come in the night before after having visited the Fugate house where he saw the three bodies of Caril's family. All he could say was "it was really bad." The next morning, when the Wards were found dead in their own home and chaos gripped the city, the president of the radio station arrived at work with a gun, and ordered the doors locked.

Joanne had a personal connection to the danger. The husband of a good friend of hers, Robert Colvert, had been murdered the month before, and Charlie had been a lead suspect; and now her cousin, Chuck Green, a stocky, red headed teenager, was somewhere out there in the city, a target for citizens mad with fear. A police car pulled him over, and to make sure they knew he wasn't Starkweather, he jumped out of the car and announced, "It's not me!"

Newspapers, long the reliable source of information for the people of Nebraska, could not keep up with what was happening.

Bodies were appearing three at a time in a seemingly random pattern. No one knew where or when Starkweather would strike next. Lincoln had two papers, one in the morning, the Star, and one in the evening, the Journal, and each had to keep adjusting and updating their headlines as new stories developed.

Police, meanwhile, were trying to decide what leads to follow.

A series of reports arrived throughout the day that a couple matching the descriptions of Caril and Charlie were spotted driving northwest along Highway 60 through the Sandhills of Nebraska towards
Wyoming. Though these reports were numerous, the police disregarded them, and set up roadblocks south of Lincoln to prevent the couple from escaping into Kansas.

Ninette Beaver was one of the people bringing some semblance of order to the chaos in the KMTV newsroom. Although she was in the relative safety of Omaha, 50 miles removed from the action, her
sister Joanne was in the middle of it.

Joanne had described over the phone what was happening in Lincoln to Ninette. She had been stopped by a man with a shotgun on her way to teaching dance class. She thought it was Starkweather as he leaned down and checked out her car. When it was over she rushed home and locked the doors. Ninette got goose bumps as her sister told her the story.

Ninette and the others in the KMTV office tried to keep up with the quickly changing information. There were reports that Charlie was alone, reports that Caril was with him, and reports that Caril was dead. As the news came across the wire, Ninette delivered it to her boss, Floyd Kalber, and others who then reported it on the air.

Ninette was only supposed to be at KMTV on a temporary basis, and now she was in the middle of a major event. A full blown panic had caught the attention of an entire nation. Soon, even news stations in Europe began covering the story.

At 2:30 p.m. on January 29th, Ninette took a call from Blackie Roberts, one of their reporters chasing the story, still in the field after no sleep for two days. He told her that Elmer Scheele’s office was
filing first-degree murder charges against both Charlie and Caril.

“He’s charging the girl, too?” Ninette asked.

“That’s it,” Blackie told her.

“Hang on, the bell’s ringing,” Ninette told him, and she turned to the Teletype machine. Floyd jumped out of his chair and joined her.

DOUGLAS, WYO., JAN. 29 (AP) – CHARLES STARKWEATHER, 19, RUNTY NEBRASKA GUNMAN SOUGHT IN NINE SLAYINGS, WAS CAPTURED TODAY IN THE BADLANDS NEAR THIS WYOMING COWTOWN.

Everyone began moving. The story had moved to Wyoming, and they couldn’t be the only station without footage.

Then the Teletype machine interrupted them again:

A TENTH MURDER VICTIM WAS FOUND NOT FAR FROM WHERE STARKWEATHER WAS CAPTURED.
THE DEAD MAN WAS MERLE COLLISON, 37-YEAR OLD GREAT FALLS, MONT., SHOE SALESMAN.
WITH STARKWEATHER WAS CARIL FUGATE, THE 14-YEAR-OLD GIRL WHO FLED WITH HIM FROM LINCOLN, NEB., WHERE POLICE SAID HE KILLED NINE PEOPLE. INCLUDED AMONG THE VICTIMS WERE CARIL’S PARENTS.
THE TWO TEENAGERS WERE RUN TO EARTH IN RUGGED COUNTRY WHERE OLD WEST GUNMEN OFTEN HOLED UP.
THE GIRL WAS ALMOST HYSTERICAL AND RAN FLEEING TO DEPUTY SHERIFF BILL ROMER CRYING OUT HER FEAR STARKWEATHER WOULD KILL HER.
SHE WAS IN A STATE OF SHOCK SHORTLY AFTERWARD.
ROMER SAID SHE SCREAMED TO HIM: “HE’S COMING TO KILL ME. HE’S CRAZY. HE JUST KILLED A MAN.”

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The Great Heist - Chapter 1

The Great Heist

It was a bright, warm, early autumn day on September 17, 1930 in the heart of Lincoln, Nebraska’s downtown business district when a blue-black Buick Master Six sedan with yellow wire wheels halted suddenly in front of the Lincoln National Bank on the northwest corner of 12th and O Streets. It looked like a police car, and most people who saw it thought the men inside were law officers.

It was 10:02 in the morning. The bank had just opened two minutes earlier, though employees had been in the offices since eight. One man remained at the wheel while the other five leapt out of the car and swiftly rushed into the Ganter Building in which the bank took up the first floor. The car’s engine continued to run; they wouldn’t be long.

The men wore dark business suits and carried red and white sacks in one hand and firearms in the other. They wore no masks. None were locals, and wouldn’t be known to the residents.

Inside the bank, they immediately ordered everyone to lie down on the ground. The majority of the people in the bank were employees, but about a dozen customers had gotten in early when the doors first opened and were spread throughout the lobby. Everyone hesitated at the sound of the command, uncertain the men were serious. Some thought this might be a practical joke. Others were just too shocked to fully comprehend what was happening. This sort of thing didn’t occur in a small town like theirs, or so they thought.

One of the bandits approached Assistant Cashier J.T. Shields and the employee next to him, Phil Hall. Hall chastised the man for disturbing business, and the bandit knocked him over the head with his gun. Immediately, everyone dropped to the floor.

One of the men approached the teller cages and bashed his way in through the cage door, forcing the employees to the floor. To show how serious they were, they smashed two other employees over the head, W.E. Barkley and Marie Becker.

Having control of the lobby, one of the men exited the building and went to the street corner, his gun, larger than most of the others’, swinging below his jacket, partially concealed.

The men inside were efficient, moving quickly through the bank like military personnel on a well-coordinated mission. Each man had his own assignment. None of them needed instructions; it had all been choreographed before the morning had begun.

Only one of the men gave occasional orders, the one standing guard at the front door. He told the others to move on to each part of the plan, and made a few adjustments along the way.

They knew the layout of the bank, even the back rooms and hallways where only employees were allowed. The bandits found all the personnel in their offices and had them go out into the lobby and lay on the ground where they could be watched.

No one had time to go for a phone except for one employee, Hazel Jones, whose job it was to run the switchboard. One of the bandits clearly knew her position and was on her before she could say anything on the phone. Speaking of the robbery later, she said:

I thought it was a joke but it was no joke… I was sitting clear back where I couldn’t see and I was busy with my work. The one who got me off the switchboard had a gun that he put in my face and got me off the telephone and on the floor.

One of the men hurried to the lower level where four bookkeepers were working. One of the bookkeepers, Sterling Glover, remembered the incident later:

The first thing we knew there was someone standing there pointing a gun at us and told us to put our hands up and we thought it was a joke, but when we saw the gun, we knew it wasn’t a joke. He herded the four of us up stairs and made us lay down at the nearest place. They told us to keep our heads down.

W. A. Selleck, the bank president, came out of his office to find the dramatic scene unfolding in his lobby. He, too, thought it was a joke. He had recently had a birthday, and he thought friends had hired actors to pretend like there was a hold-up. He went to the robbers, telling them it was a fun gag, but they needed to open the bank to real customers. One of the robbers informed him that this was not a hoax, and he needed to get on the ground. Not believing him, Selleck continued toward the robber, smiling, and commending him on his realistic performance. The robber beat him across the face, sending Selleck to the ground, then hit him two more times to prove how serious he was.

By now, everyone was face down on the marble floor of the lobby. The bandits had the bank entirely secured within the first minute of having entered. The leader at the door threatened to shoot anyone who tried to get up. Another walked among the people occasionally cursing at them and acting like he was going to shoot someone.

They were now ready for phase two, but they seemed to be missing a key component; someone who was supposed to be among the captives but wasn’t. “Where’s Leinberger!” one of the men shouted.
H.E. Leinberger was the assistant cashier, the only one with the keys to the inner vault door during business hours. Once the time lock kicked in at 10 am, only Leinberger had access to it. The employees were surprised to hear the bank robbers say their assistant cashier’s name, as only someone familiar with bank policy would be aware of this information.

E.H. Luikart, vice president of the bank, told the robbers that Leinberger was away from the bank on business. Assuming why they wanted Leinberger, Luikart continued to explain that no one else could get past the heavy vault door into the safe. This proved a tricky situation for both the robbers and their captives. If they became furious over the matter, this could become a hostage situation, or they may simply kill everyone in the bank out of pure spite.

The robbers didn’t believe Luikart, and continued to search for Leinberger, but he was nowhere to be found. The assistant cashier had indeed left on business before the bank had opened.
During the confusion, one woman managed to slip away from the robbers’ sights, found a side door, and got out.

All was quiet outside, as if nothing wrong was happening in the world. People were casually going about their daily business. There was even a patrolman, Elmer Beals, who was wandering the area with no idea what was going on. It had all happened so fast, after all. Barely three minutes had passed since the robbery had begun.

The woman who had escaped spotted the car still idling at the curb. The driver had not seen her; neither had the lookout who was maneuvering between the corner and the front door. Whenever someone came close to the entrance, the gangster just inside opened the door and showed his gun, and the lookout stepped up behind the person and forced them inside, adding them to the pool of hostages. The escaped woman made her way across the street, and to safety.

Another woman, Mrs. Hugh Werner, was approaching the door when she saw what was happening to others who approached. She backed away. The man at the door and the one outside told her to come back. She hurried faster. The lookout threatened her, and Mrs. Warner sprinted across 12th Street. The men continued to shout after her as she weaved through traffic and hopped onto the sidewalk on the other side. She didn’t look back, and she didn’t listen to the men; she just burst into Crancer’s Radio Store and told E.W. Wolfenbarger, an employee, to call the police. He peered through the window, saw what she was talking about, and made the call.

Sergeant Frank Towle was working the desk at the downtown police department. They were used to getting calls for bar brawls, reckless teenagers disturbing the peace, or the occasional violation of the Volstead Act. Big city crimes were hundreds of miles away. Officers carried little more than pistols. There wasn’t even a police academy. Joseph T. Carroll, who later served as chief of police, recalled of the time:

There was not much training. You were assigned and you worked under the direction and supervision of a seasoned police officer. They gave us a .38 revolver. The foot patrolman carried a night club and handcuffs.

The voice on the phone said to Sergeant Towle, “For god’s sake, come to 12th and O!”

“Where?” Sergeant Towle asked.

“Hurry to 12th and O. There’s a robbery!”

Believing it was a prank call, Sergeant Towle hung up on the man. But he sent two officers to check out the situation, if for no other reason than to catch the pranksters. The officers he sent were Peter Meyers, a juvenile officer barely over the age of the young hooligans he was used to dealing with, and Forrest Schappaugh, a man with a little more experience. They would naturally have taken the department’s one and only squad car, but it wasn’t working that morning, so Schappaugh took the motorcycle, and Meyers went on foot.

Back at the radio store, Wolfenbarger stepped out onto the street and told the gangster at the corner that he had called the police. The man waited for him to come close, then grabbed him and shoved him into the front of the bank. Inside, another gangster grabbed him and forced him to lie face down on the floor with the others. Finished with his heroics, Wolfenbarger did as he was told.

When Officer Schappaugh arrived at the bank, he saw the lookout on the corner first. He pointed his motorcycle at the man and approached to question him. The man revealed the long, metallic object he had been holding partially under his jacket. It was a Thompson submachine gun, something they didn’t see in this area of the country very often. The man motioned with the gun, indicating for Schappaugh to leave, and said, “Just keep moving.”

Schappaugh had only his .38, no match for the well armed criminal, not to mention those fortified inside the bank. So without a word, he turned his motorcycle and continued down the road.

Several other people who parked their cars in front of the bank were approached by the same man with the Tommy gun who ordered them to stay in their cars and threatened to shoot them if they tried to drive away.

Inside, the robbers had accepted that the assistant cashier was gone, but did not accept that they couldn’t get into the vault. Vice President Luikart sent Florence Zeiser, assistant trust officer, and Sterling Glover, a bookkeeper, to the bank vault to show the bandits that the vault could not be opened by anyone present in the bank. While two of the robbers followed Zeiser and Glover, the others covered the people in the lobby, and looted the teller windows and cashier drawers, scooping piles of cash into their sacks. Several witnesses later described these sacks as pillow cases, but they were actually bags with hoops on the end to make them easier to seal.

Zeiser and Glover led the two bandits to the vault, though it seemed the bandits already knew the way. The outer door of the vault was open, but the inner door directly into the safe, the one with the time lock, was closed. Zeiser had been in the safe earlier, before the bank had opened and the time lock was set to seal the safe off at 10 am. By now the lock would be in place and there was no way to get inside. She pushed down on the dial used to open the safe to show the men that it wouldn’t budge, but to her surprise, the dial spun, and the door swung wide open. The time lock had somehow been disabled, or had never been activated in the first place.

Without hesitation, the robbers rushed in and began taking everything they could. There was approximately half a million dollars worth of securities, and some silver, which they stuffed into their bags. Glover later recalled of the incident:

[The men] stuffed everything in a bag something like material pillows were made out of. There wasn’t too much cash in the vault, mostly silver. They asked [Miss Zeiser] to open the cash vault and she said she didn’t know the combination. One fellow ordered, “Well, shoot her.”

Outside, the young officer, Peter Meyers, approached the lookout on foot. The lookout let him get close before he quietly revealed his Thompson and muttered, “Scram.” Meyers, entirely unarmed, backed off and walked away.

Now with suspicious eyes watching, the lookout called into the bank for the others to hurry up. Inside, the gangster at the door told the rest of them that it was time to go. Everyone scraped the last of the money and securities into their bags.

In the vault, the robber who was about to shoot Ms. Zeiser instead told her to lie on the ground. She did as he said, and the robbers took what they had and hurried out.

Back at the station, Schappaugh hopped off the motorcycle and rushed inside, telling the department the bank robbery was real, and they needed a lot of backup. He had not been able to call this in since he had no radio on his motorcycle.

Every available officer hopped into two of the civilian cars and they hurried down to the bank, uncertain how they would handle heavily armed gangsters with only their .38 revolvers.

They returned within five minutes of Schappaugh having been there, but the bank robbers were gone.

They had emerged from the bank soon after Meyers’ appearance, four of them with bulging bags on their backs, the other two waving their Thompson sub-machine guns in the air to intimidate bystanders. In their hurry out the door, they had bypassed $200,000 in liberty bonds which had been removed earlier from the vault sitting on a cart in the lobby. As they exited, one of the gangsters was overheard saying to the others, “That’s another good job well done.”

The first bandit to the car jumped into the back and the others threw their bags in to him. Then two of the men climbed into the back, two climbed into jump seats, and the man who had been guarding the door of the bank climbed into the front of the car. It was all done with militaristic efficiency and incredible celerity.

As they drove, the man in the front passenger seat rested his Thompson against the window, warning off anyone who might approach. They reached a red light at the intersection of 12th and O and stopped, as if they weren’t running from anyone. They calmly turned right onto O Street, and began blaring a police siren they had. Everyone in their way pulled off to the side as they raced down the town’s most populated street. A block or two down the road, they turned again, and disappeared.

The entire operation had taken no more than eight minutes from beginning to end.

The officers immediately fanned out to find them. The public was alerted, and everyone was on the lookout for a rogue police car, black or dark blue Buick, probably heading south out of town since that was the direction of the nearest state border. The vehicle had Iowa license plates, which should make the car slightly more conspicuous.

Several sightings of the car came from the surrounding area, including reports from in town that had it traveling north, south, east, and west. Witnesses in the nearby town of Kramer, west of Lincoln, reported seeing a car with a police siren racing through town, then turning south. A contradictory report had it in Waverly, east of Lincoln, turning north. One report had it being stopped by a flat tire east of town on O Street. There, the men were helped by a farmer who admired their fancy machine guns which they claimed were hunting rifles. Another report had the car being swallowed up by a truck just a block away from the bank. Another report claimed they had gotten to Milan, Missouri, and had continued on to the Ozarks. And yet another had them in a car accident in Beatrice, and more reports had them in the towns of Tobias and Fairbury, both just west of Beatrice. Other reports had them traveling north toward Omaha, south toward Kansas, and west, near Kearney.

The hunt continued throughout the day. Two airplanes were dispatched to search the flat open prairies for the car. Authorities in every town along the Platte and Missouri rivers were called out to block the bridges, which created un-crossable borders to the east and west. Police in every town within 200 miles of Lincoln were alerted. But as the sun set and night fell, it became clear the bank robbers had gotten away.

The bankers spent the rest of the day tallying up the damage. The gangsters had gotten away with $2,775,395.12, the largest amount of any bank robbery in the history of the world.

To learn more about The Great Heist, go to: http://www.bandwagononline.com/The-Great-Heist.html

Two Gun Hart - Prologue

Two Gun Hart

Prologue

Four men sat drinking and gambling at a lone, oak table in the lobby of the only hotel in Walthill, Nebraska. It was a small crossroads town left over from the old west. The hotel had once been its brothel complete with an overhanging balcony where the ladies plied their trade. The town sat within the borders of the Omaha Indian Reservation, a train stop from which to transport corn to Sioux City, and little had ever happened since its construction. It was primarily a place for white and Indian farmers to congregate, purchase supplies, and socialize before returning to their farms and ranches in the surrounding hills of northeastern Nebraska.

There was little to do in this quiescent section of the prairie, which made gathering at the hotel to gamble and buy drinks a popular pastime, despite the fact that both were illegal. Anti-gambling laws had never been heavily enforced, and went primarily unnoticed by the populace, who saw it as a common entertainment. In most places imbibing alcohol was not itself illegal. The recent passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, backed by the passage of the Volstead Act to enforce it, had outlawed the manufacture, transportation, and selling of alcohol. It said nothing of its consumption.

However, laws on Indian reservations had gone farther, prohibiting consumption of alcohol within reservation borders. Ever since the introduction of alcohol into their cultures, many American Indian tribes struggled with alcoholism, and the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment had inspired a movement to dry up their populations. While most of the rest of the country regarded Prohibition as government overreach, it was a godsend for Indians who desperately needed to overcome what was, in effect, a cultural illness.

These restrictions caused people in the area who wanted to drink to look upon bootleggers, who transported alcohol, and moonshiners, who manufactured it on nearby ranches and farms, as heroes. They were willing to pay many times the amount they had previously paid for a single glass of beer or flask of whiskey. Oftentimes it was not clear what they were drinking. The concoctions moonshiners put together barely resembled beverages before Prohibition when it had been regulated. Now a drink could be almost anything. Thus it was often dangerous, not only because it was illegal, but the homemade alcohol sometimes resulted in a poisonous mix.

But such dangers didn’t stop men from gathering at the hotel and partaking of what the moonshiners smuggled in from stills they had hidden in the fields and ravines outside of town, or what bootleggers had driven in from distant regions. Purchases were discreet, but drinking was in the open. The law seemed far away and they would have plenty of warning if they saw those who enforced it coming.

So the four men who were gambling did as men always did at the Walthill Hotel, they sat their glasses on the table where everyone could see, making no attempt to hide what they were doing.

One of the men, who had a thick-set jaw and wide nose and wearing dusty overalls, was new to town. He was a migrant worker, like so many who had come through the area. The northbound train out of Omaha passed by on its way to Homer, and then on to Sioux City, Iowa, where a lot of drifters traveled to work. Though clearly a white man, the stranger’s skin had an olive complexion, something he explained as evidence of his Indian heritage and his constant work outdoors. Aside from clarifying this one mystery, he spoke little, mostly listening and watching the others at the table and studying them.

The others, men who knew one another, talked about their lives their families, eventually turning to the subject of the drink they were sharing. The one who had made it disclosed its name, what was in it, and how he had brewed it.

The stranger in the dusty overalls abruptly stood. “You’re all under arrest,” he said sternly enough for them to know he wasn’t kidding.

They looked at him surprised, but no one moved. Something in his voice made it clear he was not to be trifled with, and they knew they were going to jail. He might even be armed, and none of them wanted to get into a gunfight. Everyone in Nebraska had heard of the notorious lawman, a master of disguise who carried two pistols and could outshoot anyone. It was obvious to all the people in the room, who were now staring at him, that this was that famous Prohibition officer.

Then the man said something strange. “Now I know who all of you are, and where you all live, so don’t you go anywhere or I’ll go find you. I’m going to be right back, so stay here.” Then he left the room and walked up the stairs and out of sight.

The three men sat dumbfounded at the table, unguarded and unwatched. Others in the room who were not under arrest stared at the men to see what they would do. Aside from looking at each other, none of them moved. Where would they go? They knew the stranger was probably telling the truth. There weren’t many places to hide, and he likely did know where they lived, especially after they had been talking for some time. He had listened to their entire conversation and knew everything about the booze that was being made and consumed in town. They didn’t want any more trouble, so none of them tried to escape. None of them even budged from their seats. They just waited in the uncomfortable silence.

They were still seated when they heard footsteps on the mahogany stairs again, this time much thicker than before, sounding almost like a hammer coming down on each step accompanied by a faint clang. A pair of cowboy boots complete with spurs and embossed with a heart appeared, followed by white pants, a white button-down shirt, and finally, a tall ten gallon cowboy hat. Strapped to his waist were two ivory-handled six shooters. He looked like he had walked straight out of a silent western movie. This was the man they suspected; this was “Two Gun” Hart.

Little did anyone know that Officer Hart kept a secret bigger than anyone could imagine. His real name was Vincenzo Capone, and his brother Al was the most infamous criminal in the world.

If you'd like to learn more about Two Gun Hart or read the entire book, go to: http://www.bandwagononline.com/Two-Gun-Hart.html

If You're Not Voting For Warren, Fine; But Don't Complain!

I'm just going to throw something out there, and I'll probably get flack for it, but whatever.  I'm fine with any of the Democratic candidates still up there, and whatever reason you have for voting for any of them.  But if you vote for anyone other than Warren, please do us all a favor and don't complain that the president is always an old white guy and it's never a woman.  I know several people who have been making this complaint who are now saying they're voting for Sanders or Biden.

And I get it.  I do.  I don't recommend voting for a woman just because she's a woman.  That's not only a bad idea, it's even patronizing to women.  Hell, I wouldn't vote for Sarah Palin just because she's a woman.

But whatever reason you have for voting for someone else, understand that THAT is the reason we haven't had a female president.  It's not some conspiracy brought on by us men.  It's not all because we're a backwards culture.  Some of it is other nuances, including the reasons you're giving for voting for someone else!

So to be clear, if you don't vote for Warren today, I get it.  I don't think you're a sexist or don't want women in power.  I'm sure you have some other reason, and it's probably a good one, to go for someone else.

But if you do, please do us all a favor, and next time you want to complain that there haven't been any female presidents; go to a mirror and ask yourself that question and don't bother the rest of us, because you'll be staring at part of the reason.

Relic Worlds Hardcover Giveaway

Happy holidays, everyone!

I'd like to give a present to some of my readers.  I happen to have 3 copies of Relic Worlds, Book 2: Lancaster James and the Secret of the Padrone Key.  I'd like to give them away to fans who might be interested as a present.

If you're interested, leave a comment below as to how I can get in touch with you, and I'll make sure you get a copy of one of these books.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and a happy new year!

Tales & Lives of the Vietnam War Sample

Earlier this year, a friend of mine died who had been the first subject of one of my upcoming books about people who lived through the Vietnam War.  His name was Lance Block, and he'll be missed terribly.

I'm sharing his chapter of the book here in remembrance of him, and to show what's coming in the next year or two.

***

Chapter One

Lance Block

American Infantryman

Aware that he would probably be put in the military regardless of his own wishes, Lance Block considered joining the Air Force.  Whether flying a plane, or working at a control center on the ground, he knew it would be stimulating.  However, his interest really lay in architecture.  An expert with a pencil, Lance enjoyed designing and drawing three dimensional images.  His uncle was one of the premier architects in the world, designing buildings all across the United States.  He drafted the third tallest building in Chicago, and had laid out plans for the tallest one before the project fell apart.  Growing up, Lance occasionally assisted him, and learned a lot as he did.

When he came of age, Lance went to study mechanical drafting at the University of Santa Cruz.  He was instantly successful.  Between his experience with his uncle and his natural talent, Lance was able to translate 3D images to drawings quickly and precisely.  When his class was required to do isometric drawings of objects, he accurately represented them on the page to the smallest detail, getting A's in every test, and surpassing all his classmates.

This expertise would have kept him out of the Vietnam War as college students whose grade point average remained above a C were exempt from service.  He was tripped up, however, by his German language class.  Lance had not needed to take German.  In fact, his mother, who came from Polish ancestry, discouraged it.  But Lance had an enormous interest in model tanks, and the best book on the market about German armor was written in their native language, so he was bound and determined to read it.  Had he taken a less challenging class, Lance could have avoided military service altogether, but his inability to learn the language dipped his GPA just below a C-, and he received his draft card in 1968.

His mother, incidentally, never let him live down the fact that it was learning German that caused him to get drafted.  She and her three sisters resented the language since World War II, in which Poland had been conquered by Germany, was just over 20 years earlier.  The occasional guilt Lance felt interfered with his studies, which may have been why he didn't do well in the class.  In any event, on his way to Vietnam, Lance threw the German book away out of disgust.

The result of being drafted rather than joining was that he would have less power determining which branch to join.  However, after going through a physical examination to determine his fitness eligibility, Lance was given the opportunity to take tests at the recruiting offices to see which branch was most appropriate for him.  He chose to try for the Air Force and the Army.  The latter choice was because many of his family members had been in the Army, including his father, who had stormed beaches in the Pacific Ocean during World War II.

One of the few stories Lance knew about his father was when his Wildcat Division was attacking the island of Palau.  The landing craft they were in got stuck on a reef, and the captain, thinking they had hit shore, had the ramp opened and ordered the men out.  Lance's father, who had a full, nearly 100 pound field radio on his back, dashed out first and dropped into the ocean.  Realizing they hadn't reached shore yet, the captain ordered the boat to back up, leaving Private Block behind to sink.  Block's best friend managed to reach into the water and pull him back onto the craft before they left, however, saving his life.

Aside from this one account, and a few other short stories, Lance knew little of his father's experience.  So when he passed both the Air Force and Army tests, he chose to go into the Army.  The Army then placed him in the infantry because Lance had written in his test that he liked to go camping.  "That was a big mistake now that I think back on it," Lance now says.

He spent the first three days at the Los Angeles Induction Center, a medical building near downtown.  There he got to know eight guys who were close in line because their names all started with similar letters.  Dressed in only their underwear and carrying their clothes and paperwork in their arms, the nine young men shuffled through the multitude of rooms, following arrows on the ground that led them from doctor to doctor who checked them out to make sure they had no diseases or other disabilities.

They all had bunk beds near one another, and they became close friends over the three days in LA.  They then traveled together to Fort Ord where they got their buzz cuts, and they went to basic training together at Fort Washington.

One of the men that Lance became particularly good friends with was a young man named Peter Borse.  He had been the first person Lance met while standing in line at the medical center, and the two of them had remained close throughout training.  Peter was the son of a minister, and hoped to carry on in the same profession when he returned from the war.  He exemplified what he preached, showing a genuine interest in other people's thoughts and feelings.  "You couldn't help but like him," Lance says today about Peter.

The nine friends did everything together, mostly going to see movies during their time off.  It didn't matter what was playing, they didn't have a lot of choices.  They just went to whatever was there.  Before and after the movies, they talked about everything from politics to regrets of the past and plans for the future.  They were all very different from one another, coming from widely differing social and economic backgrounds.  Politically, they were all over the spectrum.  They probably would never have met outside of the military.

Training included target practice and sparring in hand to hand combat with other recruits.  Lance was good with a gun.  He figured that would be what's necessary in modern combat.  "In my mind, if you have to use a knife or your fist, you've fucked up," Lance says.  And he hoped it wouldn't come to that, because he was terrible at melee, getting beaten down by nearly every trainee.

One of them, who had been a fighter before the army, saw that Lance was struggling; so he went over to him and gave him some pointers.  They were sporadic suggestions, as he could not linger long without being yelled at by the sergeant.

During the three months, trainees received paperwork that gave some idea of where they would be going and what they would be doing.  Those who received orders to go to advanced training were on their way to Vietnam.  Others would be mustered into American forts either in the US or somewhere else in the world.

Lance and his eight friends all got transfers to Fort Benning, Washington.  They would be going to advanced infantry training.  "We all saw the writing on the wall," Lance says today.

Advanced training was the same as basic training, just more intense.  Lance's small band of friends were in different platoons, so they were separated during their drills and instructions, but they continued to get together and do things during their time off.  Lance was increasingly impressed by Peter, who, as far as he was concerned, was already taking on the role of minister.  He was the one who de-escalated arguments, and who everyone turned to with their problems.  He was the ever-present voice of reason, and the group psychologist.

Lance continued to be bad at hand to hand combat.  One soldier got especially aggressive while fighting him, and wouldn't let up after the sparring was complete.  Lance didn't understand what the man had against him, but a day after their training sessions, the same trainee wanted to be good friends with him.  Lance let him hang out with himself and his friends, but found the whole experience unusual.

After advanced training, soldiers were given time off to visit their families one last time before being shipped off to war.  Many were then sent individually, but Lance and his friends were able to go over together, stopping first at Fort Lewis for some final rifle training; then on to Hawaii, Japan, and finally landing in Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.  From there they were transported to Bien Hoa as replacement recruits.  This was another point at which soldiers were generally separated as they were placed into units that needed new soldiers.  But luckily for the nine friends, the First Cavalry was in need of a lot more soldiers, so they all went to An Khe together in the central part of South Vietnam.

There, Lance and the other soldiers went through additional training.  This time it was more specific to the environment and the tactics being employed in the area.  They trained with helicopters, practicing landings and descending from ropes into the jungle.  They also trained in survival methods, and learned how to use the equipment they would be utilizing out on patrol.

The First Cavalry Division, Airmobile, was one of the most decorated units in the military, and one that exemplified the strategies employed in Vietnam.  The First Cav. initially grew out of the days of horseback riders to evolved into a light mobile unit meant for fast strikes.  It matured to include combined arms, and served with distinction in World War II and the Korean War.  With the inclusion of helicopters into the military, the renamed "1st Air Cavalry" led the way into the new tactical doctrine; flying troops into an area that had just been bombarded with artillery, then controlling the territory with the support of combat helicopters.  The division was present at the Battle of Ia Drang the first major engagement of the Vietnam War, and was stationed in the most hotly contested area near the center of the DMZ, the border between North and South Vietnam.

Lance and all of his friends had expressed desires to serve in a combat zone for extended periods of time because doing so meant they could get out of the army five months early.  They had two year enlistments, and none of them wanted to make a career out of the military, so they all wanted early-outs.

Though they were all part of Charlie Company, Lance was part of first platoon while the rest of his friends were in third platoon, so they were separated in the enormous base.  An Khe, (also known as Camp Radcliff, named after the division's first casualty,) was a combination airfield and base camp large enough to hold three divisions.  It had a 26 kilometer perimeter, nicknamed the Green Line with three-man watchtowers every 50 meters.  The escalation in the area made it the largest helicopter base in the world, with more than 400 helicopters on what was nicknamed the Golf Course because of how level the ground was made to accommodate the aircraft.  This field was bordered by a long runway capable of landing enormous C-130 Hercules aircraft which flew in new troops like Private Block and his friends.

Lance's quarters were inside a bunker whose walls were made of sandbags held up by corrugated pipes.  These were made to resist against the mortar attacks that would occasionally come in from somewhere outside the base.

The first thing Lance noticed was the same thing most soldiers noticed, how hot and muggy it was.  Average temperatures were in the 80s, while the humidity hung over 90%.  To make matters worse, he had flown in during the monsoon season.  This meant that the rain started falling about 3:00 in the afternoon, and continued late into the night.

Everyone in the base had bunkers to hide in due to the sporadic mortar attacks from either the North Vietnamese or the Viet Cong.  Typically, no one would ever learn which one it had been as either the attackers disappeared into the forest before anyone could reach them, or their bodies were charred by the counter-battery fire from the American base.

Soldiers in Lance's company decorated their quarters with pine boxes they got from the artillery.  These boxes had transported shells, and were being thrown out after delivering their ordinance; but infantrymen noticed how finely crafted they were, and how well they served as cabinets and chests, storing personal items such as radios, framed photographs, and other paraphernalia.  They also served well as tables, and, when filled with sandbags, made for good roof supports in their bunkers.  These disposable boxes were the backbone of many homes away from home for the soldiers.

The other thing that stood out to Lance at first, and that he noticed throughout the war, was the incompetence of the leadership.  Commanders had come from West Point, where they had clearly not learned the same skills that the soldiers who had been drafted or signed up at recruitment centers had.  It seemed that their training was all cerebral and abstract, not practical.  They seemed to have no idea how anything actually worked.  They would give orders with little to no understanding of how those commands could be implemented, and made demands that served their egos, but accomplished nothing.

The root of the problem seemed to stem from the classism which put the officers into their positions, and the inherent narcissism that followed.  Students at West Point were typically taken from a pool of upper class citizens who had the right connections.  They were accepted due to social status rather than merit.  Their training then consisted of lessons from traditional warfare fought on battlegrounds against large, identifiable, well equipped enemies.  They were taught discipline and a rigid social structure, one in which they were told on graduation day that they were at the top.

Thus, when a soldier trained in the proper, modern use of equipment, and who had witnessed this new sort of warfare firsthand, tried to inform the commanders of the reality of the Vietnam War, they were met with deaf ears, and a stern dressing down.  They also found themselves bypassed in the chain of command by those who told the officers what they wanted to hear; thus creating more leaders who were in denial of the realities of combat in Vietnam.

"Oh god, you couldn't tell this son of a bitch anything," Lance says today, thinking back on some of his commanding officers.  "Some of the guys who get into these places is because of who they know or their pedigree.  Doesn't mean they have what it takes or should be."

One instance that exemplifies Lance's point was when a captain ordered Lance's platoon to climb down a rope ladder from a chopper directly into the woods that had not been cleared of the enemy.  The captain wanted to impress his commanding officers with his plan to coordinate assaults from Chinooks.  The back of the helicopters would open, and the soldiers would throw cargo nets down, then descend quickly into combat areas.

The plan would save the helicopters from having to land, but when it was tried, the cargo nets flapped wildly under the wake of the blades, and the soldiers who tried to climb were tossed about.  They struggled to hold onto the ropes while also keeping hold of their weapons.  Their 70 pound packs drug them downward, and the rope ladders got tangled.  The soldiers were supposed to descend two by two, but many of them got twisted up, causing a traffic jam that slowed everyone, and nearly caused many of them to fall.

All this was not only a humiliation in front of higher ranking officers; the company had been so noisy coming in that if there was any enemy within the area they would have easy targets to shoot down.  And the helicopters would still be at risk; not being able to easily gain altitude with all that dragging weight, and with soldiers at risk of falling to their deaths if they did get very far into the air.

Luckily for everyone, there was no enemy nearby, and the entire platoon got down safely.  But the officer chewed them out for taking so long.

Lance was not long in-country before he was sent out on patrol.  The typical patrol lasted 28 days, and it involved a company marching out into the woods around the main base searching for enemy units or individuals.  It was also intended to stop enemy operations in the area.

Closer to the base, this involved locating mortar emplacements used for bombardments.  Further out, this involved finding Viet Cong rebels, or North Vietnamese soldiers in a tactic called "search and destroy."  This could be interpreted by individual commanders, but it typically meant killing enemy combatants because the measure of success was counted in numbers of casualties.

To the soldiers, it usually meant ferreting out enemy operatives and equipment so they could not be used against the American base, the South Vietnamese soldiers, or the local villages.  While some of these villagers were themselves undercover operatives working for the Viet Cong, Lance found that most of them he met were resentful of the North Vietnamese invasion, and were fearful of their attacks.

During one of his early patrols, Lance's company located radios the enemy had left behind when escaping.  The soldiers were surprised to hear American voices on these radios.  The enemy had their frequencies, and were listening in.  From that moment forward, Charlie Company tried to keep their radio calls to a minimum, at least insofar as it gave away their position.

The soldiers carried three days of dried rations at a time, which were called LRPPs, (Long Range Patrol Packets.)  Inside the packets was dehydrated food with some seasoning.  There was also a miniature pack of four cigarettes for those who smoked.  Those who didn't could trade them away with those who did for food or something else they had.

If a soldier wanted to cook their food or boil their water, there was a small powder blue bar that was the same shape and size of a bar of soap which came with the rations.  To use it, a soldier dug a small hole, placed the blue bar at the bottom and placed a few sticks on top of it.  When he lit it with a match that came with the blue bar, a nearly invisible flame lit up.  During the most pitch black night, one could notice a faint blue glow emanating from the source, but that was the only light coming from the flame.  There wasn't even a smell, smoke, or crackling unless it came from the twigs.

The intention of this was to remain hidden from the enemy, though this didn't seem to make much difference.  The American soldiers were so loud as they moved through the woods, and especially when they set up camp, that Lance figured the entire country must know exactly where they were at any time.

Supply drops came in by helicopter every few days, bringing food, ammunition, mail, and replacement parts for any equipment they might have.  They also brought in two bottles of beer and two sodas for each soldier.  Lance didn't drink, and he traded away his beer for more soda or food.  He likely got the best deal out of the trade since soldiers in the jungle would sweat so much they wouldn't have a chance to get drunk or even buzzed.

After a grueling 28 days in the jungle, the company returned to camp for a few days off.  They had been wearing the same clothes the entire time without changing.  When Lance took them off, he found that they had grown so stiff that they stood up on their own.

Lance was also the only member of his platoon who wore underwear.  Others felt that it chaffed them and they threw them away, but Lance kept his.  He ultimately ended up feeling more comfortable near the end when others soiled their pants and had to keep wearing them and Lance was able to discard his underwear when there was an accident.

Soldiers had only three days of respite between each patrol, so they tried to make the time count.  Though Lance's friends from training went out on the same patrols as him, he didn't see much of them while outside the base, so he got together with his friends during these respites.  The first thing Lance noticed every time he visited their part of the camp was Peter Borse counseling someone, or hosting a religious service.  He had quickly made friends with other members of the platoon, and become known throughout the company as someone people could turn to when they were having trouble coping with the frightening and difficult conditions.

Lance's company was soon sent out on an assault mission.  The soldiers were dropped off in a clearing just large enough for six helicopters at a time.  The third platoon was dropped off in the first wave, and they rushed into the tree line, securing the perimeter.  Lance's platoon came in on the second wave.  They, too, hurried into the tree line in a similar, but different direction than third platoon.

They were all under fire from the enemy further in the woods.  The Americans returned fire, but did not call to one another using the radio.  Ever since they had learned that the NVA and Viet Cong were listening in, they kept radio silence; and instead used colored smoke grenades to signal orders, send answers, and to mark areas where they requested fire or movement from other squads.  First platoon had taken some casualties, and they requested both reinforcements and fire support.  The request for fire support was red smoke, which they threw ahead of them toward the enemy so the Cobra helicopter would know where to lay down a devastating barrage.

Lance had the yellow smoke grenade which was the signal that his squad acknowledged the reinforcement request, and was on its way.  Unfortunately, the grenade was in his pack, and he had to pull it off and go through the pockets to locate it.  Not finding the grenade immediately, he realized it was at the bottom, so Lance held the pack upside down and emptied the whole thing to get to the grenade.  The sergeant was livid, standing over Lance shouting at him for taking so long.  He wanted to be across that field already helping third platoon.

At last Lance found the grenade and handed the canister to the sergeant.  As this was happening, someone threw another colored smoke grenade into the clearing just behind third platoon.  It was a marker to show the corporal where his helicopter would land.  The corporal had wanted a color different from everyone else's landing colors to denote his importance.  He had chosen red.

Lance quickly scooped everything into his pack, threw it onto his back and stood up.  The sergeant ordered them forward across the clearing to help third platoon.  They had made it one step when the entire area exploded.  The Cobra helicopters had seen the red smoke used to mark the corporal's landing spot and had mistaken it for their firing orders.  The resulting friendly fire devastated the third platoon.

Despite the disaster, the Americans held the ground, and that night they made camp.  One of Lance's friends from third platoon found him and told him the results.  Most of the people they had signed up with were dead or wounded.  Peter Borse had been killed instantly.  The soldier didn't say much else.  He just returned into the darkness, back to his platoon. 

Lance was devastated.  His thoughts swayed from the remorse he had for his friend he would never see again, to the luck he had for having been stalled by the buried smoke grenade, to the survivor's guilt, knowing he had lived while so many men right in front of him had not.

When he returned to base, Lance had little spirit left.  To add to his misery, he had contracted malaria.  He was sent to the hospital.  When he arrived, he saw other soldiers who had been wounded in battles; soldiers who were bleeding profusely, missing limbs, some on death's door.  Lance felt guilty for being there with a fever.  And it threw him into a tailspin of emotion; thinking of his friends, of the people who had died right in front of his eyes, and how he'd be with them if he hadn't screwed up the placement of his smoke grenade in his pack.  Then he felt bad about thinking of himself.

Without work keeping him constantly busy, and with his mind sick from malaria, Lance fell apart in the hospital.  He was now treated for mental, as well as physical illness.  A doctor trained in psychology saw him, and he kept him in the hospital even after the malaria was cured.  Lance rested, trying to come to terms with everything that had happened.  While the loss of every life there was devastating, it was the loss of Peter Borse that he could not reconcile.  He was the best of all of them, Lance believed; and if karma could not see fit to keep alive a man who was good to everyone he saw, then no one was safe.

After two weeks, the doctor could no longer keep him in the hospital.  Lance felt fine about returning, however.  The work would make him too busy to be haunted by the sadness and guilt he felt.  Soon, he was on patrol again.

Each time he went out on these nearly month-long excursions he saw something unusual.  One day the jungle seemed to open up into a completely different land.  The heavy foliage disappeared above them and bright light shone down, revealing long, thin emerald chutes which grew straight upward until they disappeared into the white sky.  The ever-present humidity now seemed to hold a green glow in the air.  This was the bamboo forest.

The patrol traversed this environment for half a day until they reached the old part of the woods.  Here, ancient, dying bamboo chutes bowed into one another until they formed giant trapezoids; like great works of architecture or vast cathedrals.  The sunlight, beaming at an angle through the verdant leaves of the young trees, splashed across the dead amber and hazel leaves of the ground and reflected the old, beige wood to create a golden haze which hovered just over the forest floor.  All around them in the stillness, an omnipresent clicking noise echoed as if the trees were talking to one another.

Here, under the protection of nature's tall structures, the unit settled in to camp for the night.  They started by creating a circular perimeter, laying out trip wires attached to land mines and claymores, which were mines set off with a triggering mechanism.  They also set up flares which could be lit up to illuminate oncoming enemies.  First, third, and fourth platoons created the circle, and third platoon set up in the center with the mortars.  Often the men had air mattresses they would blow up, and the sounds of an entire company of soldiers filling them with air at night and letting the air out in the morning were noises that stood out among the jungle noises.

That night, as they dug their foxholes, the soldiers began to find old artifacts left behind from World War 2.  Lance found a Japanese helmet.  During other patrols he had located artifacts from other wars.  It spoke volumes to just how long fighting had been taking place in that region.

Another time that they came upon strange foliage, Lance was walking point and got stopped by a strange and rare plant which was incredibly difficult to chop through.  He started to cut around it, but the sergeant insisted he go straight through.  Lance and a few others continued to chop away at the plant, causing a great deal of noise that would have alerted any enemies within earshot had they been there, and holding up the entire company.  Finally, what would have taken ten minutes had they gone around, was achieved after a half hour.

The men dreaded going across rivers as they always came out with leeches.  They didn't feel them as they attached silently, and sometimes under the clothes.  It wasn't until a while later when they would feel a soreness; and when they looked for the source, they found the slimy body attached to a lump about the size of a quarter.  The person could only remove it with bug repellant, because yanking them out would rip open the skin and cause an infection.  Once the creature was taken off, the bulge remained for as long as three months.  Lance still had some marks on his legs for years after the war.

One day, Lance's company was relieved to find they would be walking across a natural bridge of huge logs laying across a shallow pond.  The water beneath them was crystal clear; they could see all the way to the bottom.

They were about halfway across, all of them single file, when the point man noticed a group of soldiers, also single file, strolling across another bridge that was perpendicular to theirs, heading in their direction.  After a moment, he noticed that they were enemy soldiers, so he fired and hit one of them in the head.  The rest of the enemy soldiers went running, and Lance fell into the pond, getting a mouthful of the water.

The sergeant yelled at Private Block as he climbed back onto the log, throwing up as he did.  The sergeant told him to toughen up, it was just water, but Lance's true reason for throwing up was he had seen the young man's head explode when he was shot, and the pieces had fallen into that clear water that Lance had just swallowed.  Even though it had happened too far away to have gotten to him, the thought of it wouldn't leave.

At one river crossing, recon helicopters had reported that they had sighted bunkers on the opposite side.  It was a perfect location for an ambush as there was a steep embankment on the side with the bunkers.  Lance and about fifteen others were called up to the front with grenade launchers, and they fired a host of barrages for about five to ten minutes to clear the way.  By the time they were done, they had blasted away the tree line and filled the embankment with craters.

When they ceased fire, the company of nearly a hundred men rushed forward, across the river and up the other side.  There, they didn't find any bunkers.  They hadn't been destroyed, they simply weren't there.  As they continued forward, past the destruction and into the tree line, they finally came upon the bunkers.  They were all still intact.  None of the plethora of grenades they had fired had reached their intended targets.

Luckily for the company, however, the bunkers weren't manned.  Had they been populated with machine guns, they could have all been shot down.

Each platoon was assigned a blockhouse to investigate.  Lance's commander was angry at him, so he was sent inside first.  Just as Lance opened the door, he heard the snapping of a wire, the sure sign of a trap.  Lance jumped back, certain there would be an explosion.  After several seconds, when nothing happened, he and some others peeked inside.  They found a grenade inside of a sea ration can with a broken wire attached to it.  The wire had rusted, and the trap had been a dud.  Lance had been saved by a recent monsoon that had gone through.

His company had been on their way to a village, something they regularly did.  Much has been made of the poor treatment that some American military personnel gave to villagers, which did happen.  But the terrible treatment caused by the other side, which was far more numerous, has been largely ignored.  Private Block's company sometimes came upon villages that had been raided by the Viet Cong and NVA, and he heard stories of villagers who were threatened and beaten by them.

While on patrol his company found AK-47s, magazines, and ammunition found inside large straw rice bowls.  Often, the soldiers kept a couple items they found for souvenirs, but only the officers were able to keep most of them.  Lance managed to return to the US with a magazine of ammunition with the gunpowder removed.

Which villagers were complicit and which were threatened and coerced was unclear.  It seemed to Lance that most of them just wanted to be left alone by both sides.  But if they didn't help the Americans, their houses were burned, and if they didn't help the Viet Cong, they were killed.

Lance's company worked alongside the South Vietnamese soldiers, known as ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam,) during a six day sustained battle in which they were trying to remove NVA and VC troops from a supply depot.  The US and ARVN forces fought on two separate sides of a river.  Though the river kept them from easily reinforcing one another, it ensured there would be little to no friendly fire where American troops mistook ARVNs for the enemy.

Each day the US and ARVN troops moved up until the enemy began firing; at which point a colored smoke grenade was thrown forward and artillery and air power would come down on the enemy.  The Viet Cong and NVA troops would pull back, and the US and ARVN would follow until fired upon again.  Lance didn't see the enemy soldiers, but he heard the shots and the orders to fire.

This process repeated over and over throughout the week, typically 30 times a day.  At night the enemy countered with mortar fire that ran through the US/ARVN lines.

And thus the cycle continued until one day when NVA and VC forces got bold and counter-attacked, coming close to overrunning Lance's company.  The unit managed to hold them back and caused them to retreat.  Even after they were long gone, though, Lance's commanding officer ordered his men to keep firing.  They did, shooting the unmanned trees and bushes.

Lance saw the sergeant's canteen sitting on the ground in front of him, so he fired a couple shots into it during his barrage.  When at last the shooting was done, the sergeant found the holes in the canteen and declared that the enemy had come that close to hitting him.  He went on to tell that story to everyone who would listen around camp.

After the battle was finished, the two forces were transported by helicopter up to the top of an inactive volcano.  From this peak they could see for half a dozen miles in every direction.  The US soldiers set up camp on one side, and the ARVN set up next to them.

Many of the Americans felt bad for the ARVN men when they saw what they had.  Their supplies were all in poor shape.  Their food in particular was rank.  Often, all they had to eat were fish heads.  Once, when the US soldiers tried their water, they all contracted dysentery.  Whenever the American soldiers wanted to complain about their own rations, they only needed to look at their neighbors to realize how lucky they actually had it.

At night, Lance listened to his radio while laying in a foxhole, (the armed forces had their own station,) another luxury some of the Americans enjoyed as long as they wore ear plugs.  One day he found that the radio was missing, and he spotted an ARVN soldier who had it.  Private Block told one of the commanders about it, who informed the Vietnamese sergeant.  That officer retrieved the radio and returned it to Lance, then gave a severe beating to the offending soldier.  He delivered such a harsh punishment that Lance felt bad for having said anything.  The chastened soldier was later placed on a helicopter and taken off the mountain to face more severe punishment.  The ARVN were extremely strict and met dereliction with acerbity.

Going up and down the mountain was a treat for Private Block.  He had never flown before, so whenever he rode on a helicopter, he sat on the side so he could look down on the passing terrain.  Though this was dangerous, it wound up saving his life.  Once when a helicopter he was on came in for a landing with a tight formation of other choppers, the blades of his transport hit the trees.  This caused the body of the helicopter to begin spinning, and it came down hard on the ground.  Being at the doorway, Lance was thrown clear while the motor crashed into the passenger section of the Huey, crushing those still inside.

He had the misfortune of a second crash when he was being extracted for R&R.  They had put too many wounded on board, and the helicopter was unable to deal with the weight.  Luckily, the pilot was able to keep the Huey from coming down too hard and everyone survived, but it cured Lance's desire to go up as much as he could.

On the ground, they cut their way through the jungle, always blazing their own trails in single file to avoid being ambushed on one of the more widely known paths.  During one such excursion, Lance's unit chopped its way out of the brush into a trail that ran perpendicular to their route.  This sort of discovery was usually ignored, but there were no other American units in the area, and the path looked wider and more heavily used than what was typically found, so the sergeant ordered an inspection.

The platoon made its way along the path.  Soon the woods opened up into a couple small clearings where they found a few small tables surrounded with chairs.  Then they came upon a long banquet-sized table complete with fine linen tablecloth, ornate plates with polished silverware, resplendent decorations, and an entire feast all set up to be consumed.  Steam was even emerging from the cooked meat and soup.  It was as if dinner had just been served for a king and his court, and then they had disappeared.

The whole scene was surreal.  It looked as though the entire setup had been transported out of a palace.  The soldiers checked the woods for an ambush or a trap, but the coast was clear.  They had apparently interrupted a meeting for important dignitaries in the middle of the jungle who had heard them coming and escaped silently into the woods.

The men of Private Block's platoon wanted to eat the food, but were afraid.  Their own rations left a lot to be desired, but this food could easily be poisoned.  So the sergeant ordered it all to be destroyed.  They set C4 charges along the table that were typically used for destroying bunkers, and they blew the whole thing up.

No one ever knew what the banquet had been all about, or for whom it was intended, but they knew that they had scattered when they heard the Americans coming.

Though more prepared than their enemy, the Americans were never able to surprise them.  Commanders would occasionally try, such as when a new captain arrived to Charlie Company and ordered his men to set up along the sides of a trail he had discovered.  He intended to ambush the enemy when they traversed it.  His men tried to inform him that the Viet Cong or the NVA would have heard them and would not be coming, but he ignored them and ordered them to dig in.

As they did, they found older fox holes that had been dug by another American platoon that had tried the same thing.  They could always tell when it was one of their own previous locations because of the junk left behind.  Once they were in place, they waited all day, trying to remain quiet.

That night, when they were settled in place, the enemy revealed that they knew the Americans were there by lobbing mortar fire onto them.  It was perfectly placed, and the explosions walked right over them, carpeting their area.  The trap had been set up for them, not vice versa.  Dozens were wounded, including Lance, earning him the Purple Heart; and they had to be evacuated by helicopter.

The captain didn't admit his mistake.  He was a West Point graduate and they were just grunts.  One of the soldiers dropped a grenade into the captain's tent when he wasn't there, blowing up all of his things as a warning of what could happen if he continued to abuse them and put them into needless danger.

At night, platoons on patrol tried to set camp as quietly as possible.  They set up claymore mines and trip wires along their perimeter, but mortars could land on them if the enemy knew their exact location.  One night, this cover was more than blown when several soldiers accidentally hit their clickers that set off their claymore mines.  Someone else accidentally set off their flares.  This worked like a domino effect with startled soldiers setting off their own mines or flares, revealing to anyone within a kilometer exactly where they were.  "It was a real fireworks display," Lance now recalls.

Though the mistake was made by multiple soldiers, Lance, who set off one of his own claymores, was the one the sergeant caught in the act, and upon whom he leveled his fury.  After a thorough dressing down of the private, he placed Lance on point for the next two weeks.  This meant he would be out front of the platoon in the most risky position.

During that time, the company set out to investigate a bunker complex.  With Lance was a young man who had only been in country for about three weeks and was eager to get into the fight.  Spotting something up ahead, Lance dropped to the ground.  He wasn't sure what he had spotted, so he crawled forward, followed closely by the kid.

When he got close, Lance realized what he had seen was a large hole in the ground.  He still wasn't close enough to look down inside, but he could tell that its frame was perfectly cut, like a sizeable doorway.  The young man made his way up next to Lance and pulled out a grenade, saying, "Let's frag it."

Lance said, "Now wait a minute!  There's something wrong here.  This hole is perfectly cut!"  Usually, the Viet Cong hid in holes that were rushed, temporary, and roughly hewn.  If a structure was well crafted, it usually meant it was civilian; so he said there might be families down in the hole.  Lance had the kid go back to the sergeant to retrieve a flashlight, and when he did, Lance shone the light into the hole.

What he saw gave him chills.  The spotlight revealed first a black tailfin.  Then, as he moved the light further into the hole, it revealed that the tailfin was attached to a large, 2,000 pound unexploded bomb.  If they had thrown a grenade onto it, that would have blown up the entire company.

Visibility was always a problem on patrol.  Not only did it hide the enemy from sight, but it caused problems for navigation, and in keeping the unit together.  While heading through the jungle one day, one of the men got distracted for a moment looking in a different direction.  He lost sight of the man in front of him, and he wandered off to the side; still heading in the same general direction, but a couple dozen feet from the main line.  The men behind him followed, so there were now two lines walking parallel to one another.

Someone from the first line heard movement coming from the trees, so he stopped the line.  Believing they were about to be ambushed, they fired blindly into the brush.  The other soldiers returned fire, believing they had been ambushed by the Viet Cong.  After a short while, they figured out the mistake and ceased fire.  By that time, six men had been killed.

To combat this visibility problem, the US set about trying methods of deforestation.  Charlie Company came across several areas where dead leaves carpeted the ground leaving the trees bare and visibility clear.  It looked like a fire had come through, except the tree trunks and branches were still in place.  The soldiers were grateful for this as there was nowhere for the enemy to hide to ambush them.  This was the work of an American chemical called Agent Orange, intended to clear sections of the jungle of cover so US and allied soldiers could pass without threat.

The unintended consequence was that it made these soldiers sick.  When Lance later had serious skin problems, such as rashes, severe water blisters, and peeling skin, he went to the VA doctor to find out what the problem was.  The doctor, without looking at him and from across the room, declared that he could not have contracted anything from Agent Orange.

Soldiers were granted two weeks of R&R.  They were provided with a list of places from which to choose where they would be flown and would be provided with room and board.  Lance chose to spend one week in Sydney and one week in Hong Kong.

In Sydney, Lance stood out with his military haircut, his fatigues, and of course his American accent.  This worked in his favor when he went to see True Grit at the theater and the woman at the ticket counter let him in for free.  She even escorted him inside because the movie had already started and it was dark inside.

He stayed in an area called King's Crossing, and he was struck by how kind the people were and how beautiful all the women were.  He found out why later in the day when a stranger approached him and said, "You don't want to be here."

Confused and a little shocked, Lance said, "I don't?"  The man then explained that he was in the red light district.  That explained a lot, but it didn't really talk Lance out of leaving the neighborhood.

However the stranger was interested in showing Lance around town, so he got him on a bus and took him to lunch, and then on to some of the city's most prominent features.  They ended with dinner at the man's home.

The Aussie asked Lance about the radio he carried around with him, and Lance explained that it was what he listened to out in the field.  It had gotten wet and Lance was hoping to fix it while in town.  The man told him to leave it with him and he'd get it fixed and send it on to him.  Lance later received it, fully repaired, when he was back in Vietnam.

In Hong Kong, Lance was constantly accosted by people on the street wanting to sell him something.  Women hurled themselves out of bars telling him to come inside "for a great time."  The one thing he bought was a Banging Olsen stereo system.  At the time it was considered top of the line and Lance could get it at a cheap price, so he had it shipped to his parents back in the US.

When Lance returned, he was sent to rear guard duty away from the front line.  Now finished with patrols, he had returned to life in a bunker decorated with pine wood artillery boxes, bags, and metal pipes.  This time, knowing that he would be there for an extended period, Lance collected colorful sheets for the walls and made shelves to hold books and cassette tapes.  At Christmas he got a small tree that went up next to his bed.

His jobs included guard duty, building emplacements for the artillery, KP, burning waste from the latrines, filling sandbags, cleaning weapons, and laying new barbed wire and land mines.  The mines at the base were more involved than those on the field.  They involved burying a barrel of napalm over a claymore mine.  Detonating the claymore exploded the napalm which took out anyone who was near it.

One of his jobs involved guarding a garbage truck as it dumped its trash into a long trench.  The children from a nearby village, who were desperate for food, always came running when the garbage truck came.  Lance and the men he was working with pulled out anything that was edible and handed them out to the kids.

One of the soldiers he worked closely with was an ARVN private who spoke no English.  Lance spoke no Vietnamese, but they would often sit together, share photos with one another, and point things out that they saw.  They each taught one another a few words in their own language and learned what they could.

Once while he was pulling guard duty in a watchtower, the base was attacked with mortars and rockets.  One of the rockets hit the ammo dump, causing a mighty explosion.  The storage facility where the American rockets were held was also hit, causing many of their rockets to launch, hitting other parts of the base.

When one of the rockets flew at Lance's tower, he jumped out, sliding down the railing, away from the explosion.  He and others dove for cover until the explosions died down and the attackers were chased off.

It was the last time Lance saw action in country.  Soon after, he was flown back to the United States.  The plane landed in the middle of the night at an airport near Sacramento.  After everything he had been through, his return was far from a hero's welcome.  It felt more like they were sneaking him home as he was driven into San Francisco during the wee hours of the morning and put on a plane at San Francisco International.

The reason for the subterfuge was because protesters had been crowding the airports yelling at soldiers, calling them "baby killers" and even hurling things at them.  In a shameful display of their beliefs, these protesters treated each soldier as if they were the worst of the war criminals, and blamed men who were often drafted, or did what they saw as their duty, instead of the politicians who caused it.  The irony was that not only were their actions hurtful to those who had just returned from a harrowing ordeal, they were also useless.  Their time belittling soldiers could have been spent doing something productive toward ending the war, but instead they wasted it attacking better people than themselves.

And so the flights to take soldiers home were switched to night time when the protesters were too tired to show up.  (Their values seemed to dissipate when doing something was inconvenient for them.)  Lance was quietly placed on a plane back to Burbank where his parents met him, and took him home.

He spent much of his life after that working and traveling on trains, and photographing the places he saw.  Lance went to the VA for treatment from a mortar wound he had sustained, and for skin and muscle problems that stacked up.  He later developed Parkinson's disease, a common side effect of Agent Orange, and other ailments.  Treatment for these illnesses have been irregular, as the government continued to deny health problems associated with the powerful defoliant.  Even after the Agent Orange Act passed in 1991, granting veterans treatment for diseases consistent with exposure to the herbicide, measures were later taken to deny benefits to soldiers who had served across seas, the very place where the exposure was the greatest.

In 2018, after four decades of denial, a bill was at last on its way to passage that would recognize the connection of Agent Orange to health problems.  The VA opposed the measure until its secretary, David J. Shulkin, shifted course and called for the measure's passage.  But before it could be voted on by the Senate, Shulkin was removed from his position via Twitter by President Donald Trump.  He then appointed a secretary who wanted to fulfill Trump's desire to move the VA into the private sector.  Since claims of health issues from Agent Orange would cost a lot more money than it would profit, admission would cause problems for this transition, and so the measure has been dropped, and denial of claims from Agent Orange continues.

Lance settled down in an apartment he purchased in Los Angeles.  Nearby, he met a Vietnamese man who owned his own water bottle shop just around the corner.  In speaking with him, Lance learned that he had been a soldier in the North Vietnamese Army.  Lance didn't tell him he had fought on the other side, but he met him on several occasions, and genuinely liked him.

Lance always meant to talk to the man about the war, but he was afraid it would boil up too many emotions in both of them.  He never forgot his friend Peter Borse who had died over there, and he was sure the other man had lost friends, too.

Eventually, he built up the courage to go speak with him.  But when he walked around the corner, the business was closed, and Lance never got the opportunity to speak with someone who had once been his enemy in a land so far away that it no longer seemed real.