I lived on Military bases until I was 15 years old. Like growing up in small town or a large city, the uniqueness of ones childhood is with you the rest of your life. We all have a childhood ,a past, a beginning. The short story is I'm the son of a U.S. solider. A career army sergeant. If this doesn't interest you, skip this, go to the next page.


  The long story starts.....I was born during the winter of 1959 in Berlin Germany. My father, George was a 22 year old US Army sergeant . My mother, Margo was born and raised in Vermont . George, Margo and their children were about to step in to the the most turbulent decade in American history . America and this young family were soon to become involved in the Vietnam war.

As a child, military ideology  dominated my life and influenced many of my core values. I was the oldest of four  children .We lived almost exclusively on military bases until I was 15 years old. We shopped at the PX and Commissary,  we had constant access to base privileges the gym, swimming pool, bowling ally, movie theater. Access to everything on base was almost free but you always had to show your ID Card.
 
      Regimentation and structured were ever present in base life. Officers and Officers children have access to different base privileges than do enlisted personnel. On base adults, soldiers, are held to very high standers of public conduct. I grew up in this regimented, rank structured  world of  high  personal standers . I  internalized military values and ideology. For military children the military base is the world ,and off base is  the other world, a strange place.
        Officially America entered the Vietnam war in 1959, the year of my birth . George served three separate 18 month tours.  In  1962 he was a US military adviser  training South Vietnamese soldiers . In 1965  and 1970 he served combat tours with the  101st Air Born division.“ The Screaming Eagles’. Between 1965  and 1972 the 101st  participated in as many as 15 combat campaigns.   The 101st was the last combat division to leave Vietnam and  suffered twice as many casualties in Vietnam as it did in World War II. Seventeen 101st soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor

      Television coverage of  Vietnam was  relentless .  The graphic images, protest, rage over Vietnam were on a scale that would be unacceptable today. All war images , news and movies were a connection to my father. When  I saw soldiers on the news.  I  new that was my father.
  
   As influential as the TV was, George brought the conflict  of a nation into our house, himself;.  No one spends 18 months in the jungle fighting and trying not to be killed then comes home to be a normal father, normal person. Then repeat the process over and over again.   While he was  home, George and I built things together , book cases, furniture ,car repairs.  I remember getting a lot of instruction on the use of hand tools and  wood along with a heavy dose of a military style discipline.
      
 George was no TV,movie soldier. George was angry, by age ten I was often afraid of him. By 1971 I think George himself was becoming anti military. In 1971 he left for Vietnam the last time.  When he came home he was a stranger ,not just to me, but a stranger to the world that was just  starting to get over the psychosis that was  America during the 1960’s.
Anything connected to the military was part of the evil military\government complex.  Soldiers like my father went into military as honorably  men and came out being called  victims, drug addicts, murderers  but no body called them heroes.  We all lost our heroes. We were all tainted.
     The Vietnam war   took a heavy toll on America and was devastating to some  individuals who came in contact with the war either directly or indirectly. For me their were character building   benefits to growing up in a military environment.
  For better or for worse my childhood can be simply defined as that of an Army Brat.

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