Offshore Explorer Stories (Pt. 2)

There was a small wooden sign on the side road riddled with bullet holes that read "Joint United States Military Advisory Group, Thailand (JUSMAGTHAI) Straight ahead Dumb Ass." JUSMAGTHAI is located on a Royal Thai Armed Forces military compound approximately two kilometers from the American Embassy, on Sathorn Tai Road. This was my home for 26 months and 13 days. I spent maybe a month total actually on the base, the rest of the time I was Laos and Cambodia. I jumped off at Udorn RTAF where I had a cot in the back of a 1945 quonset hut, an ice box, and a hot plate. I was 20 years old. This was 1972. The Vietnam war was deescalating only no one told the North Vietnamese, the Laotians, or Pol Pot.

Two years before I was number 14 in the draft lottery. To this date it is the only game of chance I have won. Nixon and Congress decided that the army was "too full of blacks and poor whites to be an efficient fighting force... most of the Americans who fought in Vietnam were powerless, working-class teenagers sent to fight an undeclared war by presidents for whom they were not even eligible to vote.” So all those "Bums" (Nixon) protesting an illegal war are going to lose their deferments and go to war like the rest... "Dumb Asses."

I was attending Princeton University with the intention of studying English Literature. But the class system of educated potentialities had failed me. The guys who didn't want to go found a way to get out of serving. I was called and I went. I have always felt morally superior to those who avoided service when called like President Bone Spurs. The real issue of service goes back to the beginning of man.

Offshore Explorer is a documentary/lifestyle show that explores the world port by port. To understand what is happening to you in today's world, it is important to understand one thing. In a thousand years or so of history, men have been called to protect their villages, their kingdoms, and their land. The feelings of the men and their families who have been called to duty have not changed. "Please come back alive."

The reasons for the call to arms are rarely noble and pure. They are often a nebulous concept about country. Defense against aggressors is a popular reason. Vietnam was one such war. The old Domino Theory of communism ruling the world dominated political and military planning for the last 50 years. There were tyrants to stop. Hitler, Napoleon, the Mongols, The Romans, The Greeks, The Persians, the list goes on and on.

Being called to duty in Greek, and Roman times was a life or death matter. It wasn't your life or death, that was a given, but your family's and anyone you knew in your lifetime was in jeopardy of being killed. You fought like it counted and it did. Regardless of the reasons or circumstances of a war that one's fighting, fight like it counts. Because getting your Dumb Ass killed is not cool.

When I emerged from my quonset hut with my gear and my weapon, I realized I was no different then that farm boy who joined the Roman legions, or the Persian blacksmith's son who walked the planes of Thermopylae. When I mounted the chopper that was going to take me deep into enemy territory, it was no different then a mongol rider crossing the Russian Steppes. The intrusion I lead was no different then a thousand years of Chinese expansionism into Southeast Asia or the British or French two hundred years before or the Japanese a mere forty years before I arrived. And now the Americans had come and they were going albeit slowly.

My job description was to develop intelligence, watch troop movements, make an assessment of food stores, infrastructure, and not get caught or shot. Occasionally, I was called to assist a downed pilot.

What I did was kidnapping, robbery, assault, a list of violent aggressions including providing security for Air Force forward observers to drop tons of explosives on the Cambodians and the North Vietnamese.

I have to admit to myself everyday that many of the missions I found myself involved with probably didn't make a real difference to the war, but it certainly made a difference to the Dumb Asses like myself on both sides. We fought like it counted.

Later this year I will be standing on a ramparts of Castle Castro in Southern Portugal filming a segment about the Knights Templar you will understand my insight. I have already stood watch and lived to talk about it.

Castle Castro Portugal

Thank you for reading.