The folks at White Sands and the Headquarters Company where I was billeted should have known.
An ex-Naval Academy dude shows up. Starches his uniform. Airborne boots polished to perfection. Walks tall and carries – an Apple II E computer. Who knew an E4 could wreak so much havoc? Not me. I only did what I had to do.
Before picture: The Headquarters company never had group PT in the morning (running, calisthenics). Rarely any group activities at all, in fact. A bunch of slackers only one baby step above civilians.
After picture: Everybody got out of the rack for PT every morning. Mustered at the athletic field nearby. Went for a nice run. Sang fun Army songs. (Not as good as Navy songs, but nobody’s perfect.) The 93E squad even met for fitness on other days.
Company baseball games. Fun with the other folks in the barracks at happy hour – at picnic tables I built out back of the company area.
I ended up getting an ARCOM later on, the Army’s top peacetime award. Something about “staunch individualism… impeccable moral fortitude… improving the life of the enlisted on post.” An Army Commendation Medal. It was a private ceremony. Just me, Captain Judith Hlavac, and First Sergeant Rios (Hispanic, First Cav in Viet Nam). Not published in the post newspaper, either. Then they shipped me off. Good. Effing. Riddance.
What the F happened?
Imagine you’re a Company Commander, Captain Greenmeyer by name. Some piss ant E4 shows up. Causes LTC Ellis to come down on your case – several times. Has a run-in with Mental Health. Gets in a fracas with the Military Police. Accused of TREASON.
You’re on the Commanding General’s radar now too, and not in a good way. This is SO not an individual you want in your command. Fortunately, this is the United States Army. We have methods. Solutions.
Then a gift from the Divine Providence slides under your door. The meddlesome E4 goes too far. He accuses his peers of using pot.
Hah! Got you this time, sucker. The odds of eight respected senior enlisted, ALL guilty of drugs, at the SAME time? Astronomical. Even I can do that math. Slam. Dunk… But. What to do?
Well, you call all the accused into your office. You tell them they’ve been accused of doing drugs. You order them to wait outside while medics show up to take a urine sample. They see the written statement on your desk. Handwritten. Signed.
But – what if they didn’t see the signature? You have the First Sergeant call Clark in. Tell him it’s for his own protection. . .
As the accused are all standing in line to give a sample of pee. But. Look. Clark wasn’t in the office getting read the riot act. But – he’s giving a urine sample?
Bingo. That afternoon, working in the Auto Craft Shop, they show up. Why did you turn us in? Fists are raised in EXTREME anger.
Folks run to intervene.
I’m taken by another NCO to his house on post for the night. Relieved of duty at C-Station. Assigned to a new room in the barracks. Given mundane chores to do in the company area (building picnic tables, which I actually enjoyed and was quite good at) so they can “keep an eye on me.”
It’s for my own protection.
Meanwhile. All the accused remain at their work stations. I see them at meals every day. Formation. It was nice to be on an eight-to-five schedule, but – really?
Tempers rise. Never far from 212 F. The threats continue. I write a letter to the post Inspector General. I should be transferred to a new post ASAP. That’s what the Uniform Code of Military Justice says, the UCMJ. Not just any post, but at least a 24-hour drive away.
“We can’t do that. Your car isn’t running yet.”
I complain again. I accuse my sergeant of infidelity with a cute blonde junior enlisted girl. I accuse others of doing hard drugs – on the job – at C Station and elsewhere. More offenses. Everything I’ve ever seen that is against the UCMJ.
(Remember me? Always quiet – observing. Memory like a steel trap? “The most courteous camper” – until I’m cornered – and enclosed.)
Captain Greenmeyer is relieved of duty and replaced by Captain Judith Hlavac. She brags to the formation (with me standing right there), “Nobody uses drugs in this company.” A week later, the urinalysis test come back. All positive.
The. Sh*t. Hits. The. Fan. Discipline is handed out. Hard-earned ranks fall down. Pay is cut. Benefits dropped. And it’s all on me. Talk about teed off!
I’m STILL not gotten off post. I finally get the Fiat Brava going; barely. I drive it home on leave.
A friend of our family is an undercover cop for the Austin Police Department (the ex of Mom’s piano teacher, actually). He says, “Do NOT go back there. They’ll kill you. Drugs? Drug DEALERS?”
So, I write to my US Congressman, J.J. “Jake” Pickle, to – well, please help get me out of this pickle.
I receive “Eyes Only” orders from the Pentagon. My new MOS will be Chaplain’s Assistant (my request, suggested by my platoon sergeant back at WSMR, Sgt. Kelly – a Black man; have you noticed that Black dudes always keep me out of trouble?).
Until your school starts out at Fort Ord in California, you’re assigned to the Main Post Chapel at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
When I arrive at Fort Sam, the Command Sergeant Major (the top enlisted person on post) orders me NOT to tell ANYBODY anything that happened at White Sands.
I’m sorry, but – shove it all under the carpet? For the good of the service? Are. You. Kidding. Me? Like – what are you gonna do if I disobey your orders, court-martial me?
I write a detailed statement about all that happened at White Sands. Submit it to the FBI office in Austin.
“Not our jurisdiction. Contact your Inspector General on post.” I show it to Colonel Sanders, the Chief of Chaplains, my new big boss. To my NCO. They read it. Approve it. So, I submit it to the Fort Sam Inspector General’s office.
I get called into my C.O.’s office a few days later. I was ecstatic. My orders to Fort Ord finally came through for Chaplain’s Assistant School. Yay! There’s a God after all.
Big sigh.
I get read the riot act. Medics in white show up with a straightjacket. ZIP me in. Haul me across post to Chambers Pavilion, the local insane asylum. Lock me in a pink-padded cell.
Gee thanks, God.
Months later, my Army attorney, Captain Paul Franco, got hold of the documents. The IG had taken my statement and, in his own words, “obliterated all the names, places, and dates for purposes of confidentiality” and submitted it to Dr. Gabriel Durand-Hollis, the Chief of Psychiatry, for evaluation.
(Obliterated? Like, who uses that word?)
Chaplain (Full Colonel) Sanders testified at my medical tribunal that, come first thing Monday morning (the above events happened late on a Friday afternoon), he went to see Dr. D-H who, according to Chaplain Sanders, said I was “the sickest of the sick” and that he was determined to prove just that.
This is a Chaplain. A Colonel. He testified under oath that “other than some problems with his car, this man was okay.” Thanks, Fiat Brava. Were’ cool. I hope your new owner treated you well when we swapped cars. (Mine crapped out within weeks.)
Chaplain Sanders testified I was a good worker. Submitted all sorts of Work Orders to get the Chapel fixed up real nice and pretty. “I want him back to work.”
The word of a full-bird Colonel carried zero weight with the shrinks on my medical discharge tribunal.
The psychologist did a full psychiatric evaluation. I got a copy of it. I wrote a rebuttal that was longer than their report, citing that almost everything in the report was incorrect. It was as if this was the report of another person, who really WAS a severe chronic paranoid schizophrenic.
After a few weeks in pink PJs on the psych ward, I worked in the Occupational Therapy unit at BAMC (in civilian clothes). I wrote my rebuttals on an electric IBM Selectric typewriter there at the Clinic. The OT folks liked my work, gave me a certificate of commendation.
Again. Didn’t mean squat to evil Dr. D-H.
The psychiatrist did several interviews. I got a copy of their evaluation. Again, I wrote a rebuttal that was longer than their report, citing literally everything they said was incorrect. This time, I recognized the schizophrenic in their report, one of my fellow patients. I recognized his syntax, the things he said. Derrick by name.
To whit, I was framed. By somebody ELSE’S psych profile!
Mom came down from Lago Vista to talk with Dr. D-H. (Remember, she had a degree in psychology. She talked their language.) Finally, the cavalry shows up.
After Mom left, all the nurses on the staff were saying, “She’s as crazy as you are.”
Forever after, Mom would say, “That was the most evil man I ever met.” Meaning Dr. D-H. Who, by the way, was Hispanic, spoke broken English at best, and was a real jerk. Why shouldn’t he be? He had a terrible job.
“Clean up on isle WSMR. Somebody dumped a load of sh*t in our laps.”
Dr. D-H presented my “unique” case to all the mental health workers at BAMC (Brooke Army Medical Center). Two of those doctors would later be the judges (along with one line officer) on my Physical Evaluation Board (PEB, a formal tribunal). They both, poisoned by Dr. D-H’s presentation, said I was unfit to remain in the service.
The line officer said I was okay.
This was a LEGAL board, mind you. Those doctors judging me were prejudiced. They should have been excluded from the panel. Captain Franco subpoenaed Dr. D-H to testify. He didn’t appear.
Like, don’t I have a right to confront my accuser?
PEBs normally last fifteen minutes, half an hour max. Mine lasted 3 hours. I was grilled the entire time. I have the official legal transcript. It’s 20 single-spaced pages. Tough questions. Hard questions. I was articulate in my responses. Patient. Descriptive. Helpful. Level-headed.
No normal person could, after listening to me testify for three solid hours without a break – watching me testify, watching me handle deftly every probe; tactfully and accurately.
No normal human being could ever, possibly have said there is one single, solitary thing wrong with this guy. (Other than the fact that the brass insignia on my lapels was tarnished and black.)
And yet. I’ve appealed the case time and time again since then to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records (ABCMR). EVERY TIME – it never gets past the medical doctors, who always concur with the diagnosis.
“Severe chronic paranoid schizophrenia.” There is no worse mental condition in the lexicon of psychology.
This, people, is a clear and unequivocal example of “command influence.” It’s either investigate a spate of OFFICERS (forget about the poor enlisted guys who were caught up in the mess; they’re now irrelevant – hell, those guys are HEROES) and senior officers who ignored the clear mandates of the UCMJ, placing my life and health in jeopardy for no reason.
Either investigate the accused. Or. Get. Rid. Of. The. Bastard. They chose the latter.
I’m sure LTC Ellis had a long and successful career. Heck, he probably got promoted for getting rid of the troublemaker.
My whole case probably became the new standard of excellence at BAMC. “Give this guy the Clark Treatment.” All the staff probably joked later, “The moron tried to pull a Clark Maneuver on us. We sure showed him who’s boss.”
To retrace just a little bit. I got sent home after working on the Occupational Therapy clinic for six weeks or so. Found a place in College Station. The PEB date was a month or three off.
I worked night and day gathering evidence for Captain Franco. Letters evaluating my research and writings. References. Dr. D-H and the shrinks on his staff all said it was pre-existing. Nothing the Army did wrong.
That was very much contrary to the facts. I was a senior student leader in my MOS. A Platoon Leader in Army terms. I ran PT. Marched folks around. Supervised the barracks. Captain Chapin’s clean bill of health from WSMR was important too. The meeting with General Fulwyler. But Dr. D-H dug in his heels.
It was just like Chaplain Sanders said under oath, he was hell-bent on proving I was the “sickest of the sick.”
Okay, sure. I can understand his first reaction. That first weekend on the psych ward, I told the duty nurses I’d been to Annapolis. Had a degree in engineering. NASA wrote me a nice letter that got me in to see a general and scientists from HELSTAF. Sounds damn grandiose even to me. When Mom came in she no doubt said all of the same.
“She’s as crazy as you are.”
But, I mean really – once they got my personal file. Doh! There it is. My Texas transcript. My Annapolis transcript. One call to General Fulwyler confirms all the rest. But these guys didn’t back off.
They wrote my life history accurately in their narrative summary but STILL insisted on their original, seat-of-the-pants diagnosis.
Why didn’t Dr. D-H come to the tribunal to justify his decision? Because IT WASN’T HIS DECISION. There’s no other possible explanation.
Exactly WHY did he make that decision? How did he justify it?
The main evidence Dr. D-H – actually the ONLY evidence – against me was the NASA letter. Clearly, it was a “grandiose delusion.” I gathered several expert comments on that research that my lawyer Captain Paul Franco presented at the tribunal. In the end, they said it was not evidence of pre-existing mental illness (it was all service-connected).
But it was too late.
As soon as I got back home after the tribunal, I burned everything. Threw the Apple IIE in a dumpster. All my research notes. Every. Thing. It stayed thrown away, too.
I wouldn’t spend ten seconds thinking about that goddamn project for the next ten happy years. The only thing that remained was the NASA letter. Buried somewhere in all my things. God only knows how it survived my angry, ruthless purge.
I was living in College Station now. Home of Texas A and M University. Great school. Beautiful campus. Fields and cows everywhere. Love that city.
I tried classes, in the physics program. Got a job as a lab assistant. Didn’t work. I tried, really hard. I saw a lady therapist at the TAMU Mental Health Clinic. She taught me meditation. I was able to stop smoking once and for all.
I was on Social Security Disability or SSI by now. Mom was my sponsor/payee until I could find full-time work. Rick Palmer, a civil engineer neighbor grad student at TAMU was kind to me. He was on the Aggie’s (water) skiing team. Belonged to a Christian rock music group. One of the original Christian rock bands, I suppose.
I went to Rick’s church in Bryan (which is right next to College Station) one Sunday and got “dunked” in a big vat of water in front of the congregation. He was a good Baptist, even if I wasn’t.
But I tried, really I did. I still try.
I took a couple of Judaism classes at the TAMU Hillel, Rabbi Peter Tarlow. He had a degree in psychology and was studying for another in sociology at the time. I told him my past. He was sympathetic. I needed work, desperately. Something to do. ANYTHING. Please.
Rabbi Tarlow let me paint the inside of the Hillel (no pay, and I convinced Mom to pay for the paint). It was something. I made some friends, although I’m not sure they liked the wild, bright colors the Rabbi and I chose. I never converted.
Somehow with all that had happened I just well, didn’t see God anywhere. Not in Rick’s Baptist church. Not in Rabbi Tarlow’s Synagogue.
I’ve been through my fair share of bad situations before, but it was always my own fault. This time was different. I didn’t really do anything wrong. Why did so many people hate on me after that?
At no time did I tell anybody, this research is the greatest. All I ever wanted was an honest opinion of its value. NASA liked it. I was just doing my due diligence and respecting their evaluation.
(The Army nurses got hold of a newspaper clipping from WSMR about a laser contract. “You were going build the Star Wars laser all by yourself?” Jazzing about it. What fun. Tormenting me. Can you blame me for “obliterating” everything?)
But, yeah. I was depressed, all right. All the time, energy, and grief I’d put into that NASA project. I thought destroying my research would make it all go away, tossing it. Wrong! I felt miserable. What have I done? It’s gone, and there’s no way I’ll EVER get it back…
All the EXTREME injustices at White Sands, on the Psych Ward, and then the Tribunal. My own attorney even concluded his arguments with, “This man deserves to be out of the service.” What kind of lawyer stabs his own client in the back? It was all just too much.
About this time, I had some kind of problem with the Dean of Students, Dr. Poenish; with grades or something. Had to write a statement, I think, so I could go on probation and remain in school. Mentioned something about “suicide” in my statement. (If nothing else, I’m honest.)
The EMS bus showed up at my apartment the next day. Got interrogated for “suicidal ideations.” They released me.
A few weeks later a lady neighbor in the apartment complex got in a bad fight with her man. Windows were KNOCKED out. Glass everywhere. I ran over to help her out. Got CUTS on one arm.
The EMS bus showed up. They took one look at the cuts on my arm and off Mr. Bill goes to Rusk State Hospital. Attempted suicide.
Couldn’t EVEN talk my way out of that one.
While I was at Rusk, I missed a disability review appointment with the Veterans Administration. They bumped my rating down from 10% to 0%. It would remain right there for many years – fine with me because I was appealing the discharge.
I only realized I had VA benefits at all some 10+ years later when I was walking around a new VA hospital in Temple Texas just constructed by my employers.
I had done a lot of the electrical drafting and even some of the electrical analysis for that place, the Olin Teague Medical Center – for which I wrote a really cool dBase computer program . . . and, talking to a veteran – he said I was eligible for benefits.
Meanwhile – back at the institution for the insane (talk about SCARY – there was a fenced-in area for the CRIMINALLY insane. Yikes stripes beechnut gum.)
A month after I was hospitalized at Rusk State Hospital, I appeared before a judge (It was a very terrible place, just like in the horror movies – WORSE than the movies!). . .
The hospital staff insisted on committing me permanently. I told the judge it was all wrong. I went to the Naval Academy. I can do this. Please. Give me a chance. I’ll make you proud.
They released me.
Rick Palmer came to pick me up. Drove me to Mom’s house in Lago Vista. We three sat down and hammered out an agreement. Rick’s brother Randy was starting up a dairy farm in Vermont. He needed help.
“I’m an engineer. I know all about construction – I built this house we’re in!” (Gonna have to watch out what you say now that everybody thinks your schizo.) I gave the Palmers all my Social Security money. They give me room and board and let me work.
Rick shipped me up to Vermont.
I worked 18 hours a day for six or eight weeks, helping to fix the place up. The cows were a blast. We gave them all names (the shape of the black spots on their fur made them easy to distinguish, different personalities – quite charming ladies). They always go to the stall in the morning. They’ll rub against you “liking” you like cats do. Except they’re so big they can break your ribs!
I’ve been a vegetarian ever since. Cows are people. BETTER than people.
Too bad, but all good things come to an end. In my case, quickly.
I couldn’t drive the tractor straight to plow – the very first time in the seat. I couldn’t keep up tossing hay bails into the trailer (who’s automatically in physical shape for brutal work like that?) I asked to stay in the house on Sundays when Randy went to Church. Downtime? After working like a horse, 18 hours a day?
Sorry, Charlie, slaves do as they’re told.
I saw a shrink in the town nearby, which was Middlebury. They put me on anti-depressants. Didn’t like them one bit. Made me feel dull. Dumb. Like a sack of flour. I had to hike the 4 or 5 miles into town once a week to renew the Rx because Randy couldn’t take time off the farm to do that.
(You see where this is going – after 6-8 weeks everything is fixed up and working. How am I going to get rid of this psycho? Although. All drugged up on that Draino sh*t – maybe he was right. . . )
Randy packed me up and put me in a local home for crazies in town. I had to walk several miles to work on the farm after that. If he’d bought me a bicycle (with my own money) I wouldn’t have minded the halfway house at all.
Randy’s folks would come over from upstate New York to help on weekends. His mother was diabetic. She mended one of my shirts real nice. A red flannel shirt. It was getting cold out by now.
Randy’s father was a school teacher, had to retire because of issues with his vocal cords. He was a real jerk. I didn’t much like him. I think the feeling was mutual.
And so, Randy carted me up to Burlington and dumped me on a psych ward at the Vermont Medical Center. (So much for that idea, being a Christian. Much less a Baptist.)
I suppose it’s just as well. A Vermont winter with the cows would have destroyed me. And, in all honesty, drugged up on anti-depressants I probably wasn’t much of a good worker.
Anyway, once on the psych ward –
I attempted suicide. (Who leaves the whole bottle of pills with a depressed person?) I took a fatal overdose. (I checked the official medical documents years later – no way I should have lived).
Somehow I survived (although I had brief BLACKOUTS after that – still have them).
It turned out to be a pretty nice psych ward. A whole damn lot better than Rusk State Hospital. (Vermont takes care of the disabled INFINITELY better than Texas. Soon, I’d have FAR more proof of the quintessential redneck Texan culture.)
It took a lot of TLC, but the doctors – and fellow patients – fixed me up just fine.
I took the bus back home. Mom found me a crummy old apartment in Lago Vista where I could stay. Bought me a “baby shit colored” Datsun (another colorful expression from Leigh Erin) to drive. I was still on SSI now.
(The Palmers should have reimbursed me every damn thing. Ingrates. Then they had the unmitigated gall to send us their family “newsletter” periodically… ???)
I got me a night stocking job at a grocery store in Cedar Park, the H.E.B. Then a day job at Sonic-Drive flipping burgers. I became an assistant manager there and quit the H.E.B. gig. I wasn’t making good money, but I worked like a dog and never missed a shift.
Before I left H.E.B., the manager gave me a reward for the good work I did. A free weekend for two at a luxury hotel. I gave it to Leigh Erin and her husband Danny Jandle (rhymes with cancel, a master carpenter; and I mean MASTER Carpenter).
Bless her heart, but about this time Mom got the swift idea of loaning me money to build a small house. A contractor friend of the family (Mom’s piano teacher’s husband) built me a 600-square-foot, tiny one-bedroom house on a lot I selected.
It had a couple of scrawny oak trees in the backyard. 21203 Paseo de Vaca. A block away was the community park grounds and Lake Travis. (Mom’s house was about half a mile away, up – WAY up on a hill with a panoramic view of the lake.) We got some cheap furniture and I was all set up.
Thanks, Mom.
Ma’ set me up on a mortgage (8%) and I paid it down faithfully. I gave the “baby shit colored” Datsun to Leigh Erin’s husband Danny in payment for him doing the finish carpentry inside. Now I was driving a very well-used green Isuzu Brat (two fixed seats in the back). Great car. Lots of fun.
Somewhere back in all the haze of abandoning the Audi Fox and living on the streets, I wrote a $125 check that bounced. There was consequently an outstanding warrant for my arrest.
Driving my little green Brat to work one morning, I got stopped by a cop for speeding. (A steep hill going DOWN into Jonestown – speed trap!) He officer hauled me away in his cruiser, leaving the Brat by the roadside.
My lady boss at Sonic (who drove the same road to work) saw the Brat, got worried, and started calling around. (Better boss than I had at Exxon or Annapolis or the Army or, well, any other time to come.)
Carol (my boss at Sonic) convinced me to go off the antidepressants. Never woulda done it otherwise, and this story would have been over. Thanks, Carol.
Poor Mom, she got me a good lawyer for the bounced check offense, and I pleaded out. Got put on probation for a year. Oh, boy – a chance to go in and chat with the nice probation officer every few weeks. I was told it would be expunged from my record at some point.
Well, no good deed goes without a reward, and Mom’s fixing to get what she’s been praying for. (Mom was a very devout and good Anglican and a pillar of her beautiful little church on a hill in Lago Vista. Which just went under, and they gave her bronze plaque to my older sister Regan – at my request.)
A few months later, I was having lunch with Mom at her country club in Lago Vista. It was one of those inscrutable moments of karma that are so hard to explain. We were talking about me being an engineer. Working at Sonic.
Where’s the future in that? I’m sure I was terrified of hoping for more. Don’t. Rock. The. Boat. Much less trying for more.
A man at the table next to us begged to interrupt. He owned NPS Industries in Austin. A fabricator of steel equipment for the nuclear power industry. Would I like an entry-level job in sales?
I actually refused!
Then John a week or so later – God bless him, but Brother John really WAS there all this time – he cornered me at a family dinner at Mom’s house.
“You moron. Fu*king call them!” Thanks, little brother. I love you, even though I was a terrible big brother growing up. And after.
Well. I called NPS Industries. I got the job. Sales! Steve Taylor was my boss. He was quite the wrangler. Buy a hundred thousand zinc screws at one price. Sell them for a fraction of a penny each higher elsewhere. Bolts. Stainless steel. Carbon steel. Galvanized. We did it all.
Then I got bumped up to estimating. Steve Taylor was still my boss. Steel I-beams for the construction of power plants. Piping supports. Struts. I picked up a textbook on steel design and studied at night.
The building opposite NPS was occupied by a very small startup company called Dell Computers. We had some of their very first personal computers.
NPS was a great place. I made some friends. Went out to happy hour once. Had my eye on a cute lady in the front office. It was the first – and last – time I ever went to a happy hour event. The first and last time I went to ANY sort of social after-work event with my co-workers.
A few months later I got into their engineering group. They were all Muslims. Perhaps six of us in a small room. Tall drafting tables, tall enough to stand up and work.
One guy, Mehran – said he learned English by watching soap operas. They were wonderful. I was so happy in that little group. They’d just gotten a new computer that did a lot of the piping support design. I learned it. Real fast.
It was only a matter of time before that damn piping design computer program shut down our engineering group. We all saw it. It was very sobering. One person on that Satanic program could design ten people under the table.
These days, people are ignoring the new AI trend. Don’t. AI is lethal. One blink of an eye and you’re fu*king out of a good job.
In any event, NPS itself didn’t last very much longer. Tragedy struck. Apparently, they had put in a bid on some structural steel for a job but didn’t quote the traceable kind of steel, which is exponentially more expensive.
(EVERY steel ANYTHING that goes into a nuclear power plant HAS to be traceable.)
Nuclear Power was on its last legs in the U.S. at that time, and this was the straw that broke the company’s back. I feel so bad for the nice man from Secaucus, New Jersey who pulled me out of the gutter, brushed me off, and made me an engineer again.
The whole shop shut down. Koros Derekshani, the engineering boss, gave me a good recommendation. He worked tirelessly to find good jobs for ALL his people. (Why do the good bosses always lose?)
“Praise be Allah!”