Unexpected Honor Closes Painful Door

I am a desert-based Filmmaker, Artist, Writer, Recording Artist, Singer, and Songwriter, who moved to California from my native New Jersey in 1981.  In 2010, I relocated to the Palm Springs area, lured by the high desert and my treasured Joshua Tree National Monument.  I am a Co-Founder and current partner in a major film and video production and post- production company, Desert C.A.M. Studios/Winmill Films LLC, with offices located in La Quinta and Burbank, CA as well as in Vancouver, BC. 

Last Veteran’s Day, I was honored by the City of La Quinta, for my years serving in the Air Force during the Vietnam War.   I attended a special public tribute and acknowledgement ceremony held at the La Quinta Civic Center Campus, near historic Old Town.  I was selected along with a handful of other combat veterans, to be acknowledged for our war service.  My name, along with other veterans, is now engraved on a large bronze art piece – resembling the mountains surrounding the Village of La Quinta, and is on permanent display in the Civic Center campus community park. Though somewhat belated, it was nevertheless still very deeply appreciated.   But the event and the gesture reopened and closed some deep and painful memories for me.

In many ways, it helped erase the negative memories of returning home as a Vet to Paterson, New Jersey in 1970.  At the airport on arrival, I was spat upon, called horrific names, and had food scraps thrown at me, as well as at my fellow comrade veterans.  Though I myself was anti-war, and remain that way philosophically till this day, I was also dead set against our role in the Vietnam conflict.  But that said, when I was called up, I proudly went into the military, served my time, and performed my patriotic duty for four very long years.

Drafted in my last year of art school in NYC, at the prestigious Manhattan School Of Visual Arts, which I was attending on a partial scholarship, I became a Graphics Specialist and Documentary Filmmaker in the Air Force, supplying everything from audio and visual aids, to Top Secret organizational charts for the Base Commander’s weekly war briefings.  I also performed documenting and filming tests for military equipment that was being prepped for active use in the field.  I was fortunate at first, to be stationed at Fort Lee in Virginia on an Army base ironically, but then was transferred to Stewart Air Force Base in New York State where I spent every weekend driving back to New York City, where I was moonlighting as a freelance Off-Off Broadway set designer.

In 1967, I was transferred again, but this time overseas - to England.  And smack in the wonderful midst of the British music invasion (The Beatles, The Stones, Dave Clark Five, The Kinks, The Animals, etc.).  I adapted quite well to Europe, and to London particularly, where I made more British friends than I had military ones.  I even had another freelance moonlighting job as an Art Assistant on weekends, working on the “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” BBC TV series.  My bosses were the incredibly creative director/writer, Terry Gilliam, and the hysterically funny Eric idle.  And technically, this was my first foray into a show business job.

I was stationed at RAF Mildenhall Base, and worked in the graphics department, where I created maps, charts, squadron shields and patches, as well as mascot art for the pilots who flew their jets into battle each week.  I also got married during my years there, and had a son – Justin Christopher (now a very talented and successful nature photographer in Florida).  I loved England very much, even returning there for a year after my discharge to continue working with the Python TV show.

One incident that occurred while I was there made headlines around the world, including the front page of the NY Times.  It was the week President Richard Nixon visited our base on his way to France to try and convince President Charles DeGaulle, not to kick out all the American bases located throughout France, as we are located in other European countries as well.  A young Sergeant, Paul Meyers, single-handedly hijacked a huge C-134 and took off unassisted, narrowly missing crashing into the English countryside, and aimed his stolen craft towards the east coast of America.  Evidently, he had just been given orders to transfer to Vietnam, and with his wife just having his first child back in Virginia, he had a meltdown.

All day, we were on alert, waiting for the news about Meyers, and whether he made it or not.   In the late afternoon, after the story was all over British and American TV news, it was announced that he had crashed into the mid-Atlnatic, unable to maintain a steady flight with a crew of one - himself.  However, when I was called in by the Base Commander to design and create a flip chart presentation on the day’s events, I learned through my Top Secret clearance, that Meyers had been shot down an hour after he took off, and had crashed into the English Channel.  The entire day of alerts, updates, and news bulletins, going out to the English press and American media, was essentially all a fake exercise in media control.  This, so they could keep a lid on any bad press should the plane crash in England or France, killing innocent civilians.  Especially with Nixon on his way.  I still have the reports and photos, and almost got it made into a TV Movie with Nicolas Cage and the late Ray Sharkey in the late 80’s.  One day though, I will get that film project off the ground, so to speak (the pun is unintentional).

But it was this incident that further disillusioned me about America’s role in that war, as well as the unbridled power of the Military Industrial Complex in general.  Over the next several months, along with a group of other AF buddies, we started and distributed an underground newspaper, called The Semit (Times spelled in reverse), and authored, designed, wrote, and printed the paper from our Graphics office.  British actress and Oscar winner, Vanessa Redgrave, became our private financier and mentor for our independent anti-war paper during its six month existence, even helping to distribute the editions throughout London.  Eventually though, our staff was broken up by transfers to other bases.  An interesting note here, is that of our little underground military staff, all went on to great things in their civilian lives, from myself as an established filmmaker and artist, to another as the Editor of the Boston Globe, another is a famous author with 6 books out, another became a noted songwriter and performer, and another became a trophy winning Grand Prix racing driver, and yet another an admired painter in France. One, unfortunately went into Scientology, and had their life ruined financially and spiritually, and passed away just last year.

When the paper folded, I had to deal with the unexpected - a three-month secret assignment to Vietnam - Tan Son Nhut Air Base to be exact.  I was not allowed to inform anyone in my barracks or squad of the assignment.  Located near the city of Saigon in South Vietnam, my temporary graphics studio was a Vietnamese constructed Quonset bunker hut slapped together I’ll bet, in a day.  It was either stifling hot or damp and freezing cold.  Anyway, for months I worked there in Bunker 051, somewhat detached from the horrible conflict and death going on all around me, just a mile away beyond the mountain range, or just past the rice paddy fields behind the base, or down the dirt highway that led to our base from the thick jungles that surrounded the facility 

And it was always there - in the background, just like approaching thunder before a storm.  Twenty-four seven, the rumbling sound of explosions and machine gun fire, mortars, and choppers overhead, flying in and out of the base after delivering the dead or the wounded to the hospital and sick bays.  At first, it was hard to get any rest or decent sleep, but after a while, like anything else, I adjusted.  The sounds of war became just like traffic sounds outside my city windows – sirens, horns, jackhammers, and planes.  My job function was changed and I found myself creating reconnaissance maps and visual battle plans, as well as the occasional day trips to the war zone to do some assigned filming and photogrpahy. 

Thus my military experiences were now slowly changing, going from working and partying with, the Monty Python cast on weekends, to witnessing almost daily, a parade of guys my age being whisked past me on stretchers - bloodied, disfigured, or dead already.  Since I myself, was luckily not assigned to squatting for survival in a fox hole somewhere in the middle of hell, I felt very fortunate to be doing what I was doing.  But the toll of injured and dying soldiers and civilians, took its toll on my head and my memories.  I am not sure till this day, where the hell I mustered up the courage, but I found myself visiting the sick bay every evening, checking in with the guys to see how they were doing. Sometimes we’d just chat, or I would do a little of my stand-up shtick, or I would play guitar or harmonica and get them to sing with me.  Or their favorite, when I would draw them pictures of beautiful women.  At the time, I was probably doing all that to ease my own guilt at not having to hide in a rice paddy somewhere hugging an M-16.  But it still felt good, like I was accomplishing something in that damn war, other than drawing maps and cartoon mascots.   

Tan Son Nhut was primarily a command base, but became a main target of major Communist attacks following the 1968 Tet Offensive.  One attack began early one morning in January with greater severity than our military had anticipated.  The first enemy rounds hit the base around 2 AM, and sent a chill up my spine only to be matched by the ’94 Northridge earthquake that I also had the pleasure of being in the middle of.  The shells kept coming and coming for hours.  The base chapel was one of the first hits, essentially destroying it.  Then the shelling stopped.  Later that same day, I was in our Quonset graphics bunker with the other six Airmen who worked in that structure: me, an assistant Airman, and four Air Force Security Policemen who occupied the other end of the bunker.  We were ordered to put together ASAP, a detailed visual brief of that mornings attack, for the Colonel in charge of the base operations.  Funny too, that I remember the guy’s name, one I would use decades later in one of my screenplays – Colonel Farley Peebles.   Ione cannot make that one up.

Anyway, it was my turn that day, to go to the supply officer in the Quonset hut next to ours, to stock up on art supplies - magic markers, ink, paper stock, rubber cement, etc.  We all hated having to deal with the very mean and grizzled Supply Sergeant who would hassle us with a dozen forms to fill out, while barking out lectures on discipline and haircuts.  No sooner did I enter the Supply office, it all started again.  A major mortar attack, but this time with enemy ground troops moving in on the base as well.  We were under siege. The Supply Sergeant quickly grabbed the armful of drawing pads I had in my arms and replaced them with an M-16.  The moment was a total nightmare for me.  I will never forget the intensity, the noise, the screams, the smoke…And I will never, ever forget the sound of that rifle upon first squeezing the trigger.  I know one of the many rounds I fired hit their target, as I saw two Vietnamese soldiers go down.  That image is engraved forever in my mind.

But then the frightmare really kicked in.  When I was finally able to step outside, my jaw fell open.  My Quonset Bunker 051 and graphics shop was completely gone.   Leveled.  Thankfully, my assistant got out, but all four of the Policeman (ages 20-22) perished.  And only because it was my turn to get supplies that morning - something I tried to wiggle out of - that I survived that horrific day.  Vernon Luna, my assistant who also survived, committed suicide back home in Utah, several years later. 

The attack ended up in the history books of war.  Thanks to the Base Security Forces, despite being outnumbered, and with help from Army helicopter and U.S. ground units, they killed almost a thousand attacking enemy combatants, and finally secured the base again.

I was returned to England for my discharge, and was offered opportunities to discuss my combat zone experiences many times with VA Councilers, but always felt that I could deal with it myself.  However, the guilt grew over the years, especially now being the only living survivor of my group on that terrible day of infamy.  I have been able to come to grips with it all and understand it more over the decades, by devoting myself to living life to the fullest and to helping folks in any way I can.  Especially war veterans.

I have had and continue to have a wonderful career in the entertainment industry, winning many awards for the hundred plus music videos I directed for MTV, VH-1 and CMT, as well as the movies I have produced or directed, the many pledge concerts I shoot for PBS and HBO, and of course, the advent of creating Desert C.A.M. Studios here in the desert.  But many of my creative and organizational disciplines and collaborative teamwork philosophies, were born and came of age during those years in military service.  Though I am still dealing with the guilt that I survived and my young comrades did not. It makes me often think of that last line in “Saving Private Ryan” where Tom Hanks utters to Matt Damon as Ryan, “Earn this.  Earn it.”

I am not sure if I have indeed earned the accolade La Quinta awarded me last year, but I proudly accepted it graciously and humbly for my friends and comrades that were the true heroes that day in January, 1968.

I have never shared so much about this incident before, so I think a painful door is finally beginning to close for me.  And each day forward, I become prouder that I was a Vietnam Veteran and served our country to the best of my ability. 

Below are original artworks I created, originally published in The Semit, 1968: