PDF Photos

These are five photos that will hopefully appear in the June Desert Exposure.
I saved them as PDFs, so you should be able to enlarge them, or view them as larger photos.
The hospital was the 249th General Hospital, Camp Drake, Japan.
Originally a regimental base for one of the First Cavalry Division's units in Japan, prior to the Korean War,
they were converted into hospital wards.
There was also a super secret Army Security Agency (ASA) listening station there. They undoubtedly listened to all
radio broadcasts from Soviet Bloc & Chinese, North Korea, North Vietnamese, etc., radio transmissions.
All I know is that on one drunken walk back from a trip down town to Tokyo, I barfed all over the lawn as my head was
spinning from too much booze, Japanese sushi, and probably some sake or other kind of wine.
It was a bad mix ... it might actually have been eel ... or squid ... whatever, it all came up on the lawn of the Army Security Agency unit stationed @ Camp Drake.
I often wondered who came across that the next morning, as they ran "police call."
Hell, those guys were so secret, they might not have even DONE police call.

These photos are from the following time period:
1. Upper left, first row: Jerry in front of the old First Cavalry Division's barracks, that were converted into the 249th General Hospital, @ Camp Drake, Japan. The barracks had been turned into "wards" for the several hundred patients. One barrack was the old "stockade" with long rows of cells. Inside the cells were racks for our clothes (civilian) that we were able to purchase @ the PX or on the "open market" of local tailors, etc;
2. The photo on the right shows Landing Zone (LZ) Two Bits. A friend of mine,
who had some photos of the guys in my platoon taken before & after I was wounded, said we were near LZ Two Bits the day I got shot in an ambush, when I was on "point;"
3. Next photo on left, second row: Photo of me @ Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. I had returned to the States for 21 days of personal leave. I felt that since I was in infantry, and had every chance of NOT returning home alive, I wanted to see my family again. I was not smiling the day I left. I think the sobering thoughts of possibly never seeing my family, two sisters and brother, parents, was weighing on my mind;
4. Next photo, second row right: I am receiving the Purple Heart in this photo. The colonel is the Hospital Commander. He is pinning the Purple Heart on me in my heavy blue pajamas. We wore them @ all times when on the hospital grounds. As my right arm had been very badly shattered by the bullet fired by the guy who tried to kill me, @ the elbow, and had also blown out a big part of my right bicep, the arm had to be totally stabilized. The cast encased the majority of my upper torso, and a board had been implaced beneath my arm to hold it in the most stable position needed to ensure the bones healed. There was also damage to the ulna nerve, which was repaired during the last major surgery @ the 249th General Hospitall;
5. The last photo, bottom, left, shows me with an M-60 machine gun. I posed in front of the quonset hut that was our Squad's "hootch," or home, @ Camp Kaiser, Korea.
I was in the First Battalion, 17th Mechanized Infantry, 7th Infantry Division.
In Vietnam, I was in the First Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Airmobile Division.
These photos surely show the contrast in my appearance over this 1.5 years I spent in South Korea and Vietnam. I did not spend any more than 90 days (less), in Vietnam, yet had a dozen or more near death experiences, or experiences where I could have been wounded or drowned.

Upcoming Article -- Desert Exposure

On 1 June, a new article of mine will come out from The Desert Exposure. It won't be under the byline of "Hiking Apacheria," but under a "spiritual or metaphysical" column. Essentially, the article will cover some of the primary influences of mine, spiritually, for "Hiking Apacheria."
As a feature of that, I sent the following documents or photos to the Desert Exposure editor.
As they relate to Memorial Day, I'm hopeful the actual paper will come out at least a day early.
I don't know that the Desert Exposure has normally carried any article that reflects of our Memorial Day anniversaries, but I hope this time, this article of mine might also be considered as a Memorial Day tribute.