In 1964 I went to the draft board to change my status from conscientious objector to One-A, Ready to Serve. One year after that I volunteered for the draft, and entered the U. S. Army two weeks later. I had severed ties with the Seventh-day Adventist church, and I was ready to see the world.
Late in 1965, after finishing Basic Training, I was shipped directly to an engine rebuilding depot in Granite City, Illinois, because of my experience in the automotive field, and two months later the whole company was secretly shipped to Okinawa, where we set up shop in some buildings left over from the Korean conflict, I think. We left St. Louis on a special blacked out troop train with all of our rebuilding tools and test equipment wrapped in Cosmoline and on pallets following us on flatcars.
I realized the train was going to go past my house in California, so I looked through my belongings for something to throw into my yard. I found a brand new can of shaving cream, so I wrote a letter to my girlfriend and another one to my mother, taped both messages around the can and when I went by the house at about 10:30 PM I heaved the can over the street and into the yard. Our neighbors found it and gave it to my mother. Real air mail!
The train stopped right on the docks at Oakland Army Terminal in Oakland, CA, and we were marched across the pier and onto our troop ship, the Gen. J. C. Breckinridge. It had been reactivated from the mothball fleet, and was built before WWI, I think. It was about 650 ft long, and carried two thousand Marines, three thousand Army troops, and twenty seven Navy sailors, who sailed the ship. We were all part of President Johnson’s secret expansion in 1965 of the war in Vietnam.
On the two week journey across the Pacific, I met a couple of men recently graduated from seminaries. We were mutually attracted to each other by our religious background and schooling. One was a Methodist, and the other was Baptist. Both were on fire to convert all those heathen Japanese, and they had their sights on me, too, I’m sure. We broke up the boredom of the long voyage with many lively and spirited debates about Christianity and the Bible.
Soon after arriving on that island, we found a Buddhist temple near the base at Makiminato and arranged for a meeting and tour by the resident lama. We three came to the temple one evening, and after removing our shoes, we were led through the various elaborately decorated but sparsely furnished rooms, with the lama explaining the functions of the rooms in the temple. We finished in a room with a low table, which we all sat around (pillows were provided out of consideration for our lack of experience at sitting on the floor), and green tea was served to all.
After many expressions of gratitude from us, the lama invited us to ask questions of him about the Buddhist beliefs, and to compare them to Christian beliefs. He asserted that both paths share many thoughts, but differ on others. It seemed he was as anxious to convert us as at least two of us were to convert him!
I won’t go through the arguments that followed through several weeks of visits. The main problem for our side was the lama didn’t believe in miracles, which meant the Bible was just a collection of ancient fables, not to be taken at face value. He asked if we would believe our own mother if she told us she could walk on water. We had to agree we wouldn’t, and might have to have her checked out by a psychiatrist. He asked then why would we believe that a man walked on water because we read it written in an ancient book by people we don’t even know?
Yeah, he didn’t fight fair, I think. He only accepted observation and reason as truth. He gave us some small books to read with the crudely translated title of “The Value of Worth”, which was a study of what is valuable to know for a happy life. It was very interesting and topical, dealing with now--in the moment--and not worried much about the life to follow. Buddhism is often considered a philosophy rather than a religion for this reason.
This particular Buddhist group is called the Nichiren Shoshu, which translates as Nichirin’s Church. Nichirin was a Japanese priest who lived about 500 years ago and founded a very nationalist and fervent group of Buddhist believers. They were having a revival in Japan in the 1960’s and even had several large temples on the west coast of the USA.
Our lama proved very persuasive, and both of my friends converted to Buddhism within the year. I was more skeptical of this particular branch, and started studying other types of Buddhism, including Chinese, Vietnamese and Tibetan groups.
I studied the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese priest who was nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Dalai Lama from Tibet also teaches a very peaceful brand of Buddhism. I have never joined any group, but I read and study Buddhism yet today, and find my life immensely better for it.
After my tour of duty was over, I returned to California to return to civilian life. My girlfriend and I resumed our relationship, but she had grown up while I was gone, started college and became less and less interested in living with me if I didn’t get a college degree also. I did not qualify for the G.I. Bill, and I had bad memories of the struggle to pay off the bill after my one year at Walla Walla College Engineering School.
I had to move to southern California to find work at a screw and rivet factory as a machinist, and although we corresponded regularly, our paths grew in different directions.
And then I met Carolyn.
After I moved to southern California, I met Don Satterfield, a friend from college who had also been studying mechanical engineering, and like me he had gotten in debt and dropped out to pay the bill. His wife Laverna was a great cook, and I often came over to their house on the weekends to visit and share food and stories. Sometimes I would help him work on his car and later, after we both bought motorcycles, we would go out in the hills and ride on the trails and back roads.
In the summer of 1968, Laverna’s niece Carolyn had separated from her husband and was living with Don and Laverna with her daughter Darlene. She married very young to an older man, and now was looking for some excitement in her life beyond sitting at home and watching TV. Sometimes when I was visiting she would make a meal for me, and we talked and joked around a lot.
I think I finally realized one Saturday evening that she was flirting with me, so as I left I invited her over to my apartment. It was late, but she followed me in her car and came up to my second floor apartment with me. We talked for a few minutes, and I explained to her that I already had a girlfriend, but I had no problem with a quick fling for fun as long as nothing else was expected.
We were soon in bed, and I used all that I had learned through the years to show her a spectacular time. We spent at least an hour with me giving all the tenderness and consideration I could muster. She had several wild climaxes, and afterward we talked for a few more minutes about the experience. She said she usually felt a warm but unsatisfying feeling afterwards, and she was sure this was her first real orgasm. She expressed amazement that I stayed awake and talked afterwards. I guess she was used to her husband just falling asleep.
She drove back to the Satterfield’s house about midnight.
I slept well, and late the next morning I went back to the Satterfield house, I think to get something I had left there.
Laverna invited me in for breakfast, and casually asked, “How are you feeling this morning?”.
I said, “I’m feeling great, wonderful, in fact!”
She asked, “ Why would that be?”
I flippantly said, “It must be due to clean living!”
She snorted Dr. Pepper through her nose, if memory serves me. I knew then that she was in on the story. Carolyn must have told her all about the night before, and it occurred to me that Laverna might even have instigated the affair.
Carolyn decided to give her marriage a second chance, and she went back home to her husband and I didn’t see her for several months other than casually in passing. I continued to correspond with my girlfriend up north, but she was into another year of college and wasn’t ready to come live with me yet.
One evening in November I heard a knock on my door, and I found Carolyn standing there, holding some Dr. Pepper in one hand and a can of peanuts in the other. I invited her in and we sat down and talked.
She told me that she and her husband had had a big fight that day, and he threatened to go back to Oklahoma. She called his bluff, packed his clothes in the car, told him to go, and he drove off, never to return.
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