Merry Christmas

Hay Street, Fayetteville, NC

The bars were razed and the hookers who tagged along were dispersed. That was all the civilians wanted. To spread Hay Street across Fayetteville like margarine on Wonder bread.

Three generations of bloused boot paratroopers spent Christmas on Hay Street. Cheering beer and strippers in Suzy Wong, The Seven Dwarfs or Pop A Top Lounge.

30 years later I walk an unforgotten route and nothing's the same. Cocky paratroopers are replaced with the waddling middle class twirling pasta in ersatz Italian restaurants.


Santa poses for pictures and I follow him to my hotel bar. He joins a red head and she smiles offering him a saved bar stool. He lights a cigarette with a Bic and orders a drink.

I think of Christmas when I was 19. Offering a stripper a heart shaped Whitman Sampler in my Bullit black turtleneck. She smiles down at me from her stage. When I think of her... I smile at Santa and buy him a drink.

'When We Walked Above the Clouds'

When We Walked Above the Clouds by H. Lee Barnes available here.


H. Lee Barnes on far left with 57mm Recoilless Rifle and the Australians


Barnes firing recoilless rifle

Barnes in flip flops


Barnes (in Tiger Stripe fatigues) shakes hands with Charlton Heston. Heston was considering a film role that went to John Wayne.

H. Lee Barnes 2002

In 1963, H. Lee Barnes was an Army Brat living in El Paso and struggling through college. A disinterested and alcoholic mother wasn't helped by a radio announcer step father whose constant job searches would later be subsidized by Barnes himself. There comes a time in some men's lives when they discover they don't belong anywhere. This is usually followed with the recognition that they're pretty much alone. It's a ripe moment for an Army Recruiter.

Barnes enlisted in the Army and volunteered for Special Forces. "You know that song?" Barnes tells me. "One hundred men they'll test today --Only three win the green beret? I was the only one of 50 who made it." I tell Barnes only three in my class of 88 made it and I wasn't one of 'em. I'm looking for a laugh. I don't get one.

Memories of Ft Bragg in 1965 and '66 are seared into my brain despite being eight years old. The green beret itself was something holy to me. I revered the men who wore it. My father, his team members, the next door neighbor and all the men who inhabited Smoke Bomb Hill. This small corner of Bragg was home to Special Forces and was littered with white frame buildings from WWII stuck in the pines. I revered the place when I came back ten years later looking for my own beret.

Assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group at Ft Bragg, Barnes is sent to the small but promising hot spot of the Dominican Republic where Communists are trying to push over a domino. Barnes quotes a lifer's observation in the book, "Wherever Americans go, they turn the women into whores." It's easy duty, guilty even, so Barnes volunteers for Vietnam and winds up at SF Camp A - 107 in Tra Bong some 60 miles south of Da Nang.

Barnes specialty was Demo and secured the Spec 5 ($194 a month) two hazardous stipends of $55 each. One for jump pay and one for blowing things up or the more challenging job of keeping things from blowing up. This all sounds pretty sexy but life at Tra Bong is a thumping bore. As junior man on the team, Barnes gets the shit details...to include burning it.

Jame's Jones took tedium in the army to an art form in A Thin Red Line. A man's thoughts and memories of home in the book became film director Terrance Malick's flashbacks in the film version . A Walk Above the Clouds (author's blog here) takes us on patrols of surrounding mountains with a ruck and a weapon. But there's higher altitude.

Barnes mines his deeply personal reflections. Not only on his good luck, and the guilt that comes with it, but the value of a man's specialty over his value as a human being. Two senior noncoms whose alcoholism reflect a sad army tradition but whose honor and duty spoke to a responsibility the army instills. What Barnes calls, "An honorable action" and "Doing the right thing."

I ask Barnes if he can think of any traits unique to Special Forces members back then. He quickly ticks off a list: "A broken home. Poor. Rootless. Driven to be recognized. Bright and unstable." Tra Bong is one of three places in the world where Cinnamon grows naturally. It is also a place where Lee's captain was beheaded and three team members were killed. Barnes writes of the obsessive card playing with fellow team members, "Cards, like war, reduced to luck no matter a man's skills. No one wanted to be alone with his thoughts to think about that."

Barnes tells me he is done with writing about Vietnam and claims it's the hardest thing he's written. Not only because he was bound to the truth of it but because his team mates names were on it. These events occurred 45 years ago but they should be fresh on everyone's mind. War in a far off place and in a culture not understood. Where the object of "Hearts and Minds" becomes confusion over who the enemy really is. The surprising ending of this book is a reminder...sometimes our biggest enemy can be on our own team.

Army Surplus

The basement of I. Goldberg in Philadelphia is a diverse mix of mostly European military surplus with U.S. Alice packs and frames scattered in a corner. First thing you notice is the smell. Mildewed wool with Clorox added as a top note to an earthy base of foot locker plywood, protective mask rubber and Warsaw Pact leather. It's a damned good surplus store. One of the best I've ever found.

I can't walk through this place without thinking of people I knew in the Army. Names I still remember, but better, the characters whose names I forgot -- Sometimes before I even got out. These memories can come out of nowhere. Cued up by a smell, a stenciled box of rations, the feel of a poncho liner or stories from another soldier.


Mudbone was a 15 year Spec 5 clerk who boasted of catching VD six times and being busted in rank at least four. His face was pock marked, his head had missing chunks of hair that never grew back, but he had a huge smile and a warm voice. At 5:30 every morning, Mudbone supervised barracks clean up. Dressed in a short silk dragon robe he purchased in Korea, he stood at the end of the hall drinking a can of beer and smoking a Newport.

Mudbone had a nobility despite his life being as bad it was. Maybe he just didn't give a shit. Which is ironic. Mudbone shit in his pants on almost every jump I made with him. We'd be hooking up static lines and suddenly, from somewhere in the plane, there was that unmistakable whiff of Mudbone.


In Basic Training a farm boy from Nebraska or Kansas, can't remember which, asked for a General Discharge. He'd tell anyone who'd listen that he made a mistake. I remember thinking we all made a mistake. He pushed and pushed the Drill Sergeants for the paperwork and they finally relented.

A week before he left, I saw him endure more harassment than I endured in my four years. A moment didn't go by that a Drill wasn't screaming in his face, hitting him on his helmet liner with a cleaning rod or just sucker punching him in the gut. And, egged on by the Drills, we fucked with him too. One night on Fire Guard I watched him sleeping in his bunk. He lay there like a peaceful mummy on his back. His hands perfectly folded on his chest. I thought it took balls. He didn't give up on giving up.

My bunkmate in Basic couldn't read. He wanted to go Infantry but didn't score high enough on the ASVAB tests and settled for cook. The only job in the Army where you could be stupider than an infantryman. I wrote letters to his wife and read hers to him. He had jet black hair, a huge head, and to make matters worse, he was fat. But he was my bunkmate and I rooted for him while most others knew he wouldn't make it. His wife seemed to know too. She was always worried about him. Afraid of what the Army could do to him. I was happy for her when he was discharged.



A SSgt in the 82nd asked me to join him in asking a couple ladies to dance at the main post enlisted club. We stood at their table. He asked. They looked up at us, shook their heads and went to back their conversation. He interrupted and asked if we could join them.

A blonde with Farrah Fawcett hair said she didn't think so and turned back to her friend. The SSgt interrupts again and asks if we can buy them a drink. The blonde is pretty pissed off at this point, looks up at us and says sure. "Fuck You!" the SSgt screams and walks away. Leaving me at their table. I look at them and smile. They go back to their conversation.

Later that same night, he unzipped his fly at our table and told me to move my boots. After which, he urinated under the table. I'd run into many more like him. A craziness that was OD Green. If something like this bothered you...? You were in the wrong place.


Claggett was tall, attractive, built and lucky. One of the luckiest men I have ever known. Hookers on Hay Street extended him credit until pay day. Bartenders bought him drinks. Everyone in the company liked him. Even the officers.

He had a '63 Dodge Dart that we took to the Fox Drive In on Bragg Blvd to see porno movies. We'd use the hood as a card table and played Black Jack while ignoring the movie. It wasn't until someone would yell, "Les scene!" that we'd all stop the cards and watch in respectful silence. Claggett met a wonderful woman and married before he ETS'ed. I hope he's still lucky.


Drill Sergeant's Hunt and Stokes would force march my company out to the rifle ranges. Usually 10, sometimes 20 miles. We'd leave in the morning and wouldn't see the range until noon. During the march, there was an accordion effect where, if you were in the back of the company, you'd have to run to catch up to the front of the formation. Then you'd stop dead in your tracks waiting for the people in front of you to move forward, only to run again when the march stretched out and the accordion repeated itself...over and over.

While we were qualifying on the range the other battalion Drills, usually four at time, would cram into a car and ride around smoking pot. I'd watch the car return, see Stokes get out along with a cloud a smoke and another Drill would take his place. We were told the first day of Basic we would never -- never -- forget our Drills names.


Ken was from Indiana, pursed lipped with wire frame glasses and hair parted down the middle. He was every bit the Volunteer Army stoner. During a field exercise in the Pisgah National Forest or it could'a been Uwharrie, they looked the same to me, we found out from some guy in a Signal company that there was a general store close by that sold beer. We pitched in and sent Ken on a beer and Doritos run.

Ken finds the store is mobbed with troops. He waits in line a half hour and pays for the beer. Walking out, he realizes he forgot the Doritos. He asks the girl at the register if she'll watch the beer for him. Sure, she says. And he puts the case down on her counter. When he comes back with the Doritos, the beer is gone. Ken asks where his beer is and the girl says she doesn't know adding she's pretty busy. Too busy to watch his beer.

Ken offers that she shouldn't have offered to watch his beer in the first place. She tells Ken something like, whatever, and continues to ring up other customers buying beer. Which, as you can guess, this little market is selling a whole lot of.

Ken goes to the back of the store and grabs another case of beer. He stands in line for another half hour before he pays -- for the Doritos. The girl tells Ken he has to pay for the beer. "No, I don't." says Ken and he points his M16 at her head. There's a huge, "Whoa!" from the guys in line behind Ken. He looks at them. Then her, and says, "I'm leaving with my beer now." and he walks out.

Before Ken got back to our tent, two MPs showed up and asked if we knew Ken. We told them we did. They asked where he was and we told them he was on a beer run. They asked if he was coming back and we said yes. One MP told us Ken had robbed the general store. All I could think of was -- was he stoned? Someone asks how they know it was Ken and the MP tells us he was in uniform. Name tag, rank, company unit. Wasn't too hard to find him.


I had to testify at Ken's court martial. As it was, he got off pretty light. His parents were there along with the store owners and their daughter. I guess if you were them, you'd reckon Ken got away with scaring the bejesus out of their little girl. Or, if you were on the court martial board, you might suppose she should'a paid closer attention to Ken's beer. I don't know.


People came and went in the Army. Despite those intentions of keeping in touch -- I've only stayed close to one. About once a year we get together for dinner, drink too much and remember. Sometimes we tell the same stories. Sometimes we discover something new. Something he knew that I didn't or the other way around. We do agree on one thing. We love Army Surplus Stores and there just aren't many good ones around anymore.

Takers & Givers

I served in a peace time Army but this scene from the brilliant documentary, Restrepo never fails to make me laugh and cry at the same time. I have a strange love-hate relationship with the Army that some of you know about. Someone asked if I learned 'Honor' from the army. I told them I learned 'Honor' from the people I served with. If the army doesn't give a shit about an NFL football player they're not gonna care much about Joe Shit the Rag Man -- That is, you and me.

The drive from Ft Bragg to Camp McCall in an open jeep, in the winter, was colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra and was the longest hour I've ever known. When I got cold I liked to sing. Loudly. Mac the Knife was a favorite although I have no idea why. Certainly, this would have not have served me well in the WW III - Soviet invasion of Europe - we all were being trained for. But, on a Ft Bragg range road, at Oh-dark-thirty, singing didn't seem to matter much.

We sang our hearts out to stay warm -- and it worked. A contest to see who could light a cigarette with one C ration match in the back seat of an open jeep doing 60 mph was another way not to think about the cold -- as well as make a few bucks on the side.

At the time, I wasn't very grateful for these moments. I never thought I would look back on them as fondly as I do today. The "Army" was the mean green machine but we were all in the same shit hole and that brought us together in a way the civilian world -- grab all you can then split -- has never come close to.

There are two kinds of people in the world. Takers and Givers. Takers don't do well as soldiers. They're usually found out for what they are pretty quickly. Givers don't do so well as civilians. They're found out as well.

A wise civilian manager once told me, "As long as you stand on a street corner handing out ten dollar bills -- people are gonna take them from you." In team spirit, I brought two large deals to my company but was shoved aside when commissions and congratulations were paid. Sadly, there was nobody to sing or dance with.

Sgt Rock & His Faux Commandos

Jeff “Rock” Harris refuses to display his medals and honors in his Kinston home



He tries to keep the awards — three Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star, 23 Army Commendation Medals, 31 Army Achievement Medals, six Overseas Service ribbons for combat, an award from the emperor of Saudi Arabia, along with several dozen others, he acquired during his time as a U.S. Army Ranger — packed away. However, those around him refuse to let him forget how important his time in the military was.



Harris — an executive security specialist at Down East Protection Systems in Kinston, personal trainer, self-defense instructor and a bodybuilding judge — doesn’t want credit for the bravery and valor he exhibited serving his country.



In fact, he didn’t even want to have any part of a big-budget, Hollywood movie that recounted one of his most eventful and memorable days in the Army.



Hollywood



“Black Hawk Down,” based on the Mark Bowden’s book by the same name, was nominated for four Academy Awards, won two and grossed $172,989,651 worldwide after its release in late 2001. The movie, based on true events from Operation Restore Hope, takes place Oct. 3, 1993, when American troops were sent into Bakara Market in Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to capture warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid’s officers to stop his regime from starving the nation’s people.



U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force soldiers were sent on Black Hawk helicopters and Humvees on a mission expected to only take a couple of hours. They ended up fighting what seemed like the entire city into the next day, losing 19 U.S. soldiers in the process.



Harris, a sniper with the Rangers, came close to being one of the casualties of Mogadishu. Harris found out about the movie when Ridley Scott, co-producer and director, and his production company started hounding him for his account of the bloody day. But he refused to contribute.



“It’s not that I didn’t want to talk about it (but) it’s a sore spot for a lot of us,” Harris said. “It’s not just because we were losing people and the whole horror of it — that was the third time I went to combat, so it wasn’t a surprise for me. It was just the way it happened, what went down. … A lot of guys got out (of the Army) after that who otherwise wouldn’t have.”



Though Scott’s company kept asking for his input, Harris answered every time with a resounding “no.” Scott nonetheless promised the movie would ring true to the day’s events, be more like a documentary — and most importantly — would honor the soldiers lost in Somalia. “I didn’t even care if my name was even mentioned,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure the people who did the most there, those who gave up the most, were shown the most honor.”



Despite receiving several movie passes and an invitation to see a special screening at Fort Bragg, Harris didn’t watch the movie until he could view it on his own time. “I finally watched the movie for first time after it came out on DVD, just so I can take a break if I needed to,” Harris said. “I don’t want to say that I was pleased because it’s not a pleasing thing to watch, but the rendition of it was what (Scott) said. He kept his word about it.”



The timeline of the movie strayed from the day’s actual events, and some character-switching, including his own, stood out, too.



Man down

In a bloody scene in the middle of the movie, a young soldier’s leg is blown off, opening his femoral artery. In pain and bleeding heavily, the young man’s strained face relaxes and he dies. “That would have been me,” Harris said. “I got shot, and cut my femoral artery, but we got out the next morning. I lived, but that wouldn’t have been as good of a story line.”



Though Harris still has both legs, he sustained a scar on his leg after a bullet punctured his shin, traveled up his leg, cut his artery and hit his spine, earning him his third Purple Heart, and almost ending his mobility. “(The bullet is) still in my spine — it’s still in my lower back,” Harris said. “I wasn’t supposed to walk again. I was paralyzed for almost 20 months.”



Medical experts still aren’t completely sure how he overcame his paralysis, but Harris, a member of Grace Fellowship Baptist Church, credits it all to God. “The day I left Walter Reed (Army Medical Center), they said I would have maybe an 8 percent chance (to walk again),” Harris said. “I never accepted that. … I’m a very blessed guy.”



Harris earned his two other Purple Hearts after being shot in Panama trying to capture Manuel Noriega and after being shot again in Desert Storm. “It’s different every time (someone shoots at you),” Harris said. “It’s just as scary every time. You don’t ever get used to it.”



Aim, fire

Harris wasn’t always on the receiving end of the bullet, something that makes him uncomfortable to this day. “I have 316 confirmed kills as a sniper, and that’s only in that last three years I was in the Army,” Harris said. “Every one of those horrifies me regularly because they were somebody’s children, somebody’s husband or father.”



He still feels conflicted about what he had to do, but in the end, he knew it was his duty as a sworn soldier.“They’re bad people and they’ve done bad things, but who am I to take that away from them?” he asked. “But it was my job to do. Lives were safer because of that — but it’s never easy.”



Leave no man behind

James Murphy served in the Army as a Ranger with Harris and said he wouldn’t be alive if not for Harris’ heroic actions. Murphy recalled after he and another soldier were hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Mogadishu, Harris ran to their position and carried both of them a half-mile away “not knowing if we were alive or not.” He drove them to safety in a burning vehicle and returned to continue to fight.



“If you know him, you are privileged,” Murphy said. “If you served with him, you were in the presence of a true American patriot. If he is your friend, you should be honored. He gives hope to humanity that there are still decent, amazing people all around you.”



Just a regular guy

Harris said despite everything he has seen and the blessings he has received, he considers himself a down-to-earth person. “I’m just as normal, laid back a person as there is. I’ve just had extraordinary experiences,” he said. “I’ve got a great wife (Amanda), and I’m alive. I’m healthy, and probably much more healthy than I should be at 46.”



Harris is especially lucky after having several medical scares, including having prostate cancer four times in the past six years and a brain tumor. Harris, who is in remission from cancer, said he doesn’t mind talking about his past illnesses, but he doesn’t publicize it because of the way people treat him after finding out.



“They look at you like you’re already dead. … My overall personality is doing for other people rather than myself,” Harris said. “That’s part of my military (background). That’s the thing that it teaches you. You don’t want to be a hero, you don’t want to get credit all the time. A lot of people know me, and a lot of people know where I come from, but a lot of people don’t know my whole story, because I don’t advertise that.”



Say thanks

Harris said he takes every opportunity to thank those who have ever donned a uniform, from friends and veterans Jerry Core of Kinston, Klebear Northrup and James Anthony to Joseph Seabright, a coworker of Harris’ who is deploying next week. “I don’t pass a soldier without saying ‘thank you,’ ” he said. “I don’t tell them who I am. I just tell him ‘thank you.’ ”



Every military holiday, Harris remembers and recognizes the soldiers who fought by his side, especially the 64 in his units who lost their lives. “I will always, as long as I’m able to, recognize those guys first,” he said. “I don’t have problems talking about the stuff I’ve experienced. I think it’s good therapy for me.”



Harris said thanking a soldier and showing him or her support is a simple gesture that goes a long way. “It’s unbelievably important … just to go say thank you,” he said. “Put yourself in their position. Just a ‘thank you’ is tremendous.”



Though he has been through much in his 46 years, he has kept his faith and wouldn’t take any of his experiences back for the world. “I’m thankful everyday I went through it,” Harris said. “As hard as it was, I would have stayed in for 30 years. That was my niche, what I was supposed to be doing … where I’m at, the direction I’m in today is because of somebody else’s plan.”



By Jane Moon - Kinston Free Press



The unauthorized use of military insignia by fashion designers and retailers pales in comparison to people who fabricate military records. This incredible story ran the Sunday before July 4th in Kinston, NC and was picked up by the Fayetteville Observer. With Fayetteville being home to Ft Bragg, the 82nd Airborne Division, Special Forces and Delta , you can guess what happened.



Sgt. Rock's fraud was outed in a fascinating on line investigation seen here and here. Actually, I think Rock would find life in New York City most suitable for his character -- what little he has.



Yesterday, M. Lane, a man over flowing with character, commented on a ersatz military duffle bag, "...I could never carry something like this unless I had earned it." In an upside down world, the upside down message is, "Fake It 'til You Make It' and except for the real nut cases out there, it comes down to how you see yourself each morning when you shave. I'm just guessing, but I reckon Sgt. 'Rock' is working on a full beard.

Beautiful Bullshit

The French Foreign Legion, 1984, photographed by John Robert Young

I heard the platoon from my back yard.  40 men in white t-shirts, green fatigue pants and bloused black boots.  It was 1965 and I was eight years old.  I raced from my yard and caught up just as they turned left onto Sunchon Street in the Ft Bragg housing area called Hammond Hills.  I ran behind the platoon for a block or so before there was a sudden down pour.  The platoon sergeant lead the men under an empty carport, barked an order I didn't understand and everyone relaxed and lit up cigarettes.

I was mostly ignored as Zippos snapped around me.   One young black soldier smiled and I smiled back.  He lit a cigarette and stuffed the bright green pack of Salems back in his trouser pocket.  I don't remember talking.  Him or me.  But I see him clearly in my memory.  Tall, he was built like a "V" with broad shoulders and a narrow waist.

The rain let up and the run continued.  I ran behind my friend for a while but saw the border of Hammond Hills, shouted goodbye and veered off towards home.   I'll never forget that day or that soldier or the feeling I belonged… safe in the platoon.  I see it in my mind as a black and white photo on high contrast paper.  The black of the boots and bright white t-shirts…all in four straight lines.  My home... running away from me.  Ten years later I'd enlist.

Is Smoke Bomb Hill Kosher?

From Left: A couple A team sergeants and Dad on far right

Smoke Bomb Hill and Hammond Hills (click image to enlarge)

I remember him walking home. At eight, I was in my Hammond Hills bedroom researching an MG-TC. The Old Man was racing in the local SCCA club and I desperately wanted him to dump the Berkley with the chain driven motorcycle engine for a British Racing Green TC. For some reason, I look out my window and I see the swagger. More shoulder than hip - he had cocky written across his forehead.

The captain bars on his green beret glint from the sinking September sun. Starched jungle fatigues are cut at the waist with a web pistol belt. My Old Man is walking home from Smoke Bomb Hill with his XO who has less than seven months to live before drowning in the Son Toy River. Later that night, I'll fill an empty Budweiser bottle with water and wander out to the patio and stumble and weave in front of these two men who'll laugh their asses off.

10 years later I drank draft beers at the main post bowling alley with three of Dad's team sergeants from his tour in Vietnam. Two were still in Special Forces. The third had retired and spent most days sitting outside his trailer in Spring Lake, playing gospel music over a surplus PA system. The two sergeants told me how Dad used a Boy Scout wire saw to garrote VC. They laughed while the gospel lover just stared at me.

I was in the middle of zero month for the SF Qualification Course. Phase I at Camp McCall wouldn't start for another two weeks but I was happy fucking off on Smoke Bomb Hill. SF was a fairly loose group and I watched senior NCOs dry hump each other out in front of morning formations. There was so much dry humping in the Army that when I went back to college, still shitting army chow, I dry humped Roland Schumann who was bending over an ice box looking for a pint of chocolate milk. He turned and looked at me with this unmitigated terror in his eyes... and I realized he didn't get it. Neither did the 300 or so other students watching from the dining room.

Back in the Army, I knew I wasn't going to make it through Special Forces training. One of the few times I've accurately predicted anything. Of my class of 88, only three would get a green beret and they were all second term NCOs. The washout was so great, I was told my class was the last to allow anyone under E-5. But knowing I didn't have a prayer took a whole lot of pressure off and I Ghosted, disappearing to avoid details, whenever I could.

Another formation, more dry humping and names of the 85 "No-Go" are read. The 1st Sergeant repeats, "82nd Repo" over and over and over…until XVIII Airborne Corps goes to an PFC infantryman. Everyone looks at this bastard and wonders whose dick he's sucking. I'm wondering what the fuck an infantryman does at a corps headquarters and as I ponder the thought, my name gets closer and closer and the first sergeant, who's fond of saying to the formation, "You, in the green pants and black boots, come here," says my name and XVIII Airborne Corps. And everyone looks at me and wonders…

To this day, I still do. Before my father died a couple years ago I asked him for the umpteenth time, "Was it you? It had to have been you." He sucks on a cupped cigarette, inhales and blows out a pin stream of smoke and tightly wrapped words, "That wouldn't have been kosher."

Ft. Bragg, NC 1965

A family Polaroid taken by me.  My mother confident the picture would come out.   My father concerned I'd drop the camera.