After my adventures as a Drug Dealer in Alaska I needed to get clean and try and get my life back on track. It was agreed that joining the Army would accomplish those goals. Sort of.
Enlisted into the Regular Army May 1977 Los Angeles, CA.
I went out touring the greater Los Angeles area with Mom and Dad in their new Motor Home and after several bottles of Apricot Brandy the night before my ASFAB test I poured out of the motor home and walked into the LA Induction Center. I aced just enough that the Army Security Agency called and said they wanted me to take a few more tests, which I did quite a bit more sober, and then they offered me a job, They wanted me to go to the Defense language Institute at Ft Drum and learn to speak Russian and then become a Spook intercepting and translating Soviet Commo. I decided to go with Missiles and Germany, I was really looking forward to the legendary Hashish I’d always heard about over there.
In 1977 I was asked to come to Los Angeles by the US Army. I’d taken the entrance exams and after they tabulated my scores the Army Security Agency wanted me to take another battery of tests. These were some strange pattern recognition, ethical quandaries, psychological explorations…fun shit.
They gave me a room in The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The main thing I remember was there were guys staying there that had been drafted, sent to “The ‘Nam” and were being processed out. There were a few epic parties taking place on several floors. The night’s festivities came to a crescendo with one of the old Vets rampaging through the hotel fighting anyone he met and ended with the LA Police talking him down from the top floor where he was threatening to jump.I did not know at the time, but the Roosevelt Hotel had some history. It opened on May 15, 1927, and is the oldest continually operating hotel in Los Angeles. It was financed by a group that included Louis B. Mayer, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Sid Grauman. The Gable-Lombard penthouse, a 3,200 square-foot duplex with an outdoor deck with views of the Hollywood Hills and the Hollywood sign, is named for Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, who used to stay in the room for five dollars a night. The Marilyn Monroe suite is named for the actress, who lived at the hotel for two years early in her career.The first Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on May 16, 1929, The hotel has hosted the Golden Raspberry Awards. the ceremony recognizing the year’s worst in film, on numerous occasions. The pool at the Roosevelt Hotel was featured in a 1955 episode of I Love Lucy when the Ricardos and Mertzes came to Hollywood. Several scenes from the 1988 film Sunset, starring Bruce Willis and James Garner, were filmed at the hotel.Other films shot on location at the hotel include Internal Affairs (starring Richard Gere), Beverly Hills Cop II (starring Eddie Murphy) and Catch Me If You Can (starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg). Other television shows shot at the hotel include Knots Landing, Moonlighting and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Prince performed five shows at the hotel in 2007. The TV series Lucifer frequently includes exterior views of the hotel in establishing shots. A scene between Lucifer and Amenadiel in the first season episode “Take Me Back to Hell” takes place on the roof.Marilyn Monroe lived at the hotel for two years early in her career and posed for her first commercial photography shoot by the pool. She and Arthur Miller were said to have met at the hotel’s Cinegrill nightclub.Montgomery Clift stayed at the hotel for three months in 1952 during the filming of From Here to Eternity.Frances Farmer was honored at a party there in 1958, the night she appeared on Ralph Edwards’ This Is Your Life.Errol Flynn is rumored to have created his recipe for bootleg gin in a tub in the hotel’s barbershop.Shirley Temple learned to do her famous stairstep dance routine on the hotel stairs.Astrologer and writer Linda Goodman wrote several of her books in a suite at the hotel.Actress Elizabeth Patterson, widely recognized for her role as Mrs. Trumbull on the classic comedy series I Love Lucy, lived in the hotel during her 35-year film and television career.Other notable hotel guests include Charlie Chaplin, H. G. Wells, Clark Gable, Max Baer Sr., Carole Lombard, Mary Martin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Mike Posner, Prince, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Throughout the years, there have been rumors of hauntings and ghosts at the hotel. Some involve celebrities who previously stayed at the hotel, such as Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift and Errol Flynn. Others involve a little girl in a blue dress named Caroline. There have also been reports of cold spots, photographic “orbs”, and mysterious phone calls to the hotel operator.
Advanced training was at Ft. Bliss, Texas as a 24N, Chaparral Missile systems Mechanic.
1977, Ft Bliss, Texas.
The late summer in Southern Texas was blistering hot but instead of seeking out airconditioned bars I spent a lot of my time wandering in the desert. There was a good stretch of desert on the western side of Ft Bliss, which I had started exploring shortly after arriving there from Basic Training. I was at Ft Bliss for Advanced Individual Training. AIT. My training was for MOS 24N, Chaparral Missile Systems Mechanic. A lot of tracing circuits and identifying faults in electrical components, some hydraulics, some pneumatics, a little mechanical and calibration of instruments.
During a lunch break one day I made my usual stop at the Mail Room. The pretty young handed me my envelope and gave me a sly smile and a raised eyebrow. She knew what was going down. As soon as I took the overstuffed envelope and felt the mass of dry plant material inside I looked at the Alaskan return address and knew that my Sister was the source of this bounty. Then I thanked the Mail Clerk and looked around to see if the CID officers were waiting to take me into custody. That feeling stayed with me all afternoon sitting in classes with a bag of weed in my BDU cargo pocket, in TEXAS…where lifetime prison sentences for a single joint were said to occur. I wondered who would come down the hardest, the US Post Office, The DEA or the US Army. When class was over I walked across Post to a small store where I grabbed several items to cover purchase of the Zig Zag rolling papers. From there I made a beeline out to the Western Desert, walking until the buildings of the post were just spots on the horizon, at least a mile I think. I found a distinctive rock under a large sage and sat in the meager shade and opened my gift of Matanuska grown weed.
After rolling and smoking a joint I carefully buried my stash, including the papers, and used a dry branch to wash away evidence including foot prints for about 100 feet. Then I kept walking west until I came to set of railroad tracks. I watched as a slow freight train made it’s way south at what seemed like a snails pace. The flatcars were empty as were most of the box cars, their doors locked open. On my second trip out to visit my stash I caught the slow moving train and rode a box car until I suspected we must be close to the Mexican border.
Me and a buddy got bicycles from the Army Bike Rental and rode around El Paso, rode to the top of the mountain, cruising back down was a serious A ticket ride. When I got to the bottom I stopped to wait for my buddy, as soon as I stopped and air was no longer cooling the rim the tire blew from the heat of riding my brakes for a few miles.
Chaparral Missile Systems Maintenance Tech was a good school, lots of electronics, hydraulics, pneumatics, mechanical. School was easy and soon I was on the road again. A bus ride to the airport, plane ride to South Carolina, South Carolina to West Germany. Bus ride to Giebelstadt Army Airbase.
Giebelstadt AAB
In mid summer 1987 I found myself
riding a train rolling south from Seoul, South Korea. It was a ‘milk run’ train, stopping at each village for passengers and freight. I made my way to the back of the train. At the front were the passenger cars, which could have been used as sets in any late 1800s western. Behind those were several box cars. the first few box cars were empty and I found one with the side doors open wide and watched the Korean countryside roll by.
I have always been drawn to trainyards. I think I might have been a Hobo in a previous life.