Gary Bingham's Blog

California Department of Corrections Appointments

2009-06-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

Chronological List of Appointments (Corrections)

Associate Warden, Correctional Administrator 1996

Facility Captain, Program Administrator 1993

Correctional Counselor III 1988

Correctional Counselor II 1984

Correctional Lieutenant, Correctional 1978

Program Supervisor III

Textile Products Factory Superintendent January –June 1984

Correctional Counselor 1 1973

Correctional Officer 1973

Special Emergency Response Team Commander June 1984-June 1986

Representative for Supervisors, California Correctional 1980

Officers Peace Officers Association (CCPOA)

My Military History

2009-06-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

Military History

Colonel, Military Intelligence, US Army Reserve, Retired May 20, 1994

Total years of commission service: 29 years

Total years of service: 31 years

Enlisted service: Regular Army, October 1963-January 1965

Source and date of commission: Officers Candidate School, January 18, 1965

Inducted into the Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame March 2009

Record of Duty Assignments:

United States Army Reserve Assignments:

Deputy, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency, Washington D.C., Sep 91-Jun 93

Command Duty Officer (1333), Command and Control Division, Mobilization Designee, Headquarters Pacific Command, Feb 85-Aug 90

Ground Operations Officer (1312), Current Operations Division, Mobilization Designee, Headquarters Pacific Command, Jan 83-Jan 85

Battalion Commander, 1st Battalion, 91st Division (training), Mar 80-Aug 82

Military Police Team Leader/Chief Umpire, 91st Military Training Command, Mar 78-Mar 80 Battalion Executive Officer, 3rd Battalion (Automotive), 91st Division, Mar 75-:Mar 78 Commanding Officer, Company C (Automotive Regiment), Apr 74-Dec 74

Active Duty Assignments:

S-2 Support Command, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Dee 71-Apr 71 Assistant G-2, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Mar 71-Nov 71

Analyst, Military Region Desk, J-2, Military Assistant Command, Vietnam, Feb 70-Feb 71 Commander, Company C, 3rd Basic Training Brigade, Fort nix, Jan 68-Jun 68

Test Evaluation & Military Support Coordinator, III Corps, Vietnam, Apr 67-Dec 67 Assistant Battalion Advisor, 5th Division, III Corp, Vietnam, Apr 67-Jun 67 Wounded in combat, shot through upper left arm, February 7, 1967

Assistant Battalion Advisor 21st Infantry Division, IV Corps, Dee 66-Feb 67

Officer in Charge, Survival Escape and Evasion Committee, Dee 65-Sep 66

Officer in Charge, Infiltration Course Committee, Jun 65-Dec 65

Platoon Leader, May 65-Jun 65

Officer in Charge, Firing Range Committee, Apr 65-May 65

Military Education:

Foreign Area Officer Orientation Course (resident), 1990

Command Duty Officer Certification Course (resident), 1985 Tactical Signal Intelligence Warfare Course (nonresident), 1985 National Security Management Course (nonresident), 1984

Military Police School, Advanced MP Branch Qualification Course (nonresident), 1981 Command and General Staff College (nonresident), 1979

Intelligence School, Officer Electronic Warfare E (resident), 1971

Language School, Vietnamese (resident), 1970

Intelligence School, Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course (resident), 1969 Intelligence School, Intel Rsch Crs (counter intelligence), 1968

Kennedy Special Warfare Center, MATA Sec/U Lev (resident), 1966

Infantry School, Ranger (resident), 1965

Infantry School, Airborne Course (resident), 1965

Infantry School, Officer Candidate School (resident), 1965

Decorations, Service Medals, and Badges:

Bronze Star Medal with One Oak Leaf Cluster, 1967 & 1971 Meritorious Service Medal, 1979

Air Medal, 1967

Purple Heart, 1967

Joint Service Commendation Medal, 1970

Army Commendation Medal with "V" Device, 1967 & 1977 Army Achievement Medal, 1981

Good Conduct Medal, 1965

Vietnam Service Medal, 1967 & 1970

Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal, 1981

Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Bronze Star, 1967 Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces Honor Medal First Class, 1968 Combat Infantry Badge, 1967

Parachutist Badge

Chronological List of Appointments:

2LT January 1965

1LT June 1966

Captain 1967

Major June 1975

Lieutenant Colonel September 1979

Colonel September 1984

2009-05-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

I was inducted into the Army Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame on 27 March 2009 at Fort Benning Georgia.

2008-02-07T21:57:00.000-08:00

MY FIRST TWO WEEKS AT SAN QUENTIN PRISON
by
Gary D. Bingham

Below is a complete summary of my personal observations and information received as a new Correctional Officer at San Quentin State Prison in June of 1973. These were my first two weeks as a California State Prison employee. Before reading this article, it should be understood that his is a historical document reflecting the conditions at San Quentin in 1973. Conditions in California State prisons have overall significantly improved since then in the areas of: Officer training and standards, inmate classification, inmate administrative discipline systems, and newly constructed modern prisons. California State Prisons continue to be very crowded. Because of the improved management in California State prisons, the institutions are significantly better then the dark old days that are described below. Though not designed for it, San Quentin was one of the state prisons in California in the early 1970's used to house violent, disruptive and escape-prone inmates. The correctional staff at San Quentin were charged with supervising angry men who were described as “dangerous,” “volatile,” “manipulative” as gang leaders or “wanna-bes.” The management thinking in those days was to control these inmates by dispersing them throughout the facilities. This was proven to be unsuccessful as the below testimonial will bear witness. These disruptive inmates are now confined to maximum security or “super-max” prisons. Separating these inmates based on their behavior has had the effect of improving the quality of life, operations and safety for the majority of inmates, staff and the public.

Though first impressions are probably misleading, it is appropriate for me to write some of my significant experiences within my first two weeks as a correctional officer (CO) at San Quentin Prison.

Like all paramilitary organizations, the uniform and its appearance, receive due consideration in evaluating a correctional officer at San Quentin. All metal on the uniform should be silver versus gold for the Correctional Lieutenant, Correctional Captain. All other accessories that are not the regulation uniform must be black. A major exception is the wet weather equipment that should be a drab color.

Sergeant P.J. Bruccoleri was our first day indoctrination guide. He led us directly in to see Warden Nelson after we had signed a paper saying that we would follow the rules and regulations of California and support the U.S. Constitution. Warden Nelson did not mince words. He directly read us the laws against giving, asking or communicating with an inmate about anything. After the reading of the laws, he welcomed us and dispatched us on our way.

The Sergeant gave us a fairly good walk through out the prison grounds. The principal advice the Sergeant gave us was to follow the four F’s, be firm, fair, friendly, but not familiar with an inmate. The Sergeant told of one story where a correctional officer became so familiar with an inmate that he brought a pistol into the prison for the inmate. Sergeant Bruccoleri told us that if an inmate asked something, that unless we knew absolutely, to answer no and that we would be correct over ninety percent of the time.

The first week as a correctional officer here is an agonizing time for all three shifts are worked, most of the time with only a few hour’s in-between to rest.

The officer staff used to guide us on orientation at the various watches were generally friendly and some reflecting a “bored” attitude.

One of our significant experiences was in B Section, South Block. Here trouble makers, self-imposed isolationists and members of two opposing Mexican American groups reside. Here these people behave (as the Sergeant stated) like animals. Every evening they burn whatever they can find in a screen in front of their cells. They also (in mass) flood their cells from their toilets with water spewing forth down all four tiers.

Sergeant Bruccoleri claimed that all correctional officers here suffer from paranoia of one degree or another.

There is currently about 2, 400 inmates at San Quentin. The population is increasing and double celling is becoming a common practice. Double celling causes increased problems. As the summer wears on, it is expected that increased heat will cause added problems.

It appears that constant altercations take place between officers and inmates. At yesterdays work formation, our Lieutenant informed us that a correctional officer in B Section, South Block, hand cuffed an inmate with hands in front and the inmate proceeded to almost strangle him.

Another interesting experience was in East block. Here over 800 inmates are housed in one building. An inmate gave me a tour of the alley (an area between the five tiers of cells where the plumbing is) and explained how that any inmate who wanted a shiv (knife) could acquire one.

In the East block the Sergeant explained how to count the inmates. Four counts are made in a twenty-four hour period. These counts are no problem if the inmates are single celled. If double celled, the inmates will play games (like hiding). The rule is to count only live breathing flesh. Dummies have been used before. The responsibility for the count is on the counter. An officer who constantly miscounts is counseled by the Captain.

Another game the inmates play is fake hangings. They also cause numerous superficial wounds on their bodies to throw off the count. The Sergeant recommended that I ignore these distractions and continue the count and later return to investigate the situation.

The inmate prison society is going strong here. In East block there were inmate vendors walking up and down tiers peddling contraband sandwiches and who knows what. The Sergeant explained that he allowed this and the inmates gave him no major problems.

Another interesting experience was supervising the meal serving line in the dinning hall. The inmates would steal all the food on the serving line if a CO was not constantly observing. Certain food items are considered critical for each meal as priority theft items. The CO brings most of his attention on these items. Inmates use various devices to distract the officer to steal food. It is not uncommon for whole platters of steaks to disappear. In south dinning hall there is a beautiful mural that an inmate painted. It is really a treasured painting of scenes.

San Quentin collects criminals that are problems for other institutions and hard core recidivists. There are various rehabilitative programs at San Quentin. In reality, San Quentin is little more than a warehouse of human flesh. An example is the East block with only six officers supervise (two are on gun walks) over 800 inmates.

Officers only feel secure when in constant sight of each other in the 13 wall gun posts, 8 gun tower posts, and other living area gun posts.

I feel that when I assume duties among the general population that there is a good chance of me being the victim of criminal physical violence.

There is a nine month probationary period in which I must on my own time acquire 53 hours of in-service training. After the probationary period, I must complete 18 hours of training annually. There is also a correctional officer’s academy that lasts two weeks with classes from 8:OO A.M. to 9:00 P.M. Daily.

the only protective device that an officer has with the general population is a whistle, which he is required to wear and blow in case trouble occurs.

An officer who was guarding a knifed inmate was found with his throat cut with his whistle clenched between his lips. Inmates’ Gibson and Justice were recently given three life sentences a piece for his murder. The inmates were trying to finish the job on the knifed inmate so he would not squeal on them.

Other wall posts are armed with a variety of rifles and pistols. As one officer told me, “The inmates allow us to run the place.” A new protective device has recently been installed for the East Block and Hospital. Cigarette box sized devices are carried in the officer’s pocket in these areas. If a problem occurs, they push a button on the device and an outside alarm and light is activated. San Quentin is about 124 years old.

It has been said that inmates enjoy doing time here. I have a lot to learn and will work hard at it.

The policy is to work a new officer in all positions. I have been told that this will take six months. The job is extremely boring at times. This is especially so on the walls and towers in the evenings.

California has a no hostage law. If I am being held, there will be no bargaining for my life.

On June 30, 1973, at approximately 2: P.M., three white inmates who were recently released from the Adjustment Center were knifed in East Block. I participated in a skin search of the inmates in East Block, searching for the culprits. None were found. It is presumed that these knifings were the work of blacks. The next day I volunteered for emergency work for it was anticipated that racial tensions would increase and that there would be trouble.

On July 1, 1973, I was assigned as an extra gun to walk the elevated cat walks throughout the prison in case of emergency. I had just covered the breakfast meal and was out in the big shed over the big yard when a shot was heard fired from the lower yard. I and another gun were dispatched immediately to cover the problem. The lower yard consists of a combination football, baseball, and track area. The blacks were in the bleachers in the Northeast. The whites were across the field to the West and were inching across the field towards the blacks. A white inmate started a dispute and an officer had fired a warning shot. On the field, between the blacks and whites were officers. The officers were trying to keep the groups apart. All groups were aware of the arrival of the extra guns. The only thing that kept the groups apart was the knowledge that the officers on the cat walks with guns would use these weapons to quell a riot. I was then dispatched to the west side of the lower yard. He blacks were arriving in groups of three to take up a strategic position behind the whites. The blacks were jockeying for a better position when I arrived. At this time I would like to note that the blacks dress and manners were that of disciplined troops. They walked in a diamond formation or variations and usually maintained 360 degree security. It reminded me of ancient Roman military formations. After I arrived at my position for a short while, a group of twelve whites arrived as a foray into the vocational garden area where the blacks were. They were led by a person nicknamed Peacock and were called Peacock’s Gang. Peacock is a blond haired young man who has his hair combed back and it rose high above his head. The gang proceeded to taunt me and ask when the movies would start. The blacks in the area became very tense and nervous. Nothing occurred because of the increased gun power in the area.

At lunch time I was called back to cover the mess hall. The lunch was conspicuous for the noticeable absence of blacks. That afternoon, I was assigned back to the upper yard. The upper yard is an area 100 yards by 100 yards. It is surrounded by the North Block, East Block, South Block, and dinning hall. The increased tension could be felt. At approximately 2:00 P.M., strategic maneuvering began again on the upper yard. The lines that formed for entrance into the East Block 4:30 P.M. count had all blacks in front. It appeared that the plan was to have whites fall in behind these blacks and then another group of blacks closes in from the rear. This was not successful because of the increased amount of officers with guns on the cat walk.

It was noteworthy that during these increased tensions on the big yard, Black Muslims formed a series of circles within circles with their religious leader in the center. It is presumed that this tension will continue until everyone is satisfied that enough blood has been expended.

On Sunday night, July 1, 1973, I was assigned as B Section, South Block gun. B Section is where discipline problems and self isolationists are placed. The section is composed of five tiers of cells, fifty cells to a tier. In front of the cells is a walkway. Next to the walkway is hand railing which is completely wired fenced to keep things from going over the tier to the main floor. The walkways up the tiers are also fenced in and locked at the ends. The officers who work in the section are also completely fenced in towards the entrance of the section. This is truly a prison within a prison. No inmate is let out of his cell unless he is handcuffed with hands behind his back and at least two officers are present.

The inmates behaved as they were treated. They called me assorted names. After I ignored them for a time, they quit doing this. The inmates throw their trash outside their cells. Trash was everywhere. I counted four mice at different times in the section. The inmates had a fairly elaborate communication system. Outside their cells was a long spliced cloth string that ran the length of the tiers. Messages or letters were written and attached to the string. This system was quite functional as a I witnessed many messages and packages being passed in front of the cells in this fashion.

The Correctional Officers in this section appeared quite scared. The preceding week two cell bars were found sawed. Plans were rumored for an uprising in this section. It is believed that any uprising in East Block or B Section would result in the death of the officers.

Because of the time required B Section staff rarely had the inmates shower themselves. There is much animosity in this section and only a very small number inmates shower at any given time.

The responsibility of the B Section gun is to cover the officers always in all dealings with the inmates. I almost fired my weapon while in this job because an officer slipped and fell in a cell. It appeared that inmate had dragged him in. The officers rely heavily on the gun officer in this section for their personal security.

I was informed that in 1966, an Officer Walter had brought a pistol, rounds of ammunition, and a knife into the prison for inmates. Walters had a degree in psychology and had a reputation for being a sharp officer. This story was told to me as an example on why not to become too familiar with inmates.
The rifle that I carried in B Section was not the normal rifle carried in the prison. It is a 30/30 lever action with no safety. It is definitely meant for very fast action to save an inmate or officer.

Witnessing B Section, it can be truly understood what the theory of “Less Eligibility” (people in prison deserve less than the lowest member of society) is all about.

While I was in B Section, an inmate placed numerous objects in front of his cell door and then flooded it by clogging his commode and sink. After a period of time, the inmate was able to swim in his cell because the water was that high. The inmates in this section are constantly flooding their cells and water drips down the tiers. The inmates there also throw paper in front of their cells and light it. I saw over four fires in the cell block at one time. The officers let them burn for the lack of man power to accomplish their job and play games like this with the inmates.

It is now probably the best time to put a few words on paper about the advice that I have received here from my fellow officers. Each officer has varied in the way that he has recommenced that I deal with inmates. Some have told me to say no to questions or to leave the institution now. Others have told me to say that I am busy now and will try to satisfy the inmates request later. The point that is given as predominate advice is to be consistent. The inmates will never know whether an officer is in a bad or a good mood because he is so unpredictable. This type of officer has great difficulties with inmates and will be labeled by the inmates for his character. Other advice is that a promise should never be made that can not or will not be kept.

It has also been told to me that when making checks to keep a cow bell around my neck. I am most likely to be knifed if I intrude unexpectedly on a homosexual affair, if a convict is shooting up with narcotics or any time I appear without being expected. If I notice bars that have been cut or anything unusual, I should pass by the situation without hesitation and return with suitable reinforcements. I have been told repeatedly that there are no heroes (Correctional Officers) in the prison. This is not covered in our job description and monthly wages. Another officer told me to forget anything physical with the inmates for they push steel (lift weights) every day and no officer is a match for them alone. Sergeant Brown (Watch Sergeant) has told me that during increased inmate tension to keep my back to the wall.

While supervising in the dinning hall, I have been instructed to not allow any inmate to steal any food. Another officer in the dinning hall told me to allow the servers to steal a little bit for it was difficult to get people to serve. Sergeant Brown has told me that I will never catch everyone who steals in the dinning hall and that I should just do the best I can. The predominate advice that I have received in the mess hall is to avoid any major confrontations with inmates there because it is the most sensitive area in the prison for riots. I am instructed to note the troublesome inmate and discuss the situation with him later on the yard.

Many of the older officers have described inmates and many of their fellow officers in one word: “assholes”. I presume this asshole person does not live up to standards.

Lieutenant W. H. Faust has told us to be on our guard when increased tensions occur and to stand to the side of the cell when opening it. This will allow the gun man a good shot if an inmate causes problems.

Probably the most varied advice that I have received is when to fire my weapon. Each officer has told me a different story. It appears that the right action will depend on where a person is located at and the nature of the disturbance. I was told by one officer that Warden Nelson has instructed not to fire even if an officer is involved unless a weapon is seen that can be considered deadly. A warning shot is in order at any time physical violence is suspected, while some have told me to blow my whistle first. The older officer gun man on the big yard has instructed me to fire a warning shot and then shoot the aggressor if the situation has not stopped by then. They also told me to always shoot if an officer is involved. Another officer told me to never shoot an inmate in his cell. Other officers have instructed me not to shoot an inmate attempting to escape unless it is reasonable that he will be successful in his attempt. Ultimately, the decision will be mine and I must be prepared to take the responsibility for this decision. One officer told me that no officer has ever been found guilty in California for shooting an inmate.

Advice on how inmates will deal with me have also varied. Inmates are generally reputed to despise all officers and those in the honor units are the same as those in the worst sections of the prison. They are just slicker at it. Inmates are supposed to continually play games with officers, especially new officers. A officer who has established a good reputation is supposedly better able to get along with inmates. Other officers have told me that if an officer does his job, he will have to be taken away from the general population of prisoners, because they will try to kill him. Disliked officers will have feces and urine thrown at them in the living areas from cells. Inmates will test new officers.

Other stories that I have heard concern the officers who purposely sabotage the custodial effort. Most of these take the form of ammunition that has been tampered with and the powder removed, gum wrappers in the mussels of weapons, etc. I have found a prayer written in one of the position instruction books at wall post number five. I have been told that a theological school is nearby and some the students have been employed here. These students have stated on occasion that they would not fire their weapons.

Many older officers have express dissatisfaction with the hiring of women as officers. These officers feel that the women could not hold their own in a tough physical situation and that they have restricted assignments that are not equitable to the other male officers.

Officers in the institution appear to be qualified for their jobs or at least for the way the jobs are designed (pure custody). Older or new officers and some females are placed on the wall and tower gun posts. The older officers are probably placed in these positions to prevent a heart attack or similar disability. The younger officers are placed there to judge their reliability before being placed with the general inmate population. A number of the older officers who have permanent assignments in the tower have beautified their towers and installed cabinets. One officer on six wall keeps a significant amount of bird feed there and enjoys feeding the birds during the day. He cautioned me to not harm his birds one day when I replaced him. I drank out of a cup he had hanging in his post one day and later discovered that he used it to feed the birds and gagged.

My Employment for 27 years in the Calif. Dept. Of Corrections

2008-02-07T20:58:00.000-08:00

My Picture as a Retired Associate Warden Teaching College Classes

The California Correctional Institution-Tehachapi

Me as a Lieutenant Going to Work on My Shift at the Correctional Training Facility

Correctional Training Facility-Soledad

"My Twenty Seven Years as an Employee in The California Department of Corrections "

It was August 29, 1973, I had reported to work for the evening watch (third watch) at San Quentin and was briefed by Lieutenant Bill Faust while standing in formation to be very careful because of the continual racial unrest in the prison and the constant rumors that inmate violence could take place at any time. That evening was my first night in a new assignment as one of two gunmen assigned to East Block. East Block is a very large inmate housing block where up to 700 very disruptive inmates were assigned. The cells were inside a very large building called East Block. A building within a building. On the inside of the exterior building, are walkways where two Correctional Officers work in opposite ends of the building providing gun coverage for the movements of staff and inmates. To get to this position like all gun positions in the prison involved walking through a labyrinth of walkways (up, down ladders, doors, stairs, ramps, etc.). To get to these positions, almost all gunners had to walk through the balcony gun position and Officer WG was the evening watch officer in this position. I informed him where I was going and he told me to be ready for action. WG instructed me to put a round in the chamber of the O5 carbine rifle I was issued and to take the safety off. I had carried this same weapon through much of my first tour of Vietnam in the U.S. Army and was very familiar with it. I also carried a 38 revolver. Officer WG had allegedly shot over sixteen inmates over the years and could not safely work on the ground with the inmates. After climbing and descending many stairs, I arrived in my position in the rear of East Block on the walk ways or the side of the gun block. The other gunner who was the regular gunner in the block told me where my area of responsibility was located and briefly explained my duties.

Shortly after I assumed the duties of the position, yard recall was called and the inmates were called to return to their cells from the yard and were to be counted before the routine feeding and showering would take place. The staff had successfully locked one half of the unit (yard side) into their cells when I observed many inmates running on the yard side and some inmates started to stare at me. I ran to the end of the tier on the yard side and observed two inmates struggling with each other. A Mexican inmate was holding a large dagger with red substance highly visible on the tip. A black inmate was the apparent victim of the stabbing and was grasping onto the Mexican inmate. I later learned that the aggressor inmate was a Mexican gang Member and was attacking , a Black Guerrilla gang member from another gang. The attack was a sanctioned attack by the Mexican gang for unknown reasons. I immediately shot a round from the carbine in the ceiling of the housing block as a warning shot (our procedures at the time). I then proceeded down the gun walk to a position directly over the struggling inmates, blew my whistle, and yelled for them to stop. Both inmates ignored my warnings. The Sergeant and three correctional officers had arrived near the knife fighting inmates. Also, there were a large group of inmates near the area. The inmates assigned to the bay side of the housing unit had not been secured in their cells yet and gathered to watch the spectacle of the knife fighting inmates. The evening’s entertainment needed to be watched by them to break up the boredom of prison life. All the yard side inmates had spectator visibility to the spectacle from inside their cells which they had been locked into. It was very crowded with people and I was very worried about shooting non involved people with ricocheted rounds if I fired the rifle. Finally, the Sergeant yelled at me “shoot you son of a bitch”. I immediately jumped up on the railing, second rung, shot the Mexican inmate in the upper leg butt area and he dropped to the floor. The Black inmate then picked up the knife which had been dropped by the Mexican inmate and proceeded to attempt to attack the Mexican inmate who lay on the cement. I then shot the Black inmate in the same body area as the Mexican inmate. I then assisted staff to supervise the locking up of the remaining inmates. The injured inmates were carried by other inmates to the prisons hospital for treatment. They both survived these gun shot wounds. The inmates in the cell block were all locked up and then the accumulated hatred was released. Seeing me efficiently shoot these two inmates caused the inmates to think of their situations in a shooting gallery and they vented this resentment on me. I was a target for anything and everything they could throw at me. Nothing struck me because of the distance involved and I was easily able to dodge the thrown items. The large housing unit seemed to heave with resentment by the caged inmates. I was told to stay at the end of the tier out of sight of the celled inmates until I could be relieved and so I could write my report. After being relieved, an Associate Warden who had been called in talked to me. He told me that if I had done what had been reported to him that I did a very good job. He added that if I had not, I had better watch out. Enlightened leadership at its best. I later learned that my nick name after this was “two gun”. I was also told that the Mexican Prison Gang had put a contract out on my life. It was for two cartons of cigarettes. Shortly afterwards, as I walked to B Section one day, I was surrounded by four Mexican inmates with rolled newspapers who wanted to talk to me. This was directly under the upper yard gunman. The inmates maneuvered to have access to my back. I had a large leather satchel and constantly moved as I talked to them. They wanted to talk to me about shooting the Mexican inmate. I told them some calculated lies to lesson their desire to stab me. I told them I had five children, that I was Catholic, that I was ordered to shoot inmate Bonilla by the Sergeant and shot him for the sole purpose of preserving my job which I needed to feed my family. It seemed to work, after a while they seemed to feel there would be no honor in stabbing such a pathetic personality such as myself.

When I was subsequently promoted to Counselor, the Mexican inmate who I had shot was placed on my case load and I did his board report for his appearance before the Adult Authority to consider him for parole. The Head of the Adult Authority Mr. Ray Procunier heard the case for the Board in the B Section Segregation Unit. I explained to Mr. Procunier why the Mexican inmate was in segregation and the Mexican inmate was granted an immediate parole based on an approved parole plan. I thought my wounding the Mexican inmate had facilitated his rehabilitation, a concern in those days. California Penal Code was subsequently changed to remove the word rehabilitation and inmates were to be committed to prison for punishment per the revised code. I think the change to the Penal Code has had a long range negative ramification to the inmates incarcerated in California Prisons. Rehabilitation has been added back into the code in 2006.

I started with the California Department of Corrections in June 1973 at San Quentin State Prison located in Marine County, California. I had graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1973 with a bachelors degree in Criminal Justice, Corrections emphasis. My mentor professor in Nebraska was a person named James Caine. Mr. Caine had been employed by the New York Department of Corrections and was an Irish liberal. He offered a very liberal philosophy, promoting rehabilitation philosophy which was an overall good philosophy for me to receive considering the prospective that I have developed after twenty seven years of prison work.
Mr. Caine emphasized the destructiveness of the system and that we should try to make a difference in the lives of the inmates by offering them hope and a conviction that they could change their lives. By our personal believe in their ability to change, the inmate would find the strength to change and would change. I find this proposal in theory as valid today as it was when Mr. Caine taught it to me in 1973. Implementing it is mostly impractical considering our present resources or at least the way the resources are presently allocated.

The time that I started to work at San Quentin was shortly after the escape attempt of George Jackson and the attempted escape at the Marine County Court House. The trial was still on going for those involved in the Marine County Court House shoot out. Unfortunately for me, I have the same last name as the attorney who is suspected of bringing the pistol into George Jackson that facilitated his escape attempt. The attorney’s name is Steve Bingham. When Warden Reese arrived from Duel Vocational Institution, in classes for employees, he would sometimes mistakenly refer to me as Steve Bingham which I would correct him on. The environment at San Quentin was very tense, distrustful, and bruising for the staff and inmates alike. Please see my descriptive journal of my first two weeks at San Quentin.

I soon realized that the staff at San Quentin was different people then anything I had experienced in any other organization that I had been in. San Quentin staff at the time was survivors. These staff had experienced a drastic liberalizing of policies towards inmates without an increase in administrative sanctions or increased numbers of staff to control the inmates. The staff that survived who did not quit or go off on disability retirement for stress reasons had developed emotional armor protection to insulate themselves from the constant attacks from the inmates and the apparent lack of support from top management. The system has constantly improved from this very low point in California Prison history. The staff that were at San Quentin and other key California Prisons (Folsom, DVI, Soledad) designated to manage the negative behaving inmates in the state at that time were frequently extreme personalities onto themselves. Managers of these prisons were thought to be strong men that in many cases were perceived to bend the rules themselves to control the strong personalities of the employees that they supervised when normal methods did not seem to work. The other perspective is that these managers and their staffs had not developed the administrative skills and methods to properly do the job. Many times the attorneys and Union officials that represented employees would destroy the disciplinary cases against employees who were charged with misbehaving. This often was the result of the ineptness of the Prison Managers involved or the Managers would be intimidated to capitulate their case against the employee or both.

I tested for the position of Correctional Officer at the California Medical Facility (CMF) at Vacaville and told them I would be willing to start to work at San Quentin or CMF. San Quentin had a turnover of staff that at various times ran from forty to sixty percent a year. San Quentin staff asked me if I wanted a job right away. I said yes. I needed a job. Less then a month from when I graduated from college in Nebraska, I was working as a Correctional Officer at San Quentin. In those days, each prison operated their own hiring of most staff at the entry level. There were no centralized state lists as there are now. The local prison was also responsible to train those staff they hired. Training of staff who work in prisons still remains a problem for all classifications, this is a problem because of a lack of uniform approach to the training and is compounded by constantly changing policies. It was a new policy based on state law that we as Correctional Officers were to receive formal Peace Officer training. San Quentin was in the process of training all their Correctional Officers at the time I hired on to meet this standard. It is referred to Penal Code 832 training. I ended up receiving this training twice, once at San Quentin and again at the California Rehabilitation Center at Norco California.

The wages at that time were small in comparison to today prison employees wages thanks to the Correctional Officers Union. I qualified for welfare in Marine County and actually applied for it. My claim was not allowed because we had too much personal property and savings. I was encouraged by a co worker Correctional Officer to put in for limited term Correctional Counselor I. I did it. The Business Manager (Leo Shepherd) called me into his office and informed me that if I could write a successful description of how I met the states qualifications to become a Counselor, he would hire me as a limited term counselor. Mr. Shepherd would send my qualification justification to Sacramento and if they approved it, he would approve my appointment. I wrote that I had provided Vocational Training for Army Basic Trainees as a Basic Training Company Commander at Fort Dix New Jersey and other assignments I had in the Army. Sacramento staff preapproved my qualifications to take the examination and I was appointed as a limited term Counselor with an Office in the Adjustment Center. This was the prisons maximum security unit where the worst acting out inmates are kept. In this building, simple activities were time consuming because of the heightened security procedures. Two separate Correctional Officers were required to open doors for me before I could go to the toilet. The Adjustment Center was that secure. This is the same building that inmate George Jackson had made his unsuccessful attempt to escape from prison. I later learned that Counselor I, Arnie Gerritsen, had sifted through the stack of applications for counselor and had selected my application from the pile. He saw my war record and thought I could handle the assignment and not easily “stress out”. Arni’s nick name is “hippie freak”. Arnie had long hair (for prison standards), was at least 6' 2" and an intellectual. He had two masters degrees and lived on a houseboat in Sausalito. Arnie was under promoted throughout his career because of his refusal to move for promotion and he experienced a large break in state service when he traveled the world for a period of time. Arnie was my sounding board to develop and survive in prison. He was a soft spoken, nonself promoter, always polite. One of my life’s regrets is that I did not attend Arnie’s retirement party and say good by to him.

One day Arnie and I were in the Adjustment Center (AC) and Correctional Officer Willie Martin saw inmates brawling in the AC yard from his position as a gunman inside North Block. Willie Martin stuck his rifle through a crack in the wall and rapidly fired his weapon at no particular target. Arnie wanted to respond by running out in the yard where the shots were being fired. I restrained him saying that I would be happy to as soon as Willie Martin stopped pulling the trigger of the rifle. Officer Willie Martin was a famous San Quentin personality at the time.

Those of us that worked with the inmates in the Administrative Segregation Units at San Quentin (Adjustment Center, Death Row, B Section) had our time kept by the uniformed custody staff instead of with the rest of the counselors for the general population. It was a matter of trust. Regular counselors were not necessarily trusted to work with the administrative segregation inmates or so it was inferred to me. I had proven my trust after shooting the two inmates.
I learned a valuable lesson very soon after being employed at San Quentin. I put in a suggestion to improve communication at the prison by having a communication seminar where employees from the various staff sections met in a class situations with me as a moderator and shared the duties of their assignments. I coordinated this activity and it took place. There is a continual problem in prison because of its rigid hierarchal structure (pyramid) to have adequate lateral communication. The lesson I learned was that just because a Warden says staff shall do a certain task, does not mean that the staff will do what they are told to do. I had a signed letter from the Warden that the Managers would cooperate with me and provide a staff member to participate in the training. Constantly I would call managers who would not cooperate and I worked very hard to get them to participate. The next year, when the prisons In-Service Training staff wanted me to coordinate this training again, I refused. I responded that I do not mind working; but, I viewed this as self destructive behavior.

My lessons regarding inmates were learned as most staff learn them, through the school of hard knocks. The inmates on my case load were the trouble makers of the institutions. Prison gang members, inmates with enemies in the general population, inmates who were emotionally very unsound and needed to be protected from other inmates, inmates who had committed aggressive behavior against other inmates or staff. My case load was primarily in B Section. B Section was a section in South Block (famous for being one of the largest prison blocks in the world. B Section had five tiers of fifty cells each stacked one on top of the other. This was a dangerous unit for staff and inmates. After serving in the military, my primary motivation for entering the prison service was to help other people. The military’s primary mission is to train to kill other people and take the objective. I was tired of this destructive goal and wanted to be a positive force in people’s lives. I came to the realization at San Quentin that my personal goal would not be reached with the very self destructive people that end up being incarcerated in prison. I would constantly try to persuade inmates to be less self destructive and chose an alternate course. I found that I was hurting myself in the process. At the inmates level of self destructiveness, I discovered that for my own safety, it was best that in many cases that I stand to the side and witness and document their destructiveness and not stand in their path. We as a system may be able to change the course of their lives. The methods to make these changes are illegal under our present constitution. These highly self destructive criminals require a level of change that would involve very severe methods to meet their very high deviancy level. Unfortunately, by making the noneffort that we do now, society is left unprotected from many of these strong criminal characters future criminal behavior. Many of these criminals do life on installments. Of the approximate present inmate population of 173, 000, more then 100,000 convicted criminals are released each year on parole to continue their criminal activities. Only a handful receive any prerelease education. The system contributes to their destructive life’s. Parole supervision has proven ineffective to stop their criminal acts. The Parole Agent would have to be with them twenty four hours a day to prevent their criminal behavior.

The other factor for me to be satisfied by this frequently dangerous work is that it acted as a stabilizing factor in my life. It reminded me of the great fears I experienced in Vietnam (Infantry Solider, I was shot in Vietnam). The work allowed me to focus, remove the emotional torment that I would experience reflecting back on the very aggressive feelings that I had developed from the military and Vietnam. As long as they (the inmates and staff) were not shooting at me, it was not a significant threat. It was dangerous enough to help me relax.

Of all the criminals that I have worked with, the one that stands out is inmate CT. Inmate CT had a measured IQ of over 160. He had three murder first convictions, two of which were for behavior in prison. His first murder was a gas station attendant who CT executed in the gas stations rest room by having him kneel down and shooting him in the head. The second murder was at North Facility at Soledad and was a gang killing for the Mexican Mafia. The last murder was in the Adjustment Center at San Quentin where CT made a zip gun that he successfully used to kill a Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) gang member. CT had enemies among the inmate gangs BGF, Aryan Brotherhood, Mexican Mafia, and Nuestra Familia. Inmate CT was a placement nightmare and was destined to stay the rest of his life in prison. CT was also destined to spent his life in segregation units. What made CT so different is his intellect. CT successfully writes poetry under a pseudonym and makes money at it. The other area that makes him different are my attempts to help him with a recurring dream that he had and interpreting it. I used Gestalt techniques. Inmate CT was dreaming that he was in a burning hotel and that he would see blood running down the stairs. After many discussions, CT figured out that the dream meant that the only way he would leave prison was if he died and that was his blood running down the steps. Also, CT would have dreams of showing up at my house. Inmate CT is over six feet tall, bisexual. with his long hair partially covering his lean young face. This was frightening for me to think of. CT was subsequently transferred to Soledad and when I was effectively supervising some inmates there later in my career (promoted to lieutenant) and they were planning to hurt me, he let them know that it was not in their best interests to hurt me in any way. CT’s threat with them had credibility.

At San Quentin, a manager named Bill Yoder transferred to us from the Correctional Training Facility and was placed in charge of the problem inmates in the segregation units that I worked. Though I only worked with Mr. Yoder a short while in at San Quentin, he impressed me with his integrity, forthrightness, and determination. Mr. Yoder later transferred to the Prison at Sierra, where he died at an early age because a hereditary disease to one of his organs. I will write briefly about the favorable leaders which influenced me through my career through these memories. Mr. Yoder indicated that he stood up for ethical principals at the Correctional Training Facility with Superintendent ST and Mr. ST had assigned him to manage warehouses to get him out of the way.

My decision to leave my assignment in B Section San Quentin was made for me. An excessive amount of counselors had been hired to staff the Olsen Unit, a special group of Counselors to conduct file reviews for inmates. This was in response to a court order. It was thought that a hoard of inmates would request this review and that was the motivation for the large number of hires. It was determined that I was an excess Counselor. I had seniority as a Counselor and this was less important then the total amount of time of state service (including other state classifications). I was informed that Chief Deputy Warden George Sumner at the Correctional Training Facility (Soledad) was interested in hiring me based on his observations of my performance at reviews of Segregation cases at San Quentin. I was warned that going to Soledad could be a mistake because of the ruthless management team there and how that routine civil service rules were not followed. I seriously miscalculated the utter ruthlessness, corruptness, and blatant disregard for civil service rules that could exist at a California State Prison as I found them to exist at Soledad under the management of Superintendents. At Soledad, like President Nixon’s administration on a national level, there was a enemies list. An employee was part of the “car”, top clique of staff, were not aligned with anyone, or they were on the enemies list. In reality, if an employee was not part of the in group “car” they were vulnerable to become a target for abuse by supervisors and managers. The prison environment is filled with tension and this added negative aspect caused many employees to become casualties. An example of this is an employee who was part of the security squad. The security squad is usually an elite team of Correctional Officers lead by a sergeant who does special intense searches and, special assignments. This Correctional Officer had lost this prestige assignment and missing his celebrity status, brought a gun in, planted it in an inmates cell, and then pretended to find it. The Officer later admitted to doing this act and lost his job. Of late, the security squad members have become so specialized that they are not used to assist line operations any more and this is unfortunate. They have become unofficial investigators with special training.

The Superintendent had collected managers whose primary purpose in life was to please him and that meant that civil service procedures may not be followed regarding appointments, union contracts. The Personnel Section at Soledad was infamous for its lack of organization and the maintenance of basic records. The impression I had of the Superintendent was very much like the Wizard in the movie Wizard of Oz. The Superintendent ST had no contact with us underlings that I observed. The prison overall ran somewhat smoothly until the 1979 inmate riots at the North part of the prison which I was involved in. On arrival at Soledad, I was immediately assigned into the Administrative Segregation Unit (O Wing), the same type of assignment that I had at San Quentin. I really wanted a more rounded Counselor experience then the Administrative Segregation Unit offered. I was able to get George Sumner, on his last week at Soledad, on his way to be the Warden at San Quentin, to agree to my transfer to the General Population at Central and was assigned to D Wing. The Prison is broken up into three major areas, North, Central, and South. I enjoyed the change and had my own inmate counseling group that met weekly. It was challenging. I had joined an Army Reserve Unit while at San Quentin and maintained my membership in the Reserves in my move to Soledad. I found that my state job left plenty of time to where I wanted more challenges.

An example of some of the encounters we would have with Administrators at Soledad was the requirement to attend morning meetings. Current information would be shared with us. These meetings would take place daily. Program Administrator FG would attend these meetings. Mr. FG would frequently refer to counselors (referring to me and other counselors) as “fucking Counselors” in meetings that I was required to attend. I took offense to his statements. I vowed to not let him get away with this very impolite behavior anymore. At a subsequent meeting Mr. FG again made this reference and when it became my turn to talk I read a section of the rules which did not allow profanity to be stated on the grounds of the prison and told Mr. FG that I did not say “fucking Program Administrators” and I did not expect to be spoken to like that in a meeting. I went into detail regarding how it made me feel when he said this (demeaned, helpless). Mr. FG never said a word of profanity in my presence again and shortly there after retired for stress reasons. At the many meetings that I have attended in the California Department of Corrections, supervisors, and managers significantly failed the staff by not being trained in ethical behavior and passing this onto their subordinates. It is very hard to talk about ethics when the leader is practicing unethical behavior which was too common a behavior mode at Soledad during the period of time that I worked there (eight and a half years). In the year 2000, the year I retired, this was such a continuing hot issue that Sacramento managers had ordered that small ethics cards be carried by all employees to remind them what was ethical behavior. Per Warden Nice Guy, the cards were in the warehouse waiting to be issued to the prisons employees at the time of my retirement.

As a Counselor at Soledad, I was favorably influenced by two of our supervisors (John Weaver and Dan Byrd(deceased). Mr. John Weaver was promoted to Program Administrator from Folsom State Prison where he previously had been employed. Mr. Weaver worked hard to be ethical in his decision making under very trying working conditions. Mr. Weaver was reassigned four times at Soledad before he was able to transfer back to Folsom State Prison. Mr. Weaver afterwards become a staff member with the Board of Prison terms. I consider myself his personal friend and he attended my retirement party.

Mr. Dan Byrd was my Supervising Counselor for a period of time at Soledad. Mr. Byrd has a very likeable personality and also was very ethical in his decision making. Dan would promote to the position of Correctional Counselor III and would visit prisons from his assignment in Sacramento and approve inmates to be transferred from one prison to another. Mr. Byrd and Mr. Weaver would talk with me about their negative experiences that we shared at Soledad. These very strong experiences caused both these people to avoid future promotional opportunities working as staff in a California State Prison.

I also become close friends with Correctional Administrator (Associate Warden Joe Marquez (deceased)) while working at Soledad. Mr. Marquez and I car pooled for two years together. Mr. Marquez was a strong leader who was subsequently promoted to Warden. Mr. Marquez worked hard not to do unethical acts while working with some managers at Soledad who managed using corrupt practices.

After five years of Counseling work in California State Prisons, I was “burnt out” doing this type of work. I needed a new type of work to stay stimulated. I applied for promotion to Correctional Program Supervisor III . This position had the same duties as a Correctional Lieutenant and also supervised Officers who did case work functions (Counselor functions) on a part time basis. The state accepted my supervision experience in the Army or I would not have qualified for the test. This was the last test as of this writing (2000) where an actual test was given for supervisors promotion. The State threw out the test process after this because they could not meet their diversified work force goals when a written test was administered as part of the promotion process. Future tests consisted of an oral interview only.

I was a newly hired Lieutenant and assigned to supervise the Third Watch (evening watch) for the Management Control Unit (MCU), Protective Housing Unit (PHU) II and I. We had famous
criminals such as Sirhan Sirhan, and Juan Corona in these units and many dangerous gang members and, leaders. One evening, in May 1978, I received a report that inmate Davis would not lock up. Inmate Davis was a Black Guerilla Family member and had insulted a Mexican Mafia member that day and he was in great fear for his life. We only knew at that time that he would not lock up. Inmate Davis did not volunteer the rest of the information at the time. Inmate Davis would prove to be a great source of Correctional Education for me this evening. We talked to inmate Davis repeatedly. Davis wanted to go to the Security Housing Unit for his personal protection and we did not know it. I contacted the Watch Commander and asked for permission to move inmate Davis to the Segregation Unit. This request was denied because the Segregation Unit was filled. I told the Watch Commander that our plan was then to place inmate Davis back into his cell by using force. Six of us surrounded inmate Davis and we put him back in his cell. Davis is a very large inmate and four of us were injured in this incident. Inmate Davis was later that evening placed in the Administrative Segregation Unit at his request. Davis cooperated with this move. I learned a number of lessons from this incident. The primary lesson is to use every trick, deception, etc. at my disposal to avoid violence in the performance of my duties, especially if it could result in a staff person being injured. Inmate Davis lessons helped me the rest of my career avoid staff being injured. I should have lied to inmate Davis to get him in restraints. I should have been more forceful and talked to the Administrative Officer of the Day and insisted that a cell have been made available in the Segregation Unit for inmate Davis. Davis had a history of two prior staff assaults.

The CPS program was moved to North at Soledad in 1978. In one section of North, an experiment had taken place where very difficult management inmates were placed in a general population and inmate peer pressure was to be used to control the inmates. An inmate named “Chili Red” was the primary inmate used to control the unit. Chili Red was a very large inmate. Staff felt that administrators had given Chili Red special favors to induce him to fill this role for management. He was given a desk in his cell and an executive chair to go with it. Also, it was rumored that slightly build inmates were put in his cell at his request for his sexual pleasure. An Administrator named Unknown was the alleged primary architect for this unit. Mr. Unknown was probably not disciplined for this unit because he was following orders from above. Retired Warden Joe Marquez would tell me that Mr. Unknown would adopt the morals of whoever supervised him. Mr. Unknown was known to be a very ambitious, braggadocio personality who was feared and disliked by many. I will write more about Mr. Unknown later.

When this Unit was found to be inappropriate, the disruptive inmates that had been sent to be housed in the unit were merely released to the General Population to coexist. The very nature of these inmates would not let them get along with each other. They were trouble makers of the worst sort. Within the next year, the California Prison System went to a classification scoring system and up to sixty percent of these inmates were transferred to Folsom State Prison and other prisons designed to house the highest custody level inmates. This is the environment that I found myself in as a relief Lieutenant for both units at Soledad, North when the CPS program was transferred there in 1978. We were in a state of constant lock downs with minimal inmate movement from their assigned cells allowed because as soon as they would be released, they would stab, and assault each other. We spent most of the time cell feeding the inmates. This is a procedure where we would bring a tray of food to the cell door of the inmate and feed them in their cells. This is usually reserved only for inmates in administrative segregation units. I bought a nice green apron to wear while serving the food so I would not get my uniform dirty. We were short staff to properly conduct our duties and I needed to serve up the food to facilitate the feeding process.

On a day in 1979, I reported to work for the Third Watch as usual and was told that one of the units had been released from lock down status. That usually put fear into hearts of the uniform custody staff because we expected a riot shortly after this release. We were not disappointed that night. I was summoned from the housing units where I was conducting inmate disciplinary hearings to come to central control. I was advised by the control Sergeant that a major riot was taking place in Shasta Hall and that I was expected to bring the gun into the Hall so the Lieutenant on duty could start shooting the rioting inmates with bird shot to get control of the situation. I drew the weapon, drove the state vehicle to the back of the building, unlocked the gates and handed the shot gun and ammunition to Lieutenant Roy Castro (nicked name Roy Boy). Lieutenant Castro emptied the shot gun and all its ammunition on the rioting inmates with no effect. I returned to Central Control and was immediately summoned to the gym where the inmates watching a movie had heard about the riot in Shasta Hall and wanted to get involved. We had just started to carry a wounded inmate to the infirmary when I was called away to go to the gym. Officer Lathinghouse and I entered the side doors of the gym and discovered the emergency lights on, with inmates sprawled on the gym floor. The Gunmen had fired and ordered the inmates to get down on the floor in a prone position. There was only two of us with approximately 200 inmates in the gym. I had to think quickly or lose control of the situation. I ordered the Whites, Blacks and Mexicans to separate corners of the gym and Office Lathinghouse and I stood between the Black inmates and the Mexican inmates and sweated. I yelled the orders and the inmates thought I was in charge. We did not have the numbers of staff to enforce my orders if the inmates challenged them. Other staff started to show up and I had them search the inmates and send the inmates to their assigned housing units. This was a big hoax also and purchased more time until more staff could arrive and handle the situation. The siren was activated and on grounds and off duty staff started arriving and we started taking control of situation. The Mexicans had ambushed the blacks with weapons in one of the large housing units. Some of the Mexican inmates were using a typewriter to pound the head of a black inmate. Staff later recounted this in great detail to me and their frustration that they did not have the weapons, equipment or the additional staff to help this inmate. The inmate was in the hospital for an extended period of time and mentally probably never recovered.

During this period of my life, it seemed that I was caught up in constant violent confrontations with inmates. After assisting in serving a meal, I would hear disciplinary reports. Some days I would talk up to six inmates out of using violence against staff. The staff were mostly demoralized. We had a lot of overtime and staff had to be ordered to work the overtime. To get days off, the staff would call in sick which would compound the problem. Three of us lieutenants did not transfer from the prison to another prison at that time or go on extended sick leave (Lieutenant Gene Perez, Lieutenant Ed Russell and myself). Other lieutenants routinely transferred to other prisons to get out of the violence. In many ways, all three of us may suffer from a delayed stress reaction because of these experiences. I and others were at times excessively aggressive with top management when we thought they were acting inappropriately. We had taken enough and we were going to communicate unfairness, incorrect situations, at least as we perceived it. Mr. Unknown informally urged us to bend the rules to control the inmates. I would not. I was told through the grape vine that it was being considered to have marijuana planted in my car to “get me”. I responded by putting out a counter rumor that if such thinking did not cease that me, as a crazed Vietnam Veteran, I would respond in a such a manner as to be as lawless as the threat against me implied. The threats against me immediately stopped, at least to take an illegal action against me. I was still fair game for retaliation. Lieutenant CJ’s career end was a case study.

CJ came to us from San Quentin. CJ was an ex-underwater demolition team member for the Navy. He was brought in to save us at Soledad. It was not said directly what CJ would do that we were not doing. We believed that he may use inappropriate violence against the inmates. The rest of the Lieutenants knew this was illegal and would not be approached about it. CJ was undergoing disciplinary action because in broad day light, he hauled an inmate across the yard in hand cuffs and then struck the inmate in plain view of the other inmates who were locked in their cells. One day, CJ without warning lost control while still wearing his inmate feeding clothes (apron, hair net) and walked to the Administrative Office area of North and threw his keys at Mr. Unknown and quit. CJ had enough of working in a prison, a feeling that I shared with him. Shortly thereafter, the Department of Corrections switched to a classification scoring system and transferred most of the inmates at CTF-North to other prisons with higher custody. At Soledad in those terrible days, Sergeants would promote to Lieutenant from other prisons and then return to the previous prisons as soon as possible because of the terrible working conditions. Their probation period would end in six months and then we would see their names disappear from the assignment rosters.

One of my all time favorite managers in the Department of Corrections is Program Administrator Famous O. Wade. We still trade Christmas cards. Mr. Wade is a retired Sergeant Major from the U.S. Army who has survived the Bataan Death March in the Phillippines during World War II. Mr. Wade is a survivor. Mr. Wade was always ethical in his behavior. In the years that I worked for him he taught me that a person does not have to be unethical and can continue to work with unethical people. Mr. Wade provided me with one of the best explanations of the difference between people who go to prison and those that do not. Mr. Wade stated that those who do not have the correct proportion of loving parents, religion, and positive examples, etc. in their lives and those that go to prison, do not have the proportions correct.

At CTF-North, I was favorably impressed by two Sergeants that I supervised as a Lieutenant. Their names are Larry Cargill, and Pete Carrillo. Both had very different styles of working with inmates and both were extremely effective. Sergeant Cargill had a sense of humor that I still reflect back on. I can hear him now say phrases in such a manner that their humorous quality helped us to deal with the tension that we were constantly involved in while working in the prison. I worked as a team member with both these Sergeants and greatly benefited by their professionalism. One major accomplishment that Larry and I did one night involved a Mexican inmate who had been raped by other Mexican inmates. Larry and I played good guy, bad guy (I
was the bad guy) and we were able to get this inmate to violate the code of silence and tell us the names of the inmates who had raped him.

Pete Carrillo was not a tall man and was a very effective communicator. Pete could also handle very hostile inmates and would step into them as a hand to hand fighter does when communicating with them. No body contact was made. Observing the scene from a distance, there was no doubt that Pete was in charge of the situation. Pete later was promoted to Associate Warden and Larry was content to promote to Lieutenant (as of my retirement).

In 1979, the CPS program was moved again and this time it went to CTF-South. CTF-South is a minimum custody unit. I enjoyed working with the minimum custody inmates and was the Inmate Assignment Lieutenant and the Watch Commander. I wrote an article that was published in the American Correctional Associations, Corrections Today magazinewhile in this assignment on the inmate assignment process.

I worked with two very good Sergeants at CTF-South, Granville Boyer, and Emet Kennamore. These fine men were retired Sergeant First Classes from the U.S. Army. Both supported management decisions and did a very good job of supervising staff, communicating with inmates and were very likeable people. Their behavior was always at the highest level of performance.

I entered a period of time of great conflict with the California Department of Corrections that changed me for life, limited my promotional ability and may have been a delayed reactions to the tremendous stress that we had experienced at North. I had been volunteering to work overtime for time on the books for me to use to go to Army Reserve meetings if I needed to use it. I received my statement and noted that the Personnel Section at Soledad had shorted me by 178 hours of time that they owed me. At the same time I was competing for the position of Correctional Captain. I asked the Personnel Manager to correct this mistake in writing and when she did not respond (over a month), I filled my first employees grievance. I had no idea of the ramifications of this simple grievance. I was later to discover that at this time in CDC Lieutenants did not dare to file grievances or they would face strong retaliation from top management at the prison. Superintendents. Wardens and top management staff largely ran their prisons in a proprietary manner and considered their employees as chattel serfs such as life was in medieval Europe. The Personnel Section finally relented and would give me 78 hours of the time they owed me and would not give me the other 100 hours where I had the documentation to prove otherwise. I went on to the second level of the grievance. Warden PR called me into his office. In his office he proceeded to us every word of profanity directed at me that I can remember being spoken. I could not believe he was saying this to me regarding a simple grievance. I withdrew the grievance, not previously understanding the ramifications of my action which in a healthy organization would have been routinely handled.

At this time, personal friends of mine, Joe Marquez, and Claudia Reasor conducted the interviews for Captain. I was told by Captain Eddie Meyers (later to become Chief Deputy Director of the Department of Corrections) that he had seen an informal copy of the promotional list and I was on top of the list. When the list was published, my name was not on the list. I was to learn much
later that I had automatic grounds to file an appeal. I had not. I decided that if they wanted to see a thorn in their side, they had now invented one. I also decided that I wanted out of working in custody in prison. The system of management was too corrupt for me to cope with. Looking back on my actions, it would have been better off to have meditated and overlooked it. This was not the course of action that I chose. It was not in my character to compromise my values and passively look on, at least at that time in my life it was not. My strong assertive actions rocked the system at the time. I volunteered to represent supervisors who got in trouble for the California Correctional Peace Officers Organization (CCPOA). The Union sent me for formal training to do this in Sacramento which was taught by a Professor from Berkeley. I relied on my experience as a prosecutor for Court Martials for the U.S. Army. I did this for a year and succeeded in all cases of having the cases thrown out (with the exception of one). I received word that top management wanted to hurt me because of my success as a Union activist.

I attended the CCPOA meeting in Reno, Nevada that elected Mr. Don Novey as the president of the Union for the first time. At this Union meeting, our local chapter President Doug Block was running against Mr. Novey for President of the Union. Mr. Block was receiving physical threats. We needed to walk around with him for his protection while he lobbied various groups to gain their support for the election. Mr. Block told us, his supporters that just before Mr. Block gave his election speech, a Father met him in the back of the convention hall, opened his coat and showed that he was carrying a weapon and that he would kill Mr. Block if he did not withdraw from the election. Mr. Block stated to us that this effected his delivery of the speech and he was still shaken by the experience. During the negotiation of the first union contract, Managers in CDC would tell us that CCPOA would bring fake grenades to the meetings and display them as a form of intimidation. There has never been any doubt of the power and influence of CCPOA and the extent the organization and certain members will go to achieve their aims. I was pleased that at my retirement party, the CCPOA Chapter President, Unit Job Stewart and past President Bob Knowles was in attendance. Bob repeated his appreciation of the training materials that I had developed over the years to train counselors and that I was the only one in the state to have done this.

I also applied for the position of Prison Industries Manager. I ended up in the second rank of the list. I discovered that other prisons were hiring people that were not on the list. This is against civil service rules. I filed grievances on this each time that I discovered that they did this. Textiles Superintendent George Rafeedie decided that I should replace him as the Textiles Superintendent for the Textiles factories at Soledad. He was designated to become the Industries Administrator at the California Correctional Institution (CCI), Tehachapi. I was appointed behind George and received a slight pay cut to do it. Shortly after my appointment, a Mr. BR was appointed as the Production Manager, my supervisor. Mr. BR background was in “meat production” from Chicago. Mr. BR was unfamiliar with government service, unfamiliar with prison work, and had not been involved in any of the industries that presently existed at the prison at Soledad. Mr. BR also was living with one of my factory supervisors who wanted my job very much. I also learned that Mr. BR may have not been paying rent on a continuous basis to live with this supervisor. Mr. BR, after giving me an acceptable performance report, starting preparing adverse documentation on me reflecting that I should not continue in the position of Textile Superintendent. I asked him if he intended to fail me in probation as a Textile Superintendent and he responded in the affirmative. Mr. BR was shortly thereafter promoted to Industries Administrator at Chino prison based on a discrimination grievance he had submitted. I voluntarily went back as a Lieutenant in Custody and was placed back in the management units at Central. I came out in the first rank of the new Supervising Counselor list and refused to interview at Soledad. I was told by Chief Deputy Warden Danny Vasquez that I would receive no special treatment because he considered me a trouble maker. Looking back on it, that is one accurate interpretation of my behavior. He was not very smart in saying it to me. I realized that I could not win in the corrupt system that then existed, and in many cases, still does exit in the California Department of Corrections. I transferred to CCI where my friend Warden Joe Marquez worked and vowed that I would never file another grievance or represent anyone who was in trouble. I would just do my time (as a prison inmate would do his time) as a civil servant employee until my retirement. I would also be satisfied to stay at one prison until I retired. I saw little to be accomplished being transferred from one prison to another to pick up a five percent raise and the instability that it would cause myself and my family. I did interview at other prisons just before my retirement to make Associate Warden which I wanted to promote to before retirement. I was promoted four times at the CCI and retired as an Associate Warden on June 19, 2000. The lessons I learned about the system at Soledad and San Quentin in my first ten years allowed me to work 27 years in the prison system in California with no letters of instruction or adverse actions in my file. The prison system has been forced in California to impose multi-level of internal affairs investigators. I was told from reliable sources just before I retired that the Chief Investigators in the Department were very frustrated because of how their investigations were being handled. The lengthy investigations would be handed over to a Warden indicating substantial misconduct by a key subordinate and the Warden would administer a minor disciplinary action (letters of instruction, employee contact report) when the information would indicate stronger action needed to be taken. The implications for this are the Wardens had prior knowledge of the misconduct and authorized it or the employee had information of the Wardens own misconduct which the Warden did not want reported. Another alarming aspect of this is that some of the best supervisors (the best and brightest) sole career goal is to become an investigator. This eliminates the constant vulnerability, exposure to investigative charges of misconduct, litigation by inmates, staff and the public. With the very large prisons in California and the large span of control of the Managers involved, this is a constant threat, no matter how ethical the Manager is. The Manager has a degree of responsibility for a staff persons’ misconduct working late at night while the Manager is sleeping safely in bed. I worked in constant fear of possible law suites or allegations of misconduct and weighed my decisions heavily and their ramifications. This doe not mean that I was slow making decisions. I knew I could get in a lot of trouble if I was not willing to make rapid correct decisions so the staff involved would have proper instructions to do their jobs.
One of the frustrating aspects of working with many of the people that work for the California Department of Corrections is their often low level of college education. It is not merely their inability to understand information for lack of academic training. To stay in school for many people also means the ability to get along with people and a level of emotional stability. The academic achievement required to become a Correctional Officer in the CDC is a high school
GED certificate. Many of the people who enter at this low level of academic achievement advance through the system through years of longevity to high civil service rank. This is possible by substituting the requirement for years of formal academic achievement on a year for year basis by years of work experience in their present grade. I have worked with many people of Captain or higher level civil service rank who could not write a simple written document. Many of them could not understand simple concepts, even when the statements were repeated to them. Captain BS is the example that comes to my mind as I write these memories. Captain BS was a Captain working at Soledad-Central when I was working at Soledad-South. Captain BS saw me one day in the employees snack bar and gave me instructions regarding an inmate movement sheet that had errors on it at Central. I explained to Captain BS, that I did not work at Central and made no errors. I repeated this to Captain BS three times in the snack bar. Captain BS still insisted that I come to his office at Central to talk about the inmate movement sheet. I complied with his order and when I again explained to him repeatedly in his office that I was not the person he needed to talk to, he finally understood and excused me to return to my regular assignment at South.

The California Correctional Institution

CCI was a very pleasant change from my experience at Soledad and San Quentin. My last day at Soledad, I responded to seven emergency alarms, fortunately, all of which were false alarms. As I recall, CCI had only minimum/medium custody inmates at the time of my initial assignment there in 1983 (approximately 2400 inmates and 600 staff). To my disfavor, I would refer to it as not being a real prison considering the many minor situations that would come up that were not considered to be problems at the extreme prisons I had left. The staff at CCI have always been top of the line and offered great stability to the management of the prison. The staff person that is attracted to CCI is not a quick promoter. Most of the staff are there for the long haul and are interested in raising families, stability in employment and working conditions. Even with CCI’s many minor scandals, massive expansion with a maximum security sections and a reception center, it has always offered this type of stability to its employees. The employees who have had trouble would probably had trouble where ever they might of been. Many feel the real strength of CCI has been the Sergeants who tend to have a lot of experience and are in their job as a long term career. Unfortunately, within the last few years, with the arrival of Warden Don Hill, significant distrust has built up between middle supervisors and top management. Mr. Hill made many sound decisions that needed to be made. Unfortunately, his background as a Chief of the Special Security Unit in Central Office made him appear to be non-forgiving with many disciplinary actions where employees had made mistakes and were made to pay heavily for these mistakes. Many employees on appeal were able to return to their former ranks after being demoted. These employees and their many friends developed great hostility to upper management. I spent four and a half years as an Associate Warden/Correctional Administrator and I was reassigned ten times, only one of those assignments did I approve of. The rest of the reassignments were based on the needs of top management when they needed my skills in an area or they were in a predicament. My military career made me too flexible in terms of following orders, complying with policy with unquestioned obedience and supervising others to have policy followed. Regrettably they would ask my opinion on occasion and I would give them the unvarnished version. I had figured out soon after I was promoted to Associate Warden that because I was a white male, except for being allowed to come to work each day, my advancement opportunities were over. Also, from my assertive activities at Soledad with men who had become very powerful, they would not trust me to be one of their favorites. I was not a “good old boy” and had a significantly different outlook regarding the practice of penology, ethics then I saw taking place outside of CCI. As a result, in executive staff meetings with Warden Nice Guy, I was ready to volunteer my opinions, many times where I disagreed with what was being said or decisions that had been made. Towards the very end of my career, I honestly expected the Warden to bar me from attending Executive Staff meetings because of his frustration at times with me because of the apparent obsequious behavior that he preferred to be surrounded by. The constant reassignments did not help my attitude. I had determined to throw in the towel in 1998. Chief Deputy Warden Jim Gamboa in his own very indirect manner let me know that no matter what I did, Associate Warden Cinderalla would be the next Chief Deputy Warden at CCI because of the diversification requirement based on gender and ethnic background. I have suffered from medical ailments, injuries from my employment in CDC and I decided that it was time to transition to retirement. I knew also, that even with all the laws that prohibit retaliation, my career would be over as soon as the claim for workman’s compensation was filed by my attorney and it was.

Probably no discussion can be made of CCI and my career their without mentioning Mr. Tehachapi, Chief Deputy Warden retired, and one of the key characters at the prison. In fact for many years, Mr. Tehachapi was considered “Mr. CCI, Tehachapi”. Mr. Tehachapi described himself as the person that new Wardens would rely on because he knew the history of the prison and all of our individual histories. We collectively did not trust Mr. Tehachapi to tell new Wardens our histories because we felt that he would put his own twist on the story. Mr. Tehachapil was able to keep his personal power and organizational power most of the time I was at CCI except when he made the mistake of saying “no” to CDC. I believe at that time he lost his opportunity to make Warden. Mr. Tehachapi lived to become a Warden and when he determined that this was not possible he left, without a party, without a fanfare. Without an announcement, Mr. Tehachapi walked off grounds one day. For most of us, he was an integral part of our organizational life at CCI and when he left, we all felt it. There were rumors of charges followed by at least one alleged witness confirming the rumors to me.

Mr. Tehachapi had to be in total control. His methods are very questionable and I strongly disapprove of most of them. Mr. Tehachapi was a liberal tyrant when it came to managing the prison. Mr. Tehachapi would routinely not process staff discipline referrals. They collected on his desk. I never could figure out what his purposes were for this. I received indications that he did this to extract personal loyalty to him from these staff members as he held these actions over their head. There were also indications that he thought the prison would look bad to staffers in Sacramento if many staff were referred for disciplinary action and would reflect that somehow the prison was not managed properly. The area where I objected the most was his control of the inmate disciplinary system. He would have every fifth or so completed inmate disciplinary action thrown out, regardless of the reports merit or the hearing officers adherence to procedures. Some of us staff suspected that he used inmate informers to help him manage the prison. Mr. Tehachapi would also routinely use staff informers to make management decisions and most staff knew of this. In effect, Mr. Tehachapi appeared to be controlled in many ways by these informers. Our collective morale was undermined because of these management techniques. As a result, Mr. Tehachapi was disliked and feared by many staff members and I am one of them. Personal encounters that have further caused me to dislike Mr. Tehachapi are numerous. Mr. Tehachapi also under his breath threatened me one day in a committee to cut my tie in two because of a tie tack I wore which I bought at the Department of Corrections uniform store at Gault California. Mr. Tehachapi’s comments were made when he thought I was wearing a union symbol. Other managers told me that Mr. Tehachapi was also attempting to get promoted by contributing large sums of money to the political parties, and giving baseball game seat tickets to managers in Sacramento. I enjoyed impersonating Mr. Tehachapi at retirement parties for a few years after he retired. Mr. Tehachapi did us all a favor and did not attend any prison social activities after he retired.

In the seventeen years that I worked at CCI, I worked in every section of the prison. The prison is very large and spread out. The prison is split into five sections, in which many of the sections are a quarter of a mile apart. My last four and a half years as an Associate Warden (Correctional Administrator) at CCI, the management team reassigned me ten times.
I asked the last two Wardens, Larry Small and Warden Nice Guy that they not reassign me anymore. My impression was that they observed me as flexible regarding reassignments versus the typical other strong characters that are managers at a typical prison in the CDC.

I self limited my future in CDC for a number of years after I arrived at CCI in 1983. Warden Joe Marquez and Correctional Administrator Jerry Stayner repeatedly asked me to apply for the position of Captain in 1984. I felt the CDC was so corrupt, that as a custodial manager I would have extreme value conflicts based on the standards that I was trained in by the U.S. Army. I vowed that I would manipulate my career to avoid being a custody manager until I was 50 years old so if placed in an ethical dilemma, I could immediately retire before facing any retaliation by the corruption that existed and still exists on a somewhat lesser scale. I accomplished this by hiding in the civil service positions of counselor which I was in for fourteen years (five years as a Counselor I, three and a half years as a Counselor II and five years as a Counselor III). I was promoted to Program Administrator when I was 48 years old. I wanted to make constant wages, have stability for my family, enjoy the delights of a stable life (continue my formal education, and have many hobbies). Fast promotion to high civil service positions with the constant physical moves and disruption to family and personal life did not appeal to me after the years I had spent in the military, and my experience at San Quentin and Soledad.

There are certain key ingredients in surviving in prison or probably any bureaucracy like the CDC. I discovered at CCI that going to the employee snack bar could be a self destructive act. People would interview others to obtain information to use against them. If a person spoke with some employees in the snack bar rumors would emanate from the conversation. The statements would be self evident because the other person would have been observed talking to them. The general word among staff was to avoid going to the snack bar to avoid having conversations that could be used against oneself. I would offer this as sound advice to all prison workers.

Some of the highlights of my career at CCI include transforming Unit II custodially into a safe unit, being the first Special Emergency Response Team Commander (SERT) at the institution for two years, being part of a team of people to start the Reception Center and my individual management style of conducting documented weekly inspections as a custody manager. I was Assigned to Unit II, at CCI in 1994. Unit II is the largest individual prison Unit in CDC with approximately 1500 inmates assigned at any particular time. The Unit had been allowed to decay regarding staff attitude, tolerant attitude to inmate misconduct and maintenance deficiencies. I decided that I would not put up with any of it and as a team leader, we changed it. I was nice to everyone and intolerant of anyone or anything that got in the way of improving Unit II. The front doors to the individual housing units did not lock. This is one area that was repaired among many. The Unit is now reported to be a good Unit to work in per present staff statements that work there on my retirement.

I was involuntarily assigned at the SERT team commander in June 1984 when others could not make it through the SERT Academy and the institution was facing a Disturbance Control Exercise in August 1994. I had two months to supply, equip, train, and to personally go through the SERT Academy. I completed all these tasks with a lot of personal sacrifice. Our team came out first in the state for the first individual teams evaluations because we were the only team in the state who did not kill the hostages. This was accomplished by me personally going to the field and sitting on my more aggressive team members. Compared to military discipline, SERT team members many times have trouble maintaining their individual level of discipline. A lot of “Rambo” personalities are attracted to the teams. I took great pride in the teams training in riot control formations. Also, our training was scheduled well in advance and was diversified. We taught ourselves. I used the Army’s system of Battalion Training Management System to have the team develop our own training. Sacramento staffers sent our schedule out as a model for other teams to follow. I left the team because of Mr. Tehachapi. I needed the institutional armorer to assist us and Mr. Tehachapi appointed an armorer that would not support us. The Armorer that Mr. Tehachapi had appointed was one of his informers and Mr. Tehachapi was privately against the SERT concept and I lost on this issue and left the team.

In 1995, I was involuntarily assigned to Central Office in Sacramento for three months. I would have refused the assignment except I was on probation as a Correctional Counselor II. I was assigned to work with Elaine Sherwood and Cliff Smith (Manager of Emergency Services for CDC, exchief of police for the community of Folsom). My job was to help them develop a Emergency Operations Center similar to what the military would use, conduct exercises simultaneously with institutional disturbance control exercises. I also wrote most of the scenarios for the Governors level Disturbance Control exercises. I wrote a manual for the CDC Headquarters to use to operate a Headquarters during emergency situations. I used the Army’s field manual for staff operations in the field as a guide to write the manual. I then wrote scenarios for CDC Headquarters to use in exercises, trained the staff, and supervised the exercise. I then critiqued the exercise. I did not like the assignment and had no intention of moving to Sacramento. I wrote a letter to Mr. Denninger who replaced Mr. Morris as Chief Deputy Director of Institutions. I severely limited my future promotion because I refused to go to Sacramento. Mr. Cliff Smith was very concerned that I would replace him and I felt that he undermined my efforts. I was very successful in this assignment. I determined that I did not want to work in Central Office because I would eventually have to return to an institution to get promoted. I wanted to avoid the inmate violence that was occurring frequently in the northern prisons. Mr. Denninger many years later, in a very subtle manner reminded me of my underachievement by not accepting an assignment with him. I do not regret my decision of doing my time (in the prison inmate sense) at CCI.

I used my system of weekly inspections in each assignment that I went to. It was based on the firm military principle that what fails in the organization is what the commander does not
personally check on. I tried to check on everything, or almost everything. Each week, wherever I was assigned, I would take a tape recorder and walk a part of my assigned area. I would record significant maintenance and safety deficiencies and would ask for corrections to be made. The inspection schedule was announced in advance. Maintenance supervisory staff particularly disliked the inspections because on going maintenance deficiencies were identified and when I would repeat them as not being corrected in subsequent reports, could not be overlooked. Some maintenance staff would come into the bank my wife worked at and complain to her. Generally, in departmental audits, my inspections benefitted our evaluations. The biggest benefit to my inspections was the interpersonal contact I had with the staff. I was not a remote person hidden in an office. I was a live breathing person who cared about the maintenance and the safety of the institution. In my 27 years of state prison work, I am the only manager I have observed that routinely inspected the areas they supervise.

The last area that I am pleased to have been a part of while in CDC at CCI is our effort starting and operating a Reception Center. I was moved over to Unit III in1987 when I made the first rank of the CCIII list and I was positioned there to help organize it into a reception center and be promoted to that position. At that time, Chino was the only other Reception Center in the Southern part of California and they had inmates sleeping in the hallways because of extreme over population and workload. I went to CIM and studied their system and their staff were very helpful in providing information that resulted in us successfully starting our reception center. We gave CIM immediate relief which their staff was very grateful for. The Reception Center at CCI had deteriorated before I left CCI because of a lack of support from top management and concern about production. The Sacramento Managers had given up on trying to get WASCO and North Kern Reception Centers to fulfill their production capacities. These two reception centers were planned to close CCI’s reception center. In may career, these two reception center prisons could not improve their efficiency to process the inmates through in a timely manner. My conclusion is that the politics of state government make it very difficult for state managers to obtain production efficiency from state workers. There are too many ways to make end runs around a manager. It is also very difficult, if not impossible to fire a state employee for inefficiency. This is a particularly difficult if the employee is a protected employee (many or most are now) and they allege harassment, and discrimination.

My last assertive action as an Associate Warden, Correctional Administrator at CCI was to report to Regional Administrator misconduct by a senior manager. It involved money. After I made this report, I was reassigned back to the Reception Center in Unit III. I also reported to the senior investigator in the area that I had been reassigned based on my report which could be interpreted as a form of retaliation (I am a white male and not protected from retaliation).

I have been assaulted by my fellow staff five times in the prison system. I will describe each incident as follows: In 1974, at San Quentin, Correctional Officer PP assaulted me twice once by slamming a cell door to a cell office that I occupied in such a manner that my ears hurt. I was conducting a sensitive interview with an inmate who was describing details of the Black Guerilla Family to me and Officer PP had opened the cell door. I merely asked that PP please close the cell door. This same officer flicked his cigarette at me and it burnt a hole in a very nice tweed sports coat that I was wearing. PP was what can be best described as a classic “prison guard”, overweight, obnoxious. He would become very emotional over minor issues. The Third Assault took place in the Adjustment Center at San Quentin, also in 1974. I was preparing to leave the Adjustment Center when Lieutenant Strong Man and Sergeant SLO tackled me and took me to the ground for their mutual entertainment. I am still not sure of their motivation. Lieutenant Strong Man was under intense pressure because he was in charge of security for the San Quentin six trial which was taking place in Marine County. A judge had been taken hostage in an escape attempt and this was the trial for the participants. Marine County judges were notoriously liberal and the judge had ordered that the inmates undergoing trial to have their handcuffs removed during the trial. This event reportedly led to the escape attempt. I made a mistake in handling this assault in that I physically took the keys away from the Officer at the door (he refused to let me out of the building per orders of the Lieutenant and Sergeant) and let myself out of the Adjustment Center. I could not formally report this incident without getting myself also in trouble. I did tell Program Administrator Jim Yoder (deceased) about it.

The forth incident took place at CCI in 1985. I was the Special Emergency Response Team Commander and a Correctional Counselor II in Unit I at the time when a maintenance employee named Beard (wore a beard and old field jacket) would try to ram his shoulder into my body as we would pass each other in Unit I. He stated to me as he tried to do this “think your bad, huh”. I did not understand his motivation and still do not. One day, when I went to get my keys at the movement office in Unit I, he hit me in the chest with his shoulder. I responded by reaching between his legs from the rear, grabbing his testicles, jerking at them and at the same time ramming my thumb up his ass. Mr. Beard stayed at least ten feet from me from then on when we encountered each other walking.

The last assault by a staff member took place in 1986, in the Unit I Records Office in front of my supervisor, Program Administrator Bill Youngblood. Sergeant Rock came up to me, put his hand around my tie, lifted it, chocked me briefly, called me a “son of a bitch”, laughed and then walked away. Fortunately for both of us there were witnesses in the area and I was able to react properly. I did nothing and immediately documented the Sergeants behavior. Sergeant Rock subsequently received an adverse action and retired. Sergeant Rock was mad at me because I had asked for the removal of his friend, Sergeant Informer from the armorers position because Sergeant Informer had told me that he would not assist me in any way in my position as the SERT Commander. Sergeant Informer said he did not like SERT. I cannot find the words to summarize any conclusions regarding these assaults. I will write that the prison because of the constant threat of violence causes staff to develop values that are different from the general public.

The California Department of Corrections Philosophy

The CDC’s philosophy of management has been very expensive for the taxpayers of California State. A number of key decisions in recent years against the Department of Corrections by Federal Courts have found that the prison system as a whole and individual prisons (managers) have not followed the U. S. Constitution, Federal Laws, State Laws, and rules and policies of the Department of Corrections. These decisions are largely contained in the court decisions Touisant, Madrid, etc. The question is why does the prison system and individual managers violate these laws. Was the system ever in compliance? Were the managers ever trained in the standards to know that they did not meet the standards? Does the selection process for managers include requiring that they have knowledge of these standards and the systems for applying them. Or, has the application of these standards not been required in the past because popular organizational thought was that they were above the law. We have not had to do this in the past, so why should we attempt to do it now. Another thought which I am sure others are eager to claim because it lessens their culpability is that the popular thought on the rules on how prisons should be operated is in a constant state of evolution. Previously the courts had a hands off policy towards the management of prisons. This has changed yearly for the last thirty years where increasingly the courts are much more involved in setting standards in prison. Each state and the federal government prison system evolve at separate rates depending on
the lawsuits being filed and the effort that is made on the litigation by the courts, litigants, and lawyers.

There could be something more sinister other then the ignorance expressed above. Could there
have developed an organizational philosophy of punishment that the top leaders in the Department of Corrections supported. The inmates were a “them” and we as a group of staff members were here to punish “them” and that was our role. This was done regardless of the illegality of the philosophy. This philosophy was carried out carefully and deliberately based on the staff appointed to the positions of Warden and Chief Deputy Warden at the prisons designated to house negative behaving inmates. Our correction of these misbehaving inmates was to involve ourselves personally “we vs. them”. This was presented to us Managers in Executive Staff meetings in the most glowing terms by our leaders. A previous head of the Departments Planning and Architecture Division was a major proponent of using punishment at a prison designed to punish at Pelican Bay. This philosophy of punishment was epitomized by the construction of the prison at Pelican Bay. Here the Department built a prison in a very remote area of California, near the border of Oregon State. For the prisoners sent there, their families would also be punished. This is because of the long commute to get there from where California inmates are incarcerated from (sixty percent come from the Los Angeles area). The design came from a Warden in Arizona State and allowed a higher level of visibility inside the cells by staff members. We were going to punish our inmate gang members, gang leaders, and negative acting out inmates by placing them there. Fortunately, the courts discovered the results of this policy and ruled to have it modified regarding the conditions of confinement there. The courts found that legal standards were not met regarding medical treatment, mental health treatment, and that excessive force was being used by staff.

In the prison, inmates are constantly trying to obtain small luxuries to improve their living conditions. Space limitations, safety and security needs prevent the inmates from obtaining the extra items they desire. This constant competition for items can lead to contests for any particular item. I will never forget one inmate serving a life sentence who went to great lengths through the appeals process to obtain “body oil”. This was the one item he desired the most at that time and demonstrates this point. I denied his appeal and felt his animosity directed at me because of this. It is interesting that a year later in a discussion I had with him, this ceased to be an issue with him.

Inmates assume different roles of conduct in prison at various times. While I was at San Quentin in the early 1970s, there was an inmate named “Baby Cole” (nick name). Baby was the head of the Black Guerrilla family at San Quentin at that time (1973) and was the groups primary “shot caller”, decision maker. When I arrived at Tehachapi (CCI), I was shocked to discover Baby on the line in the minimum section of the prison. I talked to Baby and he said that he had paroled, had married and had a child. Baby said he had reformed. Baby had reformed except one day when someone jumped in front of him in the canteen line and he could not control himself. Baby was in minor trouble in prison for a simple fist fight as a result.

There is another aspect of this which I have observed in prison over my twenty seven year career. Some staff members enter into Corrections at a young age (early twenties) and are still developing their personal values. These staff members pick up the values of the inmates and behave in an unlawful manner at times. At times, these values appeared to have penetrated to the top manager level. An individual staff member must guard against this tendency no matter
where they encounter it (even if you witness these values present in a supervisor or manager).

"My Major Battle Story, Vietnam, January 15, 1967"

2008-02-07T20:47:00.000-08:00

My Major Battle Story

Vietnam, January 15, 1967

In the mid afternoon on January 15, 1967, I was sitting in an advisor hut in South Vietnam in a remote hamlet in the most southern area of the country that we had a U.S. presence. I was newly promoted first lieutenant in the United States army Infantry at the chronological age of 22 and was assigned as an Assistant Battalion Advisor to the 3d Battalion, (a Vietnamese Infantry Battalion), 31st Regiment that was part of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 21 Division (the furthest division in South Vietnam). I was newly assigned to the Battalion and new to Vietnam having arrived just before Christmas in December 1966. I had prepared my field gear for a combat operation where my Battalion was assigned as the reserve for a large Division operation. I was very excited because I was told that we would have access to the Post Exchange service and there was a number of items I wanted at Vi Thanh before being committed to the operation. I had only been shot at by the enemy on two separate occasions prior to this (these were minor scuffles) and felt I was still very green regarding what was expected of me and how I would react under fire. I was very excited the previous evening when I ran to an open field and the operation plans were dropped to me in an open field by a light observation plane sent for that purpose. I had never seen such a plan before which consisted of numbered objectives on a large overlay to be placed on a map. No where did it indicate what specific objective would be targeted for our attack.

Captain Shipey had taken both of our two Sergeants with him in the morning along with both of our only assigned radios. He promised me that I would not need the radio because my half of the Battalion was not to be committed to a possible battle. I was to be prepared anyway. I was very concerned about this and had to trust him because he was my Captain. My counterpart for the Vietnamese was newly assigned to the Battalion and was a previous Vietnamese Special Forces Officer that the Vietnamese soldiers had not learned to trust. He and I had also just met and we would learn to have to trust each other soon.

It was exciting that morning. Captain Shipey and his half of the Battalion were lined up in two columns, in small groups of soldiers called sticks over a two hundred yard distance. They were in these formations so that when the large group of helicopters arrived in a large V formation of 22 helicopters they could easily board the helicopters and were in immediate battle formation if deployed to combat. We responded to the radioed instructions and popped smoke grenades to guide this large formation of helicopters to our location. I was able to watch this activity from a distance and was very impressive to watch as Captain Shipey’s half of the battalion loaded on helicopters. I went back to the Advisors hut to relax and await further instructions. I had studied the tactics of the area of operation and had no practical experience. I was very insecure with no radio and no experienced Sergeant to assist me.

It happened in the early afternoon, suddenly, without warning, I was called on the radio to move my half of the Battalion to the pick up location, have them in stick formations, and be prepared for pick up when so ordered. Over the political district U.S. advisors radio, I reported that I did not have a radio and hopefully I was not being deployed to combat without one. There was no response from the radio to this message and I “sucked up” my courage. I ran to my counterpart, explained what we must do and he had the troops assembled and correctly positioned. The large formation of helicopters (22) arrived and we were picked up. I had properly placed myself in the lead helicopter and as we lifted off I observed a U.S. Lieutenant Colonel who was in the copilot position. I asked him where we were going. He pointed at objective 22 on the overlay. I was in a state of panic and explained to him that I had no radio and no Sergeant. He grinned broadly at me and suggested that I have good luck. Welcome to Vietnam and the U.S. Army, survive or perish succor. I was going to survive.

We landed in a very large open rice paddy surrounded by a tree line next to a stream. We also landed on top of some villagers in the field who were farming. The villagers advised us that we were surrounded by significant elements of a Viet Cong Regiment in the tree line. We were shooting ducks in the open field. The villagers were trying to crawl under very large clay pots that they had with them for protection. I did not see that they could do it or that it was a practical solution to their situation. My counterpart, the Vietnamese Captain, had his body guard’s start digging him into the ground by digging around him. It was impressive image of their culture. Then it hit. I felt I was in the middle of a live fire demonstration that I had seen at the Infantry School at Fort Benning Georgia where we were shown how many rounds of ammunition and fire power could be used against the enemy in a short period of time. We lost twenty five percent of our unit at the onset who were killed or wounded. I scrambled to use one of the ARVN’s radios to contact anyone and report the enemy contact, battle. The ARVN’s radio was our old family of communication equipment (PRC 10) and it could not go to the frequency that was being used by the Americans for this operation (PRC 25). I started to patiently move the dial through the frequencies trying to hear anyone who was using the English language so I could tell them that I was in a heavy battle with the enemy and no one in the U.S. Army knew about it to help us with heavy fire power and reinforcement. We were being systematically killed and I had to do something about it.

Finally, I heard an American voice passing on administrative traffic on a frequency on the Vietnamese radio. I interrupted and identified myself and our situation. The American voice acknowledged that he understood and pledged to help us. I felt relieved and was not especially confident that it would be smooth sailing considering what transpired. In the mean time, the Vietnamese were stacking their dead and wounded around me. They worship the dead and were prepared to transport the dead first away from the battle field before the wounded Vietnamese. The wounded Vietnamese were constantly moaning. I wished that there was something I could do for them, at least kill some of the enemy that was killing us.

Finally, a Vietnamese soldier tapped me on the shoulder and told me that there was a helicopter approaching. I then saw it, a sole helicopter with the crew motioning for me to come to them was landing near me. I realized that my days could be numbered at that moment. I was expected to run across a flooded open rice field under intense enemy fire and retrieve the radio that we so desperately needed. I did not want to do it. I did it anyway-falling, tripping, desperately moving my body through the water, hearing the bullets fly over me, whizzing, zinging. I made it to the helicopter, still do not remember how I did it and was very much tempted to crawl on to the helicopter to escape this hell on earth. I did not do it. I took the radio, thanked the crew, the same Lieutenant Colonel who dropped us in. I heard later that this Officer was very much impressed by the volume of fire he experienced delivering me this radio. I immediately went to the correct frequency and reported exacting details of the battle that we were involved in. Immediately the fire power started to arrive, as I type this tears come to my eyes remembering the very strong emotions that I experienced in this battle and the relief I felt when we were able to start not just being victims and were combatant aggressors. As I write this, I have the feeling right now of wanting to start to personally shoot at them. That was not my job. My job was to coordinate the enemies’ demise and take care of my Vietnamese. I started to work very hard at this job. I gave as exact information as I could regarding the location of the enemy elements and our positions. Then it arrived, the U.S. armed forces fury of unleashed fire power. One system would be replaced by another sending killing fire power into the enemies’ positions. As I remember, U.S. Army helicopter gun ships strafed the positions by diving out of the sky on them. This was followed by U.S. Air force jets dropping bombes and using cannon fire. Then ARVN artillery would take their deadly effect. Then the Air Forces dragon fire machine of gattling guns would pepper the area in broad swathes. At this time it was my war and I felt that I was coordinating it. This constant rain of terror went on for a full day.

At one time early in the battle, my counter part kept telling me he wanted the jets to shoot closer to the front lines of our troops. The troops had placards as markers to guide the Forward Air Controllers that they mounted to their backs. I would pass on his repeated requests to the point where my counterpart told me to stop because we were shooting our own people. I had the jets stopped.

Our unit needed reinforcement and a ARVN Ranger Battalion was dropped in behind us by helicopter and moved through us late in the evening. There was not much left of the men that I initially landed with. I coordinated a Medical Evacuation at night that evening. We did not have enough signal lights to bring the helicopters in safely. We did it anyway. We used one flashlight and the butane cigarette lighter that I carried (a gift from my Mother before I left to Vietnam). The helicopters landed successfully and we loaded the bodies on them. I personally assisted and carried out a Vietnamese myself. I dropped him twice struggling to run I the dark rice paddy water which was at knee deep level. When I got him on the helicopter, in very good English, he thanked me.

The lower part of my body was submerged in water through out the night while I took cover behind a rice paddy dike. This was one of many incidents that resulted in my development of hemorrhoids in this year. My supervisor signaled me over the radio that I should take a nap. I carried a small flask of alcohol and consumed some which helped kill my adrenaline high and allowed me to take a brief nap in combat.

To our amazement, the enemy had vanished in the morning. The Vietnamese had purposely allowed them to escape rather then accept very high casualties that we would have experienced if the enemy tried to break out of our encirclement. I was told that we had taken 14 prisoners. After the fighting had long ceased, I heard brief firing of small arms. I was told shortly thereafter that we no longer had prisoners. I reported this information.

My involvement resulted in my one award for valor in combat. The feedback I got from the Regimental Senior Advisor was that I did everything correctly; but, at times he was concerned about the inflection in my voice. I squeaked (not very military).

31 1/2 Years in the U.S. Army

2008-02-07T20:18:00.000-08:00

Active Duty U.S. Army

It is February 1972, I am a Military Intelligence (MI) Branch Officer assigned as the S-2 (Chief Intelligence Staff Officer) for Division Support Command, of the 1st Infantry Division stationed at Fort Riley Kansas. I am excelling in the assignment and the first MI Officer in the Division to be assigned as a Brigade S-2 (ground breaking assignment). The rumor mill has it that the Reduction in Force (RIF) list has arrived and my name is on it. I was filled with a great amount of anxiety about this. It would mean that I would have to start a new work life and I would need to decide what to do in the future for me and my family (wife, son). Depending on the amount of service time they had, they would be financially compensated (I was at the maximum compensation level, $15,000). Officers in the Brigade were being summoned to the Brigade Executive Officers Office in the Brigade Headquarters Building (my office is in the basement of this building) and told that they are to be relieved of active duty. Two lists had arrived. The earlier list were those officers who were not performing their assigned duties well. The second list was composed of those officers that were completing their duties in a very good manner; but, because of the needs of the service, were to be released from active duty. There had been a massive build up of the Armed Forces during the Vietnam War and now that the war was over, large cuts in personnel had to be made. In addition, only twenty percent of those that enter the military make it to retirement. Also, there is an up or out policy for promotion. Either a person is promoted in a prescribed period of time or they are released from active duty. Obliviously, there are less positions available at the higher ranks. Commission officers are expected to have college degrees and I did not have one at that time. Also, I made the mistake of transferring to the Military Intelligence Branch. This Branch is very small and the officers in it predominately possessed college degrees. Also, there were a large number of West Point graduates in this branch in which the U.S. Government had made a major investment in their education and were less likely to be involuntarily released from active duty. Knowing this , it made a lot of sense in my mind for the military to release me from active duty. It was the correct thing to do. But, what should I do then.

The Brigade Executive Officer, a Lieutenant Colonel summoned me to his office for notification of my termination. Of all the officers that I have known, this officer seemed to have the most limited vocabulary. Not an eloquent speaker was he. He struggled with my notification. He gave me the documents and waited for me to read them before continuing. He repeated over and over again that “things are tough out there”. He was referring to the fact that employment conditions are not good outside the service. My conclusion now and at the time is that he did not personally think he could get a job outside of being an Army Officer.

I had entered active duty in 1963 after a year at Seattle University when I saw my life going no where because of funding problems and a lack of a clear direction with what I should do with my life. I had signed up Europe Guaranteed for three years of service. I wanted to be a commissioned officer and in basic training was made a squad leader. Because of high test scores, I received orders to go to Veterinarian School in Chicago (the school was located in a hotel) and then go to Europe to inspect meat. The Company First Sergeant had never seen orders such as these. I volunteered for Infantry Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning Georgia and this caused the orders to be voided. I passed all the oral interviews and was assigned to a holding company at Fort Ord pending an opening at OCS. In preparation to go, I read books of etiquette, believing that this would be important to my success as an Officer. Fort Benning Georgia, Officer Candidate School was an extreme shock for me. OCS was a school primarily designed to eliminate people that would break under extreme pressure. The pressure is synthetic, contrived and real. Every physical, emotional, sleep deprivation technique that could be thought of was administered to us. Of over 230 candidates that started in our company, only 107 of us graduated. I became a commissioned officer at the age of 20. I could not sign loan papers to buy a car because of my age. I then proceeded to Airborne, and Ranger Schools. I was a hardened, lean mean fighting machine or so I thought. I enjoyed the discipline, hard work, focused direction that the military offered. I enjoyed the raw aggression that the military allowed us to exhibit under controlled circumstances. The training I received in the Bayonet obstacle course in Ranger school and other training courses I participated in Ranger School caused me to change to become a “very” aggressive person when I felt I needed to be aggressive. Normal infantry trainees are required to go through the courses two or three times consecutively. Rangers are required to continuously go through the course 14 times without resting. One of the instructors was my OCS classmate named Marschock. Lieutenant Marshock would routinely make me repeat one hill in the course. After he made me repeat one hill four times, I turned on him and chased him off the hill with my bayonet fixed rifle. I did not see him again for the rest of the day. One of the tragedies of Ranger school for me was when I injured my fellow classmate Kallotay in the hand to hand pit. He and I had been in Basic, Advanced Infantry, Airborne and now Ranger School together. During a knife take down exercise, he resisted me when I executed the take down on him (we had an agreement to never resist each other) and I pulled some ligaments in his elbow. I have never seen him since. His father was an officer in the Hungarian Army. Another conflict in Ranger school was with a Major who was going through the training as part of astronaut training. He could not learn the moves in the hand to hand pit and as a result the instructor kept coming over and demonstrating on me and physically beating me up. I warned this officer that if he did not learn quicker that I would resort to hurting him. He did not believe me until I started to kick him in the ribs strongly in the follow up hits. He became a very quick learner. One the of the biggest disappointments of my life is that I did not complete Ranger School. I had two satisfactory patrols as a leader and was well on my way to graduation when in the Mountain stage of this training I was tied to the back of a very strong buddy in a repelling exercise. He could not hold on to the rope and the safety person gave too much slack to the safety rope and we fell 40 feet and landed on my body. I had injuries that cause me to be briefly hospitalized. The Ranger Doctor felt I could continue in the school and the regular doctor at the hospital had put me down as needing a period of recuperation. I went with the hospital doctor. I was experiencing discomfort. I withdrew my voluntary status in this school. I experienced feelings of failure because of not completing this school which motivated me the rest of my life to finish schools that I started.

My first assignment as an Army officer was at Fort Ord California where I had assignments as a Range Officer, Company Officer, and Officer in Charge of the Infiltration and survival Escape and Evasion Courses. The infiltration course was stimulating in the respect that when it functioned, it involved up to five basic training companies crawling under live machine gun fire and between demolition pits going off. We also used flares fired from a mortar. I would give the class to over 1000 assembled trainees at a time. It was a real emotional high. My class demonstration would include a trainee demonstrator going over various obstacles on an example course behind me where I could not see him. I was in a tower coordinating this event when we would go live fire. Looking back on this assignment, it was very dangerous. If a trainee stood up, he would be machined gunned to his death. This training was conducted both during the day and evenings. One evening, we actually had a trainee do this and fortunately the Sergeant gunner saw it and stopped shooting just in time to not kill the trainee. The Sergeant was an emotional wreck afterwards. We were assigned an infrared scope to see at night. The infrared scope never worked, was not repairable and was required for us to conduct the training. I talked my way around this with the Post Operations Officer one evening and he bought my story. We had to complete the training. It was required or the trainees could not graduate. I told him that it magnified so greatly that he was actually looking at the belly button of a trainee moving through the course. The Colonel after gazing intently through the nonfunctioning device for some time said he now was able to see them.

Another high light of my work at Fort Ord was my assignment on the Survival Escape and Evasion Committee. This course is mandatory training for advanced infantry trainees. The Committee taught trainees to survive behind enemy lines with no food or water, evade capture behind enemy lines and how to conduct themselves if they became prisoners of war. The training became very important after the Korean War when our soldiers did not conduct themselves properly as prisoners.

At the time of my assignment to this committee, I was assigned the additional duty of Courts and Boards Officer. I was responsible to process people for Court Martials regarding the documentation and prosecute the cases in Special Court martials. The Army has now changed where they have lawyers assigned to complete this duty. Of the five cases that I tried, the juries found the defendants guilty. Colonel Wallace would call me in and “chew my ass” for some light sentences that were given in particular cases. Based on my recommendations we solved that problem by puting more senior officers on as jurors.

One day I was called in by my Major supervisor and informed that I was to be reassigned to the Survival Escape and Evasion committee along with an older Sergeant named Morris from the Land Navigation Committee. The Survival Escape and Evasion Committee Officer in Charge had lead a mutiny of the soldiers assigned to the committee and I was to evaluate the committee to see if the Sergeants should be court martialed and what direction the committee should go in the future. A mutiny in the Army may be as little as asking to have a meeting with supervisors. I knew Lieutenant Tanaka, the Officer in Charge and like him. His hobby was setting crab nets in Monterey harbor. Sergeant Morris was shaken by the assignment. He was an older person ready for retirement and this was high stress work. Sergeant Morris and I surveyed the committee and came to some conclusions. The committee was composed of exprisoners of war from Korea who had become emotionally attached to the committee and were having trouble complying with Army standards. The Committee had gotten side tracked and started to raise a variety of wild animals in the committee area and confused this with the mission of the training. We decided that the Sergeants should be reassigned back to training companies and to other Army work, the animals should be released and we would start with a new group of Sergeants. We did this. The old committee sergeants did not like this and I was personally threatened. I complained to the respective Company Commanders of these threats.

It was a challenge starting with a new group of Sergeants. Most of them had no training to teach students and we had to train them. Much of the training was to teach them to speak basic English and phrase sentences properly. When we got through administering the training to them (involved many rehearsals) they sounded very good. We also started a survival museum which consisted of example items soldiers could eat in the wild. One of our greatest achievements was the booby trap display. The Army had not developed training for soldiers being sent to Vietnam. We were allowed some variation in what materials we trained the trainees on. I came up with the idea from a copy of Argosy Magazine to make a display of different types of booby traps. We did this. I kept the magazine article with the lesson plan as our source of instruction because the Army’s reference material on the subject was classified confidential, need to know access only. We were not allowed to share it with the trainees as a result. We also raided rabbits and caught rattle snakes and would kill these animals in front of the trainees we were teaching that this is what soldiers might have to do in a survival situation to survive behind enemy lines. Most had not had to kill any animals to feed themselves.

I have two favorite stories regarding the rattle snakes. The first one is when we went to Hunter Ligget Military Reservation to catch the snakes. I had seen a rattle snake round up on television in Oklahoma and saw them cut pieces of hose, pour gasoline down the hoses and then blow the fumes through the hoses into the snake holes. The snakes came out of the holes and were captured. I had my soldiers do this also. Sergeant First Class Fredrickson, our new committee noncommissioned officer in charge, was behind me with a bag full of rattle snakes after a successful hunt when he feigned that he fell and hit my butt with a stick that he was carrying. I thought it was the bag of snakes and jumped and yelled. It was a very funny incident in my life. The other snake story is that we would rotate killing a snake for one company going through the training and the next week we would kill a rabbit. One particular week it was the rattle snakes turn to be killed, cleaned and cooked. We would have the snake wired up so we would not have to chase the snake just before we went on stage with the presentation. I was designated to take the snake out and do the demonstration. The wire was too tight. It took both my hands to loosen the wire and the snake fell out and was falling towards my leg. Out of terror, I grabbed the snake unmercifully and broke its neck and as a result, it died in my hands. The trainees hissed that was a dead snake instead of a live one when I brought it out for the demonstration. The involuntary contractions of the snake’s body when I stripped the snakes skin off made the trainees reconsider their response.

In 1966, the Army decided that it was my turn to go to Vietnam. I was given orders to Fort Bragg, North Carolina (home of the Army’s Special Forces) to study to be an Advisor to the Vietnamese Army (ARVN). The training was very good and I was then sent to Vietnam. Vietnam was a big shock for my system and I was frightened and at the same time, I liked it. I arrived just before Christmas in December 1966. Six of us officers were put up in one room at the top of a tall building. My first big culture shock was when I was relieving myself in the toilet and a maid walks in as if it was “no big deal”. I learned to understand that the culture does not look down on the nude body and the taboos in western culture are not the same as in the East.

I received orders in country to go to the furthest ARVN division in the south, the 3d Battalion, 31st Regiment, 21st ARVN Division based out of Bac Lieu and be assigned as an Assistant Battalion Advisor. No U.S. units operated in the area and it was thought to be pretty much under the control of the Viet Cong. I recognized it as a very dangerous assignment as it would prove to be. The first time I came under fire, I froze. It was in the evening and I was in an advisors compound for the Regimental Senior Advisor. I was going through intensive theoretical training by reviewing the tactics that were being used in our area by the ARVN units. I woke up and heard firing. I was so inexperienced at the time, I did not know what type of firing it was. We were to scramble for the bunker if we came under attack. It was close to midnight when the rounds struck. I ran to the doorway and froze. I felt in my butt a large boot striking me and propelling me to the bunker. I never froze again in my two tours of duty in Vietnam. It is unfortunate that the Captain who taught me that lesson shortly there after was killed in action when trying to get a medal. He lead an attack on a machine gun bunker. His wife received his silver star posthumously.

It was February 7, 1967, and I was told by Captain Shipey, the Battalion Senior Advisor, my supervisor that we were going to take a convoy back to Vi Thanh from Can Tho. We had been on a mission to scrounge sand for our ARVN counterparts to build dependent housing for their soldiers. We had succeeded and were traveling back to our base. I had a premonition that something bad was going to happen. I asked Captain Shipey if we could take alternate transportation back by helicopter or delay our return, he responded by saying “no”. We departed
in a jeep and I sat next to my counterparts wife (very attractive Vietnamese lady). All at once, I felt great concern for my personal safety (feelings of foreboding, pending doom, depressed feelings, etc.). I had been sitting on my flack jacket, I put it on. I took my beret off and replaced it with a steel helmet. I loaded a round of ammunition in the chamber of my weapon and took the safety off. Captain Shipey turned and demanded what was going on with me and then the ambush took place. I was immediately shot in the upper left arm. Though wounded, I responded by firing my weapon. I had no idea how badly I was wounded. I did not think of Mother or any other endearing thought. My sole thought was that I wanted to survive and would do what I had to do to survive. We pulled into a local hamlet and my counter parts wife administered first aid to me. I was going into shock and threw up. I had concealed my money in the top of my helmet and asked to have my helmet returned to me as I was Medivaced by helicopter to a hospital. I had a fake wallet in my pants which the ARVN stole. I had planned ahead and was not victimized in this situation. The helicopter crew knew I was OK when I asked if the time in the helicopter would count for my air medal.

The Doctor at the Helicopter Companies base gave me first aid and a shot of morphine and had me stay in his hospital because he was lonely, or that is what he told me. He treated me by running a swab through my arm five days in a row. I became so infected that I asked to be evacuated to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). The 3rd Field staff wanted to know who had caused me to be so infected. There was concern that my arm would have to be amputated. I was given such large shots of penicillin that tears would come to my eyes (one large shot per cheek of my butt at a time). This stabilized my arm and then I was sent to Camp Drake Hospital near Tokyo, Japan. I ended up staying two months in the hospitals as a result of this rifle wound to my left upper arm. I was fortunate that no bones were broken. I had a good time in Japan. I was ambulatory and we would party in the evening and recuperate in our hospital bed during the day. I received a letter addressed to Mrs. Gary Bingham while in the hospital (I was not married at the time) regarding the effects of the deceased. It bothered me a lot to get this letter. The Officers on the ward prepared a surprise ceremony because of this letter. They had a dummy soldier dressed in uniform on a litter with very large boots on and sang the funeral march to me as I returned to the ward one day. In the groin area of the soldier was a magazine rolled up to simulate a full erection. It cheered me immediately and I never thought another thought about the letter. I then got a letter from a girl I had been dating who claimed that she was pregnant. I was very depressed about this. One of the soldiers cheered me up regarding this when he showed me a wallet of pictures of approximately four women each with a picture of a child that he had fathered. He assured me that it “was no big deal”. She later wrote me that she had made up the story so I would marry her. Another shock I received in the hospital in Japan was a “Dear John” letter from Roseann the girl I was engaged to. She had gone to Iceland with the federal civil service when I went to Vietnam and she discovered it was too cold there to stay by herself. I did write her a very nice letter and she returned our engagement ring.

In Japan, I was given a choice, stay in the hospital longer, my arm still hurt, go back to Vietnam to finish my tour of duty or be reassigned back to the states. I chose to go back to Vietnam. I figured that I would be immediately sent back to Vietnam if I did not get credit for a complete
year. Back in Vietnam, I was given my choice of assignments since I had been wounded. I chose a remote hamlet to get out of combat for a while. It did not work. I did not want to go back to my old Division because I felt that I could readily die there. I reported to the 5th ARVN Division in Lam Som. A Captain decided that he wanted me as his assistant Battalion Advisor for the 4th Battalion of the 7th ARVN Regiment. This was a famous Battalion because it had surrounded a church when President Diem was taken prisoner in Saigon. Years later I figured out that this Captain had the power to do this because he was the son of an high ranking general. I still had a medical profile on my arm and should not have been immediately deployed to combat. My arm throbbed.

Immediately after I joined the Battalion, we went on continuous field operations, moving and shooting. My captain appeared to be under great emotional stress. He was married and I was not. He was a devout Catholic. When I asked if I could take the Sergeants to the house of Ill repute, he responded that he would allow it and did not like it. I had asked him at the Sergeants request. My Captain appeared to have a deteriorating mental condition. He and I came into open conflict in a battle that we were in with the enemy. I was with the lead elements of the Battalion in a combat formation which was my usual location. I was shot at a lot. I developed the ability to completely relax my body and fall to the ground almost immediately after hearing a shot fired. I would get very dirty; but, I am alive to type these memories. It was a very hot Asian afternoon and we had been maneuvering for a number of hours on the field. We were in an open rice field approaching an L shape dirt berm under tall palms. Then the enemy opened up on us. I estimated a reinforced platoon of enemy shooting at a high rate of fire. These were regular Viet Cong troops. We called it in and were reinforced with Army helicopter gun ships. I placed the gun ships along the L and they made sweeps shooting with machine guns directly on the enemy.
This effectively suppressed the enemies fire on us. While this was taking place, my Captain intervened over the radio and tried to draw the helicopter away to attack a lone sniper who is firing on him in his location in the rear. I intervened over the radio and did not let him take the helicopters. We never discussed this in detail afterwards and I am sure that he would never forgive me for it. I intended to survive in combat.

My last major conflict with my Captain took place in Binh Long Province where we were assigned to maintain the security of an air field. We were assigned along with US troops in this mission. One night we are under attack by enemy mortars and I woke up my Captain and tried to get him to go the bunker with the Sergeants and myself. He proceeded to talk to me in a demeaning manner. He appeared to have an emotional break. The next day, our Regimental Senior Advisor visited us. The Sergeants and I reported my Captain’s behavior and the Captain was immediately taken with the Major out of the field and assigned to a Vietnamese training center assignment. My Captain’s method of getting back at me was to write a performance report where he reported that I handled administrative logistic matters. I may have done a little logistics work; but, my primary job was to coordinate tactical operations in the field (kill the enemy). I complained to the Major and he indicated that it was an acceptable efficiency report and he would not intervene.

Living with the Vietnamese was a learning experience at all times. I enjoyed the friendly attitude
of the Vietnamese soldiers and we worked well together. They knew the environment and being natives, they knew how to exist in it as comfortably as they could. My memories are very strong when I was assigned to the 21 ARVN Division in the Mekong Delta of the difficulty I had walking across monkey bridges. These are tree limbs that have been placed over small streams with hand holds present (at a very low height) to help steady a person crossing them. The Vietnamese scampered across these bridges. On operations, we moved at a fairly fast rate of speed. With my heavy pack, weapon, ammunition, large feet (compared to Vietnamese feet), I struggled, slipped and otherwise had a great amount of difficulty moving across these bridges. Since this area is mostly flooded, we were crossing these small bridges every fifty meters. I would slip, slide and fall off these bridges to the great amusement of the Vietnamese Soldiers. They would point at me and routinely laugh at me as I struggled over these bridges. I tried to improve my performance on them and mostly without success. It seemed they never tired at chuckling at my efforts.

Through out the areas that I operated with the Vietnamese Units, we were constantly walking by land mines. I could not see them. The Vietnamese would try and show me and teach me to see them. I would be very close to where they would point out a trip wire and still not see the wire. The Vietnamese would give up in desperation and tell me to step in the very foot steps that they stepped in to protect me and themselves from me setting off one of these land mines. This also resulted in some amusing moments with me taking small steps while marching to insure that I stepped where they stepped.

The Vietnamese, unlike the US Army at the time, allow homosexuals into their military. I will never forget when I was with the 5th ARVN Division, near Lam Som and they assigned us to a
remote area near the Saigon River to build an outpost for the local militia, Regional Forces/Popular Forces (RF/PF). I am sure we also served the purpose of disrupting enemy operations in the area. The area was very unsanitary with dead bodies floating down the river on occasion. It was very important to stay clean in this type of situation to avoid diseases. The advisors bathed each day in one area that had a stream running through it. We had a fan club of homosexuals that would routinely watch us. One day, as I walked out of the water, a Vietnamese Soldier reached into my wet shorts and grabbed me. I was very upset about it and told the Vietnamese Battalion Commander that I did not want to be near that person in the future. I never did see the soldier again. Also, the entire Battalion (or it seemed like the entire Battalion) would go to the toilet in one area. The pile that we defecated on was alive with maggots, moving constantly feeding on the feces. My worst fear was slipping and falling into this pile while I was using the toilet. In this same area, I became severely sick with dengue fever and had to be Medivaced for treatment. I would spit up and also had severe diarrhea. The diarrhea was the worst I have experienced. I would wake up in the middle of the night vomiting and experiencing diarrhea. In a field situation, with no toilet, no toilet paper, it was a terrible experience, to say the least (very messy).

The Battalion Commander had an unusual way of disciplining soldiers who would be absent without leave (AWOL). One day I witnessed him with a recently returned cook who had been AWOL. The Battalion Commander would, using a rifle, shoot the rifle next to the soldiers head, all the time saying “Dew Mami” which is Vietnamese for the word “mother fucker”. I was
shocked and starred at the spectacle in disbelief. I can still see the spectacle in my mind.

The Vietnamese would test my tolerance of new foods. Rather then starve, I would eat anything they presented to me. Mostly, I enjoyed eating the food they gave me. I still can remember the bread that we were served. At the bottom of the bread, which was fresh from the bakers, would be insects baked into the bread itself. The insects obviously were on the bottom side of the dough while being baked. On special occasions, the Vietnamese would eat special delicacies and watch my face closely knowing that they were giving me something that Americans did not consider delicacies. I would sample blood soup with nuts in it, blood wine, and suck on fermented duck eggs. I declined to make a meal of these delicacies.

In July 1967, I was promoted to Captain. The Colonel who promoted me pinned on my bars and then handed me an imaginary sack of brains. The Colonel told me that I was now expected to “think” on my own. I used this same statement many times when promoting many Captains over the years as a Reserve Battalion Executive Officer and as a Reserve Battalion Commander. I was twenty three (23) years old. The Army did not want to give me my own Battalion to advise because of my age. They wanted me to go to the field with another Captain, new to the country, to assist him. I refused saying that if you promoted me to Captain, I expect to be assigned to a Captain’s position. This resulted in my assignment as one of two Army Officers to be initially assigned to work for retired Army Lieutenant Colonel John Vann in Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) organization. This was the leading organization that was to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese back from the enemy because of our good deeds for them (pacification). It did not work because the enemies use of force was stronger then our good deeds. The highlight of this assignment was when I visited a hamlet with some senior Vietnamese Officers and discovered that the Army District Advisor was at war with his Vietnamese counterpart. Because of corruption on the Vietnamese part, and the Advisor suspected that he could be the victim of violence by the Vietnamese. I briefed my supervisor about this (Mr. Nunn, Foreign Service Officer) and was told to finish my complete written report before he would brief Mr. Vann. I advised him to tell Mr. Vann ahead of time. A fire fight did develop between the two in the compound they lived in and Mr. Vann took my hand written report and went to the area. I knew that the Vietnamese were capable of violence against us when a very obnoxious battalion advisor crawled in bed one night and had a cobra crawl up into his underwear. This Captain had to be medivaced for shock.

I was delighted with the assignment mainly because I was out of combat (a personal high risk activity). I also heard about a branch of the Army that was looking for recruits and appeared to be a way to keep me out of direct combat. It also promised to improve my formal education. I was well aware that after the war that I was vulnerable to lose my job with the Army because of my formal education (lack of) no matter how good a job I did. I submitted my application for branch transfer from the Infantry to the Military Intelligence Branch with a speciality in Counter Intelligence (spy catcher, internal security specialist).

I received my orders out of Vietnam to Fort Dix, New Jersey to be assigned as a Basic Training Company Commander awaiting my possible transfer to the Military Intelligence Branch.
Returning to the States was a shock for me. The antiwar efforts were strong in 1967 and I was considered a “baby killer” and not a hero for our country. From going to living like an animal in Vietnam to the US affected me emotionally. I went to a private physician and was prescribed some medication to help me control my emotions. I took it briefly and stopped when I did something to bring back the feelings of risk that I had in Vietnam. I drove a Triumph sports car in the winter through the snow from Washington State to New Jersey. Experiencing danger had a calming effect on me and caused me to not feel the need to take medication again. I have never
since attempted or taken any medication to help me control my emotions.

End of Active Duty

I arrived at Fort Dix, New Jersey January 1978 and was given a command of a Basic Training Company. Our Brigade Commander was Colonel Lockhart. We had a Major Jenkins as a Battalion Commander. My company was short of senior Sergeants. I had one Sergeant First Class and he got orders to go to Vietnam leaving me with a Staff Sergeant with less then six years of service in the Army as my senior field sergeant. This significantly negatively effected my ability to manage my company. A Captain in our Battalion who graduated from West Point had over five Sergeant First Class ranking sergeants assigned to his unit. The West Pointers company always performed better then the rest of the Battalions companies mainly because they had more experienced leaders. I went to the Battalion Commander and he declined to redistribute the Sergeants in the Battalion to make it fairer. I learned first hand about prejudice in favor of West Point graduates in the Army based on this experience. My company did do very well in the Marching area and we were selected by the Battalion to represent the Battalion in a brigade parade. I lead the my unit and gave the commands. This was one of my strong areas and I could train in Company mass drill. This can be very demanding marching large numbers of troops.

I learned a valuable lesson one day. I was very concerned that trainees did not dodge their duties and had a number of trainees go on a forced march that I lead to the hand grenade range. A Medical doctor called me and yelled at me profusely for marching one trainee who had a medical condition that I had worsened. I apologized profusely and it was a life long lesson.

At that time, my company was in competition for our trainees achieving high test scores with other companies. Battalions were in competition with other Battalions and the Brigade was in competition with other Brigades. The Post was in competition with other posts. As company commanders, we were encouraged to cheat on the test scores so we all looked good. I refused to cheat. A fellow Captain Michael Merrick (still swap Christmases cards with) (born in Dublin Ireland, raised in his Fathers bar) prepared a study on the cheating and presented it to Colonel Lockhart. At the conclusion of the presentation, Colonel Lockhart pulled a blank rifle qualification card that a range Officer In Charge has signed for a Captain Company Commander and the Colonel was very proud of. The company commander was free to record any score he wanted to on the blank card. My performance report suffered because of my refusal to do such unethical acts and my shortage of sergeants prevented my unit from excelling. Fortunately, my transfer was approved to go to Military Intelligence Advance Course. This transfer included that I was to go to “Intelligence Research” Course which is a cover name to teach me how to be a counterintelligence agent and then to Military Intelligence Advance Course. Advance Course is a middle manager course for commissioned officers provided by the Army. I had decided that I can not handle the emotional, physical needs of my life as a single person any longer. Towards the end of my second tour of Vietnam, I was corresponding with six women from the Seattle area. I dated all six when I returned. I liked Linda the best and proposed to her and sent a check for her to fly out and marry me in New Jersey. She accepted and we have been married ever since. I arranged the wedding (post church, wedding license, flowers, pictures, best man and wedding reception). I also obtained an apartment and bought furniture for it. It all worked out. I loved Linda a lot and still do.

In 1998, we reported to Baltimore, Maryland where I was to attend Military Intelligence courses at Fort Holibird, Maryland. I worked hard in the training. The training was highly technical and almost every agency in the federal government made presentations to us in Advance Course. It was impressive and highly educational. The detail some times became overwhelming. I will never forget when we made a field trip to the Topographical Command and watched some technicians making relief maps. A technician was giving a very detailed presentation of what tools were used for each cut and I had to leave the room. I was close to losing control of myself and laughing uncontrollable that I would ever care what tool they used for any particular cut to prepare these maps. We went to the Presidents command bunker under a mountain on another field trip. Our close proximity to Washington D.C. made it easy for us to have these educational activities. One of the highlights of the course was when one of our class mates died and he was buried at Arlington Cemetery. A rider less horse was used with boots in the stirrups. We had a great lunch in the club. The Captain who had died and I played golf together on occasion and he had a terrible temper on the course. In fact he died in the midst of a temper tantrum on the course. This has served as a good lesson for me for future life.

We left Fort Holibird and went to Vietnamese Language school at Fort Bliss Texas in 1979 on my way back for another year in Vietnam. My assignment was to work with the Vietnamese again in the area of counterintelligence and I was excited about it. I knew that this had the potential to be a very dangerous job. El Paso was beautiful and we enjoyed the location very much. I worked hard at the rote memory requirements.

I was back in Vietnam in January 1970. I illegally smuggled two revolvers with me. On my previous tour of duty, on many occasions, I felt a need to have a revolver and did not have one. I taped the revolvers to my body just before the plan landed in Saigon (not Ho Chi Minh City). I started orientation and was immediately pulled out and was standing before a Colonel who asked me to stand up and talk to him a while. He was measuring my presentation skills and analytical ability. He told me I was hired. I had no idea what I was hired for and what it involved.

I was hired into one of the most demanding jobs, analytically and time wise that I have ever experienced my life. I was assigned as an intelligence analyst in the Current Intelligence and Evaluation Division of J-2, Military Assistance Command Vietnam. This caused me to increase the prescription to my glasses and further caused a deterioration to my general physical condition. It involved working seven days a week, twelve hours a day with no days off. It was the ultimate intelligence job in Vietnam. We received all, or all most all the intelligence that was received in Vietnam and were responsible to process it, make it intelligible and brief it or publish it to the Commanders of our forces in Vietnam. Working this schedule for two months results in muscle deterioration and general feelings of physically falling apart. The room that we worked in was very large with no windows. The rooms were wide open with maps next to our desks. The intelligence picture was broken down by military regions (I, II, III, IV, Laos, Cambodia), wherever we had an interest. I was initially assigned to the III Corps area desk. I was required to memorized the enemy units in the area and their activities going back ten years. Right after I had learned this material, I was reassigned to work for the Marines on the I Corps desk. I was very upset about this and adapted to it. At the time, I was the only Army Officer working for the Marines. This assignment was a joint assignment working with other services of the US Armed Forces. We also would be called directly by the White House Intelligence people asking for interpretations. I personally remember receiving one of these calls. I would read up to two books of information daily, write up to seven articles a day or more and sometimes give two to three stand up briefs a day. It was a high pressure job to the highest degree. The pressure would be so intense that many of the senior officers would be hospitalized or left country early. Many were on medication. It was relentless. I look back fondly on Lieutenant Colonel Donald Hecht (now deceased) as someone that was there to assist us in a fatherly manner. He was assigned to supervise all the Corps. Sometimes the officers would participate in frisbee wars by throwing plastic coffee can tops at each other. I frowned on such behavior and largely did not participate. I caused quite a controversy when I bought a crystal ball, put it in a glass enclosure on top of a red cloth (marine colors). I would tell people on occasion that the crystal was cloudy and I could not see the complete picture. When I left the Marines would not buy it from me so I sold it to the Cambodian desk, they seemed to need it. We were so good at our job that someone could merely point at a section of our assigned areas and we could stand up and tell them what had been going on there. The tedious boredom of the repetitive aspect of our jobs was many times overwhelming. My personal diversion was to emphasis threats that I could prove; however, probably did not merit the urgency that I gave them. I usually did this during the resource allocation briefing and the Colonel in charge of the briefing would usually end up giving orders to the assembled staff based on the information I gave, it was usually to collect more information in a particular area.

I worked for two different Marine Corps Majors, Major Unknown (subsequently promoted to full Colonel) and John Gerry (subsequently promoted to Brigadier General). John was a great gentlemen and I have not worked for a better officer. Major Unknown had invented information and this made it difficult for us after he left Vietnam. Major Unknown invented the finding of “General Tin’s notebook”. The J-2 was General Potts, a WW II friend of General Abrams (both and tank back grounds) and Major Unknown had tank experience in the Marine Corps. When asked difficult intelligence questions that defied answers, Major Unknown would describe the contents of General Tin’s note book which usually had some explanation of the intelligence conundrum. I met Colonel Unknown retired on my last reserve duty period at Quanitico Marine Corps Bases Golf Course. We played two days in a row and talked about the past. Without stating the General Tin’s notebook was a made up story, Colonel Unknown would talk about the notebook to me at the golf course. It is a remarkable coincidence that we would meet again. Colonel Unknown was in the process of moving to Tennessee to find a cheaper place to live in retirement.

I had done so well in this assignment that I was told that I was recommended to take over a desk in the National Security Agency. My lack of a college degree probably inhibited this assignment. I wanted to go to a line combat unit and was assigned to the First Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas on rotating out of Vietnam.

We arrived at Fort Riley in the winter and I was immediately thrown in the back of a jeep and on field exercises where I suffered greatly. My body had adapted to Vietnam and the very cold weather of winter in Kansas physically hurt. I went out and bought some Sears aluminum line insulated underwear to help me keep warm. It helped a little. I was assigned as an Assistant G-2 for the First Infantry Division which is part of the Divisions Headquarters Staff in the area of Intelligence, my specialty. After I arrived, a new Lieutenant Colonel arrived name Unknown (later to become an Iranian hostage) to become our staff leader as the G-2. I was in conflict with this Officer. I have worked for many what civilians would consider being abusive personalities in the military. Usually it did not bother me because it is an integral part of the Military to be a very strict disciplinarian. Lieutenant Colonel Unknown, in my opinion, surpassed the level of appropriateness regarding the way he dealt with subordinates. I practiced an approach where I tried to personally tried to avoid him. Our conflict was unavoidable. Colonel Unknown did not have a considerable background in the Intelligence field. He had just left an assignment where he was part of the developmental team for the Apache helicopter. Lieutenant Colonel Unknown was a tyrant and I do not personally do well as a subordinate for this leadership style.

My advise to Lieutenant Colonel Unknown lead to his being yelled at by Division Commander, General Flannagan. General Flannagen had an explosive personality and freely used profanity directed at us in large groups. General Flannagen did not practice a gentlemen approach to leadership. I will never forget where the assembled Divisions Officers were victimized by him in the first large meeting with all of us at Fort Riley about litter being found on the side of the road where the General could observe it on the way to the meeting. The situation that lead to Colonel Unknown getting chewed out by the General took place in Germany. The Army at the time had evolved to put electronic warfare elements as part of the Division Tactical Operations Center. In practice this meant that a new staff van went to the field which was next to the logistics, operations and intelligence vans. Its sole function was to track the electronic warfare aspects of the war. We had received some information from this van which was misinterpreted by a Lieutenant that was reported directly to Colonel Unknown and the Colonel took it directly to the General. I analyzed it based on my experience in Vietnam and came up with a different interpretation and asked that Colonel Unknown go back to the General and correct the initial report. Colonel Unknown went back to General and made this correction and this is when the General demeaned Colonel Unknown. Colonel Unknown appeared to never forgive me for this negative encounter that he had with the General. I could not have stopped Colonel Unknown from going to the General with his initial report because I was not on duty. I believe that Colonel Unknown had me transferred to the new assignment as the S-2 for Division Support command shortly there after this incident. This was a better assignment and I was glad to have it. I also believe that Colonel Unknown had me recommended to be relieved from active duty based on this incident. This incident demonstrates how difficult it is to make a career from the military. Less then twenty percent of those that enter the military reach retirement.

U. S. Army Reserves

In 1973, I discovered as a State Prison employee that I had extra time on my hands and I could use some extra money. I decided that I would overcome any feelings of being rejected by the military when I was released from active duty and try to find a position in the Army Reserve. I called the 91st Division and reported to the Division Headquarters at Fort Baker. The Division Headquarters referred me to the 4th Brigade Headquarters. At the Brigade Headquarters, I was offered two positions. One position was the Drill Sergeants Academy and the other was with the Automotive Battalion. The Automotive Battalion was an Advanced Individual Training Unit that trained truck drivers and mechanics in an Army Training Center for future assignments in active duty units. My attitude towards the military was less then perfect and I chose the Automotive Battalion which is known to be a disciplinary problem in the Military and frequently less then military in the strict sense of the term. I felt this was the unit for me and for four years I experienced a lot of positive experiences being assigned to it.

I was initially assigned as a Company Commander. Since I had actually successfully held this position on active duty, I had a very different perspective on how this should be done then the normal reservist. On one occasion, we went to the rifle range and I remember that it a became a problem for Captain Bourghs, our supply officer, that we were missing two rifle magazines. We believed that one of the soldiers possessed it. I had the troops fall out and the officers start frisking them and we magically found the magazines laying on the grass. Many of the reserve soldiers that composed the reserves at that time were in the reserves for the sole purpose to avoid the draft. Hair nets were authorized and many of the soldiers were pursuing advanced degrees. My Supply Sergeant was working on a Doctorate in a science related subject at Berkeley. The Battalion Executive Officer, a Major was assigned to the position of Battalion Commander and his position was vacated and open for replacement. Since my permanent reserve date of rank of permanent Captain was the most senior in the unit, I was made the acting Battalion Executive Officer. My file was submitted under the unit vacancy promotion policy and I was selected to promotion to Major, much to my surprise. The reserves filled a void in my life to vent my excess energy and to also help me forget the negative experiences of the prison. Our unit would go to Fort Ord and do our annual training requirements each year. When Fort Ord ceased to be a training center, the unit was flown to Fort Leonard Wood Missouri to do our training. Fort Leonard Wood was not the high light of my military career as far as a place to do active duty. We were kept very busy during our two weeks active duty periods and time passed by rapidly. The prison experience made me a better commissioned officer. I developed a closer, more friendly, helpful manner in the performance of my duties. Because they were reservists, in many or most cases they needed my help to do the most basic activity. I needed to teach, organize, guide and many times, I did the work myself. The full time technicians which were civilians at that time greatly appreciated my attitude and we did a lot of good work together, particularly Mr. Erik Levy.

The reserves went through a major management reorganization and Officers started to be managed regarding their assignments by a central committee at the Division level. I had been in the Battalion for four years and they wanted others to have the opportunity to be Battalion Executive Officers and I was reassigned to the Maneuver Training Command (MTC). This organization administered the Army Training Evaluation Program to Reserve Units in the five western states. This Program was a qualification test to see if the Reserve Unit met the standards of the Army. The standards had been written down by the Army in a manual and we would administer this test. The test was conducted in a field environment and our testers would generate messages to the unit that would cause them to do actions which would put us in a situation to evaluate them. I thought the whole process was unorganized and wanted the messages written out in advances and time phased to the unit, making it similar to what would actually take place in a real situation. The normal practice was to dump the message in a mass on the unit and watch them “jump through their ass” trying to respond to them. I felt this was unrealistic, did not properly allow the unit to respond, did not give the unit time to do some proper research to respond, caused inappropriate stress which demeaned the units members and prevented us from doing an accurate evaluation. The system was not good. I was assigned as one of the Military Police Team Chiefs. I had no back ground in Military Police so immediately enrolled in the correspondence course for the Military Police regarding Military Police subjects only. I was learning. I did know a lot about the military and how to supervise people. I had my work cut out for me because there was some very strong personalities in the Military Police teams who were real life police officers in a variety of duties and law enforcement agencies in the area. Some of these people had some strong personal problems and drank excessively. One of the Captains killed himself while I was assigned to the unit. An alcoholic Major was a Motorcycle Sergeant in San Francisco. He was constantly hazed about the homosexuals in San Francisco. We evaluated a Military Police Company at Fort Lewis Washington, a Military Police Company at Fort Carson, Colorado, and a Military Police Battalion at Camp San Luis Obispo, California while I was in this assignment. I was called back to be the Chief Empire to evaluate the Military Police Battalion from my Battalion Command in San Jose. This developed into an evaluation with a lot of conflict because the active duty Lieutenant Colonel came over and tried to intimidate me and my staff. I kept getting physically closer to him until he understood that he was unwelcome and it was not in his best interest to be behaving improperly with us. I think at that time I had just finished reading the book, “Winning Through Intimidation”.

I had one assignment with the MTC which was very demanding that had nothing to do with Military Police. When I first arrived with MTC, I needed more active duty time to complete my required number of points to have credit for a good retirement year. The Transportation Section of MTC needed a Major as an evaluator and I went down, interviewed and was hired. For this exercise, I was initially assigned to do administrative tasks and when they saw that I had a good attitude and was a worker person, somehow, they decided that I would be a Chief Umpire for the exercise. I was supervised by a full Colonel who was overall in charge of the evaluation. This was a highly political evaluation of five petroleum companies which were based all over the west. The evaluation took place in Fort Irwin in August and it was very hot and dusty there. There was also another Headquarters organization there by the name of a RAOC (Rear Area Organization Control). In a war, this organization would coordinate all the support units behind the combat units. This is a major activity in warfare and the successful movement of supplies to the front line units in a conflict is critical for the success of the combat units. The RAOC was the superior organization in this exercise and they had a Lieutenant Colonel who was their Chief Umpire because they were being evaluated also. An emergency took place during this exercise which I will never forget. The RAOC Chief Umpire controlled some aggressors and they had thrown a hand grenade simulator under a 500 gallon gasoline tanker. These simulators have the potential to start a fire. Major Iseri, later to become my Battalion S-3 Operations Officer, was very worried about it. As a result, I was forced to scramble and drive a jeep through some very deep sand/silt until I found the Lieutenant Colonel Chief Umpire. I told the Colonel, once I found him that he and I would be going to Levenworth (a near by post called Fort Levenworth is the home for the Army’s Command and General Staff Course) for the long course at the Military prison there if he did not get control of the aggressors. The aggressors were subsequently restrained in their activities for the rest of the exercise. One of my strongest lessons from this exercise was after the exit brief, and we told the unit of their evaluation results, we needed to clear out of the area for our own physical safety. Some of the unit members that had been evaluated would start drinking and the built up tension would spill out and result in it being unsafe for us. I would use this precept in future evaluations.

In 1979, I completed the Correspondence Course “Command and General Staff Course” and my file was submitted for consideration to promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, again under the Unit Vacancy Plan. I was surprised to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was given command of the worst unit in the 91st Division regarding its strength. The unit did not have enough people assigned to fill its vacant positions. At that time the Reserve Unit Commanders and the soldiers of the units were required to recruit soldiers for their units. This was a very demanding activity and I had a lot of experience recruiting in my previous reserve assignments. Reservist were rapidly leaving the reserves because they no longer needed the reserves to keep them from being drafted into the active duty military. The draft had been stopped. For years in the reserves, I would attend meetings where I was threatened if I did not get the strength of the Unit up to the standard by recruiting more people into the reserves. This situation improved when the government allocated funds for full time recruiters to assist us to do this job. I believed that I needed to jointly focus on recruiting and quality training. The quality training would cause the reservists to want to stay in the Reserves once they were recruited into the Unit. I also knew that to successfully supervise a Battalion, I needed to get control of the Sergeants who are the heart of any unit. They needed to be positively recognized for their achievements. They also need to be assigned to give training classes well in advance to allow them to adequately provide the training. I also knew to do these tasks that I needed to do what I had not seen most of the Battalion Commanders do that I had previously worked with. Most of them would sit behind their desks and use the weekend as a library period where they would get caught up with their correspondence. This resulted in the unit doing largely as they might and with little direction. I vowed to change this usual pattern. I had us plan training a year in advance, including the assignment of instructors to teach specific classes. I also required our active duty recruiter to attend one day of our drill weekend. We also shared the same building with another Reserve Battalion. This Battalion was on the first floor of the building and we were on the second floor. Likely recruits that were referred to us frequently would go to the other Battalion because there was no sign on the first floor telling them where we were located. I had an independent sign located at the entrance to the building identifying where we were located. I also had a medal committee composed of the Unit Sergeant Major, myself and the Senior Unit Technician, Major Foster. We went through the entire list of unit members and designated deserving individuals to receive medals, assigned Officers to write the medals and I provided them with examples to write the medals with. All these things worked. We went from the worst strength to the highest strength in the Division within six months. They assembled all the divisions Officers and senior Sergeants in an auditorium and had me explain how I did it. I received a medal for this. We lead the division in strength the entire time I was a Battalion Commander and I received a number of very nice officer efficiency reports because of this. It was a significant factor in my promotion to Full Colonel before I had reached twenty years of commissioned service, a rare accomplishment. Less then five percent of all commissioned officers are promoted to the rank of Full Colonel

A made many decisions that were very correct regarding this unit. One of my decision was a bad one which I will disclose now. The final two week annual training period that I participated in with this unit took place at Fort Jackson. We had done a very good job during these two weeks. As a special reward, I wanted to present the Battalion with a treat. We always had a final party to celebrate this event and I asked that extra alcohol be provided the soldiers against the advise of our mess Warrant Officer. This resulted in some fighting among our soldiers in the barracks which I and the Officers of the unit responded to. We stopped it. Also, one of our Senior Sergeants smashed the side of an Army bus into a pole at the conclusion of the party. The unit knew I was being reassigned and gave me a Drill Sergeant Hat mounted on a plaque with my name and unit engraved on it. I greatly appreciated this gift and it will hang on the wall of my house indefinitely.

Unfortunately, this was my final assignment to a reserve Unit. I was reassigned to a new unit called Training Command which had all the training committees assigned to it that exist at an Army Training Center. The Commander, a Colonel Menist, was the son of a General who had commanded the Division for over ten years in the distant past. Colonel Menist would not assign me as his executive officer even though I was the senior officer. He wanted me to compete with another Lieutenant Colonel who I knew had been relieved of command. This is not the Army way of determining who was to be in the assignment. The Army uses strict seniority. Colonel Menist also wanted me to be at meetings which conflicted with my civilian job. He was unbending on this. As a result, I called the Deputy Commanding General of the Division and demanded to be reassigned to Saint Louis, the reserve holding area for unassigned reservists. I told the General that I had 18 ½ years good years for retirement and that I would finish the National Security Management Program (a long correspondence course) which would help me qualify me for promotion). I was surprised that after all my years of service in the division that no further efforts were made to retain me and it speaks to the political power of Colonel Menist. I have no regrets in making this decision as later developments would be very beneficial.

I heard from reservists that there was a need in Hawaii for reservists. I called Hawaii and they asked that I send them some documents on myself which I did. I was hired to work in support of the Command Center at CINCPAC (Commander in Chief Pacific Command). I was able to be assigned to Hawaii for over eight years and this very good assignment allowed me to play some great golf courses and have a very good time. CINCPAC supervises all the military forces in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean including Japan, Korea, etc. It is also responsible to track all the potential opposition forces in the area. When the war broke out with Iraq, a crisis action team was set up in this command and I was part of this team. After a successful annual training tour with CINCPAC, my file was submitted for promotion to full Colonel and I was selected for this promotion. CINCPAC decided to place me in a position that they held and I was assigned as a Command Duty Officer. This assignment was the most responsible positions that I held as a commissioned officer in the military. At CINCPAC is a very large war room that would be used to Command allied forces in action any where in the Pacific. It is also is in the deployment chain for nuclear weapons. The large war room was split in two halves. One half tracked the friendly operational forces and the other half of the building tracked the potential opposition forces. There was on full Colonel in charge of the War room during a twelve hour shift and this is the position that I was assigned to. I was given a two week training period for this assignment and went through the training with a Marine active duty full Colonel. The position involved a lot of reading during the shift and decision making. During the two weeks of duty, I was usually given two to three days off. It was heaven.

I was on duty and made key decisions when the air bus was shot down in the Mideast and advised the CINC (Commander in Chief) that this was an air bus and not a war aircraft that was shot down.

I was deceived into leaving this assignment. I was called by a Lieutenant Colonel from RCPAC (organization back east that controlled the assignment of Officers in Enlisted personnel for the Army Reserves) who told me that I had been selected for a new assignment because of my excellent record and responsible assignments. I should have run for cover and told him to forget it. He told me that I would be assigned to Japan as a Foreign area Specialist. I had enjoyed Japan when I had been hospital patient there and thought this would be a concluding assignment in the reserves. I asked him if he could guarantee this assignment and he said he could. This did not work out. The Army staff in Japan wanted a Japanese Officer who was on active duty in the Washington D.C. area or they did not want anyone. The Army staff in Japan deleted the position. By that time, they had filled my past Hawaii position with another Officer. This same Lieutenant Colonel told me that he would bump another Officer that was less qualified then me in Hawaii so I could stay in Hawaii. This did not work because the active duty staff who was in Hawaii had become attached to the Officer in that assignment and they had trained him to at least empty the ash trays as they said. They stopped my assignment by changing the code on the assignment number so I was no longer qualified for the assignment. The Lieutenant Colonel told me that he could get me assignments in the Washington D.C. area and that could land myself a job there if I liked. I was getting to the end of my career and thought I would enjoy a few weeks in the Washington D.C. area. The first two week assignment was working in the academic school part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I did various administrative tasks for them. While there I sold myself to an Army Colonel who was the Chief of the Soviet Branch of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I would be his reserve Deputy. This Officer retired and I did get to serve a two weeks in this assignment. The Air Force Officer who replaced him apparently did not want me and the assignment did not stick. The two weeks I did do for them was interesting and reflects the changing times in the United States and the Soviet Union. For many years the top Branch in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was the Soviet Branch because of the concern that the Soviet Threat represented for the United States. Because of the Soviet Unions disintegration, the Soviet Branch was no longer the top dog in the DIA. I was assigned to do a survey of the morale problems and thoughts of the staff. I just did a similar survey for my graduate thesis in college and know exactly what to do. I constructed a form which staff members were to fill out and I also did personnel interviews with key staff members. They let me know what they thought in great detail. The forms worked good to because it gave staff the opportunity to submit them anonymously. Some of the forms were filled with hate. The staff there were suffering because many had put a life time into study of the Soviet Union and thought that they would have a rich career only to now know that this effort would not lead to an executive assignment and may not lead to a supervisory position. Because I was a reservist, they were more likely to talk to me. The staff were also experiencing technology overload. They were given new computer systems every two years and by the time they learned the new one, another one arrived. I felt sorry for these staff members. I completed this large assignment within the two weeks allocated and received a nice performance report.

I think that I had given up on the Army at this point. My career had been one of constant struggle against great odds. I knew I could start a letter writing campaign and probably get another two week assignment or more. I just decided that I did not have the energy anymore. I had enjoyed very much my two week assignments in the Washington D.C. area and played on their local golf courses. I also had enjoyed visiting the Vietnam Monument twice. The first visit caused me to have a strong emotional experience and tears went down my cheeks. The second time, these strong feelings did not come to the surface. I think these last assignments in the Washington D.C. area were the right assignment to conclude my career in the Army.

I wanted to have a retirement ceremony and called Fort Irwin and asked that I participate in their ceremony. They did not respond so I wrote an emotional letter to the Commanding General. He responded and let me participate, gave me a retirement certificate and they said some very nice things about me in the ceremony. My wife Linda and her parents were able to attend the ceremony. This ceremony help me put closure on my Army Reserve Career of thirty one and a half years as did my return to Vietnam helped me to close my combat dreams of Vietnam.