I Join the Marines and Survive Pusan, Korea, Atomic Testing, and Flight School

Santa Barbara was too much fun, and I was too young, and all the WW2 guys were back. They were serious students and pushed the curve. It was my first real serious exposure to drinking. So I sort of drank my way through the first year and a half. I was more interested in sports and a serious romance with a young woman to I became engaged.  We were to end the relationship in September 1952 do mostly due to my immaturity.  I think it was probably a blessing in disguise though. When I look back on these years I think, “My God.” My grades just plummeted and I was the perennial pledge, because you had to have a C average and I didn’t have a C average. I left Santa Barbara the 18th of January in ’51; I had voluntered for three years with the Marine Corps and departed for  boot camp. That was a whole other experience that will stick in anybody’s memory that’s had the experience.  At  Santa Barbara  I was just essentially barely making it in school, and in fact leaving one half step ahead of them kicking me out. Though I got a nice letter from them because I had gone in the service saying they’d welcome me back. Well, they did years later, but that first semester I was on academic probation. But that was years later. 
Just before you got out of boot camp they’d give you your MOS—that’s your Military Occupational Specialty number—and I ended being an infantryman. The number of the MOS was something like 0311 or something like that. The saying was when you got that number was oh-three-oh-shit. And that’s what I had. 
 I was sent  to Camp Pendleton, with my fresh PFC stripe and the first thing I get—which probably saved my life—was two months of mess duty. In those days, the lower grades did the mess duty. They didn’t hire civilians as they do today you just did it. And so after the two months I then started in my infantry training at Tent Camp 2, Camp Pendleton as a BAR man, which is a Browning Automatic Rifle. The nice thing about the BAR is you had automatic fire, but you were also the one who attracted the most fire back.  Well, we shipped out in September of ’51, and I was a part of the twelfth replacement draft. We arrived in Pusan which you could smell a half day out. It was something. I ended up in a big replacement depot, fully expecting to be assigned to a line company as a BAR man. How it turned out, I don’t know, but I ended up in a place called Service Battalion. And Service Battalion had all the different support services for the division. It was the first Marine division. Thus,  I didn’t end up on Line Company. Had I arrived two months earlier, I would have gone through Operation Ripper probably as a BAR man and you and I wouldn’t be talking to each other. Because Marines took about 80% casualty during that lethal  time. 
Anyhow, I’m now initially assigned to a fuel platoon. We’re just moving around drums of gas. And then after that for some reason or another I get assigned to this outfit called the platoon that mends tents and does all sorts of repair stuff. At that time I received an MOS as leather and textile repairman, which was a real break since I went over there PFC and I came back a Sergeant because the MOS in need of personnel.

At some point,  probably around February of ’52, I’m now assigned to graves registration Platoon. It was all part of the service battalion. My job was essentially the clerk-typiest, but my job as clerk was when they brought the dead to us I had to go through their  belongings and make sure that nothing went home that showed violence. You know, blood stains or damaged personal property . So that was my job over half a year. 
Well, yeah, but not as tough as being in a battalion aid station with people screaming and yelling. These guys at least were dead. But we would go up to the aid stations to pick up the body and guys were getting their first triage treatment before being sent back to the hospital ship. And it was… well, it was a job. So in September… oh. I guess one thing that was sort of interesting. 
One time we—I guess this would have been in October or November, probably November of ’51—we went out on a patrol. These weren’t  patrols  going out ahead of the lines, but patrols making sure there weren’t guerilla operations or something like that. And so we went out with this squad, and a guy name of John Haislip who later became a judge in Alabama, he and I went up this draw, and there was this bunker. So we  come in from each side, and jump in the bunker, and there’s nothing there. I found an officer’s epaulet or something like that. We then did something stupid and started walking out in front  of the bunker back down toward the trail we used to come up there. At one point I looked down at my feet and I see every now and then  a dish like impressions. And I said, “Oh shit, John. Stop. We’re in the middle of a minefield.” So we stepped where there weren’t any depressions. (Laughs.)  A season had gone by and where they’d buried them the dirt had settled. So we walked through that without incident. Just the luck of the Irish. 
I guess another memorable thing was on Christmas we went back into our rear area where the USO was having a big show and Danny Kay showed up, and that was sort of neat. And let’s see. Well, then November ’52 we left to go back home. Aboard ship the rumor went around that we were going to turn back because the Chinese had started up a minor push, but the guys in our unit who’d gone up on the lines and some got killed, but it didn’t amount to anything. 
And so we went back to the States, and  after going on leave I was assigned with the third Marine division Graves Registration Platoon at Camp Pendleton I then received orders to go back to the special screening course. I had, when I was in Korea, had applied for a commission. There was a program for enlisted people who met certain qualifications to go back to the screening course at Quantico. 
And so I go back there and it was—if boot camp was difficult - this one month we went through this screening course—I mean boot camp looked like Sunday school. They really threw it at us. The cadre were all highly decorated company grade officers, and they really put us through the paces. We even got Rorschach exams , and, you know, just, at the end of this  they knew the participants better than they knew themselves. A lot of stress stuff: giving problems to which there were no solutions. They’d give you a length of rope but the rope wasn’t long enough. They were just observing how people handle stress.  One day an announcement goes out and they call out some names. Mine was among them. About 45% of the guys, and we were told “Get out of here. We don’t want to see you for two hours.” When we returned  we never saw the other guys again.  Two days later or so in the local theater some general addresses us and we are made officers and gentlemen and given our gold bars. After that we were sent to platoon leader school, still at Quantico, with a whole different cadre out in the boonies. So there we are. We’re in this one group of people—we were all with the exception of maybe just a few people— all then former enlisted people who are now officers. 
The Marine who had the bunk right next to me, was Archie Van Winkle. He had received the Medal of Honor. He had been with Dog Company 7th Marines at the Chosin Resivour in late December 1950 And so there were a lot of seasoned guys there, you know.  We went through, I don’t know, five or six months of basic officer infantry training. I was thinking, “Man, I don’t want to go back in that kind of stuff." I had my fill of that. 
So I went in for flight training, and after the exams , got assigned to go to Pensacola with some of my buddies. At one point in our physical the doctor asked me to flex my toes Which I did, and he says, “Oh, you have an arch” and he passes me on… Because in those days, you couldn’t even have flat feet. 
 I’d been in the infantry and I could have been marked unqualified because I didn’t have an arch. Just crazy stuff. So I went to Pensacola, and go through preflight. Just because of timing the guys I’d gone through platoon leader school and who were assigned to flight training end up going through preflight with the 1953 graduating class from Annapolis. And, you know, I have what, two years of college, and these guys in those days are all graduate engineers. Oh my God, how am I going to compete with this? 
Well, my buddy Charlie Northfield, he had been an engineering major at, I don’t know, University of Michigan or something like that helped me get through the math stuff and got I made it through preflight. From then on it was just a matter of flying and learning how to fly various birds. We started off with the SNJ, which is what was called the Texan trainer. While at  Pensacola we learned aerobatics, formation flying, and some basic instruments. Our primary training  ended  at Baron Field near Foley, Alabama where we had gunnery and carrier qualifications.  We used USS Monterey. That was the one that President Ford served on. Next, it was on to Corpus Christi, Texas where we went to advanced instrument training. After that out to some outlying fields where we now move into the advanced flying. In those days it was the Hellcat, the F6F Hellcat, which was very famous in the Pacific. It was the plane that defeated the zero.  We were flying these fighters for a while and learning  more gunnery, dog fighting,  night flying cross county flight, etc., 

I was in what we called the VA jet program, which was V is for fixed wing A is for attack. So I was in the jet attack syllabus. In those days jets were just entering into the picture, and so I  started flying what the Navy called the TV-2. The Air Force called it the T-33. It was a trainer, a tandem. That was my first experience flying without a prop in front of me. But there was only about thirty or forty hours of that.  I got my wings in September of ’54, and was assigned to VM-3 squadron at El Toro in Santa Ana, California.  I ended up there flying  a Douglas Sky Raider. It was the largest single engine prop attack  plane was ever created. There were four blades—and from tip to tip was like thirteen feet. That gives you an idea of size, and it had 2800 horsepower...it was a great plane to fly. 
 I flew with  VMC3 for a little over a year.  I suppose the most memorable time was when  the powers that be asked for some volunteers to fly up to the atomic testing grounds in Nevada. They were going to blow off some atomic bombs. So I signed up with some other guys. After one canceled flight, we went up, myself and another guy, each in our own plane     we flew up to Nevada. At that point we were picked up and vectored out to certain altitudes and headings. At some point they told us to put our plances on autopilot and  to lower our daylight shields, cover our eyes and  lower our heads. Now, this is just about an hour before sunrise. You know, it’s still that false dawn. Then they torched  this atomic bomb, a 41 kiloton monster. It was the second largest atomic bomb ever blown up in the United States. The light, with your eyes covered and everything, it was like somebody turned on a flashlight in your face. As soon as I looked up, the stem of this mushroom was coming up beside me out aways—I can’t remember the distance—and the whole stem of this mushroom cloud was just glowing with this iridescent purple. This was the ultraviolet, which you don’t see in most of the shots screened  in movies. And then the big donut dust cloud going across the desert floor. Quite a sight.  Beautiful and oh, so deadly.

 So we go back to El Toro, and we land and are given orders to taxi to a remote corner of the field. A crew comes out and  start spraying it down with this degaussing stuff. A "cherry picker" comes alongside and, after you unstrap, just picks you out of the cockpit and moves you so you don’t touch the outside of the plane and lowers you down to the ground. Some guy from the Atomic Energy Commission , I guess justs walk up quietly, takes a dosimeter you’re wearing and just leaves. And, well, that was the end of that. Iit happens that on that same test, one of my friends from my Explorer post, who lives here in Auburn, was on the ground as a foot soldier in the trenches. Because in those days they were using live troops as guinea pigs. Those were interesting times.

I’m sure they tested our radiation levels but I never found out what it was. I just glow in the dark now and again, but other than that it’s, you know, okay. One thing in flight training with the F6, I took off one day and had an engine failure, and ended up with the plane going off the end of the runway and flipping over. And I’m underneath this thing. But, you know, you’re so well trained, by the time I flipped over, I’d turned off my fuel and turned off the mags and other switches, but I could hear this gas going drip, drip (sounds of gas leaking) and I was going, “Jeez, don’t burn.” A  crash crew was there and they were out there foaming the plane. They eventually pulled me out of it and that was it that.  That was sort of exciting.

So, let’s see. After that in October  of ’55, I was sent back to Pensacola to learn how to fly helicopters.  I went through helicopter training and when I finished that I came back and shortly after I was married to my first wife Joyce who I’d known ever since she was 12 years old and I was about sixteen. You know,our relationship up to that time had been an off and on kind of thing. 
I don’t think I want to say too much about this. Joyce’s father was president of Kiwanis. When I was a kid and I got my Eagle Scout, he gave me my Eagle ring. But she and I had gone off and on together through my last two years of high school, and then I didn’t see her for a couple years, and somehow we got connected again through some mutual friends. And it just went sort of from there. After our wedding I received orders to go  to Japan to fly with a HMR-162 a helicopter squad in Opama, and a few months later Joyce joins me there, which was sort of illegal for Marines. All of the other services could have dependents, but not the Marine Corps. But I got her over there and put her up in in a nice Japanese home. The Navy helped. The town we lived in was called Zushi, which was sort of equivalent to what we might say, was a kind of amusement beach town.
We were there about half a year and I was flying choppers and them coming home. It was pretty much like a job, you know. And I had gone over there as a first lieutenant and I got my railroad tracks just shortly before I came back. I had put in for discharge, thinking I would go back and work for Joyce’s dad, who was in real estate and insurance.

My Ancestors Arrived on the Wagon Train

My maternal grandmother was a McCord. The McCord family came to California via wagon train, and they ended up in Bakersfield. But Alice McCord, who was her grandmother, was a young girl on the wagon train. She fell in love with a soldier who was guarding the wagon train and traveling with them. They got married and that’s how they happened to stay in California. They stopped first in Bakersfield and later came on to this area. 

My mother was born in Hanford and her father was born in Virginia. He came to California with his widowed mother and his sister when he was eleven years old. They settled in this area. I am the youngest child in the family. My sister and Lois were born four years earlier than I was. Gene was born for years before her. Each one of us showed up in a presidential election year! 

In the 1920s and 1930s Hanford was a typical small town. Growing up here I knew everybody, and everybody knew me. It was fun. You never went to any place as a stranger. When we left Hanford and moved around and did other different things it was hard to get used to being a stranger. 

According to my mother, my brother Gene was the “prince” of the family. Lois, the typical middle child, was very intelligent and very well-organized. He was happy if she could boss me around. Of course I was the spoiled youngest child. My dad and I were great friends. While I was growing up in Hanford I was very close to my father and we had a lot of fun. He had a great sense of humor, and I hope that part of my humor was inherited from him. Although he’s been gone for a number of years now I think of him often. When I hear a joke I think: “oh, dad would enjoy that joke!” 

Dad and I were very much alike. My dad worked as a rural mailman. In fact, he was one of the first mail men to work out of the local post office. When he started working as a mailman he delivered the mail with a horse and buggy for a short time. After that, he had very old cars that he drove for work. In fact, he loved cars. Later on he bought a new car every two years with the excuse that he needed it for his work. 

In the beginning when Fords were very, very cheap he used to have a lot of trouble with them. My dad dug a hole in the backyard to serve as a mechanics pit. He used to bring his car home in the evening and very often after work he would spend a few hours down in the hole fixing it. 

I remember it was a big, big event when he got a heater for the car. He used to drive in the cold, cold weather and there was lots of fog. So one year for Christmas mother bought him an after-market heater. That was a big, big event in the family! 

As a girl my mother was beautiful. Very beautiful. Dad met her and fell in love while she was still quite young. He courted her for a number of years and she was nineteen when they finally did get married. 

Her father, Charlie Fuller, was the first baby born in Hanford, other than the Indians of course. So Charlie fuller was the first citizen of Hanford. He worked as a blacksmith, and was considered very good at what he did. He was a strong man although he wasn’t a huge man. He was very muscular. I’ve heard stories that grandpa could put shoes on any horse, no matter how mean it was! 

If the horse didn’t behave and stand still for him he could just take them over and work on them while they were on their side. Now, I’ve never seen this happen but I’ve heard about it. This is the stuff of legend.

Before I die

Before I die
A lifetime before I die
I’d like to learn to fly
To a place beyond the tears
Away from all the fears
A year before I die
I’d like to learn to cry
From tears of happiness
No part played by sadness
A month before I die
I’d like to look at the sky
And regret days when it wasn’t blue
But more of a dark greyish hue
A day before I die
I’d like to take a sigh
One of relief and gladness
For I will depart this world of madness
A moment before I die
I’d like to take your hand and smile
As my imagination runs its final mile
Just before I die…
–
L.C.
This is a story of a woman who bore a child at the tender age of 16. Her beauty was that of an angel but the darkness had truly touched her soul. Every man she met would lust over her but none could ever truly love her. Her vanity and pride stood in the way of her finding true love and happiness.
The summer evening after her son had been born; she gently folded him in a blanket and cold-heartedly abandoned him on the side of the road. Never looking back twice to see what she was leaving behind, the woman continued with her impure life as if nothing had ever happened.
Ten years later, a dirty, tattered young man wreaking of dustbin odours knocked on her luxurious Victorian door. There was no mistaking the blue eyes that say on that face and the black her that was appeared to have been generously sprinkled onto his greasy scalp was a splitting image of his father’s.
With determination to repair their relationship, she allowed him to stay with her. All until she felt it was interfering with her ever-so-active love life. That is when her selfish ways pushed their way to the surface. She tossed him out once again, and this time for the last time.
As the guilt pecked at her over the years, her beauty began to fade and the darkness of her actions clouded her world. One night, the guilt she could no longer bear so she set off to find him only to return seven months later with no luck.
At her death bed, 41 years later, stood a middle aged man. Her son had returned to forgive his mother of her not so motherly actions and bid her farewell. She never found true love but she died knowing she had brought a soul much purer than her own into this world.
“Look at me Jonathan. I’m just a mere reflection of what a human shouldn’t be. All the mistakes I’ve made were only to fix what I thought was broken. You don’t understand. I would’ve been a terrible mother. If I had stayed, you would’ve hated me more than your little mind could ever imagine. I love you my dear boy but not more than I love myself. See, this is the one thing I truly admire about myself. I can be honest, honest about who I am. Pack your bags. You must go. I can no longer pretend I am prepared to be a mother to a child I barely even recognise. I’m still young. Men still adore me. What man would have me if word were to escape that I had a bastard child? Oh no! That I cannot bear…leave at once!”
“Frederick, I just chased my only son off into the woods. The only man who could probably ever love me the way I am…apart from you of course. He’s just a boy searching for the mother he never had. I lied. I do love him. He just deserves better. I’m not a suitable mother. I refuse to wreck what little childhood he has left. My brother, why are you looking at me like that? Have I made a mistake? He really is my son. I don’t believe it. I have to find him at once! Frederick, gather my things. Let me die with at least one honourable act in my name.”
“Jonathan! I found you. I finally found my son. I searched for you but you were gone. You just vanished into thin air. I never meant to hurt you. When I said I loved you but not enough, I lied. I love you twice as much as myself…even more when I deduct the parts of myself I really hate. I had to die knowing that one thing I touched didn’t turn into dust. Look at you my angel. You turned out better than you would have if I had stayed. I love you my darling. Dying in your arms was my wish to God and now it has c…”

My story… so far…

I sometimes question what makes a good story, and often wonder where that story would begin. We all usually know when we are exposed to a good story, but I believe that a great story is what we all desire. A great story usually involves many dynamics that can cause us to experience deep emotions, and often even question our own thoughts, beliefs, and motives as we reevaluate our own lives. My question remains the same about either type of story… at what point, where does it really begin? I decided to start my story, whether great or not, a few years before I decided to make a change in my life that has allowed me to be fortunate enough to help other people in ways that I didn’t realize I was capable of. I also believe that it’s not always the destination that is as important as the journey…
In most ways, my story began when I opened the only eye not sealed shut with blood as I became conscious lying in the ICU ward of a military hospital and realized the extent of my pain and injuries. I was serving in the U.S. Army and was involved in a life threatening accident that hospitalized me for several months. That accident eventually led me to receive multiple service connected disabilities with a few more pending. Upon my discharge from active service, I always tried to do the best I could in all aspects of life, and sometimes I fell short… sometimes very short.
Sometimes my best efforts produced results that I was very proud of as well. At one point, I owned a mortgage company with a few other partners, and was married to a wonderful woman. When the housing market crashed and my divorce became final, I found myself more lost and confused than I had felt in years. I started making bad choices for myself and eventually found myself in very dangerous situations.
This is when I decided to change my life and work on self-improvement and try to find a way to truly experience my full potential. I entered a VA hospital to concentrate on receiving the care and treatment I needed in order to live my life in the best possible way for myself. I stayed in that VA hospital as an inpatient for well over a year focusing on my injuries and my subsequent problems that I’ve experienced in life because of them.
When I lived in the hospital, I started to visit the gym that was located in one of the wings of the facility. Although limited in the amount of equipment that was available, I still used it as often as I could. I began doing research about various training techniques and tried to learn as much as I could about diet and exercise. Because of the limited amount of equipment available, I had no choice but to become very creative with exercises. I also started to notice that all the effort I was putting into the gym was starting to pay off, and some of the other patients were starting to notice as well.
Often I would be questioned by different patients during my stay in that hospital, all asking about what they can do to either help alleviate the pain with some injuries or simply to build up certain parts of their body. I would show them some of the things I learned, and they were grateful. I enjoyed being able to help other veterans that were in the hospital trying to get well.
I continued to read and research as much as I could and eventually took some tests and received several fitness certifications.
I have some difficulties learning, but all that means to me is that I must focus and spend more time and effort than most people on things that I’m trying to understand.
The hospital would give out free passes to a fitness center that was within walking distance and I started working out there. The club had more equipment than I was used to using, and from the experience I had in the hospital along with all the research and education I spent my time focusing on, I was able to really start training on an optimum level.
I was approached one day by a woman that had noticed me working out and she said she had been watching me and was interested to know if I would be her personal trainer, which I thought about for a moment and after talking to her about what she wanted to get out of her workouts, I decided I would help her.
I talked to one of my friends in the hospital and told him I wanted to start my own fitness training company and with his help I started my own personal training business and became a small business owner.
He told me I would even have a new customer… his wife. She was a member of the new fitness center in the community that was located on the other side of town. I had no money to join the fitness club and no transportation to get there, but with their help they put me in contact with the manager of the gym that allowed me to train his wife and not charge me a gym fee. My friend and his wife also donated a mountain bike to my new company and without their help this entire venture would most likely not have happened.
I got to know the manager and owner of the new gym, and when they began advertising their grand opening, they asked if I would want to be available and help answer questions and demonstrate exercises to any new members that wanted to join that day. Their advertisement included me and my company, and I was offered a one month free membership if I would participate. It was hard to pass up a free month membership (which I couldn’t afford in the first place), free advertising, the chance to get some business and do all of this for simply being available at their grand opening.
The local chamber of commerce of the town I live in, which has approximately 5000 residents, found out about my personal training business and decided to write a small article about me and I was even awarded a certificate with my first dollar of clear profit. The article was printed in the local paper with a picture of me and members from the chamber of commerce presenting me with my certificate.
I moved out of the hospital and started to pick up more and more clients. As my name became more known, I became more and more associated with something beneficial and good in the community.
I happen to be the only personal trainer in town, and since I’ve been training people in the gym I have worked with people that have special needs, and I have also worked with people that experience physical and / or mental disabilities, the elderly, amputees, people recovering from eating disorders and addictions as well as those who have suffered injuries. I tell all people what it is that I have had to learn for myself… regardless of your situation, never let a problem become an excuse.
When I saw an opportunity to compete in a fitness challenge and earn a chance to represent a supplement company that made great products to help enhance the efforts people put into the gym I knew I had found an opportunity to involve myself in something great, that would take my training to a higher level and give me a definite goal, and a specific target to shoot for.
Now, every time I enter the gym I’m asked how my training is going. Many people in the community are cheering me on. I didn’t own a vehicle for the first 9 months of this venture, so I had to ride my bike to the gym which is about 5 miles from my apartment, and some days depending on my training schedule and how many clients I am working with each day I would ride my bike several times to the gym.
I have been training people for almost a year now starting with the patients in that VA Hospital. I rode my bike all winter, sometimes in the freezing cold or icy snow. I have ridden my bike to the gym in the spring and appreciated the changing seasons more than I have ever appreciated them in my life, mainly because I was exposed to the cold for so long that I could feel the depth of my enjoyment for the nicer weather. I ride my bike in the summer and sometimes when the temperatures climb above 100 I just smile to myself and realize how fortunate I am to be alive and experience the heat and all the blessings life has recently offered me.
I do these things not only for myself, but for other people because I believe that if they chose to better themselves, and asked me to help them to be a part of that process, then I must not let the problems of life interfere with my ability to help them, as well as continue to train myself.
I have been saving my money as strictly as my budget has allowed me and just this month I was able to purchase a vehicle. I now plan on advertising in the local paper. I am going let people know that I can bring workout bands, dumbbells, balance balls and medicine balls for those individuals that either don’t have a gym membership or are simply unable to go. I believe that if someone needs help and they allow me to help them that I must be thankful that not only am I capable of helping, but also grateful that they allowed me to help them. I’m excited about this next evolution of my business because now if someone can’t get to the gym, I can bring it to them.
I have become well known in the community as the fitness trainer and rarely go into any store in town without someone asking me what types of exercises would help them with some type of pain they have. Often I have people I don’t even know approach me knowing my name and they tell me what exercises they are currently doing and how inspired they are to get as healthy as they can. I cannot go to the grocery store without someone asking me what would be healthy choices to eat, and I find it quite funny when I see a client I’m currently working with try to run and hide when they see me because they might have some type of cheesy poof or pizza puff in their shopping cart. When I run into someone that I once worked with and no longer train, it gives me such satisfaction when they tell me that they are continuing to do the things that I taught them and either their pain has subsided or they are able to play with their children once again.
Some of my clients are able to open doors for the first time in years because we were able to find ways in the gym to help alleviate their carpel tunnel pain. One of my clients was selling her motorcycle when we first started to train because of her hip and back problems, and 3 months later she took a 3 week, 5200 mile motorcycle trip with her husband because of the training we focused on and all the isometric exercises I showed her to do while on the road. One of my special needs clients is mentally and physically challenged. He started out at 408 lbs. and wasn’t able to work out for more than 8 minutes the first time we met. Every time I would demonstrate an exercise he would simply look at me and say, “I can’t”. I would encourage him to try but he would only exert a minimal amount of effort and again repeat his mantra, “I can’t”. It was our third session when I decided to write a small message on a piece of paper and I folded it and gave it to him at the beginning of our meeting. I looked at him and said, “I’m going to give you a surprise but you cannot look at it until I tell you. I want to tell you something, I promise to never do anything that will hurt you and I will never ask you to do anything that you can’t do, but you have to try to do the things I tell you to do.” He agreed and as we began our workout the familiar words again came out, “I can’t”. I then said, “Look at that note I gave you, and I want you to read that to me every time I tell you what exercises to do.” The note simply read, “I can”. We have been working out now for 3 months and he has lost over 25 lbs., and he has gained the confidence to become more independent in the community, and he is much more active and even works harder at his state sponsored job. When he enters the gym, and begins each workout his face lights up and through his smile you can hear him proudly say, “I can”. I even bought him a t-shirt with the words I CAN written on it and that is his workout shirt.
Each month, the fitness club we workout in recognizes a “Member of the Month”. In September, he was chosen as the member of the month and was even acknowledged in the newspaper. His workouts now last 45 minutes and everyday he looks at his care provider and excitedly asks if it’s a gym day or not. By the time we have completed his training, I’m confident to say that he will have lost well over a 100 lbs. To me, these are the great stories that make me think and feel on a level that I had previously never known. They are the stories that give me answers to those questions that I often ask myself about my own life, and what I have chosen to do with it. I believe that we should all celebrate our own individuality as we simultaneously embrace our community and those that we interact with daily.
I am sharing a part of my story, and by the time this fitness challenge has ended I hope it’s a story that has the potential to be great to someone, even if that someone is only me. As a disabled American veteran with a brain injury among other physical and mental disabilities, I believe that if I can start my own training business from nothing, while living in a hospital, as I approach my 40th birthday and help other people experience a better quality of life, then anyone can find a way to create a healthier life for themselves anytime they chose. I have done all of these things by riding a bicycle everywhere I needed to be, and give of myself to as many people as I can with no motive or thought of reward other than knowing that they will feel better and live healthier as they experience their journey through life. I know that it is their stories that are great to me, for their triumphs help motivate me to continue along my own path that I have created for myself.

by Wade

The Lunatic Incident

We were just ambling in a perfectly peaceable manner down the road. Max had that day acquired gainful employment, and quite naturally felt like celebrating. Unfortunately however, it was a Thursday, and most of our friends being one step ahead of Max – not to mention an inestimable number ahead of myself – were not at liberty to piss away the early hours of the morning on futile urban adventurism.

Socially destitute, we cut a path in the general direction of the local casino; the plan being to drink and gamble away Max’s future earnings, safe in the knowledge that 15 hours a week of primary school teaching assistant salary would soon be at our disposal. Given that no contract had been signed, this arrangement could last a few weeks. On the other hand, it could last forever. As such we felt it not unreasonable to advance ourselves an indefinite supply of easy credit.

It was in this spirit of bonhomie that we ambled quite unprovocatively towards the bus stop. I suppose the beer and excitement gave me tunnel vision, because – despite the long, straight emptiness of the road – the first thing I knew of our new acquaintance’s existence was when he lunged, semi-violently, into our personal sphere, and barked “WHERE’S THE PARTY AT!??!”

Somewhat startled by this unannounced debutant, Max’s reaction was to dispense a quick “dunno mate”, and continue his unbroken course. Whilst not exactly considering this poor form on Max’s part, my response nevertheless diverged. Although no such monologue ran through my mind at the time, were I to formalise the reasoning behind my response, it would have run something like this.

“Here is a gentleman, who – though clearly lacking in the social skills most of us take forgranted – has demonstrated no malice of intent, or fundamental disagreeableness in disposition. All that can be fairly ascertained from his words is that he wishes to know where the party is at, and from his boldly open body language, most likely desires further interaction with us. I believe to a very substantial degree in the fraternity of man, so why deny it to him?”

Accordingly, I turned towards him, opening up my body in a move anticipated to display respect and amicability. My utterances continued this theme. “Hmm, not sure I’ve heard one around here to be honest mate.” Although he was disappointed by this, our discussion continued on friendly-enough terms. He went on to bemoan the fact that – assuming my implication that there was no nearby party was correct – the guys down the road “MUST’A BEEN TAKIN’ THE PISS!!”

I extended my condolences, and sympathised that they must’ve been real wankers to send him off on such a wild-goose chase. However, pity as it was, we had an itinerary to keep to, and as such I tried to break-off relations, while maintaining cordiality. Perhaps this was my mistake, in that I suppose he picked up on my distaste (however incidental) for continued conversation, combined with my continued presence, and deduced that I was hanging around only out of schadenfreude.

In our subsequent review of the incident, Max described the situation as one that, at this point, had developed a steadily increasing undertone of tension. “It seemed like it could, potentially, have developed into an antagonistic situation.” Certainly it was bearing little tangible fruit. Where before we had been exchanging collaborative proposition and counter-proposition, our discussion had reached an impasse in the form of:

“So what you doing?”

“Going that way mate.”

“So what you doing!?”

“Going that way mate.”

“SO WHAT YOU DOING!??!”

“Going that way, mate.”

(I have said nothing of the man’s appearance up till now, and perhaps – despite my supposed liberalism – it was a factor I should have taken into account sooner. Scatty would have been a kind way of putting it. Bizarre, and rather frightening would have been another. And this was with his hood tightly done up. It was at this point that things (next-door to literally) exploded from the ‘Could potentially get antagonistic’ stage, to the ‘Here you are right now with a fucking lunatic leering in your face demanding that you get your hands off him even though they aren’t even on him’ stage.

The guy had, at astonishing speed, used both hands to tear back his hood to reveal his face, (the features of which were remarkable) and fling it towards mine, stopping perhaps 6 inches short; the rest of his body in close support. As aforementioned, I found the guy borderline frightening even when I couldn’t see him. Now I could, this emotion was fleshed out in full. If his behaviour had been on the eccentric side, his face was that of a fully-fledged lunatic. He had discoloured, emaciated skin. His eyes were wild and bulging. But the aspect that scared me the most was the interior of his mouth. I recall throughout our stand-off fearing desperately that he would bite my neck with his assorted metal teeth. And seriously, the only word which I could use to describe his general outlook, would be rabid.

Despite Socrates’ insistence that courage is only fear of a greater evil (It’s in the dialogue where he drinks the hemlock), I’m pretty proud of my unyielding response. Though I do not pretend to any martial prowess, I nevertheless have always thought valour in the face of those who would do evil upon you is something to be admired.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that I had an ally to my back, but I don’t believe (I’ll have to check with Max) I flatter myself when I say I did not flinch, nor give way an inch. I don’t remember what he was saying at this point; no doubt nothing more meaningful than me (“What the fuck d’you want?” “What the fuck do you want?”) We were eyeball to eyeball no more than a minute, and perhaps much less. It could have been shortened further had I heeded Max’s advice of “Come on Pete, we’ve got to go.” However at this stage it seemed that showing weakness to someone who was demonstrating such violent potential – particularly someone as obviously unbalanced as this man – would be folly in the extreme.

It’s quite possible that it was a case of consequence without causation; however it is equally possible  that it was this policy of non-deference that resulted in the guy eventually snapping suddenly back to his former amicable self. The speed of change in his temperament was again quite astonishing. One moment he looked ready to tear my larynx out with his bare teeth. The next he was all good-nature and well-wishing. Within a minute of this reverse, with a shake of the hand, and mutual expressions of good-will, off he set one way, we the other.

Whilst we were at the bus-stop – despite having been in several incomparably more savage situations – I was close to tears. At first I thought maybe it had been a while since something like that had befallen me, I was getting old, and the nervous strain had taken its toll. What I now believe to be the probable truth however, I find far more distasteful. Just before we’d set off we’d been at a friend’s watching Newsnight, and there had been a report about the English Defence League. Again, despite my liberal attitudes, or perhaps because of them, I had defended them against the assertion by Max that they were really just a bunch of racist thugs. My argument was, basically, ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ I suppose my conviction in this is largely founded on a desire to believe the best in people, regardless of instinctive reactions based on appearance and social graces.

Or put another way, exactly the same convictions that led me to treat this guy who – I maintain could (or even would) have visited real harm on me – like someone worthy of no less than respect and kindness. Then again, although (according to Max) I certainly did nothing that could have qualified as provocative throughout, I think that my prejudice against the guy – late night, hooded, ‘chavvy’ appearance, and under-developed speech patterns – (which if sublimated by whatever socio-philosphical-political trend I’ve bought into) was definitely present. I remember distinctly at one point at least, feeling amused by him. I suppose maybe I’m thinking incorrectly –and unjustly highly of myself, as well as lowly of him – that I largely successfully masked those feelings.

Fuck it, perhaps the only reason I wanted to talk to him in the first place wasn’t because I felt he was another decent human being, but just because I wanted to inflate my moral ego by sucking up to some pretentious ideal. I mean instinctively I do think the EDL are (largely) a bunch of racists thugs. I could say “ah well it’s how you act, not how you think that defines you”, but if I acted in an insincere way – which probably justly antagonised this guy in the first place, because I wasn’t talking to him as a frère, I was condescending to him which is so-very-much worse than just brushing him off a la Max – and was incapable of passing it off as genuine, which caused the guy to get pissed off, whether I was being a pretentious prick or not, that makes my actions those of antagonistic twat. I was supposedly being a brother to this guy, but actually I maybe I was just suffering from some compulsive moral masturbatory disorder.