Michael Riley:  

Here’s to the Nun who said she could see the future and the very beautiful Scecina Freshman girl (who’s name I’ve since forgotten), who I took to the Prom that got me put in the Year book for leaving my “white sports coat and pink Carnation to the next class. I’d sure like to know who that girl was and what happened to her. I'm 73 now and have come a long way in my life as haven’t we all. If you look at the Social Security morbidity tables and at the graph that shows the survival rates for all of those of us born in 1943 it tops off around 85 so time is much short now especially for us guys. Even more so for me as I'm now an Insulin dependent Diabetic am taking a ton of meds I’ll be lucky to see 78 that’s just 5 more years . One of the things people still living at our age clearly understand is that our very existence revolves around the people we know who like and love us know us and are still alive. They represent our very essence without them that is those who aren't famous in some way exist in name only. Even the famous eventually fade into complete obscurity. All my immediate family with the exception of one brother living in Seattle have passed away my two sisters both from Cystic Fibrosos (they call it CF now) and my mother from Pancreatic cancer and my father from a stroke . My father owned an Arthur Murray dance studio Franchise in Waco Texas. He moved us from Waco Texas to expand his business interests by purchasing a larger studio Franchise in Indianapolis where I ended up in St. Andrews elementary where I was known as “TEX” then onto an all-boys school run by tough minded Jesuit brothers named Cathedral and eventually in 1958 to Scecina and in 61 into the United States Marine Corps. For a young boy from a small Texas town to then to live in one of the largest U.S. cities and onto the Marines in just a few years as you can imagine was a real crucible of hell. When sadly my parents divorced after 18 years of marriage in 61 I found myself in trouble with the school and juvenile authorities as a truant landing in the streets with no money and no job. I was advised the only choice for a young man in my predicament was to join the service but due to my reputation ( mostly undeserved) the Marines were the only branch that would have me. As a young man having lived a life of what many would call the silver spoon you can imagine what joining the Marines was like. After boot camp, I landed in the most decorated Marine infantry combat unit they had famously known as the 2nd Battalion 5th Marines and I was in Golf company which made the hell of the Marine boot camp look like a picnic. I guess my reputation as a young tough was exactly what they needed to serve in one of the toughest Marine units of all time. I found myself in what you could call the rouges Galary of some of the meanest toughest teenagers one could ever meet. They were from the Barrios and slums of the worst cities in the U.S. All I could think of was hey! you guy have the wrong guy I don’t belong here but I dare not say it. All I could do was suffer their slings and arrows but my education saved me. I was able to advance in the ranks eventually being offered to sign up for 6 more years and to given a Sergeants rank which for the Marine enlisted ranks rare.They offered a sign up bonus the Seargents rank and a guaranteed duty station for two years and a school if I want one and was qualified but as many Marines some we knew were already coming back in body bags I had to ask. Sir, a high ranking officer Marine after the two years there will be 4 left so what will become of me the remaining 4. He replied you are one of the most highly qualified Infantry man the Marines have. The chance are very high you will be sent to Vietnam and of course in my mind I finished the sentence and sent home in a body bag. Interestingly or pehaps one of the great sadnesses of my life this was the exact fates of one of the Seargents who I was under in the guard. He was a Marines Marine he was promoted to an officer and on his way to Vietnam came by to say Goodbye to three of us who where going to college on the GI biIl and had chosen to get out of the Marines. Three months later he suffered the fate I avoided by getting out that being he came back in a body bag. This is the least I can do to honor him by mentioning his name LT Stephen Hepner. By mentioning it here he and the men who fought and died with him are written about in a book called the Hill fights The First Battle of Khe Sahn by Edward F. Murphy a read you won’t put down until you finished reading it. My purpose in discussing this is even though when I joined the Marines I would have gladly fought to the death with my fellow Marines I can say “there but for the grace of God there go I”. I saw the hand writing on the wall and decided not to die so young. I can say I served with honor my time “Semper Fi” which was the only choice given me at the time and I exercised the choices given to me later and by doing so and chose to right a dreadful wrong that was thrust upon me at that time in my life that being forced to join the service in order to live. Eventually, I was shipped to the far east as part of a Marine expeditionary force slated to serve in Laos which later turned out to be Vietnam. I was based in Okinawa Japan serving aboard several navy ships in a weapons platoon as part of a rapid deployment force and saw more of the Navy than most navy men do . I traveled all over Asia enduring a number of scary training schools from the top of Mount Fujiyama to the Head Hunters of a lost tribe deep in the Philippine jungle but as fate would have it I only served three days in the Vietnam combat theater aboard a navy ship. I finished my service obligation as a guard at a top secret Nuclear Installation that was responsible for arming the nuclear weapons that were to be put on planes at a Marine air wing in Yuma Arizona. I decide to leave the Marines and what seemed to a very good military career to go to college and got married. I graduated college with a degree in Business management but my first job out of College was as a junior Engineer and the rest is history. I married at the tender age of 22 for 25 years and we had 2 children Terry and Susie and I miss them very much and as I know they have also done which is cried myself to sleep many a night wishing I could see them and for Susie’s grandkids to know me as their grandfather. My wife decided that over the years we had grown so far apart as individuals our differences had become irreconcilable so she for some reason Viciously d...Expand for more