Chapter One

Going to War

We had been sitting in the all-night diner for four hours drinking coffee, waiting for dawn and the morning fog to lift over San Francisco Bay.   

"There it is, Jess," I said.

Jessie wasn't interested.  He just kept drinking his coffee.  He had been dreading this moment. 

The outline of the berthed troop ship, the USS Black, appeared through the mist like a ghost.  On dock four or five hundred GI's were assembling their gear, anxiously waiting to go aboard.

I wasn't looking forward to going on the troop ship anymore than Jessie was.  But Jessie was counting on me for reassurance that all would be well.  So, I put on a brave face.

"Bill, if it's a police action, why didn't they just call the cops?" Jessie asked.  Then he added like a hurt child, "They shouldn't have lied to me."

Jessie Bonato was twenty-one, six-foot-four, built like a bull and naive.  His father was the head of the mafia in brooklyn.  When the army recruiter in Times Square gave Jessie 'his word' he would be stationed in Italy if he enlisted, Jessie signed up.  'Your word' meant something to the son of a mafia Don.  The army kept their word and stationed him near Rome, for three months.  Now he was on his way to korea.

"I don't want to die in a foxhole in Korea, Bill."

"You're not going to die in a foxhole.  Stop worrying," I said, trying to ease his fears.

I was a street smart twenty-year-old from upper mnhattan.  More than a year earlier I had been drafted.  I could have ducked it, by going to Canada and applying for dual citizenship, since my father was a Canadian citizen from Montreal.  I didn't.  I took an Oath of loyalty to the U.S. Army and became private William Thornton Naud, U.S. 51103442.

Part of my reason for not fleeing north was the snow and cold up there.  In my view, snow and cold were two of God's lousiest ideas.  But my main concern was how running away would reflect on my family, particularly my older brother, Tom, who had been awarded both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for fighting the Germans in World War II.  Besides he probably would have kicked the crap out of me if I deserted.

The fog lifted and I could see the troops finally funneling up the gangway.  I put the money for the check on the table.

"Come on, Jess.  It's time to go."

He followed me out the front door.  The morning air was cold and crisp, and the passing traffic was noisy.  The faithful old 1937 Pontiac with the Al capone running boards, that my brother paid ninety-seven dollars for at a used car lot was parked in front of the building.  It had carried us coast to coast, 3,450 miles from the expansion joint on the George Washington Bridge to a run-down diner two hundred feet from San Francisco Bay.

We unloaded our gear from the rear seat.

"Bill?  What are you gonna do with the car?"

I had been pndering that question for the last few hours.  The faithful old car deserved better than being abandoned in front of a run-down diner, only to be hauled away to a junk heap.

Across the street .........                                                                  

Across the street a twelve-year-old Mexican boy was trying to hitch a ride for himself and his family. Behind him, on the curb,  were an older man and a woman holding a baby in her arms.  They were laboring people with weathered faces, whose only assets were the clothes they wore and what little dignity life had afforded them.  The boy earnestly held up a sign to the oncoming traffic.

It read:

MONTEREY, PLEASE

The trucks and cars roared by, ignoring them. 

"Hey, son, is that your family?" I screamed over the traffic noise.

"Oh, si, mi madre, padre, yes," he hollered back.

"Can your father drive a car?" I asked.

"Si, he mechanico," the boy said.

"Would He like to own a car?' I yelled.

The boy spoke excitedly to his father in Spanish.  Then he turned to me.  "Padre, no have money," the boy said apologetically.

"Well, tell him, I want to give him the car,' I adamantly called back.

The mother listened skeptically as her son explained.  She stared at me, as she continued to rock her baby, then said something to her son in Spanish.

"My mother asks, 'Why you do this?'"

"Well, come over here and I'll tell you all," I said.

With the boy leading them, the family scurried across the busy highway.

"Look, tell your folks, I'm giving you this car so we'll have someone to pray for us while we are at war," I said.

After interpreting, the boy listened as his mother and father quietly spoke together.

The man frowned and shook his head.

"My father says, 'No thanks,' but he will pray for you anyway," the boy said.

"Why won't he take it?" I asked.

The parents remained silent.  It didn't make any sense to me.  The boy kept glancing over at the gas station by the diner.

"The kid's telling you they don't have any gas money," Jessie whispered.

I took off my left shoe and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. It was all we had left.

"Son, tell your father, the car comes with gasoline money," I said as I took the man's hand and laid the twenty-dollar bill on his palm along with the signed pink slip for the car.

"Gracias, Senor," the fathe said with a simple dignity.

Tears welled up in the mother's eyes.

"We will pray for you at the war, mister," the boy said happily.

I was embarrassed

"Stay alive, mister," the boy hollered as they climbed into the car.

Jessie and I headed to the dock and showed our orders to the MP's at the gate.  After a quick glance the guard returned them, clearing us to go in.

"You're boarding from level two.  Up those steps," he said. pointing.

We started up.  I took my last look back at land and was happy to see the old Pontiac was gone.  I was carrying my duffel bag on one arm and had slung my golf bag full of clubs over the other.  We headed up the steps.

Suddenly we were stopped by a voice, "Hey, wait a minute."

As I turned  a news photographer took my picture with a huge Graflex flash camera.  "What are you gonna do with those clubs soldier," he hollered as the crowd herded Jessie and I up the steps onto the ship.

"We're gonna play the North Koreans to win the war," I called back.

'Next stop, Tokyo,' I thought, as my foot touched the main deck.  It felt greasy  like the floor in a mechanic's garage.

Hours later when Jessie and I were hundreds of miles at sea, trying to sleep, the late edition of the San Francisco newspaper hit the streets.

 Beneath the headline,

 July 19, 1950 TRUMAN SENDS TROOPS TO BATTLE NORTH KOREANS,

was a photo of me boarding the ship with my golf clubs.