McCurry's War

iUniverse, Inc.

Chapter One

Mike McCurry arrived at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey in the summer of 1966, following basic training and a thirty-day leave. Using the travel allowance he had received from the Army, he flew into San Francisco. It was a hot, muggy August afternoon, which was unusual for the City by the Bay. Dressed in his Class A uniform and lugging a duffel bag with all his clothing, McCurry was soaked in sweat as he walked out of the airport building to find a cab. Somewhat fatigued from his cross-country trip, he was buoyed by his excitement over entering a new phase in his life's journey. Most of all, he looked forward to the language training he would receive at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey.

McCurry spent his teen years in a white, middle-class neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia. He was identified as a gifted student in high school and admitted to the advanced curriculum, which he often still felt was less than challenging. Bored and more enthused with the new discoveries he was making in his sexual education, he skated through high school with a low B average.

After a couple years in college, McCurry found himself fascinated with, but not yet understanding, the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution just beginning to take root in the U.S. While he got caught up in the protests over Vietnam, his understanding of the lifestyle of a typical so-called hippie was difficult to accept since it was anathema to the values he was taught all his life: respect your elders, work hard and you will get ahead, and abide by the law. His interest in the culture, however, led him to the decision that he needed to learn more about life, so he dropped out of school.

This made him a prime target of the draft and its need for more bodies to ship off to Vietnam. McCurry believed that learning more about life was one thing; dying in a war he had already decided was wrong was quite another. Those values of his youth precluded a flight to Canada, as a few acquaintances had done, so he joined the Army. It was the beginning of McCurry's real education.

Test results he took before actually enlisting qualified him for the elite Army Security Agency and indicated an aptitude for languages. Although he had to sign up for four years, he was told the first year and a half would be spent in schools.

He would have to qualify for top-secret clearance. This entailed an in-depth investigation by the FBI that could take six months or more to complete. Since McCurry had led a relatively uneventful life to date, he couldn't think of any activity that would prevent him from getting the clearance. So, he signed on the dotted line and became the property of the U.S. Army.

The recruiter told McCurry that once he had completed basic training he would move on to what the recruiter envisions as an enchanted existence in the Army Security Agency. Members of the ASA were under the jurisdiction of the National Security Agency rather than the Pentagon. Because of this, ASA personnel were selected to monitor the progress of new recruits during basic training. A few weeks into basic, McCurry and a few other ASA trainees were shepherded into a meeting with an agent overseeing their progress. The agent asked if there were any problems he could help with. When no one spoke up, the agent gave a short pep talk and said to "hang in there." Only a little more than a month remained before they would be finished with basic.

Now in San Francisco, McCurry took a cab to a rooming house where he was able to shower and change out of his sweaty clothes. He decided he would do a little exploring in San Francisco. He'd catch a bus to Monterey in the morning.

He spent a few hours checking out the Haight-Ashbury district. He had read a news account about it recently that described the influx of so-called hippies to the district. According to the article, more than 15,000 members of this counter-cultural movement now called this area home.

The article didn't prepare McCurry for the environment he found himself in when he arrived on the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets. Although somewhat reminiscent of the twenty-four-hour party scenes at university frat houses since nearly everyone was college-aged and younger, here many were handing out flowers to passersby. Scantily clad girls were in abundance, too, free from any college-imposed behavior restrictions. He felt as if he had entered a new universe. As he casually strolled down the crowded streets, music became a common background regardless where he turned. The new psychedelic sounds of Iron Butterfly, the Byrds, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Jefferson Airplane blared from speakers set up in the windows of apartment buildings. Small groups of musicians gathered throughout the area and were surrounded by people obviously high on marijuana or LSD. More than once McCurry was invited to share a toke but declined. He couldn't jeopardize his security clearance while still under investigation.

Dwellings in the area seemed to be overflowing with people in all sorts of clothing, much of it alien to McCurry. Women in everything from granny dresses to halter tops, hip-hugger and bell bottom jeans, micro skirts, Pocahontas headbands, beaded necklaces and flowers in their hair. Men wore fringed vests, tie-dyed t-shirts, combat jackets and fatigues and sported all manner of beards and mustaches. The peace symbol was in evidence throughout, either sewn onto clothing or worn on chains around the neck.

During his brief outing, McCurry met and spoke with people who were clearly dedicated pacifists with strong arguments about how war was an unnecessary means of settling differences between countries. He realized that there were also a significant number who were there simply to take advantage of the free sex and proliferation of mind-altering drugs. But, there was a small percentage of obviously violent people who equated their hatred of the war in Vietnam with the soldiers who fought and died in it. McCurry was vehemently against the war and would have filed as a conscientious objector had he needed to. Yet he couldn't understand denigrating the courageous men who were actually fighting the battles there.

In the morning, McCurry boarded a bus for Monterey. As he approached the Peninsula, he was captivated by the rocky shoreline and deep blue waters glimpsed from the bus. He was growing excited about the opportunity to learn German and then put it to use overseas. And most of all, he felt as if he were turning a page and opening a new chapter in his life story.

* * *

After several weeks of daily six-hour sessions in the classroom, McCurry was amazed at how quickly he was learning German. That all those who taught at the language institute were required to be native speakers of their respective language hastened his acquisition, as did a requirement he speak only German while in the classroom; he also was encouraged to speak German while in the barracks, which in fact were more like dorms than typical Army dwellings.

Once they became relatively fluent in the language, McCurry and his classmates were told they would move on to learn all the major dialects while always adding more words to their German vocabulary. They similarly would have to learn colloquialisms and usages peculiar to specific cultures.

Trainees were segregated by the languages they were learning – German, Russian, French and Vietnamese. There were two men to a room with a bed, dresser and desk for...