Bruce Banning | My History Part 1

Bruce Banning… My History… ‘Up Through My Military Discharge’

I was born and raised in Monroe, Michigan. My parents were the epitome of the Greatest Generation. My father, a Navy Sailor stationed in England throughout the war and my mother, his ‘war bride’ (Refer to James Banning’s story on the BLD website). Theirs is a story of romance, difficult times, the tragedy of war… in short, the stuff of Hollywood movies. Maybe after I complete my stories, I will start on writing theirs… I’m sure theirs would be more meaningful than mine.

I was raised with my two brothers in WWII ‘tract’ housing. If you are not familiar with tract housing let me explain… with millions of men returning from the war they immediately began their families (their children would become known as the ‘Baby Boom’ generation). They needed housing so contractors built large housing developments with homes which essentially had nearly the same layout… easy to duplicate at a very rapid rate. We lived in a neighborhood of nearly look-alike houses. This construction continued throughout the 1950’s. The houses were ‘standardized’ and so was the way the families lived… to ‘common’ standards.

It was a fabulous place to be in the 1950’s. Nearly every man in the neighborhood was a Veteran and every home had a mother who was 100% dedicated to providing a home and raising their children… these were the greatest women America will ever know. These women, while the men went to war, ran the businesses, went to the factories and worked to support the war effort. When the war ended, they went home to do the ‘real’ work… managing the ‘real’ power in the human experience.

There is power that doesn’t matter (power outside the family) and power that does. The women of the Greatest Generation knew that they held the power that mattered so they dedicated themselves to meeting the obligations which come along with that kind of power. The ‘real’ and ‘meaningful’ power has always belonged to women. Their kind of power shapes future generations and is the backbone of society. When they misuse that power or abandon it, entire civilizations will crumble. The Greatest Generation knew this because ‘natural law’ governed their lives not ‘human law’. The women in our neighborhood gave their lives to their homes, their children, their mate, their society and they committed to those responsibilities for life.

Yes, there were a few problem families in our neighborhood and there was even a divorce. Because of what I just told you about the commitment of the women in our neighborhood, this divorce was the subject of negative discussion for years to come. Why? Because it was interpreted as ‘failure’… failing to meet the standards and live up to obligations. That’s the kind of stuff the Greatest Generation was made of. It was no them, but rather their Boomer children who would bring a 60% divorce rate to America.

In our neighborhood, every man was ‘sir’ to us children and every mother was ‘yes mam’. Any disrespect was dealt with in sure and painful discipline. There were hundreds of children and always plenty to do. Every child went to Sunday School, and every family went to church. Every holiday was an extended family event with great pot-luck dinners. There were neighborhood parties where the police closed off the street and every household contributed food while the dad’s provided games for the kids.

There was no such thing as day care… as my mother put it… “there is no way in hell another person is going to raise my children”. If there had been such a thing as school shootings (which there weren’t) the mothers would not stand outside crying like they do today, they would have stormed the building… I can honestly say that my mother would have run into a hail of bullets to protect any of us.

We children had it made but little did we know that we, the Boomer Generation, would become the most destructive generation in American history and maybe human history because the Boomers went insane, rejected nearly everything they had been taught, and infected the entire world with their insanity. The Boomers parents had life about 80% right with less than 20% wrong. Their children would reverse that. The Boomers got less than 20% right and over 80% wrong… my generation has brought the US to nearly the brink of destruction… but this is a story for another time.

We played sandlot football and baseball. We played Army and we roamed the nearby woods and abandoned railroad cars. We did not grow up thinking, “I want to be a fireman”, a policeman, a carpenter, etc. or something else, we grew up thinking “I want to be a man” like my dad. We were taught all the right values (the values of the Greatest Generation) because our schools, homes and churches all taught the same lessons.

The message was God, Country and Family. We were taught accountability, right and wrong, discipline, personal pride, dignity, integrity, respect, that our lives are not about us but about service and sacrifice, and love… everything which is NOT taught today thanks to my generation. It was truly a wonderful life!!!

When I was 8 years old and we were out of school for the summer, my mother sat me and my older brother down. She said if we wanted new clothes for school in the fall or wanted to go to the county fair at the end of the summer, we needed to go get jobs because she did not intend to give us money for these things ever again.

My brother took this only half-heartedly because he really didn’t care if he had new clothes for school, but I took it very seriously. At 8 years old, my mother had made me into a ‘worker’. I would grow up seeing no value in organized sports or other school activities that would take time away from ‘working’. School for me was something I needed to do to move myself ahead in the working world.

As I said, I took her very seriously, so much so that within two weeks I had three part time jobs… grass mowing, a newspaper delivery route and breaking down boxes, sweeping floors and cleaning the bathroom at the market up on the highway. I started budgeting that very week. I took three small carboard boxes, taped them up so I could not get into them and labeled them Fair, Clothes and Car. I cut a slit in top, and every dollar earned was evenly split.

When the ‘car’ box was full, I took it to the bank and in my senior year of high school, I took delivery of a 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle… one of the hottest cars of the ‘60’s. I was the only kid in my class who had a brand-new, very fast car. Suddenly, I had all kinds of new friends, but I was smart enough to see through it all… my car was reserved for me and special girls. I loved that machine and kept it immaculately clean. Also in my senior year, I was one of the best dressed students… I earned my clothes and was very proud of them.

Graduation from high school was when I first started to question my generation. I will tell you; I am ashamed to be a Baby Boomer. My generation rejected everything they had been taught because they thought they knew better than their Greatest Generation parents. The Boomers are largely a generation of arrogant fools. They have brought the United States to the brink of destruction with their embracing of Socialism, sexual freedom, drug use, acceptance of divorce, rejection of the church, their cowardice, their weakness, their being spoiled, and their ‘me’ focused society.

This is not to say that all of them were this way. Some Boomers preserved what they were taught but by far the majority went insane.

At our graduation ceremony, our valedictorian (a person who to today is probably a devoted communist… I hate communists) gave a speech right out of the Marxist playbook. I could not believe what I was hearing… I was ashamed and discussed. I later apologized to my parents and assured them that I did not agree with any of his ‘dribble’ and I told them that my lifelong friend, Jere Oetjens (A lifelong friend and great man) and I did not clap or stand for him. Yes… my entire class gave him a standing ovation!!!

This was the beginning of my rejection of my fellow Boomers… they were idiots and fools. I never again looked at any of my classmates the same as I had. It was at that moment that I began to understand that they would go about destroying everything the Greatest Generation sacrificed and died for… and they have. I have had a lifetime of watching it play out… what I knew was to come, has. It has been sickening to watch.

Graduation was when I first started to experience disappointment with ‘people’.

At age 8 I went to work, and I have never stopped…

My senior year was also eventful in other ways. I met a girl… Diane Coffey. I wanted to be with her all the time, and I envisioned a plan for my life… go to school to become an Architect, marriage, children and a home. Diane was the first girl I had known that literally drove me crazy. I thought I had it all laid out… a plan… but there was something else I had to deal with that might destroy everything.

My dad, being the wise man he was, saw that I was totally wrapped up in Diane and sat me down. He left his high school sweetheart at age 17 to go to war so he wanted to talk with me about Vietnam. He said if thought I would go into the military and put my self in a position to go to Vietnam that I had to break it off with Diane right away… he said, “if you go you may damage or destroy one life, you do not want to damage or destroy two”.

I had my first ‘major’ life challenge. I was a wreck and was in tremendous turmoil. Diane must have thought I was crazy… I didn’t know what I was doing from one minute to the next. I broke it off with Diane without fully explaining… in the mind of a boy faced with the prospects of war, I figured that I was protecting her from something bad.

Some time later, after my training and with orders in hand which most surely would take me to Vietnam, I went to see her. I thought I would ask her to write to me and hope that at some point in the future we might re-unite. It was a foolish thing to do. While listening to her talk about her plans to go the Bowling Green University and to become a teacher I realized how foolish it was for me to be there, so I walked away a second time… without fully explaining.

Over four years later I returned home. I immediately thought about trying to find Diane but realized she certainly had moved on with her life and besides, I was not in a good place at that time. I have felt guilty about not fully explaining to her to this day and I will go to my grave carrying that guilt… and for not apologizing.

I came away from my losing Diane with the knowledge that if I was ever lucky enough to have another relationship and family… that I would only do it one time and no matter the difficulties, I would dedicate my life to my mate and my family and that I never walk away from them as I did Diane.

My military service was a ‘comedy of errors’. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time at every turn it seemed. In Boot Camp, I quickly learned that the military and I were a good match. I was selected for special duties like guarding prisoners (people who were being mustered out of the military because they committed crimes, were crazy or homosexual). I graduated with a citation as the “Outstanding Recruit” in my company.

One thing about Boot Camp that I was really disturbed with. Boot Camp in the late 1960’s was old school and there was plenty of abuse. If you needed to get slapped around, you got it. Punishment could be very ‘uncomfortable’… so people learned fast. Often punishment came for no apparent reason other than to see how much you could take.

I got really mad during water survival training. It was the only time we trained with WAVE’s… female recruits. The WAVE’s wore these baggy bathing suits that made it nearly impossible to keep everything covered. It seemed to me that it had to have been done on purpose. I had never seen so much boob in my life till then. I was really upset for these young ladies… they were just plain being abused. There was one little girl who was obviously in way over her head… she was terrified.

We had to learn how to abandon ship from a high tower… like off the deck of an aircraft carrier. We had to step off with our feet crossed and our arms crossed over our chest and hand on the shoulders. The reason is, if you are falling from a high location, you will obviously pick up a lot of speed. Without your feet interlocked and when you hit the water, your legs would spread apart and literally rip you in half. The reason for folded arms was to protect your face… your arms will take the force.

This young lady was shaking uncontrolledly. She was in line right before me… she froze and could not move. The trainers were screaming at her, but she was locked up. We were not to talk to each other, but I leaned so the instructors would not see me and I whispered in her ear… “you can do this… just relax and step off… it’s no big deal”.

One of the instructors was very mad at her and began storming up the stairs, pushing people aside, screaming obscenities at her, and telling her that he was going to “throw her ass” off the tower. I leaned again… “he is coming and if he throws you off it will be a lot worse than stepping… you can do this… take a deep breath and make the step” … she did just in time.

Another exercise was life raft training. By this point the girl… being totally terrified stuck as close as she could to me. We were put into the same raft. The exercise involved… when the instructor yelled, “enemy aircraft”, we had to turn the raft over and hide under it. Then he would yell, “shark in the water” and we had to turn the raft right side up and climb in.

The first time we turned the raft over, she got a mouth full of water, and I thought she was going down… she was terrified beyond being able to control herself. She started grabbing at whatever she could and unfortunately my neck was a good place to latch onto. She pulled me down with her.

I took advantage of being under water and moved us both under the overturned raft, got a handhold and pulled us both up. We just got our breath, and the instructor yelled “shark in the water”. We scrambled to turn the raft over and get into it. I got in and turned for her because she was fighting with all she had and was not getting over the side.

The instructor had told everyone that “you do whatever you have to get everyone in because your life depends upon it”. This was the license for some guy to take advantage… he grabbed her between the legs and flipped her in. This abuse was too much. I was on my back having just rolled into the raft… I came up with both feet and kicked the guy across the raft yelling for him the “leave her the fuck along”.

To top it off, the fight to get in caused her to lose the top of her suit… I helped her to cover herself up while she shook uncontrollably and cried. We were put through the maneuver a few more time and she stayed right beside me… about the third time she had calmed a bit, gained some confidence and on the last exercise, she was able to do it herself.

We weren’t supposed to talk but as we completed the days’ training and went our own way, a meaningful look and smile from her told me that we had done good. I hoped she was able to complete her training. I think she just did not have what it took but who knows… I just hoped she would be OK.

The Navy was a real culture shock for me. I had been out of my hometown twice that I remember. Monroe is in the extreme southern corner of Michigan so occasional family trips to Toledo, Ohio where we would go to the Bargain City store happened but travelling anywhere was very rare. We simply did not have the money.

So, when I got to boot camp and met real ‘low life’s’ I was shocked. I had been raised with people of integrity and honesty so when I had to live with people who would steal for example, I couldn’t believe it. The positive thing was, I began to look closely at everyone to figure out what they were all about and the negative was, I took another step on my life’s journey of mistrusting other humans.

Getting my orders after technical training, was quite an event. There were about 35 of us getting our orders in an old WWII lecture room… stepped raised platforms with chairs on them… the lecture podium being at ground level. I was 18 years old, naive and just plain stupid.

My dad worked 10-12 hours a day, six days a week, so we had only been out of Michigan on a real trip maybe one time… I was ‘green’ as can be. When the other guys started getting orders to places like Naples, Italy / Mendenhall, England / Spain / Florida / Myrtle Beach, North Carolina… I sat grinning because… “holy smoke, I’m in the right class... did I luck out or what”?

First Class Petty Officer Box (yes, his name was Box), who had the pleasure of giving out these orders, saved me and a few others for the end. He said, “I hope you boys don’t give a damn because you’re going to Nam” … all the guys who got the good orders laughed.

We all had orders to units in San Diego or Alameda which meant sure deployment to the combat zone. For the next several days as any of us walked around the barracks or the chow hall, voices would come from nowhere… “twist and turn, crash and burn”.

A short leave at home and I reported to my squadron. I arrived in the middle of the night. The ‘Duty Driver’ picked me up at the main gate and he chucked all the way back the hanger. He delivered me to the Duty Office. The second-class Petty Officer at the desk thought it funny as well while he summoned the OD.

The OD looked at my file and laughed as well. After he went back to his office, I asked the second-class… “what’s the deal, what’s so funny?” He said, “you have the worse timing ever… we are shipping our 2 days”. In retrospect, it seemed like everything was downhill from there.

First, I need to say… I did nothing of value in the Navy. I called myself a “Navy Grunt” because all I did was move supplies, equipment, ordinance and retrieving anything else that someone wanted. No war hero… just one of the ‘50’. What does that mean?

In Vietnam, for every man in the field pulling the trigger, there were 50 support people. My war was being ‘one of the 50’.

My first tour was kind of an adventure in the beginning. War is an interesting thing, and I found it intriguing. Yes, people died… this was just part of it. But within no time I began to open my eyes and after only a few months into what would become 3 tours and over 3 years in the combat zone, I wrote to my parents.

I told them that “I think I have really screwed up. This is ridiculous here. There is no ‘will’ to win this war. We have the firepower here to wrap this up in weeks, but they will not use it. They are just sacrificing people for nothing”. My attitude went downhill and the next three plus years would be nothing short of ‘torture’.

My mental and physical health would decline. I got into trouble and had a problem ‘keeping my mouth shut’. I drank excessively. I went into the military at 170lbs. and returned home at 131lbs.

The bizarre thing was, after my first tour and after coming back to the US, I could not wait to go back. There were no welcomes home and in fact, I experienced open hostility.

I went home on leave and was treated like a lepper by old high school friends… not all but most. I wanted to leave the US and go back to where I felt like I should be. A lot more people died on my second tour than the first… one of them was my Division Officer… my boss.

After my second tour leaving the base, I was spat upon by this beautiful girl I had hoped might give me a hug and a kiss. I was totally numb after the second tour, so I didn’t even react to her insult… I just walked away.

In retrospect, under different circumstances I would have punched her lights out, but I was at a very low point where I really didn’t care about anything. I hated coming ‘home’ and she had just confirmed for me that I no longer belonged in the US… less than an hour in the US and all I wanted was to go back.

On my second tour I was the most ‘powerful’ I had ever been in my life. I would work a minimum of 12 hours a day… up to 16 at times. There was one period during the Battle of An Loc, I worked, moving ordinance for 40 hours straight. I was strong and felt invincible.

After getting off work I would exercise… lift weights… and run four to six miles. But, toward the end of tour two, I began to decline. My body hurt all the time… my knees, my back, my hips… and I began to medicate with even harder drinking. By the end of tour two, I was declining rapidly.

I didn’t go home on leave to Michigan right after getting home from my second tour. Rather, I volunteered to be back at the base to receive the shipments of our equipment and personal trunks.

But when I did go home, it was terrible. After being home for several days, I was literally pacing up and down the driveway not realizing what I was doing. My mother came out, dish towel in hand and said, “son, I don’t know what is going on with you, but I have seen you now, so you do what you feel you have to do”.

Next day, I moved up my flight and went back to my unit. When it came to the time for tour number three, I couldn’t wait to leave.

Tour number three to this day is just a fog… I really remember very little of it. My body was giving out from hard work and too much alcohol. I had chest pains most of the time and was often sick.

I had been to war with death, confusion, stupidity, insecurity, and danger. I hated it but I also loved it. Unfortunately, it had become my new home. The four years had taught me that I felt better there than in the US… even though I hated the being there.

I will say this, no matter what happened during the day, I loved the Vietnam nights. I will never again in my life experience see a sky so large. Other than in monsoon season, every night seemed to be cloudless, and the millions of stars were breath-taking. Most nights I would spend at least part of it lying out of doors and looking up.

The world would disappear, and the events of the past day disappeared along with everything else… somehow it left me prepared for the next day. I lived one day at a time and had no desire to go home.

Eventually, I had to return… the war was winding down for the US. (Be sure to read the story titled: “The US Won the Vietnam War… Twice”). Returning home and being discharged was very difficult because I was in a very bad state of mind. I had no desire to be in the US but now there was no way out.

There was no more war to go back to. I had to crawl into my own hole, shut the door on Vietnam and pretend it didn’t happen. I hid my military status from others and tried to figure out what to do next.

The worst thing about it all was that I felt totally alone and I had totally lost my ‘compass’. Feeling like you have no one or nothing to live for is a terrible thing… and potentially deadly. I had no direction career wise, and I would never really find it again.

I would go on to have multiple careers but no matter what I did, I could not “play the games people play”. Despite what the 21st Century American has come to believe; Vietnam had taught me that life IS ‘black and white’… there is a ‘right’ and there is a ‘wrong’… and life is quite simple and straight forward.

I was taught this by the Greatest Generation, and I know in my heart that they were right. Because of this, I ran into problems within every career I pursued because I could not tolerate the “games” and corruption… my dislike for people grew.

I had learned that humans are their own worst enemies. Humans create all the confusion, corruption, and evil. Life for me would forever be ‘black and white’ and I would always ascribe to ‘natural law’, the only law that is true… and ‘simple and straight forward’.

One thing about all the changes I went through though, after walking away from a career, I always landed on my feet and started again. The reason for this was my ‘life-savors’… my wife and our children.

End of History Part #1… there are other stories which will enhance the above… stay tuned.