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    Collage
    Collage
    Collage
    Ebook212 pages3 hours

    Collage

    By Mike Shepherd

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    About this ebook

    Collage is collection of short stories, poems, and prose about my life experiences and members of my family.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateAug 7, 2015
    ISBN9781491769935
    Collage
    Author

    Mike Shepherd

    Upon graduating from Armed Forces Journalism School in 1967, Mike Shepherd was sent to South Vietnam as a radio reporter for 7th Air Force Information. He f lew all over the country from the DMZ to the Mekong Delta interviewing airmen and soldiers about the signifi cance of air power. He was awarded a certifi cate of meritorious achievement by Time/Life publications for his reporting during the siege of Khe Sanh in 1968. After coming home he attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, a hotbed for the antiwar movement. He then became employed by the State of Illinois in Springfi eld as public information offi cer and speech writer as his interest in radio broadcasting shifted to creative writing and he has published several books, along with articles for various newspapers and magazines. His fi rst book is entitled Like Another Lifetime in Another World, an historical fi ction about the Vietnam War, which has led to the publication of this particular book that’s a combination of fi ction and nonfi ction short stories, poems and prose. Shepherd presently lives in the country with his beloved wife Jane and their four cats.

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      Book preview

      Collage - Mike Shepherd

      EUREKA SPRINGS

      Mick had wanted to go to Arkansas ever since he read an article in the travel page of the Chicago Tribune describing its beauty, especially in north central Arkansas around Eureka Springs. One sunny, Saturday morning after the spring semester ended in June at Southern Illinois University, he packed a bag and drove from Carbondale through Cairo, across the Mississippi River and into the vast bottom lands of southeast Missouri. Shimmering heat waves rose from the road ahead, giving the impression of pools of water on the pavement. Even the breeze blowing through the windows of his station wagon felt hot. He grew thirsty and stopped at an old gas station for a pop and directions to the next highway heading west into northern Arkansas. As he got into the hills the air cooled and the drive was pleasant with the road shaded here and there with trees. By and by he came to a lake, across which he had to take a ferry.

      "God’s country," he said to himself. It made him laugh a bit sarcastically. Ever since Vietnam he had stopped believing in God. No benevolent creator would allow such a thing as war, he had decided, especially wars of religion like those being fought in the Middle East and in Northern Ireland. Mick had lost faith. He now worshiped at an altar called a bar. This made Mick laugh, too. He wanted to find a bar soon. No road trip would be complete without a few beers. He’d find a bar or two in Eureka Springs, he thought, for sure, but he’d need to eat before he started drinking. He pulled over at a hamburger stand a few miles from Eureka Springs to coat his stomach with grease, which he’d heard was good to do before one drank. He devoured a cheeseburger and fries.

      Eureka Springs was a tourist town built into the rocky hills and ravines of the Ozarks. Natives called them mountains. For the Midwest they were. The streets wound around and up and down through the town, which consisted of old turn-of-the-century buildings housing primarily restaurants and souvenir and antique shops. Mick parked at the bottom of a hill on a little side street. This was where he’d sleep that night, in the back of the station wagon, unless he wound up in some woman’s bed, which was always a possibility when he was out on the town, especially in these promiscuous times.

      He walked around for a while, looking in the windows of the various shops, which appeared to cater mostly to antique hunters, until he came to a place that had a neon beer sign in the front window. Just what he was looking for. He walked in. It wasn’t very busy, perhaps because it was early. Mick sat on a stool at the bar and ordered a beer. While waiting, he looked up and saw above the back bar, a large mural of a wagon train heading west across the plains, where a herd of buffalo grazed. Appropriate for a place called Buffalo Bob’s.

      By the time Mick had started on his third beer, it had become dark outside, and the place had become crowded and noisy. But then there was general quiet when a young bearded man with long red hair sat on a stool and began to play a guitar and sing folk songs. Mick didn’t recognize the tunes – the singer must have written them himself. The musician’s voice was strong and passionate, and he told good stories. One in particular caught Mick’s ear -- a song about a Vietnam War veteran coming home.

      A Jet Lag War, was the title of the tune, and it discussed how in previous wars guys came home in ships that took several days, sometimes weeks, to traverse the oceans, but Vietnam soldiers came home in jet airliners one day removed from combat, and they were expected to fit back into normal society, literally overnight. Some just couldn’t readjust so quickly. Mick hadn’t yet. His mind was still in ‘Nam half of the time. It was uncanny how his story paralleled that of the man’s songs. The only difference was that the man in the song turned to Jesus to help him get through such difficult times. That was something Mick hadn’t planned on, because he had become totally disillusioned with religion because of the war.

      The jet lag song was the only one with a religious theme; the others were about wanderlust and drinking, both of which Mick identified closely with. He had, after all, wandered into Arkansas, where he wound up drinking, which as usual, rendered him uninhibited. He applauded the musician loudly whenever he finished a song. This attracted the musician’s attention of course, and when he took a break he went to Mick and introduced himself.

      Name’s Jeff. He smiled.

      Mick. What’s happening?

      Everything, man. Where ya from?

      Illinois, Carbondale, Mick said.

      Oh yeah, Carbondale huh? I’ve played there before. Hip little town.

      Are you from around here? Mick asked.

      Tulsa. Originally Chicago, though. Lots of people from Chicago here. Popular place to retire.

      But this is a younger crowd, Mick observed.

      Yeah, most come over from the university in Fayetteville. Do you smoke? Jeff asked Mick in a low voice, almost whispering.

      Mick grinned. Not cigarettes.

      No, I mean, well, you know, Jeff said.

      Oh, okay, yeah, I do on occasion.

      Yes Mick did. A habit he had picked up in ‘Nam. Many GIs had. Pot was plentiful over there, and in Carbondale too.

      Care to join me for a toke up the street before I start my next set? Jeff asked.

      Okay.

      Mick followed Jeff outside. They went up the street --literally. It had a steep incline. They went into an alley about a half block away. The alley was short. It led to a cliff where dilapidated concrete stairs descended about 25 or 30 feet below. They stopped at the edge of the cliff, and Jeff produced a joint. He lit it, took a hit, and passed it to Mick.

      So what d’ya do, Mick?

      I’m a student, how about you? Do you make a living playing your music?

      Enough to pay the rent, with a little left over for food, gas and this.

      They passed the joint back and forth a couple of times, then Jeff doused it with a wetted thumb and index finger, and put it in a shirt pocket.

      Gotta get back to the gig, nice meetn’ ya, Mick.

      Yeah, same here.

      The rest of the night became a little foggy, because Mick drank more until last call. Jeff had long quit playing, and most of his audience had left. Mick was the last one to leave, but a few people were standing around outside. They were watching something going on down the street at the bottom of the hill.

      What’s happening down there? Mick asked.

      The cops are rounding up vagrants, somebody said.

      You live around here? one of the bystanders asked.

      No.

      Then you better make yourself scarce if you don’t have a place to stay, or they’ll haul you off to jail.

      Mick had planned to sleep in his station wagon down at the bottom of the hill. To get there he’d have to pass the police. He started down, but before he got very far they came up to him and asked him where he lived. Mick said Illinois.

      He decided instantly that he would not go to jail just for standing on the street. He fought for liberty in Vietnam, albeit the liberty of the South Vietnamese, so he wouldn’t stand for his own to be taken away by the police on the streets of the good old U.S. of A. They asked to see his driver’s license. As soon as they handed it back, he had decided, he’d take off for the alley up the street, where he and Jeff had been smoking. The very second his license touched his finger tips he started running. It was a difficult run up such a steep incline. The cops were older, they wouldn’t make it as fast. Mick ducked into the alley, but he was going so fast he wasn’t able to navigate the stairs step-by-step, so he leapt off the cliff and he quickly realized it was further to the ground than he had anticipated. His body began to tumble forward, and he landed face first in thick spongy underbrush. He bounced back up and dashed through a dense stand of trees, when suddenly the ground beneath him gave way. It wasn’t ground after all, but old chicken wire overgrown with vines that stretched across a deep creek. He landed on his buttocks and back hard on round rocks submerged in shallow water. He lay just as he’d landed trying to be still, stifling his heavy breathing and listening for the cops.

      There was an opening above him in the chicken wire through which he had fallen, but much of it, still covered with vegetation, had remained intact, keeping him fairly well camouflaged. He heard rustling in the underbrush, but no voices. After awhile the rustling ceased; Mick continued to lie perfectly still. They could be standing nearby, listening quietly for him to make some noise -- if they thought he hadn’t run all the way through the woods.

      The water began to feel cold on his back, rump and legs, and his sweaty face stung from the scratches the broken chicken wire had made. One of his legs, which was folded underneath him when he landed in the stream on his back, began to cramp. He stretched it out slowly, to relieve the pain, and soon, woozy from his ordeal, he passed out.

      When the sun came up in the morning, he felt that it was safe to move. He stood up slowly. Every muscle in his body was stiff, but he was able to climb out of the creek bed on the chicken wire, and he made a beeline to where he had parked his car. It was gone. The cops had probably run the plates and found that the car belonged to him, remembering his name from his driver’s license. They had it towed after he ran from them, so he was now forced to turn himself in to get it back.

      At the station one of the cops greeted Mick.

      I ain’t tryin’ to be a smart Alec or nothin’, son, but after that fall you took last night, you better turn to Jesus!

      HONOR FLIGHT

      My Dad, Doyle Shepherd, was a small man who resembled Richard Nixon, except that he wore glasses. He didn’t look like a combat veteran, but I suspected he was. Being a snoopy little kid I discovered campaign ribbons with battle stars in a drawer at Grandma’s house. I asked her what they were for.

      The Battle of Saipan in World War II. But don’t ask your father about them, he doesn’t like to talk about it. I will tell you this, though; his ship, a destroyer called the USS Phelps, won a presidential citation for the action they saw there.

      I knew a little about the war from watching Walter Cronkite’s 20th Century on television. I was enthralled by what I saw – men in combat -- and I tried to imagine what that would be like. It wasn’t a game that my buddies and I played in the yard. It was all about life and death. I could see it in their eyes as they approached Normandy in landing crafts on D-Day. Unspeakable fear, overcome by unimaginable courage as they went undaunted into action to save the world from tyranny.

      That was in Europe. Dad was in the Pacific. That was all I knew, except for what Grandma had told me. He didn’t tell me anything himself, and I didn’t ask.

      Eventually I participated in a war of my own – in Vietnam, where I experienced first hand what it was like to be in combat, in a hell hole called Khe Sanh. When I returned home, thankfully in one piece, I was determined to find out more about Dad’s wartime experience, so I read about the Battle of Saipan.

      The island of Saipan is only 15 miles long and 6 miles wide. It is located in the Mariana chain, which is approximately 1500 miles due east of the Philippines. In the early stages of World War II it was inhabited by thousands of Japanese civilians and occupied by 28,000 Japanese soldiers. The island was of strategic importance, because, if wrested from the Japanese army, its airfields could be used by American planes to bomb Tokyo, which was 1,500 miles due north.

      Early in June 1944, Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance assembled his Fifth Fleet, the greatest invasion armada the world had yet seen, for an amphibious operation against the Marianas. Its carriers, battleships, destroyers and cruisers were assigned to wipe out the Japanese air opposition on the 600-mile chain of islands. By the time the Fifth Fleet’s planes and warships attacked, every enemy coastal gun had been destroyed; there were no Japanese planes to offer opposition and most of the enemy’s shipping capability was at the bottom of the sea. On June 14 the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions, followed by the 27th Infantry Division, went ashore on a two-mile beachhead south of Charan Kanoa at the southwest end of the island.

      Facing heavy mortar fire, they quickly captured Aginigan Point. Charan Kanoa was then taken in street-by-street fighting, and the adjoining airfield fell into American hands, as did Aslito Airfield. To disrupt the invasion, Japanese Admiral Shimada had planned to attack the US fleet with planes from his carriers lurking nearby. When the air was filled with Zeros and other fighters, the slaughter began: the American carrier-based Hellcats and Avengers attacked. Few if any of the enemy got through to the American vessels. Japanese fighters fell like flaming torches, fifteen burning simultaneously in the sky. Admiral Shimada lost more than 400 planes and an equal number of his best Japanese Navy pilots.

      The next day, the American armada rushed west, through intense gales to catch the retreating enemy ships. In the next two hours of daylight, Admiral Mitscher turned his carriers around into the wind to launch hundreds of planes at extreme range to pursue the foe. Despite low fuel and little likelihood of making it back to their mother ships, the Americans flew boldly on until they sighted six of the enemy’s carriers, four battleships, and six cruisers halfway between the Marianas and the Phillippines.

      They attacked for fifteen minutes, shooting down twenty-six of the thirty enemy planes in the air. They sank one large carrier and damaged another; a cruiser exploded; a battleship, two cruisers, a destroyer, and two light carriers were damaged, and a third carrier was sunk by a submarine.

      The Battle of the Philippine Sea, which was fought in conjunction with the invasion of Saipan, ended with a stunning American victory. In a two-week period the Japanese lost a total of 757 planes and thirty ships.

      While the greatest ship-plane battle since Midway was being fought in the sky and at sea, the Americans on Saipan went about their business.

      Reinforcements steadily poured ashore. An attack was begun on Mount Tapotchau, which rose 1,554 feet in the center of the island. Beleaguered Japanese soldiers hid in numerous natural and man-improved caves in coral rock. Guarding their entrances with mortar and machine guns, they held on doggedly until the American troops either burned them out with flame throwers or blasted the entrances with heavy demolition charges.

      The Japanese, however, from their advantageous positions on the hills, slopes and caves of Mount Tapotchau, were able to fight a stubborn rearguard action although outnumbered nearly four to one. The American pressure was becoming intolerable for the Japanese in the northern corner of Saipan. One night, General Saito, commander of the 43rd Division sent a final message to Tokyo, blaming his predicament on the lack of reinforcement by air. The airfields on Saipan had been captured by the Americans, many of the Japanese navy’s carriers had been sunk or damaged, and scores of planes had been shot down in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

      We deeply apologize to the Emperor that we cannot do better.

      After issuing a final order to his surviving troops that before they died each would take Seven lives to repay our country, he committed harakiri, disemboweling himself with a sword in the tradition of samurai. Vice Admiral Nagumo, Commander in Chief of Japan’s Central Pacific fleet, ended his life with a pistol.

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