https://www.johndjacobson.com/john-nickoli daily 0.75 2017-11-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511656165491-FOM358GQJUTI1MTAOID6/Brothers.png John Nickoli - Preface Between the years 1900 and 1910, a new wave of Norwegians immigrated to America. Among them were three brothers and a sister from Hugla, a coastal island located just below the Arctic Circle. Their names were Nils, John, Ingval, and Mathinka. Like many of their countrymen, they chose to settle in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. Born to Karen and Jakob Isaksen, the siblings took the given name of their father as their surname. Thus my grandfather became John Nickoli Jacobson, or John, son of Jakob.* In 1906, John acquired forty acres of harvested timberland next to his brother Nils in the small immigrant community of Lakewood. The same year he married a young woman from northern Norway. Her name was Anna Kristine Tobiasen. Together they built a home, carved out a farm and raised two sons, Erling and Carroll. Erling was my father. I was nine years old when my family moved into a house on an acre of land across the road from my grandparent’s dairy farm. My brother and I grew up milking cows, feeding chickens, and harvesting hay. It was during that time that I developed a close relationship with my grandfather. On the day he left Norway in 1901, John planted a birch sapling beside his home. With family and friends looking on, he carefully tamped down the soil, then grabbed the tree by the neck and shook it hard. Speaking directly to the young tree, he vowed to do the same thing when he came back. Sixty-six years later, he returned to Hugla for the first and only time. The tree was patiently waiting. Newly married and stationed with the American Air Force in England, my bride and I had the pleasure of accompanying him on that memorable homecoming. What follows are my recollections of the journey. *I found my grandfather’s name spelled many different ways in family documents. The wedding ring he gave my grandmother was engraved with the words “Din Jahn” (Your Jahn). Mikael (my son) and Lavelle were unaware of this spelling when they named our youngest granddaughter Ivy Jahn Jacobson. She will wear the ring one day. In other places, I found my grandfather’s firrst name spelled Johann. On his naturalization papers, his middle name was spelled Neckoli. I prefer the spelling that he himself used when he signed that document on the thirteenth day of June, 1912: John Nickoli Jacobson. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511656165491-FOM358GQJUTI1MTAOID6/Brothers.png John Nickoli - Preface Between the years 1900 and 1910, a new wave of Norwegians immigrated to America. Among them were three brothers and a sister from Hugla, a coastal island located just below the Arctic Circle. Their names were Nils, John, Ingval, and Mathinka. Like many of their countrymen, they chose to settle in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. Born to Karen and Jakob Isaksen, the siblings took the given name of their father as their surname. Thus my grandfather became John Nickoli Jacobson, or John, son of Jakob.* In 1906, John acquired forty acres of harvested timberland next to his brother Nils in the small immigrant community of Lakewood. The same year he married a young woman from northern Norway. Her name was Anna Kristine Tobiasen. Together they built a home, carved out a farm and raised two sons, Erling and Carroll. Erling was my father. I was nine years old when my family moved into a house on an acre of land across the road from my grandparent’s dairy farm. My brother and I grew up milking cows, feeding chickens, and harvesting hay. It was during that time that I developed a close relationship with my grandfather. On the day he left Norway in 1901, John planted a birch sapling beside his home. With family and friends looking on, he carefully tamped down the soil, then grabbed the tree by the neck and shook it hard. Speaking directly to the young tree, he vowed to do the same thing when he came back. Sixty-six years later, he returned to Hugla for the first and only time. The tree was patiently waiting. Newly married and stationed with the American Air Force in England, my bride and I had the pleasure of accompanying him on that memorable homecoming. What follows are my recollections of the journey. *I found my grandfather’s name spelled many different ways in family documents. The wedding ring he gave my grandmother was engraved with the words “Din Jahn” (Your Jahn). Mikael (my son) and Lavelle were unaware of this spelling when they named our youngest granddaughter Ivy Jahn Jacobson. She will wear the ring one day. In other places, I found my grandfather’s firrst name spelled Johann. On his naturalization papers, his middle name was spelled Neckoli. I prefer the spelling that he himself used when he signed that document on the thirteenth day of June, 1912: John Nickoli Jacobson. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511477537453-LXU5LJSZCCP701K6HZ2X/Williston+Train+Station.jpeg John Nickoli - Return to Norway - 1967   We were waiting with family outside the depot of the Great Northern Railroad in Williston, North Dakota, the town where Karen Lund and I were married the day before. The January temperature had dropped to ten degrees below zero during the night, and icy clouds billowed from our lungs with each breath as we shivered in the cold, gray dawn. My parents, in the company of my brother and his wife, had traveled by train from Washington State, bringing my grandfather with them. Now it was time for them to board the Empire Builder for the long trip back. Just days away from John Nickoli’s eighty-seventh birthday, the old fishsherman-turned-farmer was about to ride the same rails that had carried him to the Pacific Northwest when he emigrated from Norway in 1901. Later in the afternoon, Karen and I would board an eastbound train to Minneapolis where we would catch a flight to Montego Bay for our honeymoon. From Jamaica, we would fly to England for my next assignment as a Flight Surgeon at a USAF hospital in South Ruislip on the outskirts of London. Amidst a flurry of hugs and farewells, a conductor sounded his last “all aboard.” As my grandfather prepared to climb the stairs to the Pullman car, I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Karen and I plan to visit Norway this summer. If you can get to England, we will take you with us.” It was more of a gesture than a promise, and he seemed to understand. For a moment, there was no visible response, just thoughtful silence. We both knew the obstacles. After a long pause, he said, “Yes, that would sure be nice.” A few months later, we received a letter from my father saying they had purchased a ticket. My grandfather would fly from Seattle to London in June to join us on a trip to the island where he was born, in the land of the midnight sun. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511476575341-WZU3ETYJCUOSA3MU9QUC/Brothers.png John Nickoli - Preface Between the years 1900 and 1910, a new wave of Norwegians immigrated to America. Among them were three brothers and a sister from Hugla, a coastal island located just below the Arctic Circle. Their names were Nils, John, Ingval, and Mathinka. Like many of their countrymen, they chose to settle in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. Born to Karen and Jakob Isaksen, the siblings took the given name of their father as their surname. Thus my grandfather became John Nickoli Jacobson, or John, son of Jakob.* In 1906, John acquired forty acres of harvested timberland next to his brother Nils in the small immigrant community of Lakewood. The same year he married a young woman from northern Norway. Her name was Anna Kristine Tobiasen. Together they built a home, carved out a farm and raised two sons, Erling and Carroll. Erling was my father. I was nine years old when my family moved into a house on an acre of land across the road from my grandparent’s dairy farm. My brother and I grew up milking cows, feeding chickens, and harvesting hay. It was during that time that I developed a close relationship with my grandfather. On the day he left Norway in 1901, John planted a birch sapling beside his home. With family and friends looking on, he carefully tamped down the soil, then grabbed the tree by the neck and shook it hard. Speaking directly to the young tree, he vowed to do the same thing when he came back. Sixty-six years later, he returned to Hugla for the first and only time. The tree was patiently waiting. Newly married and stationed with the American Air Force in England, my bride and I had the pleasure of accompanying him on that memorable homecoming. What follows are my recollections of the journey. *I found my grandfather’s name spelled many different ways in family documents. The wedding ring he gave my grandmother was engraved with the words “Din Jahn” (Your Jahn). Mikael (my son) and Lavelle were unaware of this spelling when they named our youngest granddaughter Ivy Jahn Jacobson. She will wear the ring one day. In other places, I found my grandfather’s firrst name spelled Johann. On his naturalization papers, his middle name was spelled Neckoli. I prefer the spelling that he himself used when he signed that document on the thirteenth day of June, 1912: John Nickoli Jacobson. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511480185166-Y1XTWZK69SMSCB64LLK5/Grandpa+John+Rowing.jpeg John Nickoli - Disaster at Titran   From Sogndal, we continued north, arriving at our hotel in Trondheim late in the evening of our second day in Norway. In the morning, I would hear the story of the devastating storm that had struck Froya, an outermost island about ninety kilometers due west of Trondheim. There at the age of nineteen, my grandfather narrowly avoided one of the most tragic fishing disasters in Norwegian history. At breakfast, he spoke about it for the first and only time. It was mid-October in the year 1899. He and a partner had pooled their resources to have a fishing boat built for them in a town on the coast southwest of Trondheim. From his description, it may have been Kristiansund, which was a boat-building center in those days. To get to Kristiansund, they traveled by boat three hundred miles down the coast from Nesna near the Arctic Circle. They sailed on the Hurtigruten, which means “the fast route.” First established in 1893, it was a passenger and cargo line that still sails the coast today with service between Bergen on the southwest coast and Kirkenes in the far north. The two young fishermen took delivery of their boat and sailed north for a day. Late on the afternoon of October 13, 1899, they arrived at the fishing village of Titran, located on the sheltered side of the narrow island of Froya. The port provided a safe harbor along with catering, supplies, and accommodations. There was postal service and a chapel, as well, to serve the swollen ranks of fortune hunters. For years each fall, giant shoals of large herring were observed on the outer side of the island. Crowds of fishermen gathered from villages all along the central coast to grasp their share of the immense resource. Using a tactic of string-based net fishing, the boats would drift along the outside of the island during the night and the nets would be tugged in the next morning, usually with a large catch. My grandfather and his fishing partner were well aware of Froya’s reputation. Anxious to test out their new boat and hopefully share in the bounty, they considered sailing with the fleet that night. To reach the fishing grounds they would have to sail around the southern tip of the island and cast their nets off the rocky, western shore. Realizing they were not yet familiar with the waters, they elected to drop anchor and spend the night in the harbor. It was a fortunate decision. At two the following morning, unexpected hurricane force winds struck the unprotected outer coast. My grandfather said that some of the large, tender ships with steam engines were able to head out into the relative safety of the open sea. Meanwhile giant waves swallowed small boats immediately. Others tried to sail ashore and crashed against rocks and reefs. Miraculously, thirty boats managed to sail back around the tip of the island and reach the safety of Titran’s harbor. Still, when the storm was over, they counted the loss of twenty-nine boats and one hundred forty fishermen. A monument engraved with the names of the lost fishermen exists to this day at the Vagoy church on the island of Froya. It was not the greatest loss of life in Norwegian fishing disasters, but it was the most thoroughly documented. Forty years after our trip to Norway, I was finally able to corroborate my grandfather’s story online. I have since wondered if the trauma of this experience influenced his decision to give up the dangers of the open sea and immigrate to America. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511474938844-81RINT09BOPC0R0W5X5M/Brothers.png John Nickoli - Preface Between the years 1900 and 1910, a new wave of Norwegians immigrated to America. Among them were three brothers and a sister from Hugla, a coastal island located just below the Arctic Circle. Their names were Nils, John, Ingval, and Mathin- ka. Like many of their countrymen, they chose to settle in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. Born to Karen and Jakob Isaksen, the siblings took the given name of their father as their surname. Thus my grandfather became John Nickoli Jacob- son, or John, son of Jakob.* In 1906, John acquired forty acres of harvested tim- berland next to his brother Nils in the small immi- grant community of Lakewood. The same year he married a young woman from northern Norway. Her name was Anna Kristine Tobiasen. Togeth- er they built a home, carved out a farm and raised two sons, Erling and Carroll. Erling was my father. I was nine years old when my family moved into a house on an acre of land across the road from my grandparent’s dairy farm. My brother and I grew up milking cows, feeding chickens, and harvesting hay. It was during that time that I developed a close relationship with my grandfather. On the day he left Norway in 1901, John planted a birch sapling beside his home. With family and friends looking on, he carefully tamped down the soil, then grabbed the tree by the neck and shook it hard. Speaking directly to the young tree, he vowed to do the same thing when he came back. Sixty-six years later, he returned to Hugla for the rst and only time. The tree was patiently waiting. Newly married and stationed with the American Air Force in England, my bride and I had the pleasure of accompanying him on that memorable homecoming. What follows are my recollections of the journey. *I found my grandfather’s name spelled many different ways in family documents. The wedding ring he gave my grandmother was engraved with the words “Din Jahn” (Your Jahn). Mikael (my son) and Lavelle were unaware of this spelling when they named our young- est granddaughter Ivy Jahn Jacobson. She will wear the ring one day. In other places, I found my grandfather’s rst name spelled Johann. On his naturalization papers, his middle name was spelled Neckoli. I prefer the spelling that he himself used when he signed that document on the thirteenth day of June, 1912: John Nickoli Jacobson.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511480116690-BHYXWTWPXFDVRMDTFI33/Disaster+at+Titran+2.jpg John Nickoli Rough seas at Froya https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511476158635-45GEZ0BWBR4YAKPDPBMQ/Bergen.jpeg John Nickoli - Across the North Sea to Bergen Across the North Sea to Bergen Not long after he turned eighty, John Nickoli sold the Lakewood farm in Washington State and moved with my grandmother across the road into the house I grew up in. Six years later, while I was serving in Viet Nam, Anna passed away, fulfilling the prediction she made the day I left that we would never see each other again. By the time I arrived in England in November of 1966, my grandfather was living with my parents in Mount Vernon, Washington. He slept in their house but ate his meals and spent most of each day exchanging stories with patients in our family’s nursing home next door. John’s flight from Seattle was nine hours non-stop. He touched down at London’s Heathrow airport in early June. We let him recuperate for a few days at our at in South Ruislip before heading north in our new Rambler station wagon. Our government encouraged us to buy American, so they shipped the car, at no expense to us, all the way from the states to Southampton. Like all U.S. vehicles, the steering wheel was on the left side, which meant that while driving in England, the passenger in the front seat looked directly into the oncoming traffic. Karen found it highly unnerving. From London, it was a six-hour drive to Newcastle on the M1 Motorway. We arrived late in the afternoon and drove directly onto the ferry that would carry us across the North Sea to Bergen. After dinner, we retired to our quarters for a good night’s sleep. The morning sun was hidden by low clouds when we neared the Norwegian coastline. Before reaching port, I watched from the cabin window as we passed through an archipelago of small, rocky islands dotted with brightly colored shermen’s cabins and vacation homes. My father, Erling, was the oldest of two sons. Because he had grown up speaking Norwegian in the home, he had no problem conversing with John Nickoli years later when the old man would revert to speaking in his native tongue. Still, it had been a long time since Grandpa had talked with a real Norwegian. The first one he met was a custom official whom he eagerly engaged in conversation as we prepared to leave the ferry. After listening patiently while my grandfather recounted his life’s story, the of cer turned to me and said, in perfect English, that he knew exactly what part of Norway my grandfather was from by his Nordland dialect. We drove off the boat and found ourselves comfortably back on the American side of the road. Interestingly, it was just three months later that Sweden undertook the monumental task of making the switch from driving on the left-hand side of the road to traveling on the right, like the Norwegians. From Bergen, we caught a ferry at Vangsnes for a picturesque ride up the Sognefjorden to the town of Sogndal. The night was spent in a hotel on the water’s edge near a small marina. After breakfast, we rented a dory with two sets of oars. While Karen huddled in the stern, grandfather and grandson rowed together out to the open waters of the fjord. Leaning into the waves, I was reminded of Terje Vigen, an epic poem by Henrik Ibsen that John Nickoli had committed to memory as a young school boy. The Ibsen story took place during the time of the Napoleonic wars and told the saga of a seaman who was captured while trying to row through the English blockade of Norway in a vain attempt to smuggle sacks of our from Denmark back to his starving wife and daughter. Embittered, after learning they had died during his imprisonment, he became a reclusive harbor pilot. Later he heroically rescued a ship-wrecked English Lord along with his wife and little daughter, who reminded Terje of his own child. By chance, the Englishman had been the commander of the ship that had captured him. In a position to exact revenge, Terje courageously saved the family and in doing so freed himself from years of anger and resentment. Ibsen’s poem inspired me to pursue rowing as a sport. My brother and I had often competed in boat races on Washington rivers. Later, after moving to Wenatchee to start my anesthesia practice, I bought a fiberberglass scull and rowed for pleasure on the mighty Columbia. From Sogndal, it was a full day’s drive over the mountains to the thousand-year-old coastal city of Trondheim. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511568311408-WU82CQCFRVQMJADVJE06/Spacer+jpg.jpg John Nickoli - Our First Glimpse of Hugla https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511570666329-I7MPQF7DQ24S9MLPSF7N/Hugla+House+60%25jpg.jpg John Nickoli - To the Top of the Mountain We slept in Kåre’s home that night. It was Midsummer’s Night Eve, a time for celebrating the summer solstice in Scandinavia. Even with the shades the drawn, our room never darkened. Peeking out from our bedroom window, we could see bon res flickering throughout the night from the shores and hills of the surrounding islands. After a Norwegian breakfast of oatmeal, Swedish pancakes, and coffee, Kåre led Karen and me on a trek up the mountain behind his home. Although he was approaching his sixty-ninth birthday, he was surprisingly agile. At times, we struggled to keep pace. As we traveled up the unmarked trail, I found myself once again thinking about trolls and the “The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff.” More realistically, I was hoping I might catch a glimpse of a ptarmigan or an arctic hare. We saw both. When a covey of quail took flight, I was delighted, but Karen was startled. I turned around and she was gone. Frightened by the utter of their loud, flapping wings, she reversed course and scurried back down the mountain. I was disappointed for her because the view from the top was spectacular with scattered islands and placid waters stretching up and down the coast as far as the eye could see. My grandfather was only thirteen years old when he stood on the same vantage point watching Fridtjof Nansen sail past at the start of his historic polar expedition in 1893. I would learn more about the young boy’s fascination with the heroic Norwegian explorer when we visited the Fram Ship Museum in Oslo prior to boarding our ferry for the return trip to Newcastle. John’s keen recollections of the ship and Nansen’s journey correlated almost word for word with newspaper articles about the expedition that were posted on the walls of the museum. One of my most treasured possessions is a photograph we took of John at the helm of Nansen’s ship. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511567557853-MFLNIDS1VKP0I3Y81ASE/Levang+Ferry.jpg John Nickoli Like the migrating cod he once pursued off the deep banks of the Lofoten Islands, the old Norwegian emigrant was returning to his spawning grounds. We had just boarded a car ferry that would carry us on a short ride north from Levang to Nesna, a small coastal town forty kilometers south of the Arctic Circle. En route, we would pass Hugla, the island where my grandfather was born and raised. As our boat pulled away from the dock, John Nickoli made his way to the forward deck, where he stood with his hands on the railing in mounting anticipation. A brisk afternoon breeze tilted his hat and ruffled the waters, stirring up the nostalgic scent of salty sea air. The old man knew these surroundings well. It was here that he was taught to fish from an open boat with hand lines and nets. On these waters, he learned how to pull an oar and tack into the wind. The memories so clear, it seemed like only yesterday he left his island home for America. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511583546022-ND1J20BNFJXOCM9CAX7G/Hugla+pdf.jpg John Nickoli As we entered the strait that separated my grandfather’s island from the mainland, I had an overwhelming sense of dejá vu. For years, a oil painting by F. Mason Holmes, an American artist (1865-1963) hung on the living room wall of my grandparent’s home. Inspired by an old picture postcard, it was a colorful landscape painting of Nesna, surrounded by water with the islands Tomma, Handnesoya, and Hugla looming in the distance. Hidden within the canvas were the many bedtime stories I had heard from my grandfather about his life as a young Norwegian boy growing up in the “land of the midnight sun.” There were old Norwegian fables as well, told as if they actually occurred in the setting of his island. I had one particular favorite tale that I would beg him to repeat every night before drifting off to sleep. Now years later, I found myself looking at the very island that I once imagined was the stomping grounds of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff.” Hiding underneath the bridge, on the trail leading up to the summer meadows, was sure to be a hunched-back, beady-eyed troll. As depicted in the painting, Mount Huggeltind rose steeply to the height of two thousand feet above Hugla’s southern shore. Further north, my grandfather’s ancestral farm sat at the base of the mountain on a fertile alluvial fan. As I watched my grandfather looking out on these familiar surroundings, I wondered what memories were swirling through his mind. Was he thinking about his parents and the sister he never saw again after leaving for America? Did this long June day bring back memories of laughter and songs around shoreline bon res that flickered into the dawn on Midsummer’s Night Eve? Could he once again feel the chill of endless winter nights when the sun never rose above the horizon? Did he have any sympathy for the camouflaged ptarmigan and arctic hare that he shot with his .22 rifle as a young boy? The targets, he had told me, were so difficult to spot because their color transitioned from brown in the summer to white with the first winter snow. Gazing at the high point of the mountain, I pictured my grandfather standing there as a thirteen-year-old boy, looking down on his hero, Fridtjof Nansen, sailing north on his ship, the Fram, in a daring attempt to reach the North Pole. From the ferry landing at Nesna, it was a short ride to a small hotel where we would spend the night. On the way, we passed the quintessential, white Lutheran church that served as the focal point of my grandfather’s oil painting. We learned that it had been built in 1880, the year John Nickoli was born. Perhaps that explains his loyalty to the Lutheran Church on the corner of his brother’s farm in Lakewood. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511569231083-JFJZ8SZDQ2S0ON2672W4/Church_of_Nesna_jpg.jpg John Nickoli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511567535129-S1TNOP4NNLKWGG00LHJ4/Levang+Ferry.jpg John Nickoli - Our First Glimpse of Hugla Like the migrating cod he once pursued off the deep banks of the Lofoten Islands, the old Norwegian emigrant was returning to his spawning grounds. We had just boarded a car ferry that would carry us on a short ride north from Levang to Nesna, a small coastal town forty kilometers south of the Arctic Circle. En route, we would pass Hugla, the island where my grandfather was born and raised. As our boat pulled away from the dock, John Nickoli made his way to the forward deck, where he stood with his hands on the railing in mounting anticipation. A brisk afternoon breeze tilted his hat and ruffled the waters, stirring up the nostalgic scent of salty sea air. The old man knew these surroundings well. It was here that he was taught to fish from an open boat with hand lines and nets. On these waters, he learned how to pull an oar and tack into the wind. The memories so clear, it seemed like only yesterday he left his island home for America. As we entered the strait that separated my grandfather’s island from the mainland, I had an overwhelming sense of dejá vu. For years, a oil painting by F. Mason Holmes, an American artist (1865-1963) hung on the living room wall of my grandparent’s home. Inspired by an old picture postcard, it was a colorful landscape painting of Nesna, surrounded by water with the islands Tomma, Handnesoya, and Hugla looming in the distance. Hidden within the canvas were the many bedtime stories I had heard from my grandfather about his life as a young Norwegian boy growing up in the “land of the midnight sun.” There were old Norwegian fables as well, told as if they actually occurred in the setting of his island. I had one particular favorite tale that I would beg him to repeat every night before drifting off to sleep. Now years later, I found myself looking at the very island that I once imagined was the stomping grounds of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff.” Hiding underneath the bridge, on the trail leading up to the summer meadows, was sure to be a hunched-back, beady-eyed troll. As depicted in the painting, Mount Huggeltind rose steeply to the height of two thousand feet above Hugla’s southern shore. Further north, my grandfather’s ancestral farm sat at the base of the mountain on a fertile alluvial fan. As I watched my grandfather looking out on these familiar surroundings, I wondered what memories were swirling through his mind. Was he thinking about his parents and the sister he never saw again after leaving for America? Did this long June day bring back memories of laughter and songs around shoreline bon res that flickered into the dawn on Midsummer’s Night Eve? Could he once again feel the chill of endless winter nights when the sun never rose above the horizon? Did he have any sympathy for the camouflaged ptarmigan and arctic hare that he shot with his .22 rifle as a young boy? The targets, he had told me, were so difficult to spot because their color transitioned from brown in the summer to white with the first winter snow. Gazing at the high point of the mountain, I pictured my grandfather standing there as a thirteen-year-old boy, looking down on his hero, Fridtjof Nansen, sailing north on his ship, the Fram, in a daring attempt to reach the North Pole. From the ferry landing at Nesna, it was a short ride to a small hotel where we would spend the night. On the way, we passed the quintessential, white Lutheran church that served as the focal point of my grandfather’s oil painting. We learned that it had been built in 1880, the year John Nickoli was born. Perhaps that explains his loyalty to the Lutheran Church on the corner of his brother’s farm in Lakewood. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511572266727-ZQ9LE0A0S97ZPA0VZIFC/Hugla+Road+jpg+2.jpg John Nickoli - Hugla Welcomes John Nickoli Early the next morning, we took a commuter boat across the water to the island of Hugla, where Kåre Sylvesterson, my grandfather’s nephew, was waiting on the dock to greet us. Kåre spoke only Norwegian, so my grandfather served as the translator. Eighteen years younger than my grandfather, Kåre was the son of John’s sister, Marie, who, as the oldest sibling, inherited the family farm. In time, it passed on to Kåre and his brother, Amund. A narrow island road separated their two properties. Kåre’s land rose up to the base of the mountain, while Amund’s fields sloped down to the water’s edge. Kåre arrived at the pier on his farm tractor, pulling a flat-bed trailer that carried us a mile to the family homestead. Before setting out, he gave us a tour of a pier-side rendering plant that processed herring into a protein-rich meal used for fertilizer and as a feedstock for aquaculture. To say that the area reeked would be an understatement. Phew! We did not linger. The next day Kåre would show us how well his garden grew when the herring meal was applied. Kåre’s house stood near the midpoint of the island, a stone’s throw from the home where my grandfather was born and raised. Wearing multiple coats of traditional white paint, the old place looked clean and well cared for. Despite its age, it was still habitable, though seldom used. In anticipation of John’s return, Kåre’s wife had prepared familiar Norwegian treats. Krumkake, lefsa, and assorted cookies were served with strong coffee, much to my grandfather’s delight. Agnes was quiet and more reserved than her husband. We later learned that her grandfather was “Sami,” or as Americans would say, Laplander. Anna, my paternal grandmother had grown up beyond Tromso in the far north of Norway. Her small hamlet of Tommervik was located in Sami country, and I have often wondered if there could be Laplander roots on her side of our family. Later that afternoon, Kåre gave us a tour of the old homestead. In an upstairs bedroom, we found a trunk that had belonged to my great-grandfather, which still contained some of his possessions. The front bore the hand-painted inscription Jacob Isakson. Back outside, I saw my grandfather and Kåre standing near the corner of the house beside a gnarly, old, birch tree. On the day John Nickoli departed for America, young Kåre watched with family and friends as my grandfather planted a young sapling in that very spot. After carefully tamping down the soil, John grabbed the tree rmly by the neck, shook it vigorously, and vowed to do the same thing when he returned. Reminded of that solemn pledge, Kåre carefully watched over the tree as it grew tall and strong. That afternoon, Uncle and Nephew reunited under the canopy of the aged birch tree that now towered above the house. It was then that Kåre was heard to say, “The time has come, John. Shake it again as you promised.” Sixty-six years had passed and the tree had not forgotten. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511571150791-ZRE8QCNR49S7GYJCMGR1/Jacobson%2C+John+fram.jpeg John Nickoli When my brother and I were young, we found a large model of a sailing ship in the attic of my grandfather’s milk house. I have since realized it was the Fram. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511571982495-9X48MPIXIS61YH978Y73/Fram.jpg John Nickoli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511656341746-CMWVV7ZW1K5Z6X4359BR/Mikael+Beard.jpg John Nickoli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511474977866-3HBXJO73EIWO3W4BGLPF/Brothers.png John Nickoli - Preface Between the years 1900 and 1910, a new wave of Norwegians immigrated to America. Among them were three brothers and a sister from Hugla, a coastal island located just below the Arctic Circle. Their names were Nils, John, Ingval, and Mathin- ka. Like many of their countrymen, they chose to settle in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. Born to Karen and Jakob Isaksen, the siblings took the given name of their father as their surname. Thus my grandfather became John Nickoli Jacob- son, or John, son of Jakob.* In 1906, John acquired forty acres of harvested tim- berland next to his brother Nils in the small immi- grant community of Lakewood. The same year he married a young woman from northern Norway. Her name was Anna Kristine Tobiasen. Togeth- er they built a home, carved out a farm and raised two sons, Erling and Carroll. Erling was my father. I was nine years old when my family moved into a house on an acre of land across the road from my grandparent’s dairy farm. My brother and I grew up milking cows, feeding chickens, and harvesting hay. It was during that time that I developed a close relationship with my grandfather. On the day he left Norway in 1901, John planted a birch sapling beside his home. With family and friends looking on, he carefully tamped down the soil, then grabbed the tree by the neck and shook it hard. Speaking directly to the young tree, he vowed to do the same thing when he came back. Sixty-six years later, he returned to Hugla for the rst and only time. The tree was patiently waiting. Newly married and stationed with the American Air Force in England, my bride and I had the pleasure of accompanying him on that memorable homecoming. What follows are my recollections of the journey. *I found my grandfather’s name spelled many different ways in family documents. The wedding ring he gave my grandmother was engraved with the words “Din Jahn” (Your Jahn). Mikael (my son) and Lavelle were unaware of this spelling when they named our young- est granddaughter Ivy Jahn Jacobson. She will wear the ring one day. In other places, I found my grandfather’s rst name spelled Johann. On his naturalization papers, his middle name was spelled Neckoli. I prefer the spelling that he himself used when he signed that document on the thirteenth day of June, 1912: John Nickoli Jacobson.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511476431004-NE5N7UC5XKR4Q7NT3KBO/Brothers.png John Nickoli - Preface Between the years 1900 and 1910, a new wave of Norwegians immigrated to America. Among them were three brothers and a sister from Hugla, a coastal island located just below the Arctic Circle. Their names were Nils, John, Ingval, and Mathinka. Like many of their countrymen, they chose to settle in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. Born to Karen and Jakob Isaksen, the siblings took the given name of their father as their surname. Thus my grandfather became John Nickoli Jacobson, or John, son of Jakob.* In 1906, John acquired forty acres of harvested timberland next to his brother Nils in the small immigrant community of Lakewood. The same year he married a young woman from northern Norway. Her name was Anna Kristine Tobiasen. Together they built a home, carved out a farm and raised two sons, Erling and Carroll. Erling was my father. I was nine years old when my family moved into a house on an acre of land across the road from my grandparent’s dairy farm. My brother and I grew up milking cows, feeding chickens, and harvesting hay. It was during that time that I developed a close relationship with my grandfather. On the day he left Norway in 1901, John planted a birch sapling beside his home. With family and friends looking on, he carefully tamped down the soil, then grabbed the tree by the neck and shook it hard. Speaking directly to the young tree, he vowed to do the same thing when he came back. Sixty-six years later, he returned to Hugla for the rst and only time. The tree was patiently waiting. Newly married and stationed with the American Air Force in England, my bride and I had the pleasure of accompanying him on that memorable homecoming. What follows are my recollections of the journey. *I found my grandfather’s name spelled many different ways in family documents. The wedding ring he gave my grandmother was engraved with the words “Din Jahn” (Your Jahn). Mikael (my son) and Lavelle were unaware of this spelling when they named our youngest granddaughter Ivy Jahn Jacobson. She will wear the ring one day. In other places, I found my grandfather’s firrst name spelled Johann. On his naturalization papers, his middle name was spelled Neckoli. I prefer the spelling that he himself used when he signed that document on the thirteenth day of June, 1912: John Nickoli Jacobson.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511476465115-NHUXJWXFELTZZ9POTXUI/Brothers.png John Nickoli - Preface Between the years 1900 and 1910, a new wave of Norwegians immigrated to America. Among them were three brothers and a sister from Hugla, a coastal island located just below the Arctic Circle. Their names were Nils, John, Ingval, and Mathinka. Like many of their countrymen, they chose to settle in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. Born to Karen and Jakob Isaksen, the siblings took the given name of their father as their surname. Thus my grandfather became John Nickoli Jacobson, or John, son of Jakob.* In 1906, John acquired forty acres of harvested timberland next to his brother Nils in the small immigrant community of Lakewood. The same year he married a young woman from northern Norway. Her name was Anna Kristine Tobiasen. Together they built a home, carved out a farm and raised two sons, Erling and Carroll. Erling was my father. I was nine years old when my family moved into a house on an acre of land across the road from my grandparent’s dairy farm. My brother and I grew up milking cows, feeding chickens, and harvesting hay. It was during that time that I developed a close relationship with my grandfather. On the day he left Norway in 1901, John planted a birch sapling beside his home. With family and friends looking on, he carefully tamped down the soil, then grabbed the tree by the neck and shook it hard. Speaking directly to the young tree, he vowed to do the same thing when he came back. Sixty-six years later, he returned to Hugla for the rst and only time. The tree was patiently waiting. Newly married and stationed with the American Air Force in England, my bride and I had the pleasure of accompanying him on that memorable homecoming. What follows are my recollections of the journey. *I found my grandfather’s name spelled many different ways in family documents. The wedding ring he gave my grandmother was engraved with the words “Din Jahn” (Your Jahn). Mikael (my son) and Lavelle were unaware of this spelling when they named our youngest granddaughter Ivy Jahn Jacobson. She will wear the ring one day. In other places, I found my grandfather’s firrst name spelled Johann. On his naturalization papers, his middle name was spelled Neckoli. I prefer the spelling that he himself used when he signed that document on the thirteenth day of June, 1912: John Nickoli Jacobson.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511475045004-EC0OOY52Q9QV9FXVACXN/Brothers.png John Nickoli - Preface Between the years 1900 and 1910, a new wave of Norwegians immigrated to America. Among them were three brothers and a sister from Hugla, a coastal island located just below the Arctic Circle. Their names were Nils, John, Ingval, and Mathinka. Like many of their countrymen, they chose to settle in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. Born to Karen and Jakob Isaksen, the siblings took the given name of their father as their surname. Thus my grandfather became John Nickoli Jacobson, or John, son of Jakob.* In 1906, John acquired forty acres of harvested timberland next to his brother Nils in the small immigrant community of Lakewood. The same year he married a young woman from northern Norway. Her name was Anna Kristine Tobiasen. Together they built a home, carved out a farm and raised two sons, Erling and Carroll. Erling was my father. I was nine years old when my family moved into a house on an acre of land across the road from my grandparent’s dairy farm. My brother and I grew up milking cows, feeding chickens, and harvesting hay. It was during that time that I developed a close relationship with my grandfather. On the day he left Norway in 1901, John planted a birch sapling beside his home. With family and friends looking on, he carefully tamped down the soil, then grabbed the tree by the neck and shook it hard. Speaking directly to the young tree, he vowed to do the same thing when he came back. Sixty-six years later, he returned to Hugla for the rst and only time. The tree was patiently waiting. Newly married and stationed with the American Air Force in England, my bride and I had the pleasure of accompanying him on that memorable homecoming. What follows are my recollections of the journey. *I found my grandfather’s name spelled many different ways in family documents. The wedding ring he gave my grandmother was engraved with the words “Din Jahn” (Your Jahn). Mikael (my son) and Lavelle were unaware of this spelling when they named our youngest granddaughter Ivy Jahn Jacobson. She will wear the ring one day. In other places, I found my grandfather’s firrst name spelled Johann. On his naturalization papers, his middle name was spelled Neckoli. I prefer the spelling that he himself used when he signed that document on the thirteenth day of June, 1912: John Nickoli Jacobson.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511476484288-MLTILRA0E44GT230IOUF/Brothers.png John Nickoli - Preface Between the years 1900 and 1910, a new wave of Norwegians immigrated to America. Among them were three brothers and a sister from Hugla, a coastal island located just below the Arctic Circle. Their names were Nils, John, Ingval, and Mathinka. Like many of their countrymen, they chose to settle in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle. Born to Karen and Jakob Isaksen, the siblings took the given name of their father as their surname. Thus my grandfather became John Nickoli Jacobson, or John, son of Jakob.* In 1906, John acquired forty acres of harvested timberland next to his brother Nils in the small immigrant community of Lakewood. The same year he married a young woman from northern Norway. Her name was Anna Kristine Tobiasen. Together they built a home, carved out a farm and raised two sons, Erling and Carroll. Erling was my father. I was nine years old when my family moved into a house on an acre of land across the road from my grandparent’s dairy farm. My brother and I grew up milking cows, feeding chickens, and harvesting hay. It was during that time that I developed a close relationship with my grandfather. On the day he left Norway in 1901, John planted a birch sapling beside his home. With family and friends looking on, he carefully tamped down the soil, then grabbed the tree by the neck and shook it hard. Speaking directly to the young tree, he vowed to do the same thing when he came back. Sixty-six years later, he returned to Hugla for the rst and only time. The tree was patiently waiting. Newly married and stationed with the American Air Force in England, my bride and I had the pleasure of accompanying him on that memorable homecoming. What follows are my recollections of the journey. *I found my grandfather’s name spelled many different ways in family documents. The wedding ring he gave my grandmother was engraved with the words “Din Jahn” (Your Jahn). Mikael (my son) and Lavelle were unaware of this spelling when they named our youngest granddaughter Ivy Jahn Jacobson. She will wear the ring one day. In other places, I found my grandfather’s firrst name spelled Johann. On his naturalization papers, his middle name was spelled Neckoli. I prefer the spelling that he himself used when he signed that document on the thirteenth day of June, 1912: John Nickoli Jacobson.     https://www.johndjacobson.com/work daily 1.0 2017-12-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511883686395-J58TT6FM3WT6QUR0HHA9/Hugla+Road+4x3.jpg Home Page Hugla Welcome John Nickoli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511737275202-Q7ZG2VPOC0JCWE9MX40L/Epilogue.jpg Home Page Epilogue https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1512150190461-HBXSNBELCTHT34NJ3US4/Brothers.png Home Page - John Nickoli: An Emigrant's Return John Nickoli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511725860372-O7DVWH19YEKK9XMVTLCN/Across+the+Sea+to+Bergen Home Page Across the North Sea to Bergen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511737222079-HGE2SZBTC2PNR18PAWOX/Norwegian%27s+Visit.jpg Home Page The Norwegians Visit America https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511810383989-UHTPNZTDV5RSORO1QNBK/Hugla+Painting.jpg Home Page Painting by F. 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Realizing the South Vietnamese government was losing the war, the United States chose to rapidly increase our troop strength in hopes of preventing a Communist takeover. However justified our involvement seemed in 1965, and I like most Americans thought that it was, the war would soon be perceived much differently. At home the rules for conscription were changing. College students in the lower part of their class academically were now vulnerable to the draft. Opposition to the war was growing. Tom Haydon had just returned to the United States after being one of the first Americans invited to tour North Viet Nam. Haydon went on to become a fierce anti war activist and later married “Hanoi Jane” Fonda. When I enlisted in the Air Force as a senior in medical school, I understood the risks and obligations. My opinion of “war”, however, was different from that of the young draftees who bore the biggest burden in Viet Nam. My parents were part of what has deservedly been called by some “The Greatest Generation”. They grew up during the deprivation of the depression and as a nation went on to fight World War II. They were fiercely patriotic with a strong sense of duty. Some of those attributes were passed on to me. My father left his position as a high school principal in Stanwood Washington to work as a supervisor at the Everett Naval Ship Yard during the war. As a young boy I watched with pride as the bands played and champagne bottles christened the bows of ships being launched into Port Gardner Bay. I was seven years old when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 15, 1945 the Japanese surrendered. Everett, Washington was a mill town. The unbroken sounds of sirens and steam whistles blasting up from the waterfront below our neighborhood as we celebrated VJ Day still echo in my ears. We believed that a just war had ended. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7,1941 prompted many of the young men from the school where my father taught to enlist in the military. One of them, Neil Hansen, stopped by our house in Everett shortly after the hostilities ended. I watched with respect and admiration as he approached the steps to our front porch in his Dress Blue Marine uniform. He greeted my dad with a handshake and a pat on the shoulder then uttered the words “Iwo Jima”. Slowly, he unbuttoned his jacket, pulled back the lapel and exposed the scar where a Japanese bullet had passed through his chest only inches above his heart. He had almost paid the ultimate price but for him the wound was a badge of honor. My parents traveled with me from Washington State to California for the flight to Viet Nam. It was a long, quiet ride. There were no tears when I boarded the plane at Travis Air Force Base. We had no idea of what lay ahead, but I had made a commitment and was fulfilling an obligation to my country. For my family that was the way it should be. We would cross the International Date Line so it was already tomorrow in Viet Nam when I left that evening. Then for the next year, as I waited for my DEROS (Date of Expected Return from Overseas), it seemed as if tomorrow would never come. The western sky was aglow that evening as our plane rose out over the Pacific Ocean. Then quickly, like a dog chasing its tail, the sun raced on ahead until it finally caught up with us again twenty hours later. During the long dim flight there was little conversation. Perhaps we weren’t interested in cultivating short termed friendships. As I looked around at the stoic slumbering faces I could not help but wonder who among my fellow passengers would not be on the return flight.* En route we landed on Midway Island and Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines for refueling. As we reached the Vietnamese coastline and started our slow descent into Saigon, I could see orange clouds of napalm boiling up from the rice paddies and the jungle floor below, killing by fire and asphyxiation. There was no longer any question I had arrived in a combat zone. My perception of war and the nature of man was about to change. *(2,700,000 Americans served in the Viet Nam War. One out of every ten became a casualty. 75,000 would be severely disabled. 58,148 or one out of 46 soldiers would lose his life.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511287352118-FZVDHEVRJA5LIWKOXVZD/74430970-SLD-002-0034.jpg Vietnam photos - ASSIGNED TO NHA TRANG     Two weeks after arriving “in country” I flew on my first air mission. Following a low level air drop over a special forces camp our C-123 landed at Pleiku in the Central Highlands about 225 miles inland from our base on the coast. Pleiku’s only Air Force Flight Surgeon was John Flood who had graduated from the University of Washington two years ahead of me. What I remember most about him from school were his stories about his father who was an engineer for the Great Northern Railroad. John rode with him frequently and knew every stop between Minneapolis and Seattle. It was good to see a familiar face. We were ready to depart for our home base when word came that we were being diverted into Plei Me, a small Special Forces camp about 40 kilometers to the southwest. It had come under attack by the Communist North Vietnamese Army. The camp was manned by four hundred Montagnard irregulars along with two dozen American and Vietnamese Special Forces advisors. They were in desperate need of munitions, medical supplies and rations but resupply would be dangerous. We were told that North Vietnamese gunners high in the surrounding hills were positioned to actually shoot down at our planes as they approached the drop zone. The pilots joked they could not decide whether to wear their flack jackets or sit on them as they usually did. When the resupply flight was delayed until daylight, I spent a restless night trying to sleep on a stretcher in the terminal. In the morning the Captain said the mission was too risky. He did not want to take responsibility for the loss of the squadron’s Flight Surgeon, so he arranged for me to take another plane back to Nha Trang. Torn between a sense of duty and common sense, I did not object. During that first day of the week long resupply missions at Plei Me, four of the participating C-123’s, including the one I had been on, took multiple hits from ground fire. In mid-November, barely a month after my arrival, the battle for the Ia Drang Valley took place in the central highlands. As depicted in the movie, “We Were Soldiers” starring Mel Gibson, it was the first conventional engagement of the war between American troops and North Vietnamese units. While we won the day, it came at great cost. Nearly 250 of our soldiers were killed and many more wounded. Thinking I might help, I was standing by at the Army 8th field hospital in Nah Trang when the first casualties arrived by Air Evac. The Army medical team was well organized and while my services weren’t needed I observed dozens of shell-shocked soldiers on stretchers still wearing their blood-stained field uniforms. Some lay silent from narcotic sedation. Most stared blankly into space contemplating the Hell they had just escaped. No doubt a few went on to die. For others their wounds were a ticket home where they faced lingering disability, Post Traumatic Stress and insults from anti-war activists. The North Vietnamese lost many more men than we did in the battle but now we knew they were prepared to stand and fight. The enemy had learned that if they fought close enough to grab the Americans by the belt our air power was ineffective. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282606285-EKWOX5OVL8SPFVUJ53DN/74430970-SLD-002-0011.jpg Vietnam photos - FREEFALLING In the spring of my internship year I played on the hospital team in a Base softball league. Lackland was the basic training center for all enlisted airmen. Our team manager, Sergeant Rodriguez, was one of the hard-nosed training instructors (TI’s) who was also organizing a skydiving club on base and somehow managed to recruit me. I had a medical school class mate who had earned jump wings in the Army Airborne before college. When he talked about his experiences I found myself intrigued with parachuting. Not so much for the thrill but more for the question of whether I had enough courage to jump myself. The club conducted a series of instructional lectures and ground training exercises prior to our first jump. Juan Brown, my roommate at the time remembers how I practiced parachute landing falls, jumping from my bed in our apartment and shaking the neighbors down below. The skydiving club had permission to jump in an 80 acre farm field ten miles west of San Antonio. Laid out on the diagonal, our improvised runway was just shy of three thousand feet in length. There were trees at one end of the field and power lines at the other. We jumped from a Cessna 172 fitted with a 2” by 6” board that extended from the underside of the plane on the passenger side.To position ourselves, we would step out onto the board while holding on to the diagonal wing strut. When the jump master gave us the signal, we would kick our legs back and simultaneously push off. After falling 20 feet the static line would stretch taut and automatically deploy the parachute. Our target was a ten foot canvas cross in the middle of the landing area. Parachutes were maneuverable so on a wind-free day we could routinely come within 25 feet of it. On my initial jump, I felt little anxiety until just before we arrived over the target at an elevation of 3,500 feet. With winds buffeting the plane and contorting my face I inched out under the wing. When the thumbs-up signal came, I let go, felt the jerk of the static line and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the parachute fully deployed above me. Surprised by the sudden stillness, I descended tranquilly to earth hearing only the soft ripple of air wafting through the canopy. For a moment I was concerned for where I might land. There were patches of prickly cactus below and I had almost stepped on a six foot snake as I crawled through the fence to enter the field that morning. Sergeant Rodriguez was fond of saying that anyone could jump once. The real test would come the next time up. He was right. From the moment we left the ground for the second jump I was fearful wondering why I had ever decided to jump in the first place.The terror I experienced in the final seconds before that first jump was still fresh in my mind. Not every one was comfortable going out the way we did. An Army Airborne paratrooper, with over 25 military jumps, joined the club with an interest in learning to free fall. He went up twice, crawled out under the wings, and then climbed right back into the cabin. Both times he took the long way down. He found it easier to go straight out the side of a C-130 with a team of jumpers than to drop while looking down from under the wing of a bouncing Cessna. We had to pack our own parachutes. Danny, a civilian who occasionally helped me, was a daredevil with ice water in his veins. He once stood on the top wing of a bi-plane at an air show and jumped as they flew past the grandstand. What worried me was the sociopathic gleam in his eyes when he talked about the jumping fatalities he had witnessed. For the same reason that some people go to stock car races, he seemed to get perverse pleasure telling about people he had seen “flare in”. He had watched one jumper fall to his death in the brush when his chute failed to open. Danny was first on the scene. As he was walking away, the man’s friends came running up in a panic asking if he was okay. Danny replied sarcastically, “Yeah, he wants a beer.” On another occasion Danny was standing next to two young girls when their mother made her first free fall. He heard one say, “Look, here comes Mommy,” as her mother left the plane. The woman froze and failed to pull the rip cord. Unlike today’s sport parachutes, we jumped with with WWII Army T-10’s. They had a 25 foot inflated diameter canopy and a load capacity of 360 pounds which could safely land a soldier in full combat gear. There were two rear facing vents in the chute.If you closed one by pulling on a toggle line, the chute would rotate to that side. With both vents open you were propelled forward at 7 to 10 mph. We were taught to land into the wind to neutralize that velocity. After the fifth static line jump we could make our first free fall. Both jumps had to be accomplished on the same day. I completed the first half of the requirement on a Saturday morning, then had a long wait for my “jump and pull”. By late afternoon huge Texas thunderclouds were starting to build up in the distance. To avoid having to repeat my earlier static line effort on another day, Sergeant Rodriguez hurriedly got me back in the air. As we approached the drop zone, the wind picked up. I could see lightening flashes in the distance and feel the roll of thunder. Theplane was tossing violently from the turbulence making it almost impossible to climb out under the wing in preparation for the jump. Down on the ground the wind meter measured gusts in excess of 45 knots. They were rolling up the target as a signal to abort the jump, but it was too late. Rodriguez had already given me the signal to go. I kicked back, released my grip, then counted to 10 before pulling the rip cord. The chute opened and immediately it became apparent that I would miss the target by a long way. To make sure I cleared the power lines at the west end of the field, I turned to run with the wind. With the vents open, my ground speed was close to 50 mph. I quickly sailed over the power poles with 1,500 feet to spare. Then, in an attempt to slow my progress, I turned to face back into the wind. It didn’t help much. The people below were rapidly fading into the distance. As I neared the ground I had to turn and sail with the wind once again because of a rapidly approaching roadside fence which I barely cleared by raising my legs at the last second. I landed hard, spraining both ankles and was temporarily stunned as my helmet hit the ground. When the canopy re-inflated and started dragging me across the field, my first thought was “Good, I’m still alive.” Reflexly I was able to deflate the chute by releasing one riser as we had been taught. I was just getting to my knees as the worried members of the team pulled up in their car. Realizing I was okay, they told me I had overshot the target by a mile. I have heard that most military jumping fatalities occur as a result of unexpected gusty winds. By the time I finished my internship a month later, I had recuperated and continued to sky dive while attending the School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base. Before the course ended I had made ten more free falls, all uneventful. Kellan Walker, one of my flight school classmates, also joined the sky diving club and jumped with me. We would eventually end up stationed together as Flight Surgeons in Nha Trang. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1509489095304-BQ9YAYP069PCJF9G1EAA/74430970-SLD-001-0035.jpeg Vietnam photos - Arrival in Viet Nam   I arrived in Viet Nam at the beginning of the conflict. Realizing the South Vietnamese government was losing the war, the United States chose to rapidly increase our troop strength in hopes of preventing a Communist takeover. However justified our involvement seemed in 1965, and I like most Americans thought that it was, the war would soon be perceived much differently. At home the rules for conscription were changing. College students in the lower part of their class academically were now vulnerable to the draft. Opposition to the war was growing. Tom Haydon had just returned to the United States after being one of the first Americans invited to tour North Viet Nam. Haydon went on to become a fierce anti war activist and later married “Hanoi Jane” Fonda. When I enlisted in the Air Force as a senior in medical school, I understood the risks and obligations. My opinion of “war”, however, was different from that of the young draftees who bore the biggest burden in Viet Nam. My parents were part of what has deservedly been called by some “The Greatest Generation”. They grew up during the deprivation of the depression and as a nation went on to fight World War II. They were fiercely patriotic with a strong sense of duty. Some of those attributes were passed on to me. My father left his position as a high school principal in Stanwood Washington to work as a supervisor at the Everett Naval Ship Yard during the war. As a young boy I watched with pride as the bands played and champagne bottles christened the bows of ships being launched into Port Gardner Bay. I was seven years old when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 15, 1945 the Japanese surrendered. Everett, Washington was a mill town. The unbroken sounds of sirens and steam whistles blasting up from the waterfront below our neighborhood as we celebrated VJ Day still echo in my ears. We believed that a just war had ended. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7,1941 prompted many of the young men from the school where my father taught to enlist in the military. One of them, Neil Hansen, stopped by our house in Everett shortly after the hostilities ended. I watched with respect and admiration as he approached the steps to our front porch in his Dress Blue Marine uniform. He greeted my dad with a handshake and a pat on the shoulder then uttered the words “Iwo Jima”. Slowly, he unbuttoned his jacket, pulled back the lapel and exposed the scar where a Japanese bullet had passed through his chest only inches above his heart. He had almost paid the ultimate price but for him the wound was a badge of honor. My parents traveled with me from Washington State to California for the flight to Viet Nam. It was a long, quiet ride. There were no tears when I boarded the plane at Travis Air Force Base. We had no idea of what lay ahead, but I had made a commitment and was fulfilling an obligation to my country. For my family that was the way it should be. We would cross the International Date Line so it was already tomorrow in Viet Nam when I left that evening. Then for the next year, as I waited for my DEROS (Date of Expected Return from Overseas), it seemed as if tomorrow would never come. The western sky was aglow that evening as our plane rose out over the Pacific Ocean. Then quickly, like a dog chasing its tail, the sun raced on ahead until it finally caught up with us again twenty hours later. During the long dim flight there was little conversation. Perhaps we weren’t interested in cultivating short termed friendships. As I looked around at the stoic slumbering faces I could not help but wonder who among my fellow passengers would not be on the return flight.* En route we landed on Midway Island and Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines for refueling. As we reached the Vietnamese coastline and started our slow descent into Saigon, I could see orange clouds of napalm boiling up from the rice paddies and the jungle floor below, killing by fire and asphyxiation. There was no longer any question I had arrived in a combat zone. My perception of war and the nature of man was about to change. *(2,700,000 Americans served in the Viet Nam War. One out of every ten became a casualty. 75,000 would be severely disabled. 58,148 or one out of 46 soldiers would lose his life.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282215360-5IV4IJE4YEB9DBTSPU3W/74430970-SLD-001-0008.jpg Vietnam photos - HERE COMES TROUBLE   Three months into my tour help arrived in the person of a second flight surgeon. Colonel Hugh Randall, the Command Surgeon, had given me the choice of two candidates. I knew them both but one fit my stereotype of a war-time flight surgeon better than the other. Kellan Walker was adventuresome with boyish good looks and all the outward charm of a southern gentleman. We had jumped with an Air Force sky-diving club during flight school. While pilots often expressed amazement that anyone who would want to leave a perfectly good airplane, I thought they could relate to this risk taker. By the time Kellan arrived in late December, we were working out of a temporary dispensary on the flight line. His introduction to the staff went well, but I was about to regret my choice. When we sat down in my office for an informal orientation, Kellan leaned back, put his feet on my desk and with a slow Tennessee drawl said “Jawhn,” (he always stretched the name out) “either he goes or I go.” When I asked what he meant, he replied,“Your Non Commissioned Officer In Charge is colored. I’ve never worked with a black man in a position of authority and don’t think I ever can. Either he goes or I go.” In retrospect I should have put him on a plane back to Saigon that afternoon. Racial bias was not the only issue. Like many southerners in the 1960’s, Kellan was still fighting the Civil War. This soon became apparent by his overt contempt for Yankees which included anyone born north of the border states of Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia. Fortunately, for our working relationship, I hailed from Washington which was still a territory in 1865 and fielded no soldiers to fight against the Confederacy. When a senior ranking flight surgeon, a Yankee from Pennsylvania, arrived later that spring, things quickly deteriorated to the point that Kellan only communicated with “the Northerner” on notes carried from his office by the corpsmen. Eventually, Kellan was the one to go. After six months in Nha Trang the Command Surgeon had heard enough and transferred Kellan to the Mekong Delta. Typical of Kellan’s luck, his new base came under mortar attack the day he arrived. It wasn’t the first time he was shot at or shelled. Action and conflict followed wherever he went. He was drawn to trouble like iron filings to a magnet. Among Kellan’s faults was a moral compass that pointed to the portside of true north. This, combined with a total disregard for military protocol, led to no end of troubles. Still, with his compelling personality and chutzpah, he was likable and I considered him a friend. No recount of my year in Viet Nam would be complete if he were left out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282252545-IIGCGNHLB8D9NLIN8BA1/74430970-SLD-002-0039.jpg Vietnam photos - HOW QUICKLY THINGS CHANGE   In January of 1965 I was midway through my internship at Wilford Hall, a one-thousand bed USAF hospital in San Antonio, Texas where I was anxiously awaiting word of my next assignment. I had joined the Air Force my senior year of medical school but not out of a sense of patriotism. There was a physician draft at the time and most doctors could expect to serve in the military for a minimum of two years. Several options were available. The first option allowed a doctor to join the military service of choice immediately after his internship. By choosing the second option a doctor was allowed to complete residency training before fulfilling his military obligation. I chose a third option. By enlisting in the service my senior year, I was paid as a second lieutenant and guaranteed an internship at one of the major Air Force Hospitals upon graduation from medical school. As an added incentive, I was told I would receive a preferential choice of assignments for the three year military obligation that followed. Naturally, I breathed a sigh of relief when I learned I had been given my first choice, an assignment as a Flight Surgeon for a U2 squadron near Melbourne, Australia. By the time that three year tour was scheduled to end my military obligation would be complete and I could get on with the rest of my life. All I had to do in the interim was finish my internship and a ten week course in Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB. After months of planning and anticipation, the dream ended. Two weeks before my scheduled October departure date, I was notified that the base in Australia was closing. The trans-pacific flight that followed landed in Saigon instead of Sydney. In 1965 the United States was rapidly increasing its presence in South Viet Nam. In one year the number of US personnel in country increased from 24,000 to 185,000. I was on the cusp of that build-up. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282290838-TCLQO58EVUQP6M7KQFAU/74430970-SLD-001-0036.jpg Vietnam photos - I SLUGGED A MAJOR Kellan had a worried look on his face when he came into the dispensary that morning. “Jaawn”, he said, “I’m in trouble. Last night at the club I slugged a major.” He put the emphasis on the officer’s rank as if the problem would have been less serious had he taken a swing at another captain or perhaps even a lowly lieutenant. Our base at Nha Trang was a training center for the South Vietnamese Air Force. The Major in question served as an American advisor to VNAF Cadets. From time to time he would stop by the dispensary to express his concern about the health and well-bring of his pilot trainees. Because they were sleight in stature, he thought nutrition was a problem. If we were to win this war, vitamins were the answer and he wanted us to provide them. When we disagreed with his assessment he would take offense. Kellan had spent the evening at the Officer’s Club and some point the Major joined him at the bar. Still upset, because we refused to provide supplements, the conversation soon took a hostile turn and he began to throw some barbs in Kellan’s direction. Like Kellan, the Major was diminutive in stature. Listening to Kellan’s description of the confrontation, I pictured two banty roosters crowing and strutting in the barnyard before a fight. Referring to Kellan’s youthful appearance, the Major meant to say he looked too young to be a physician which might make it hard to develop a medical practice. What actually slipped out, however, was “You should stay in the service because you couldn’t make it on the outside.” Those words, coupled with the fact the Kellan disliked the military, hit hard. Kellan got up and stormed out. The Major followed and just as they reached the stairs, put his hand on Kellan’s shoulder to offer an apology. The Doctor didn’t wait. Impulsively, he spun around and clipped the officer in the jaw. Kellan didn’t sleep that night. By morning he was convinced he had committed a court martial offense. Fortunately, the Major stopped by the dispensary in the afternoon to say that he was sorry and the matter was soon forgotten. Once again, however, he left without the vitamins. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282296266-DA4L9ABO3M7PT7MLZGM5/74430970-SLD-001-0046.jpg Vietnam photos - JUMP WINGS (Boondoggle)   One evening at the Officer’s Club, Kellan Walker found himself seated across the table from a Marine Corp reserve officer. Major William Blankenship was an oral surgeon with combined medical and dental degrees. He had volunteered to serve in Viet Nam with the US State Department and the Navy as a surgeon working with American and Vietnamese Special Forces. During the course of their conversation Kellan happened to mention that we had jumped together with a military sky diving club in San Antonio. Intrigued, the major said he had considered parachuting himself as a way of showing that he could conquer an overwhelming fear of heights. Years before, while hiking in the mountains with his wife, he came to a place where the trail narrowed and it was necessary to cross a ledge beside a precipitous drop off. Immobilized with anxiety, he fell to his knees while his wife took his hand and led him across .Haunted by the memory, he became obsessed with finding a way to show that he could overcome his acrophobia. Wearing jump wings would be an overt expression of his courage. Major Blankship’s medical liaison was a colonel in the Vietnamese army. If Kellan and I could teach Bill how to jump, his counterpart might be able to arrange for us to parachute with Vietnamese Rangers on a training exercise. By jumping twice he hoped to qualify for Vietnamese jump wings. And so the saga began. Kellan and I passed on what knowledge we had, then spent a few days practicing parachute landing falls off sand dunes on the beach at Nha Trang. Next came the task of finding larger American T-10 parachutes. The 101st Airborne had a detachment in Nha Trang so we casually sauntered over and asked if we could borrow some chutes. Puzzled by the request from three unlikely looking medical officers, the supply sergeant’s initial response was not only no, but “Hell No”. After thinking about it, he changed his mind and said their paratroopers had not jumped for some time. If we could persuade the Vietnamese Rangers to include a dozen men from the 101st, we might be able to work something out. The day came and we joined a military convoy for a ten kilometer ride into the countryside northwest of Nha Trang. The landing zone was located in the middle of an elevated area surrounded by rice paddies. When the helicopters came in Blankenship told the American jump master that he would probably be reluctant to jump. “Regardless”, he said, “do whatever it takes”. I was sitting next to him as we arrived over the drop zone and watched him freeze with fear. Blankenship dug his heels in and grabbed the canvas straps on the aluminum frame that served as our seats. The jump master wasn’t big but he was strong. He took the major by his boot, dragged him across the helicopter floor and threw him out. After all, a deal was a deal. We landed safely and the first thing Bill said was “That was great. Let’s do it again.” He needed a second jump to qualify for the wings. Bill returned to the United States a week later. I had no interest in wearing jump wings but I promised him that I would stop by the 5th Special Forces headquarters and ask them to complete the paper work. Unfortunately, the sergeant refused saying it was not a sanctioned jump. I apologized to the major in a letter and didn’t contact him again for almost 45 years. In 2009, I found his personal information on line and called him at his home on Padre Island near Corpus Christi a year before his death. We had a long conversation. He clearly remembered me and our jumping experience with the Vietnamese Rangers. Once again I said I was sorry for not completing the paperwork for his Vietnamese jump wings. He told me not to worry about it. He had gone back on active duty as a Navy Submarine Medical Officer and wore the wings anyway. I found it interesting that he could descend to claustrophobic depths easier than he could parachute from 3,000 feet. It didn’t bother me that he wore the wings because I was a witness to his jumps and I understood why he wanted to display them on his uniform. I felt better after he mentioned that he eventually qualified for Army parachute wings at Fort Benning, GA. Before signing off, he asked about Kellan. I was sorry to tell him he had passed away. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282309873-391QNZ1CWT7A8DVCMF6Q/74430970-SLD-001-0027.jpg Vietnam photos - KELLAN’S MISFORTUNE   Nothing in my conservative upbringing or medical training prepared me for the volume of sexually transmitted infections that passed through our clinic. It was our job to prevent or treat which should have been a warning for Kellan. Army medics tried to control the problem at its source. The infectious disease officer at the 8th Army Field Hospital kept a photo album on his desk which held pictures of every bar girl in Nha Trang. When a GI came in for treatment he would be asked to look through the “rogue’s gallery” and identify the source of his infection. The bar she worked for would then be placed off limits until the girl agreed to be treated. The Air Force focused more on education. One of my responsibilities was to give classes about risks, prevention and treatment. Neither the Army nor the Air Force approach worked well. One day while walking through town, I passed a shop that sold a variety of chrome plated items. On display was a tall garish trophy with fierce Chinese dragons for handles. In what I thought was a flash of brilliance, I bought it and had it engraved with the words, “For service under and beyond the call of duty”. It soon became an unwelcome traveling award. The cases were tallied monthly but reported as the total we would treat over a year’s time for every thousand troops assigned to our base. Our annual incidence approached 125 cases/thousand troops/year. This would work out to one infection for every 8 airmen, if it weren’t for the fact that some were repeat offenders. Because their buddies were hesitant to talk about their diagnosis, I knew that the airmen had no idea how prevalent the problem was. To drive the point home, I decided that the squadron with the highest monthly incidence would have to listen to my lecture. At the end of the talk I presented the trophy to the squadron commander and asked him to display it prominently on his desk for the next month. I don’t know about long term results but no squadron won the trophy twice in a row. Short term, the incidence dropped precipitously. Shortly after Kellan’s arrival, it became apparent he had a weakness for women and he wasn’t selective. Despite the obvious risk, he was soon treating himself. After one episode, he naively said he didn’t understand how it happened because he had given the girl a shot of penicillin several hours before. Kellan passed through London where I was stationed following my assignment in Viet Nam. We had not seen each other since his unceremonious transfer to the “Mekong Delta”. Surprisingly he told me he, too, was thinking about an anesthesia residency after his discharge from the service. I thought it was an unlikely choice of specialities for someone so restive and confrontational. Years later, I found Kellan’s name in a membership directory published by the American Society of Anesthesiologists. He had taken a staff position at the Oschner Clinic in New Orleans. I considered contacting him, but somehow never got around to it. In 1995, a doctor from the Oschner Clinic joined the cardiology group at Eisenhower Medical Center. Over lunch one day, I asked if he knew Kellan Walker. He replied that he had known him. The way he said it led me to ask why he used the past tense. He told me that Kellan had suffered an agonizing death from AIDS. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282316552-HERIH3L1SW568SWDHQBN/74430970-SLD-002-0049.jpg Vietnam photos - MEMORIES OF A D-DAY SOLDIER   One of my assigned tasks as a Flight Surgeon was the investigation of aircraft accidents. My first experience with the process came in October 1965 shortly after my arrival in Viet Nam. A Douglas A1E Skyraider lost power on take-off from our airfield at Nha Trang. The pilot was forced to ditch the plane in the ocean about a mile from the runway. Fortunately, he was able to crawl out onto a wing and was rescued just as the plane sank. Two years later, in 1968 I was part of a team that investigated the crash of a US Army helicopter south of London. The Huey had lost its tail rotor and spiraled into a farmer's barnyard exploding on impact. All four on board were killed. Because the Army had limited resources in England, they asked for Air Force assistance. I worked part-time in the Command Surgeon's office and was assigned to the investigation along with another Air Force officer. The accident had occurred in a rural area not far from the London Borough of Sutton (my mother's maiden name). We drove to the site from our headquarters in South Ruislip. It was close to noon on a gray, drizzly day when we arrived. The bodies of the crew and passengers had been removed, but the burned out shell of the aircraft remained, surrounded by the bloated carcasses of a dozen unfortunate cows. They had been killed by the fiery impact and flying rotor blades. To stay dry as we waited for the Army contingent to arrive, we stepped into a small English pub across a narrow road from the accident scene. After ordering coffee and a sandwich, we took a seat at a corner table. On the wall beside us I noticed a photograph of a young American GI. He looked fresh and innocent in his World War II Army uniform. Below the photo was a framed letter from the boy’s parents addressed to the owner of the pub. It was dated June, 1944. They said their young soldier had spent 6 months in the area training for the allied invasion of France. In his correspondence home, their son spoke fondly of the camaraderie and fellowship he experienced during frequent visits to the pub. It was clear to the parents that he was accepted and appreciated by the villagers. The letter ended with heartfelt thanks to the townspeople, for the kindness shown the young man during his final months of his life. He died, they said, on the beaches of Normandy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282460853-P8X3Q95094R4RJKSIT2L/74430970-SLD-002-0026.jpg Vietnam photos - MOTORCYCLES One month after angrily dispatching the motor pool driver, Kellan added to his reputation by acquiring four new Honda 90’s and delivering them to the base at Nha Trang for our dispensary personnel. At the time we were still waiting for the replacement ambulance which was on a ship somewhere in the Pacific. Without going into detail Kellan told me he would solve our transportation problems if I could get him to Japan. As Director of Medical Services, I had the authority to approve travel orders and Kellan was off to Tachikawa for “medical procurement.” On arrival he contacted Don Wantuck who had been one of our classmates in flight school. Don put Kellan in touch with a dealership where he purchased four motorcycles for $195 apiece. He had them broken down into component parts, all under the weight and dimension restrictions for airmail shipment to our APO address. The next day Kellan and the bikes arrived in Nha Trang on the same C-130. By late afternoon, the corpsmen had them all up and running. I rode mine for the rest of my tour, then sold it to a Philippine National for a nice profit. Although I enjoyed riding, I was cognizant the danger. Several air force officers were killed while riding a motorcycle during my tour. I have not been on a motorcycle since I left Viet Nam. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282327169-FWAPAUX3USF9VJYM7RDA/74430970-SLD-002-0047.jpg Vietnam photos - ON TO NHA TRANG I flew out of Saigon along with a dozen other new arrivals on an army CV-2 caribou. We shared the cargo space with a jeep and pallets of supplies. With its blunt nose, elevated tail section and olive-drab color, the plane reminded me of a giant grasshopper with no resemblance whatsoever to its antlered North American namesake. Despite its awkward appearance, the plane would play a significant role in the war effort. A three ton payload and a rear-loading door, combined with the ability to land and take off from short unimproved air strips made it well suited for resupplying remote special forces camps. Approaching our destination we swung out over the coast before circling back for the landing. From my side window I could see the silver light of a full moon shimmering off the South China Sea. Morning revealed the stunning setting of what would be my home for the next year. To the west the city was encircled by a fortress of low, jungle-covered mountains. Off the coast quixotic islands protected the turquoise waters of Nha Trang Bay while gentle waves washed up against a three mile long crescent shaped beach. In a striking resemblance to the French Riviera, a palm-lined boulevard paralleled the sandy shore. Were it not in a war zone, I might have considered the area a tropical Shangri-La. Had we prevailed, I envisioned the United States helping to transform it into a tourist mecca. As it turned out the Vietnamese were able to accomplish this on their own. Fifty years later dozens of four and five star hotels line the beach, including one only a short stroll from my former living quarters. Despite what the area has become I have no desire to return. My memories are of sweltering heat, humidity, monsoons and mold, loneliness and loss. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511322168200-QZW8VU69SQR4OPPAHTH6/C123+Photo.jpg Vietnam photos - MID AIR COLLISION   January 13,1966. I had been in Viet Nam for three months. Though it escaped my attention at the time, I turned 28 that day. It was also the day the war became personal. Back in the States, people were listening to “We Can Work It Out” by the Beatles while Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh performed for the first time under their new name, “The Grateful Dead”. As the music played on, the stock market briefly passed the 1,000 point mark. And, in his State of the Union address, President Lyndon Johnson would tell Congress and the American people that we could afford the cost of social programs (The Great Society) and an on-going war in View Nam. When it became clear that the bombing of military installations was not stopping the North Vietnamese government from resupplying the National Liberation Front, the number of targets was increased to include rail lines, bridges and communication systems. This only caused the Communists to increase their resolve. They fought back with anti-aircraft guns, surface-to-air missiles and newly acquired Soviet MiG 21 jet fighters causing our loses to mount. Before the war was over the combined United States and South Vietnamese loses would exceed five thousand helicopters and four thousand fixed-wing aircraft. That January while our B-52’s were carpet bombing Hanoi, Haiphong and the Ho Chi Minh trail, on the other side of the world, a B-52 Stratofortress carrying hydrogen bombs, each 5 times more powerful than the weapons dropped on Japan, collided with a KC-135 refueling tanker over Spain. As the planes broke up, three nuclear bombs were released into an open field and a fourth fell into the Mediterranean Sea. Fortunately, no explosions were triggered but radioactive plutonium was spread over a square mile of countryside. Unfortunately it was not the only fatal midair collision of US military aircraft to occur that month. When I first arrived in Nha Trang, my “dispensary” was a suite in a contract hotel close to town. The treatment area was a converted bathroom. My staff consisted of one aero-medical technician, two corpsmen and a Vietnamese secretary. By January we were working out of a temporary facility on the flight line. The number of corpsmen had tripled. A second Flight Surgeon was on board but new troops were arriving daily and I was busier than ever. As dispensary commander, it was my responsibility to compile a monthly flight surgeon’s report. My report addressed problems affecting mission readiness including aircraft accidents, combat losses, equipment problems and troop morale. I also included data on communicable diseases as well as illnesses specific to southeast Asia. After review in the Command Surgeon’s office it would be forwarded on to the School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas. At Brooks Air Force Base, the individual reports were edited and subjects of interest were incorporated into a newsletter which was distributed back to all bases worldwide. Once, while reading the consolidated report, I was embarrassed to find excerpts of a letter sent to the school by a senior officer who questioned a long-standing air force policy. He had visited our dispensary requesting medication to treat body lice (pthirus pubis) which he insisted were acquired from hotel bedding. Our corpsman informed him appropriately that the product was standard military issue available only through the base supply office. The officer complained that when he arrived at the supply depot the clerk on duty shouted to the airman in the stock room, “Get the Colonel some crab powder.” I learned later that it was not an isolated incident. Rather, it was done often to embarrass those seeking treatment, especially officers. From that point on I made sure we carried the powder in our dispensary. On the evening of January 13th I was working late. My monthly flight surgeon’s report needed to be in the morning mail. I would be up most of the night completing it. Around 1900 hours I decided to take a break and wandered down to the alert shack, a short distance from our dispensary. I found a C-123 crew waiting for a call to drop flares somewhere over the Central Highlands. Whenever special forces camps came under attack, the C-123 Providers would circle for hours dropping magnesium flares attached to parachutes to expose the enemy. The flares would float down slowly, lighting up the sky as bright as the day. I had previously flown on one of these missions. The air crew consisted of two pilots, a load master and three flare kickers. One of those positions was routinely filled by volunteers from the base who were not on regular flight status. Their reward was an air medal if they completed 25 combat missions. It was an honor coveted by career military personnel. In a twist of fate, one of the volunteers had traded duty with another airmen that night. Much has been written about the relationship between a pilot and his Flight Surgeon. Not only were we responsible for providing medical care and determining fitness to fly, we had to be familiar with the stress of their mission and, at times, serve as advisor and confidante. I found the pilots relaxing in comfortable quarters while the enlisted crew busily prepared for the mission in an adjoining room. While the pilot, Captain Herman Ritchie, was finishing a letter to his wife, the co-pilot, sat on the edge of his bunk and opened up as if I were his chaplain or therapist. He talked about the hardships of separation from his family and the knowledge that he might not survive to see them again. The missions were dangerous and he was fully aware of his mortality, knowing he could die in a crash at anytime. Pondering those circumstances he asked what, if any, were his moral constraints. A month before he had an overnight stay at a base in Taiwan. He was still sleeping in the morning when a Chinese maid came into his room. “I didn’t ask,” he said. “She just crawled into bed with me. What was I supposed to do?” Clearly, it weighed heavily on him and he sought to unburden himself. Often my decision to fly with the crew was made at the last minute. During the course of the evening both pilots repeatedly asked me to join them. I begged off that night because my report was far from finished. We were still talking and Captain Ritchie had just sealed his envelope when a call came to provide flare ship support for A-1E’s from the 1st Air Commando Squadron out of Pleiku. The letter would go out in the morning mail. We walked out onto the “ramp” together. I was standing beside the aircraft while the co-pilot warmed up the engines and the crew secured the cargo before final take-off. As Captain Ritchie prepared to close the side door, his final words to me were, “Come on, Doc, fly with us, you can finish your report tomorrow.” His image and those words are permanently etched in my memory. Any other night I would have been on that flight. I waved as they taxied onto the runway then watched as the plane lifted off and the running lights disappeared into the darkness. It was well after midnight when I finished my report so I slept in the dispensary. When I awoke the next morning, the corpsman told me the crew never returned. While the A-1E’s were attacking Viet Cong positions near Ahn Ke, one of the Skyraiders pulled off target after delivering “ordnance” and collided with the flare ship. Both aircrafts crashed. There were no survivors. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282343125-JVKVVICVGLC0VTJUG0D1/74430970-SLD-002-0047.jpg Vietnam photos - THE AMBULANCE It did not take long to gain insight into Kellan’s volatile personality. Our only ambulance had been involved in a flight line collision with a fire truck shortly before my arrival. The damage was easily repaired but because the vehicle was more than ten years old, the motor pool cited Air Force regulations that prevented them from returning it to active service. In defiance of a personal request from the Command Surgeon they painted it a bright canary yellow and began using it as a shop van. This became a huge bone of contention for us, especially since we had no other form of transportation. One day the vehicle showed up in front of our dispensary driven by an unsuspecting young airman who had been sent to pick up medication for an officer in the motor pool. Our corpsmen notified Kellan and he went berserk. Pounding and kicking the sides of what had once been our ambulance, he screamed wildly at the driver, demanding that he leave immediately. The poor kid who had no idea of the story behind the doctor’s bizarre behavior departed in shock. Despite actions very unbecoming of an officer, Kellan won points with our personnel that day. They now knew he had their backs and shared their frustration. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282350741-SRFNG34BJ0Z1815YU5IL/74430970-SLD-002-0046.jpg Vietnam photos - PEGGY HOOKER I was awakened by a loud knock on my door and a frantic call from an Air Force nurse. “Doctor, please hurry. Peggy Hooker is bleeding.” Despite our inexperience, young interns like myself were the first line of defense for in-hospital emergencies. During our nights on-call we came to expect the unexpected. I had just drifted off to sleep in the doctor’s quarters, a short distance down the hall from Peggy Hooker’s room on the renal metabolic ward. She wasn’t my patient but we all knew her story. Peggy was a renal failure patient who had received a cadaveric kidney in one of the first renal transplants at Wilford Hall. Pride of the accomplishment soon faded when the kidney showed signs of rejection. She went on to develop a lymphosarcoma, rumored to be the same cancer that had taken the life of her deceased benefactor. Most likely, however, the sarcoma resulted from the immune suppressant effects of her anti-rejection drugs. Regardless, she knew her days were numbered. I arrived to find the patient surrounded by medical personnel and awash in a sea of her own blood. Razor blades were lying everywhere along side deep slashes in her wrists, arms and neck. As we desperately tried to slow the bleeding, she pleaded, “Please let me die.” She had given up all hope. When a corpsman lifted her left breast to apply the last of the EKG leads, we gasped. In an attempt to reach her still beating heart, she had made a deep cut completely through the chest wall. In the end she was unsuccessful and you could say we saved her temporarily. Not from a lack of respect for her wishes, but rather because we had no choice. The wounds were closed in surgery and Peggy lived another month before finding peace. The final diagnoses: renal failure, failed kidney transplant, lymphosarcoma, hyperparathyroidism and, I would add, battle fatigue. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282360656-XM9QNEQEQ8G852BB7L7H/74430970-SLD-002-0043.jpg Vietnam photos - PROCESSING IN Our charter flight touched down on Vietnamese soil at 16:30 hours on the afternoon of October 6,1965. Tan Son Nhut Air Base was a huge military installation located on the outskirts of Saigon. It was also the airport for the city capable of accommodating our largest aircraft. The 7th Air Force Command Headquarters and the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) headquarters were located on the base. The 7th AF oversaw all the air bases in Vietnam, while MACV provided military assistance in the form of training and military supplies to the South Vietnamese military. Because of the rapid troop buildup, billeting on base was limited. New arrivals were transported to U.S. government hotels near the center of Saigon. The route into the city was teeming with military tracts, taxis, motorbikes, bicycles, cycles and pushcart vendors; all weaving amoeba-like through the streets. Crowded shops lined the sidewalks. At the intersections pedestrians crossed in all directions seemingly oblivious to the loud cacophony of engines, horns and bells. The malodorous blend of motor fumes, exotic cooking scents and untreated septic waste that filled the air is still embedded in my memory. Our hotel was located on a cup-de-sac off the main boulevard. In the morning we hopped into a covered pickup truck for the return trip to the base. That is when I learned just days earlier a Viet Cong on a passing bicycle had thrown a grenade, wrapped with plastic, into the back of the same vehicle. It bounced off the leg of one of my former flight school classmates and rolled across the bed of the truck. The airmen jumped out and raced down the blind alley as far as they could, waving frantically and shouting warnings to the Lt. Col. and Vietnamese driver in the cab. Unaware of the danger, the driver misinterpreted their gestures and started backing towards them. Fortunately the grenade failed to explode. Back at Tan Son Nhut we spent the better part of three days processing into the country completing paperwork, receiving immunizations and attending orientation lectures. Afterwards I met with the 7th Air Force Command Surgeon, Colonel Hugh W. Randel for a briefing before reporting to my next duty station. I was assigned to the 14th Air Commando Wing which provided combat support for the 5th Special Forces group headquartered in Nha Trang on the central coast. Under French Colonial rule Nha Trang had been transformed from a small fishing village into a pristine seaside resort with a population of 200,000. It was tied to its diverse past by ancient temples, Buddhist pagodas and a small Gothic cathedral. The French influence was clearly visible in the local architecture including the villa built as a retreat for Bau Dai who had been the last reigning emperor of Viet Nam from 1924 until 1945. Nha Trang was also home to the Pasteur Institute founded in 1895 by Dr. Alexandre Yerson, a French bacteriologist who was the first to identify the organism that caused bubonic plague.   The air base at Nha Trang was constructed by the colonial French government for its fledgling air force during the Indochina War. When the French departed Viet Nam after their defeat by the Communist Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the country was divided at the 17th parallel and the base at Nha Trang became the headquarters of the South Vietnamese Air Force Academy. During the Viet Nam War that followed, the facility continued to be used as a training center as well as a joint operational and tactical airbase by both the USAF and VNAF. Our activities included direct air support, combat airlift, aerial resupply, visual and photographic reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, counterinsurgency operations, psychological warfare, forward air control, search and rescue, defoliation operations and flare drops. The shortest route to Colonel Randel’s office was through a maze of temporary building and past the morgue, where I tried to redirect my gaze away from the body bags resting atop stretchers along the outer wall. Once again I was exposed to the reality of war. When I returned to Tan Son Nhut several months later, the number of deceased soldiers awaiting their final disposition had doubled. Clearly the conflict was accelerating. The Colonel informed me that during the first few months I would be the only air force physician for over a thousand troops. A flight line dispensary was under construction but initially I would work out of a temporary facility in a contract hotel near the center of town where three corpsmen were anxiously awaiting my arrival. My primary responsibilities would include routine sick call, preventive medicine and air crew support. Backup for more serious medical conditions was available at the 8th Field Hospital, a 100 bed army facility across the runway from the air base. Our medical team had no form of transportation because the only ambulance had been removed from service following a flight line collision with a fire truck several months earlier. The damage was repairable but despite our obvious need the motor pool refused, citing regulations against returning vehicles to service that were more than ten years old. This was a sore point for Colonel Randel who vowed to personally resolve the problem. He lost the argument and the motor pool converted the ambulance to its own use as a shop vehicle. It was a clear example of every unit for itself and regulations trumping rank. I left the Command Surgeon’s office feeling a heavy responsibility had fallen on the shoulders of a young twenty-seven year old physician just weeks removed from internship and flight school. I could only hope I would be up to the task medically, militarily and psychologically. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282366513-8BRTJP84UB4Q6D42Y94I/74430970-SLD-002-0042.jpg Vietnam photos - SOUTH RUISLIP   Following my tour in Viet Nam, I was assigned to the 7520th USAF Hospital at South Ruislip Air Force Base on the outskirts of London. Located in a World War II industrial complex, it was a non-flying base that served as headquarters for America’s 3rd Air Force which was responsible for operational control of our bases in the UK. Flight activities took place out of Northholt, a nearby Royal Air Force base. I arrived in early November 1966 shortly after Karen and I were engaged. Our wedding was set for January in Williston, North Dakota. While waiting for Karen to join me, I purchased a flat within walking distance of the base. It was just off the flight path into RAF Northholt. Planes coming in for a landing would pass so close to the apartment that I could see into our third story livingroom window. When I carried my new bride across the threshold after a honeymoon in Jamaica, our only furniture was a bed and a 60 year old Ronisch baby grand piano that I had purchased as a wedding gift for Karen from a family in London. Added to the fact that no one in their home played the piano, they were selling it because it took up most of their living room and they were about to move to smaller flat. Purchase price £100 pounds! Weight 600 pounds!!! You should have heard the cursing when the movers tried to maneuver it up our narrow stairwell. The piano has followed us on all our moves after returning to the States. It continues to provide sweet music and fond memories of our first year together. In addition to our proximity to the base, we lived only two blocks from the Ruislip station on the Central line, the longest and most heavily traveled route on London’s underground rail system. Downtown London was only 35 minutes away. For added convenience our flat was just across the street from a small corner market, a laundromat, a turf accountant betting shop and a Chinese restaurant where we shared our first Christmas dinner together. Besides my duties as a base Flight Surgeon, I was assigned part-time to the Command Surgeon’s office under a Mayo trained surgeon, Colonel Malcolm Sawyer. As he had advanced in rank, his administrative responsibilities grew at the expense of his clinical skills until he no longer felt comfortable in the operation room. As much as I enjoyed Air Force medicine, I could not picture myself relegated to similar bureaucratic duties. One of my responsibilities was to serve as the medical representative on the Command Tactical Evaluation Team, a 36 man group charged with the task of determining the overall readiness of our air force bases in England. Our entourage would arrive unannounced and put the base through a series of pre-arranged wartime scenarios. Jet fighters had to scramble and strike targets in the North Sea. Maintenance crews were evaluated on their ability to provide rapid turnaround. Medical facilities had to mobilize airborne contingency hospitals, respond to mass casualty situations, gas attacks and nuclear accidents. The hospital and dispensary commanders outranked me and knew I was relatively inexperienced. Still they respected my position and responded professionally. Fortunately, my partner, Captain Richard Harman, was a well qualified bio-environmental engineer. At the end of each day, we sat in on the team debriefing which gave me a tremendous appreciation and respect for our military capabilities. To maintain the element of surprise, the timing of the visit was top secret. I could not talk about my itinerary beforehand with anyone, including Karen. She knew something was up when she saw my bags packed the night before. Once the exercises were underway, I would call and she would drive to the vicinity of the base. We would spend the next few nights together in local bed and breakfast inns while the games played out. During the day, Karen would travel the countryside looking for churches where she could add to her collection of brass rubbings. Many of these old sanctuaries had commemorative plaques imbedded in the walls or on the floor. By rubbing a wax crayon over special paper, the image from the plaque would be transferred much in the way that children reproduce Lincoln’s head from a penny. On one occasion the Vicar of a small church in Hemstead told Karen that the brass plaque she was rubbing honored Sir William Harvey, a physician who lived from 1578-1657 and was the first to anatomically describe the circulation of the blood. Karen was not familiar with the name but eagerly told me about her experience when we met up that evening. Tactical evaluation exercises weren’t confined to our bases in England.There were joint USAF/Nato bases in Turkey that were visited on alternate years by teams from either Germany or England. The cold war was at its peak and the bases in Turkey were strategically located as a deterrent to Russian aggression. In 1967 our team traveled to Incirlik Air Force Base, near Adana, a town in south central Turkey. F 100 Super Saber fighter squadrons rotated there on temporary duty from Wethersfield, England. In the middle of a simulated gas attack, I noticed a young airman walking across an open field. Needing a casualty for a test of the medical facilities response, I stopped him and asked if he had a gas mask, knowing full well he did not. He apologized saying he was a flight line maintenance mechanic who had just arrived with a squadron from Wethersfield and had not been issued emergency equipment. I am sure he was not long out of his basic training and found it very intimidating to be confronted by an officer. Nervously he repeatedly asked if he were in trouble. I tried to reassure him that he wasn’t but told him to report to the dispensary for treatment as a simulated chemically warfare casualty. The medical team must have used the appropriate nerve gas antidote because I encountered the same airman alive and well six months later at his home base in England. It was a dark, blustery morning when Captain Hartman and I arrived at Wethersfield with the team from South Ruislip. The first scheduled exercise was a mass casualty situation. As we were waved through the guard gate, Captain Hartman wondered out loud where we would find trauma victims for a simulated plane crash. We had a large set of moulages in the trunk to be applied to airmen recruited from the base. In the darkness we spotted three airmen trudging head down in the rain and Captain Hartman said, “I think we just found some casualties.” He stopped the car and asked if they would like a ride. They responded, “Yes, sir,” and piled into the back seat. When I turned around to introduce myself, one of the airmen immediately recognized me from our previous encounter in Turkey. His response was, “Oh, no, not again.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59ed59be6f4ca3b804fa297a/1511282378614-D76AVGSKT9OO01JYRFI5/74430970-SLD-002-0041.jpg Vietnam photos - VIET NAM : AN UNFORGETTABLE VACATION In January of 1965 I was midway through my internship at Wilford Hall, a one-thousand bed USAF hospital in San Antonio, Texas where I was anxiously awaiting word of my next assignment. I had joined the Air Force my senior year in medical school. Not only was I paid as a 2nd Lieutenant that year, I was guaranteed a good internship with the promise that I would be given preferential choice of duty stations during the three year payback period that followed. There was a physician draft at the time so most doctors could expect to serve in the military but with little choice of where, when or what branch. Things were starting to heat up in Viet Nam and it was a war I hoped to avoid. Naturally, I breathed a sigh of relief when I learned I had been given my first choice, an assignment as a Flight Surgeon to a U2 squadron near Melbourne, Australia. By the time that three year tour was scheduled to end, my military obligation would be complete and I could get on with the rest of my life. All I had to do was finish my internship and a ten week course in Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base. After months of planning and anticipation, the dream ended. One week before my departure date, I was notified that the base in Australia was closing. The trans-pacific flight that followed landed in Saigon instead of Melbourne. In 1965 the United States was rapidly increasing its presence in South Viet Nam. In one year the number of U.S. military personnel in country increased from 24,000 to 185,000. I was on the cusp of that build-up. 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