Chickenhawk: Back in the World - Life After Vietnam

It only took a half hour for Judge Blatt to finish up after lunch.

Guilty.

John and I were guilty of possession and possession with the intent to distribute. Ireland was guilty of smuggling an illegal substance, possession, and possession with the intent to distribute. It made sense. Everyone knew we were all three on the same boat, but only Ireland was the smuggler. Law is fun.

It didn’t hit too hard. We knew we were guilty. And the way Bowling had described it, we seemed to be right on track with some incredibly clever Harvard lawyer trick. Shit, we had the government right where we wanted them. Blatt said we could continue on our bonds and come back in August for sentencing.

I wrote every morning and carried a notebook around with me wherever I went, scribbling notes when I remembered something that I had to put in the book. I wanted to deliver the second part of the manuscript before I was sentenced in August so if Judge Blatt let me go to New York, my editor would have seen it. Patience and I wanted to continue on from Charleston after sentencing, drive to New York on our way to her mother’s cabin in Maine.

While I was writing the second part of the book, I wanted to talk to somebody else who was in Vietnam with me. I missed Jerry Towler. He and I had flown together most of our tours. I wrote him a letter and sent it to the Pentagon, requesting that they forward it.

Tension was tearing me apart. My nightly jump-ups were back as severe as ever. I’d leap awake with a pulse rate of 140 or more two or three times a night. The idea that I was actually going to go to jail made me feel sick. I went to the Veterans Administration and asked for help. They gave me Valium and enrolled me in a biofeedback program that was designed to teach me relaxation techniques.

My life was writing and thinking about Vietnam while trying desperately to achieve peace of mind. I began to read books on metaphysics, philosophy, Zen, in my quest for mental peace. I discovered Alan Watts’s books. The Book was very good, and I systematically read almost everything Watts had written. I loved concepts like: “When you die, you will wake and realize you were never born.” Great stuff. Just try applying it to daily life. Zen was more appealing. I discovered some peace through meditation. I also discovered a different way of looking at reality which I still find useful. It was a revelation to me that Zen was just “direct pointing,” looking at yourself, your surroundings, the universe for what they really were—illusions, interpretations of sensory input inside your own head. I liked that. Then I worried who was doing the interpretations and what was who? However, I was thinking. The problem gave life an interesting perspective and helped to divert my thoughts from my troubles.

I finished the second part of my book before we went to Charleston. I called it “Swave and Deboner” because that’s how the combat helicopter pilots referred to themselves in Vietnam. We lived in the mud, in tents, like any other grunt, but aviation was supposed to be glamorous. Suave and debonair.

Sentencing was very tough on us because our families came to testify as character witnesses. We waited in the hallway outside the courtroom until we were two hours past our scheduled appearance. John and I had told Ireland we understood, held no grudge, but he was sheepish around us. He really harbored a lot of guilt about talking to the police.

When we finally got in the courtroom, the judge was just finishing up a previous defendant. This guy had been caught smuggling pot for the third time. Blatt listened to a tearful and extended plea from the man’s wife and promptly sentenced him to five years in a penitentiary. The guy started yelling at Blatt and had to be dragged from the courtroom in handcuffs.

Blatt apologized to us for the delay and announced a recess until after lunch. My mother-in-law, Constance Hartwell, and my father had flown in on my behalf, and worried that their planes were leaving soon.

I sat in a restaurant across from my mother-in-law and my father. I couldn’t eat. My mind roiled with excuses that I thought should be heard. I kept saying that pot shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. My mother-in-law said, “But it is, Bob.”

She was right. And before they’d finished eating, I’d managed to recognize that even if marijuana was legal, I still would’ve been guilty of illegal trafficking of a controlled substance. People still go to jail for smuggling alcohol and cigarettes. So when I went back to the courtroom, it was with the hope that Judge Sol Blatt, Jr., would somehow read my mind, see my fear and regret, take pity on my racked and bruised soul, and, in light of all this, not throw me into prison. Maybe he’d make me do work in my community for a few years. What I wanted was just one damn break from the government, please.

When the court reconvened, the judge asked us each to come forward with our character witnesses.