Life's A Coin Flip

You’ll sometimes hear people say that one moment in time, one event, changed the entire course of their life.   

Here’s one of mine.  

The Dog was in the Marine Corps less than a year, and working for the Information Services Office (ISO) at Camp Lejeune, N.C.   It was a typical afternoon in the office, we were all working on various stories or projects for the Camp Lejeune Globe or some similar journalistic endeavor.   

The phone on ISO Chief SSgt. Ed Grantham’s desk rang and it was HQMC looking for a “4312 Lance Corporal” to transfer to Fleet Home Town News Center, Great Lakes, IL.   There were only two of us there, me and a guy whose name I cannot remember.   Grantham asked us who wanted to go and neither of us did.  

So Grantham pulled a quarter out of his pocket and flipped it.   

I lost the toss and shortly thereafter got my orders to Great Lakes.  It was there that I met Bill Marcotte, who years later introduced me to the woman who would become my wife and the mother of our children.   

If I had won the coin toss, I would have had a completely different life.   

I’m glad I lost.   

Road Dog Reflections -- Riyadh #2

After returning to Denver from the first Riyadh trip, I swore I would never go back unless our organizational skills improved 1000% and someone actually had experience putting together an RFP was involved.   

Then sometime in 1983, the phone rang again.   Kuhlman & Yates were contacted about bidding for five Whittaker Hospitals in Saudi Arabia being put out for bid.   The story behind this termination of Whittaker is a fascinating story of early Saudi business.   Whittaker’s business came crashing down when their CEO and others expounded publicly on how much profit they were making off the Saudis.  There’s a lot of background to this, but the fact was that the Minister of Defense & Aviation (MODA), Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz was not one to accept embarrassment for himself or his country and Whittaker was summarily dismissed.  

This trip I was sent by myself.   I always thought that was because I bitched so much on the first trip about how piss poor the planning was on our part.   So, I was sent to Houston (IHS HQ) to meet with the staff there, and Mr. John Donnelly, who Yates had hired to consult on logistics and bid preparation.  Donnelly was a wonderful gentleman and very down to earth.  He had worked in government for years with the Department of Commerce, had international experience, and now had his own company.  

So, we spent a few days going over the RFP and assigning duties and contact points for me for the three to four weeks I would be traveling.  I was booked to fly business class from Houston to London to Riyadh.  I would be met and transported to the Marriott and then would meet our new Saudi agent, Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki al Abdullah bin Saud.   

On the morning I was to leave, we were meeting to discuss final details when Yates assistant came in and said I had an emergency phone call from my wife and I really needed to speak with her, “she’s crying.”     My first, and only, thought was that something happened to my Son.  When I got to the phone, the wife was sobbing and told me, “Larry committed suicide.”   Before I could register that it wasn’t my brother, she told me he had shot himself in the head, in their new baby’s room, and his wife was beside herself.  That’s when I realized that our next door neighbor was who she was talking about.   They had moved into a new home in Centaur Village shortly after we did and were wonderful people.  He had beach boy blond hair, and worked for the Federal Government.  She was expecting their first child.   They had a beautiful dog, Natasha.  I remember Larry had cut a square out of their privacy fence and put in a piece of clear plastic so Natasha could see out.   My wife did not want me to cancel the trip and come home, there was nothing to be done.  The neighbor's Mom was coming to take care of her, and the police, et al., were handling everything else.   So, with that on my mind, a few hours later I was off on a British Caledonia flight to Riyadh.  

When I landed in Riyadh this time, it was in the brand new King Khalid International airport in Riyadh.  It was amazing, so big and luxurious, which was nice; but the process of getting through customs was the same and the wait was the same.   After clearing customs, I went out to the receiving area and found my guy with my name on his sign.   This time he was middle-eastern (Palestinian) and his name was Nasser Bseiso, and he spoke very good English.  Nasser would prove to be a godsend many times over.  

Nasser was most congenial and drove me to the hotel, where he saw that I was checked in and we had tea and sweets.  He had a schedule worked out and told me he would be picking me up the next morning for the bidders conference, then we would do some touring and later we would have supper and meet with Prince Abdullah.  I was overwhelmed with the difference from our first trip and was feeling pretty good when I finally got to bed.  I called my wife and she was much better, and I talked with my Son.   I called the office and told them that so far I was very impressed and optimistic.  

The next morning Nasser was there and we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant.   He had my entire itinerary with him.  Travel schedules to Jeddah, Khamis Mushayt (Abha) and Tabuk.  While I would be traveling as part of a larger bidding group, he would be accompanying me to insure everything was taken care of.  I also  found out that he had family in Dallas, and owned a Dunkin’ Donuts shop there.  His sons were there and taking care of things.  

The day went well.  We met people from MODA, and people from all the healthcare companies involved in bidding the project.   This included the big ones, HCA, NME, AMI, IHG (UK), and other smaller ones.   I remember thinking that they all looked different styles — HCA was well put together, well-dressed, and polished.  NME was “Southern California”, casual, leather coats, etc.   AMI was middle management, and IHG was…. well, British.   It was a fun group and we all seemed to hit it off fairly well for a group that would be traveling together for the next couple of weeks.  

That evening, I had dinner at Nasser’s house with his wife and some others I can’t remember.   I was stunned at the amount of food on the table and left stuffed with a new found love for middle-Eastern food.  This was the first of several meals I would have with them over the years to come.  

After dinner, we went to Prince Abdullah’s office, which as I recall was on a pretty nondescript street in a nondescript building with minimal signage.   We were escorted in to a waiting area, given tea, and shortly were escorted into Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki al Abdullah al Saud’s office.   It was comfortable but by no means “Saudi gaudy”.     He knew about me, and our organization, and was particularly fond of John Donelly whom he had met before.   We spent a few evenings having tea and talking about the world and our respective countries.   The Prince was a year younger than me, educated in Britain and a truly nice man, not self-absorbed or glitzy like a lot of them were then.   He went on to become the head of the Royal Commission on Jubail and Yanbu; and up until 2004 he was Governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority.   I spoke with him several times after that visit and saw him a few times while we lived there and he always remembered me.   

I won’t ramble on with details of hospitals, etc., but will just highlight some memories.   Khamis Mushayt & Abha were beautiful and in the mountains of Saudi Arabia.  It wasn’t all traditional looking Saudis because there was a good number of Yemenis living there.  We stayed at the Abha Intercontinental Hotel which was a 5-star hotel at the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. The hospital facilities were lovely, well-managed and totally lost at the idea of being removed because Whittaker screwed up their contract.   I remember all of us “bidders” spending time assuring the current staff that whatever happened there would be no whole scale replacement of staff or physicians.   Transitions and opportunities would be process-driven and everyone would be considered for continued employment.   

Jeddah was the most cosmopolitan city I could imagine for Saudi Arabia.  It could have passed for any emerging large city with traffic and people.   Facilities there were also excellent, and conversations were very similar.  

Tabuk was memorable because that was pretty close to the Jordanian border and also connected to the Royal Saudi Air Force base.   The hospital was well managed and seemed efficient.   The thing I remember most is that they had the most well-developed Recreation Department I had seen anywhere.   They had every thing on that campus and a marvelous in-house cable TV system.   When I asked about it, the response was “there’s nothing out here but heat and desert, we need to make it a nice place for people to be.”   I also remember hearing that, at one time, the Israeli Air Force has flown below the radar in Saudi air space and “bombed” the Saudi airbase with pig carcasses before the RSAF could scramble any jets to intercept them.   A subtle Israeli message that I heard again years later.   

I also remember that when we were in Tabuk, Nasser left me alone while he “had to do some business”.   When he came back, he was carrying several posters of Yasser Arafat and other items he’d gotten during his “business”.   I didn’t ask.   Should have.  

That visit was my awakening to the beauty of the Kingdom, and a 5 week immersion into its cultures and people.  Each stop, each hospital, each city, opened new vistas of beauty and people, it was fascinating to me.  As mentioned before this tour was where I came to know the people with HCA, NME and other big healthcare companies, and my future employment with HCA was initialized.   

This was also the last time I would work a bid for IHS.  After painstakingly gathering information and details of five hospitals and their existing infrastructures and challenges, and then transmitting it all back for inclusion into the RFP response.  Then, at the last minute, realizing that no one “back there” had noticed that the bids had to be submitted in Arabic, arranged with Nasser to get them translated (and learning the difference between “translating” and “interpreting”), printed, bound, and shipped to me at the Marriott in Riyadh on the day before they were due.  Then to get a phone call in the middle of the night asking me to see if I could get an extension on the bid submission because IHS couldn’t get the bid bond accomplished - which I did not do, thus finding myself with 20 copies of an RFP to dispose of.  That’s when I knew my time with IHS was over.   

Before I left, I had the opportunity to meet with the Prince again, and we debriefed on the process.   In his most gentlemanly, Saudi, demeanor he expressed his empathy and understanding.   We parted on good terms and he gave me a small ghuttra and ighal for my Son — and when I got home we took a picture of him wearing it and riding his big wheel, and sent it to the Prince.   We kept in touch for several years after that, and I did see him again when I got to Riyadh with HCA.  It was shortly after our last meeting that he was named Secretary General of the Royal Commission of Jubail and Yanbu, and he subsequently sent me a beautiful book on the project with a note and his card.   In hindsight, I wish I had kept in better contact with him than I did, not so much for connecting to an important person, but because he was a nice person, and someone who could have been a good “penpal” over the years. 

 In 2015-17 he would become the Saudi Ambassador to the US.  

Road Dog Reflections -- Riyadh #1

or “It was a clustrfu—, but a tremendous learning experience.”

June - July, 1981

My first trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, came at the request of E.V. Kuhlman (CEO St. Anthony Hospital System - Denver) and John Yates (CEO of Int’l. Hospital Services) who asked me to go with Doug Cleveland (Dr. Henry Cleveland’s son) and put together a bid to manage the Riyadh-Al Kharj Hospital Project for the Ministry of Defense & Aviation (MODA).  The “project” was the MODA hospital in Riyadh, along with some polyclinics and a larger clinical facility in Al Kharj.   

The wife was six months pregnant and I had concerns about leaving her.   But, as always, she encouraged me to go.  

We traveled over with David Legg (Houston contact of Yates) and Essam Obeid (Saudi agent).  They went First Class and we were in the back of the bus.   The two of them impressed me as a shady pair (which they ultimately were), but we went along and did have a good time and saw a couple of sights in London.  Sidebar memory of that was Cleveland asking for an English Muffin in the Mayfair Hotel restaurant and being told by the lovely waitress that there was no such thing.  

We arrived in Riyadh, at the old airport downtown (now an RSAF base, and home to the AWACs).   It was after midnight, and the airport was small, very hot (summer in Riyadh) and intensely overcrowded.  The customs agents went through everything we had, which really panicked Doug when they wanted to know what his aspirin were.  They smelled fear and went for it…which I think they really enjoyed.  Anyway, we finally cleared customs, found our way out of the airport and into wall-to-wall people with signs and pushing for taxis.   

We found our guy with the sign and were taken to a beautiful black Mercedes 500 and deposited in the back seat.   It was then that I noticed our large dark skinned driver had scars (tribal marks, I later found out) down both cheeks and spoke no English.  I wondered what it would be like to disappear in Saudi Arabia.  When I looked over his shoulder and realized that we were going 70-80 mph through the streets of Riyadh, I wondered what it would be like to die in Saudi Arabia.    

Never fear though, we arrived at the most beautiful Marriott Hotel I had ever seen, and were greeted with nothing but customer service and grace, and shown to our rooms.  It was around 2-3 am, and the lobby was full of people eating and sipping non-alcoholic beverages.  Ramadan had just begun, I was told.   I was more tired then curious, and I should have been curious - and also should have researched customs, culture, etc., better.   

It was the next morning when we learned what Ramadan meant.   There was nowhere to get anything to eat and we were hungry – at least for coffee.   After talking with the front desk clerk, and walking around the hotel and wondering what to do, one of the bellman told me to go to my room and leave the door open.   What the heck?  Sure, why not.   About 10 minutes later the door burst open and he came charging in with a tray of coffee and breakfast rolls.  Welcome to Ramadan in Riyadh.   He got a good tip, and a steady daily routine for the duration.   

When we found our way to the MODA hospital, we also found out that we were too late for the bidders conference (no, no one gave us an agenda or schedule, we were winging it….) and would not be able to tour the facilities.   I was steamed. Not with the Saudis, but with our logistics & planning and lack of both.  At that point, I realized this was a learning experience and cultural growth education.   Business practices aside, we came to know about everything closing 5 times a day for prayer, no eating from sun up to sun set, maniacal driving, tea and OJ as a way of business, and Bukra, Inshallah, ma’lesch, the "Saudi IBM".  

We did, however, get copies of the RFP materials and information and we asked a lot of questions of the people we met.   One of them was Brenda (I cannot remember her last name), who was the hospital librarian.  She was American and ultimately offered to give us a tour of the hospital.   However, we had to wear name badges (which she just happened to produce) and carry papers to look like we were doing something.  We wandered the hospital and saw enough to make some impressions.   

When the tour was over, Brenda invited us to join her and her husband for dinner that evening.   Her husband was an obnoxious Brit and during the meal proceeded to tell us that Americans were lesser people, and had never suffered enough to appreciate anything.   That didn’t sit well with Doug and soon the evening devolved into a wonderful argument.   We thanked Brenda for a lovely meal and entertainment and somehow found our way to a taxi and back to the Marriott.   

After a week or so of scrambling data and information and getting it back to Houston for the bid preparation, I received a call somewhere around 3 am, from Jerry Lowery (Yates VP) who told me that we would not be submitting a bid because they could not arrange the financing for the bid bond.   The bid bond was simply a financial guarantee that if a company is awarded the contract, they can deliver on it.   Standard SOP.   Another “duh” moment.   Another livid conversation with the home office about “planning”.  

So, Doug and I had several free days to spend in Riyadh, during Ramadan, until our flight back.  We rented a car and had a good time exploring Riyadh and buying souvenirs, and it really was a great experience both for learning and for cultural growth.  

I never realized it was the first ….

Marine Corps Boot Camp - September 26, 1968

(That’s me — second row from the top, on the left end.)

I was a wimp, a wuss, physically unfit, dumb ass and have no idea why I enlisted in the Marine Corps.  But I did and it is the best thing that ever happened to me.  

I enlisted a week after I graduated from high school.  Dad went with me to sign the papers because I wasn’t 18 yet.   The recruiter was Sgt. Gary Iames, and I maintained contact with him until I got discharged.  I went in on the 120-day delay program, which meant that even though I enlisted in June, I didn’t actually go to boot camp until September 26.   That summer I spent some time in California and we made our annual trip to Birch Bay.  

The big day came and it’s all a blur.  I’m guessing the only reason I remember going to the airport is because there are pictures of me waiting to get on the plane.  I looked like a complete idiot.  In hindsight, I think that was one of those times in my life when I went on auto-pilot.  I’m sure I must have been nervous as hell, but I don’t remember any of the details.   

There was a group of us, and I THINK we had to meet at the induction center in Seattle for initial processing and receiving our brown envelopes (orders).  We then were bussed to the airport, and most of us had parents waiting to see us off from there.   

We flew into San Diego and were then directed to a bus to take us to MCRD San Diego.  When we got there it was dark, and I’m assuming late evening.  I remember a Drill Instructor coming aboard the bus and giving us a speech about shutting the fuck up and getting off the bus as quickly as possible and lining up on the infamous “yellow footprints”.   His speech was also an introduction to the creative ways we were taught to include f-bombs into any word or sentence.  “When I give you the word, you miserable fucks will pick up any shit you brought with you and get off my fucking bus.  You will not leave anything behind you, and if you do I will find you and you will eat whatever I find.  You will not walk, you will run.  Your days of walking are over.  You will not talk, you will not make any fucking noise whatsoever.   DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME MAGGOTS?  YOU BETTER GOD DAMN ANSWER ME SO I CAN HEAR YOU, YOU SLIMY PIECES OF SLUG SHIT!  DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?    NOW GET OFF MY GOD DAMNED BUS!!   NOW!!!

When we hit the yellow footprints, most of figured out that our feet went on top of them, but I know a few guys got it wrong.  Sad for them.  We were screamed at, and called names none of us had heard before.   I was immediately thankful that my recruiter told me not to bring anything with me but the clothes I was wearing, and to use a bathroom in the San Diego airport before going to MCRD.  Some guys brought coats and bags and food.  They were “politely” told their days of wearing civilian shit were over and any food they had, they had to eat right there.  Of course, any information on using bathrooms came much later when we learned bathrooms didn’t exist anymore, we now used heads and you only used them when you were told to use them.   

The ensuing process ran us through haircuts, uniform issuing, and the required call home.  It was a total blur, we were all a combination of scared, excited, confused and lost.  We were then moved though various other things and finally given time to rest for a couple of hours before the next morning.  

Eventually, we were given to our platoon DI’s and set about being oriented to the Marine Corps.  I was assigned to Platoon 2092.  I cannot remember any of their names.  We were billeted to live in the old quonset huts and the first day was just like in the movies.   The DI came in, turned on the lights, and threw a metal trashcan down the center aisle and then ran up and down yelling and raising hell.  He even flipped a bunk bed over on its side.   The guy was good.  

Sometime during the initial regimen of running and exercise I managed to hurt my left leg.   I was unable to walk well, so after calling me a malingering slack ass,  they sent me to sick bay where I was determined to have a stress fracture of my left leg.  I was then moved out of the regular training and into a Physical Rehab Platoon for a couple of weeks and then a Physical Conditioning Platoon, which was also referred to as the fat farm.   We spent most of the days running and exercising and the meals were all the lettuce you can eat.  We ran, we did weight training, we exercised (PT), and we ran some more.  

I’m amazed that I wasn’t discharged as a non-hacker.  I fell into a routine and spent way too much time in those platoons.  I found some sort of weird comfort in being there.  Eventually, one of the DI’s called me into his office and gave me a talk about commitment and told me, in no uncertain terms, that I had to decide if I wanted to be a Marine or not.  I was certainly smart enough, but I was lazy and showed no ambition.  His final words were, “you need to decide”.   I can’t remember his name either, and I truly wish I could.  

So, I decided.  I went back into regular training and was assigned to Platoon 2235.   I reported to their barracks (new building and much nicer than those old quonset huts), and checked in while the rest of the platoon was at chow.   I was greeted by SSgt. Ashford, who assigned me my rack and told me that I was a shitbird and he was no babysitter.  

While Platoon 2092 had guys from Washington State, Platoon 2235 was primarily Texan and southerners, with a sprinkling of guys from other places.  Mixing in didn’t seem to be a problem, personalities were all focused on getting through boot camp and as long as you held up your part and didn’t cause the group a lot of misery, everything else worked out.  I kept to myself, didn’t really get to know a lot of guys and focused on tasks at hand.   

(This is where I met Russ Stoddard.   Since we did most things in alphabetical order, he was near me.  He was from Ohio and was a little slow on the draw.  Stoddard, Luna, Dorsey and Love were guys I kept in touch with.  Russ was killed in Vietnam in March, 1970.  I found out while I was working the Casualty Desk at Fleet Home Town News Center and he was on the daily teletype message I got from HQMC listing casualties and details.  I had to get up and walk around for awhile after reading his, and I remember Bill Marcotte and me and a few others went to the NCO club that night to drink for Russ.)

Our three DIs, GySgt. Drakeford, SSgt. Ashford, and Sgt. Hess, were an interesting dynamic.  Drakeford was the Senior DI and was the stern father-figure.   Ashford was quiet (for a DI) and wasn’t overly physical, but looked like an angry bulldog.   Hess was a complete psych job and loved to scream and hit and spit.  The platoon quickly learned to adjust temperaments depending on the duty.   I avoided Hess, but kind of liked the other two.   

There was one memorable moment when I was lagging off and Drakeford was on me.  He called me down, huffed and puffed and then looked me up and down and said, “Private Schrum I can’t make you do a goddamned thing, but I can sure as hell make you wish you did.”   

I don’t know why, but those words stuck with me for my entire life.   I realized later how profound that statement was, and particularly when applied to leadership.  My job for the last 50+ years has not been to get people to do something, it has been to get them to WANT to do it.    The famous management guru, Peter Drucker, put it another way, “as a leader you can’t motivate anyone, you can only demotivate them.  They have to motivate themselves.”    I used Drakeford as my opening line when discussing relevant things, and then followed with Drucker for those non-hackers who couldn’t understand Marine Corps style.  

The physical training we endured came easier since I had spent so much time getting in shape.  We ran 3 miles every morning, then did “PT” (physical training) amid the classroom work and other testing.  We also got to do pushups and squat thrusts as punishment every time we did something wrong.   The biggest challenge I had through all of it was doing pull ups.  I could not do a pull up.  I did the obstacle course, rope climbs, water jumps, runs, all of that, but never a pull up.  After the second time, I really looked forward to the obstacle course.  

Funny to look back on it now, but when I first looked at the rope climbs and the obstacle course I was scared to death.  But being forced to do it, to push myself, to realize that getting over those obstacles was up to me and I needed to focus on the matter at hand and keep the ending in sight, got me through.  I think it was through these challenges that I learned “it’s all going to end somewhere, you just need to get there.”   —  But climbing up those damned cargo nets, swinging over to a rope slide, and then finishing with I don’t know what still astounds me.  

Funny (?) story on the rope climb.  I really don’t remember how high they were, they were probably 30’ but we thought 40’.   Up the rope, use your legs not your arms, tap the top and slide back down.   Simple enough.   Sure.   We had one guy who got about half way up the rope and froze in place.  He could not move.  Drakeford and Ashford were at the bottom yelling their heads off and calling him every name imaginable trying to get him to move.  But, nothing.  The guy would not move.  By now, we were all watching and waiting for the disaster and wondering if some or all of us should catch him when he fell.   But, Drakeford finally uttered the immortal words, “Fuck this”.    He walked over to one of the support poles and took his DI cover off and set it on the ground.  He called the house mouse over to stand by it and not touch it, but don’t let it blow away.  (Not sure how the mouse would have done that.).  The Gunny then proceeded to go up the pole to the cross piece, out the crosspiece arm-over-arm to the guy’s rope.  Climbed onto the rope above the guy, and then slid down on top of him, kicking him in the shoulders and arms to get him to go down.  The kid finally started sliding down and when he got to the bottom he collapsed.   The DI’s were on him and got him up and moving, and we all went back to the barracks.  I don’t remember seeing that kid again, but I remember people looked at Drakeford with awe.  

We spent the holidays in boot camp and I remember on Christmas we were told we could lighten up and find some entertainment.   I can’t remember who was the duty DI, but his idea of entertainment was giving us time to polish our boots, write letters and then gather.   He asked if anyone knew karate or judo or anything, and Private Lee volunteered to say he did.  Lee was then allowed to show us his moves with other privates being tossed around the squad bay.   

I can’t remember if it was Thanksgiving or Christmas, but I remember when we went to the mess hall for dinner, we were told we could have dessert.  I saw that one of the guys was not going to eat his piece of pie, so of course I volunteered to take it.   The DIs saw me and I was summoned to the duty hut when we got back to the squad bay.   As I walked in, they were all there and Hess was pulling on leather gloves.  I was asked about the pie, and why a fat fuck like me, who just got out of the god damned fat farm would want to eat pie?   Providing no good answer, Sgt. Hess said he was going to help me get rid of it, and proceeded to punch me in the stomach.  I have always had strong abs, so I reflexively tightened up and his hit sent me back but did not fold me over.   That seemed to spur him on so he repeated the process a few times with the same result.   By now, Drakeford had enough and told me to get down and give him 25 push ups.  So I hit the floor and got a few out when I was told to stop.  Drakeford then stood on my shoulders and told me to continue.   I think I got maybe 2 or 3 out with him standing on top of me before I couldn’t do any more.  I was then told to get up and all three of them got in my face about being a shitbird, dirtbag slimy piece of #### and having no fucking personal discipline.  Then I was escorted to the door and shoved out.   Funny thing is, I never considered that abuse and I did consider it an accomplishment for myself, because I remembered the words we Drakeford said to the platoon in the very beginning, “Whatever we do to you here is nothing compared to what the VC will do to you if you’re ever captured.”   I think those words helped me through a lot of things in bootcamp and later in life.   

We went to the Edson Range and I shot an M-14 for the first time in my life.   The range wasn’t just shooting.  We also kept up our PT regimen and running.   It was also our introduction to Mount Motherfucker (google it).   We humped it in marches and we ran it on the day after qualification.   I made both trips, and on the run is when I remember entering that mental state that runners talk about.  I lost myself and just felt out-of-body as I ran.   I remember keeping up with our DI, which spurred him on to go faster, but I felt no pain and kept up with him.   

On Pre-qualification day, I did not qualify and was promptly dressed down as a “non-qual” shit bag.  Marines are all “basic riflemen” and if you can’t shoot, you aren’t a Marine”.  —  When the big day came to shoot for qualification as either an Expert, Sharpshooter, Marksman or Non-qual, I was a little nervous.   We shot from 200, 300, and 500 yards.   The 300-yard set included a rapid-fire section, where you had to fire your entire magazine of 20 rounds, within a set time (20-30 seconds?).  I shot a perfect score, all of them right through the bullseye.  The range coach called my Senior DI, Gunny Drakeford, over to see and he was stunned.  I remember him stuttering and then saying something like, “good work, now get your grouping tighter.”   I finished the day with a score of 217 points which made me a Sharpshooter.  I was ecstatic, but a little let down because if I could have scored 220 I would have made “Expert”.    

The following weeks, we had what was called a “practical test” which included first aid, map/compass reading, and other practical things we needed to know.  I aced all of them.  

The final physical fitness test was what I feared the most.   It included pull-ups, sit-ups, leg lifts, squat thrusts, rope climb, and finished with a 3-mile run.  

It was stated that if you fail one of them, you fail all of them and you’re out.   I did 85 sit-ups in 2 minutes and scored 100%.  I did a good number of push-ups, leg lifts and squat thrusts to more than pass those, and I climbed a 40’ rope in a fairly good time.  I did zero pull-ups.   When the run came, I had nothing to lose so I went all out and ran, not jogged, ran for three miles and finished in the top five.   

The next day, Gunny Drakesford called me into his office and reviewed the testing with me.  He said I failed the PT test, and then after an extended period of silence, he said he was making an exception for me because I did so well on everything else.  I was stunned.  I made it.  I was going to be a Marine.  

During our final platoon inspection, which was conducted by the Commanding Officer of MCRD and out Battalion Commander, Drakesford stopped them in front of me and called me “one of the most motivated privates” in his platoon.   

As we were winding down, at one of final gatherings Drakeford and Ashford were telling us what our MOS (Military Occupational Specialty - our jobs) were going to be.   The majority of the guys were some variation of 0300 infantry, but when he came to me he said, “Schrum, 4312 … what the FUCK is a 4312?   Press Information Man?   What the fuck is that?   None of us knew.   One thing I learned later was that other guys were generally assigned a 4300 MOS and went to Journalism School at Fort Benjamin Harrison for further training.  Not me.  Apparently my high school journalism class gave me enough training to put together who, what, when, where, why and how into a coherent paragraph during our testing in boot camp, so I got to go straight to the ISO at Camp Lejeune, N.C.  

I graduated boot camp on February 5, my Mom & Dad came to see me graduate.  Marching on to that parade deck and being called a Marine for the first time was one of the proudest days of my life.  I have a picture with Gunny Drakeford that I carry to this day, but it was that DI in the PCP that lit my fire.  I can see him but can’t remember his name.  

February 6 we were loaded onto busses and sent north to Camp Pendleton and Infantry Training Regiment (ITR).   We were housed in canvas tents with wooden floors and kerosene heaters.  It was February in those hills and rainy and cold.  The fun times continued.  But I loved it, I was a Marine.  

Semper Fi.  Forever. 

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A Veteran’s Speech

Being A Veteran

11/11/2019

This is taken in part from my confirmation testimony to the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Transportation & Veterans Affairs, and from writings of mine and others that I've edited, buried and borrowed over the years.   Thank you to all of the influencers who’ve given to this. Semper Fidelis.  

My name is Bill Schrum, and I live in Middleton, Wisconsin.  I am a life member of, the Vietnam Veterans of America, the American Legion, the Marine Corps Combat Correspondent Association AND the Disabled American Veterans.    I am also a member of the Marine Corps League.   I am also disabled and get my health care at the Veterans Hospital in Madison.  

At the end of 2016, I retired as a Vice President at the University of Wisconsin Health System, after 40+ years in health care administration. 

In August of 2019, Governor Tony Evers appointed me to the Board of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; where we represent well over 340,000 veterans in the State of Wisconsin.  340,000-plus.    Think about that… if all those veterans gathered in one place, we would be the second largest city in Wisconsin.  And probably have great bars, great music, and lousy food.  

I was born in Tacoma, Washington, on the cusp of the Korean War.  Tacoma was an industrial town, big in shipping and transportation.  I grew up in an "ethnically diverse" neighborhood before anyone even knew what that term meant.   My Father was a native of Tacoma, and never went past the 8th grade.  My Mother was British by birth and emigrated to the US when she was 12.   My parents were railroad people; my Dad a switch tender and Mom, a Caller.  They were both gone before I was 23.  

One week after I graduated from Lincoln High School in Tacoma, I enlisted in the Marine Corps for three years.  I’ve been asked numerous times, “why the Marine Corps?” and I am not sure I have ever had an answer for that.  I’ve had a few occurrences in my life that I truly feel were guided by some “higher power” and this was one of them.  The time was right after the Tet Offensive… and the extensive negative television of coverage of Vietnam, but I found that enticing.  Most relatives thought I was making a mistake, but my parents supported my decision in spite of their trepidation.   

After boot camp and infantry training, I was assigned to Force Troops, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as a journalist.  How did I get to be a journalist?   I took journalism in high school and a test in boot camp apparently showed that I could put who, what, when, where, why and how together into a storyline.  

At Camp Lejeune, I had the opportunity to embed myself and write stories about the Force Reconnaissance Marines, and the trainees at the Naval Corpsman School.   Those experiences gave me not only the chance to hone my journalism skills, but to learn firsthand what goes into developing these two unique groups of people who go where others don’t go.  

My next duty station was the Marine Barracks, Great Lakes NTC, where I was assigned to the Fleet Home Town News Center.  The FHTNC is the source for those little blurbs you may see in your local newspapers about local service members.  One of my assignments while there was the “casualty desk” where my job was to screen all outgoing stories against the daily lists of killed, wounded or missing-in-action Marines to make sure no stories went out about anyone on those lists.  That job also meant that I read the details of each Marine’s death and the actions they were in at the time.  You can Google how many Marines were killed or wounded in Vietnam to get an idea of the number I read.  

It's also how I learned that one of my good friends was killed...and how.  

Then, I received orders to FMFPac, WestPac, Ground Forces, which if you’re familiar with the jargon meant “Vietnam”.   However, I was pulled off the flight when it landed in Okinawa and assigned to the Marine Corps Public Affairs Office there.   A lot of people would have thought that was a great deal, but after I was in Okinawa for about a month, and bored out of my mind, I volunteered for a TAD assignment to the Force Logistics Command at Camp Books in Danang, Vietnam.  I did not tell my parent or any family.   

At this point, I was 20-years old, and had made sergeant in the Marine Corps in 20 months.  I’ll admit that I was full of myself and had enough rank as a combat correspondent to do things and get into things.  I humped with, and interviewed a lot of grunts and wrote a lot of stories.  I flew in Huey’s and wrote about the human side of that experience.  I wrote about the stenches, the filth, the blood, and the things that differentiate “war” from “combat”.  Ask any vet in the room and they will agree that there’s a difference that most civilians don’t get.  

As a reporter, I didn’t want to report the same stuff others had said a thousand times before me.  I got out and I talked with wounded and dying, and I talked with the stone crazy still living.  Sometimes, to this day, they still talk with me and I still listen to them.  

My only regret is that I had not volunteered much, much sooner.  

I’ve seen the demons.  I walked the valley of the shadow of death and truly feared no man because I knew we were the baddest ____ in the valley….   I think I’ve carried a little of that feeling with me to this day – but it is well-tempered now with maturity and knowing that I don’t have to prove myself to anyone.  I carry with me the lesson I learned from the Recon Marines – success is never having to fire your weapon.  (If you want a current depiction of what that means, google quotes by General James Mattis and look for the one that begins, “I come in peace….”

When my time there was done, and I was coming home, an event occurred which affects me to this day, and if you will bear with me, I would like to tell you about it.  

As I was making my way through the San Francisco airport, the resplendent disabled veteran, in my Marine Corps uniform, medals worn proudly, a woman approached me.  

I saw her coming well in advance.  Call it jungle awareness, call it noticing the obvious, the point is that I knew she was directed at me and was on a mission.  

She was in her late 20's, shoulder length dark hair and large brown eyes which showed the passion and fire of someone who was following her heart.  She was carrying a brown leather shoulder bag and wearing a long navy blue wool coat.  She moved toward me with the grace of the cat.

When she was within fifteen feet of me, I stopped and put my things down.  My instinct and reflexes told me to watch her hands, her bag, her coat.  My sense told me to watch her eyes.

She came right up to me, stopping within a foot of me and I could feel her energy, I could smell her scent.  

She grabbed me with her eyes, pulling my focus there and initiating the shaking and nervous stomach of my apprehension.   I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I did not want to hurt her.  

We stood there, locked in an optic connection, for what seemed like a long time --- then she blinked.  Tears had filled her eyes and were beginning to move onto her high cheekbones.  The passion she was sending to me was filled with pain, with sorrow, with hatred I had not expected.  

Her right hand came up, index finger extended and her mouth opened, but she was struggling to find words.  When they finally came, the voice was throaty, raspy, hoarse.   Her finger tentatively touched me at the point of my chest.  

"You're nothing but a hit man for the U.S. government."

With that she moved to my left and away.  Physically out of my life.  Mentally, forever a part of my memory. 

That was my first welcome home.  

Shortly after I got home, my Dad died.  Later that year, I took the trip to England with my Mother that she had planned for them.  I was a terrible companion for her, and not even close to being the support she needed at that time.  

After that, it went from bad to worse.  I tried college and dropped out because I realized that college kids were clueless.  I smoked.  I drank.  I was not the kid I was when I left home.   I was 21 years old and had seen and done things others never will.  No one in my family knew what I had done, and no one ever asked.  That was fine by me, "it don't mean nothing" was the only way to play it.

One day, I’m not sure why, I got in my ’66 Chevy, and travelled the country while living out of my car.   I can’t remember the highways that led me back to Great Lakes, IL., but I found my Marine Corps brother Bill Marcotte and others there.

The second slap of homecoming came when Marcotte and I went to a VFW bar in North Chicago and we were called down by old vets and derided for not being real veterans, only Vietnam veterans.   We were severely numbed, so we had a couple of cheap beers and left.  This one hurt, because the Master Sergeant we served with at FHTNC was a member there and never spoke up.  Thanks Top.  

In ’72, after returning home, trying jobs and busting them, getting kicked out of the house, and other therapeutic events, somehow fate again decided I needed to get out of town and so I headed east again to visit Marcotte; only this time in Marshall, MN.   Along the way, I picked up two hitchhikers outside of Seattle and took them to Minot, ND., I had the car, they had the smoke and pharmaceuticals.   Along the way we camped and scraped for food and beer.  Not sure I ever got their names or any other info.   Just figured they needed a ride and I needed the diversion, so what the heck.   When I landed in Marshall, and somehow found Marcotte’s house, I was welcomed by him and his wife, Pat, and toddler daughter, Shana.  

The third strike of homecoming came when Marcotte and I went to an American Legion bar in Marshall (his hometown) and were greeted just as warmly there as we had been in North Chicago.   As I recall, these guys wanted to get physical, and we almost got there.  But after we mentioned that we were Marines and would be happy to accommodate them, they reverted back to name-calling and creative put-downs.  And, again, Marcotte knew some of these NCMFs and none of them said a word.  

Only Bill and I ever knew the truth of those days.  My days of ever talking about my experiences were sealed then.  

As fate would have it, I ended up in Denver, and it was there that I realized that I could continue to live like a bum, wallowing in anger and self-pity, or I could use my Marine Corps discipline and move on.   I moved on.  

Within two years, I had gotten married and went on to fulfill my dream of starting my own newspaper in Lafayette, Colorado.  A few years later, with help from the GI Bill, some student loans, and even a scholarship, I graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Economics.  Yes, I worked a full-time job and went to school full-time.  

For over 40 years, I never spoke much of my Marine Corps service, and never, ever, about my time in Vietnam.  I threw away the journals, the writings, and most of the uniforms.  Those days were compartmentalized and buried.   Always below the surface, in my head, but never publicized.  

In 1998, during a divorce and a difficult employment time, I went to a therapist and it all came back with a vengeance.  Those times and PTSD almost took me down completely.  But I had two kids then, and I could not give up.  Their voices and their faces, their futures, were my focal points.   I never shared all the details of my Marine Corps experiences with my wife nor my kids – my logic was that it would sound like an excuse by then.  Too little, too late.  I will regret that forever but, like Vietnam, there are no do-overs.   

Ultimately, over time, I have accepted my history, and I accepted my demons, and stopped hiding them.  The Marine Corps and Vietnam came back to become a proud part of my life.  

You’ve heard enough about me now, and if you take anything from what I’ve said so far it is that I never gave up on myself – you can’t give up on yourself.  If you’re down, get yourself up.  If you’re walking through hell --- just keep going, just keep moving.  

So let me finish, by telling you a little about veterans as a group.   As was once written by someone much wiser than myself, a vet named Dan Mouser, who in 1996 answered a college student's question, "What is a Vietnam Veteran?" with some of these words:  (I've elaborated, edited and added, but the idea came from him.)   

Veterans are men and women.  At some point in our lives we all signed a contract to serve our country and protect its people.  

We are dead or alive, whole or maimed, sane or haunted.  

We grew from our experiences - or we were destroyed by them - or we struggle to find some place in between.  We lived through hell or we had a pleasant, if scary, adventure.  We were Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, Red Cross, and civilians of all sorts.  

Some of us enlisted to fight for God and Country, and some were drafted.   Some were gung-ho to go, and some went kicking and screaming.

Veterans of all wars lived a tad bit -- or a whole lot -- closer to death than most people want to think about.  

Some combat veterans never saw the enemy nor recognized him or her.   We heard gunfire and mortar fire but rarely looked into enemy eyes.   Those who did, like folks who encounter close combat anywhere and anytime, are often haunted for life by those eyes, the sounds, the sights, those indescribable fears that ran between ourselves and our enemies, and the very strong likelihood of death for one of us.  

It’s not like in the movies, it’s not a video game, it’s real, and it’s not something we want for anyone.   

Some veterans get hard, calloused, tougher.

“All in a days' work.” 

"It is what it is."

“It don’t mean nuthin’.”   

“Life's a bitch and then you die.”   

But most of us remember and we get twitchy, worried, sad, moody, edgy, angry,…. pick one or all, sometimes or all the time…. Forever.  Forever.  

Veterans are those crazies dressed in camo, wide-eyed, wary, homeless and drunk.  

We are also Brooks Brothers or Brioni suit wearers, doing deals and appearing to live well.     

We are housewives, grandmothers, and even church deacons.  We are college professors or high school teachers engaged in the rational pursuit of truth about the history or politics or culture of the experience of life.  

And we are sleepless.   Oh my God, we are so often sleepless.

We pushed paper; we pushed shovels, we pushed gurney’s, we pushed each other.  We drove jeeps, operated bulldozers, built bridges; we humped machine guns through dense brush, deep paddy and thorn scrub.  We lived on buffalo milk, fish heads and rice.   Or C-rations or MREs.   Or steaks and Budweiser.   We did our time in high mountains drenched by endless monsoon rains or on the dusty dry plains or on muddy rivers or at the most beautiful beaches in the world. 

We wore berets, bandanas, boonie hats, and steel pots. Flak jackets, canvas, rash and rot. 

We ate chloroquine and got malaria anyway.   We got shots constantly… but then, and today, have diseases nobody can diagnose.  We blame Uncle Sam or Uncle Ho and their minions and secretaries and apologists for every wart or cough or tick of an eye we have.      Fifty years later, we wonder if Agent Orange got us.   Fifty years later we wonder if the water of Camp Lejeune got us.  

We spent our nights sweating on cots or shivering in foxholes filled with waist high water or lying still on cold, wet ground, our eyes imagining Charlie behind every bamboo blade.  Or we slept in hotel beds in Saigon - or barracks in Thailand - or in cramped berths on ships at sea.

We feared we would die or we feared we would kill.   We simply feared, and often we still do.  We are afraid to be afraid.   

We hate fireworks and crowds.  We HATE fireworks and crowds. 

We hate war, yet many of us believe it was the best thing that ever happened to us.  We believe that no nation’s ruler should be allowed to declare war unless he or she has been in one or had a child in one.  Wars are very personal undertakings too often created by people who don’t realize firsthand the impact.  

Mostly -- and I believe this with all my heart -- mostly, Vietnam veterans wish we had not been so alone.  Some of us went with units; but many, probably most of us, were civilians one day, pulled out of "the world", shaved, barked at, insulted, humiliated, de-egoized and then rebuilt and taught to kill, to fix radios, to drive trucks.   We went, put in our time, and were equally ungraciously plucked out of the morass and placed back in the real world.   But now we smoked dope, shot skag, or drank heavily.  Our families, our wives or husbands seemed distant and strange.  Our friends wanted to know if we shot anybody.  Life was not the same.  

And life went on, it had been going on, as if we hadn't been there, as if Vietnam was a topic of political conversation or college protest or news copy, not a matter of life and death for tens of thousands of us.

Veterans are people just like everyone else. We served our country, proudly or reluctantly or ambivalently.  What makes us different -- what makes us different -- is something we understand, but we are afraid nobody else will.  But we appreciate you asking, even if we can’t answer. 

Veterans are white, black, beige, and shades of gray; but in comparison with our numbers in the "real world", we were more likely black.   Our ancestors came from Africa, from Europe, and China. Or they crossed the Bering Sea Land Bridge in the last Ice Age and formed the nations of American Indians, built pyramids in Mexico, or farmed acres of corn on the banks of Chesapeake Bay.   We have names like Washington, Jones, Rodriguez. Dorsey, Luna, Stoddard, and Marcotte, and Stein and Romano and Kowalski.   We are Americans, Australians, Canadians, French German, British and Koreans; most Vietnam veterans are Vietnamese.

We were farmers, students, mechanics, steelworkers, nurses, and priests when the call came that changed us all forever. We had dreams and plans, and they all had to change...or wait.  We were daughters and sons, lovers and poets, beatniks and philosophers, convicts and lawyers. We were rich and poor, but mostly poor.  We were educated or not, mostly not.  We grew up in slums, in shacks, in duplexes, and bungalows and houseboats and nice houses and ranches.  

We were cowards and heroes.  Sometimes we were cowards one moment and heroes the next.  But we’d never claim the title “hero” and we are more than skeptical of anyone who does.

We came home and marched in protest marches, sucked in tear gas, and shrieked our anger and horror for all to hear.   Or we sat alone in small rooms, in VA hospital wards, in places where only the crazy ever go.  

We are Republicans, Democrats, Socialists and Confucians and Buddhists and Atheists -- though as usually is the case, even the atheists among us sometimes prayed to get out of there alive.

We are hungry, and we are sated, we are full of life or we are clinging to death.  We are injured, and we are healing, we are despairing and we are hopeful, we loved and we lost.  We got too old too quickly, but some of us have never grown up.  

Some of us want, desperately, to go back to heal wounds, revisit the sites of our horror.   Or we want to never see that place again, to bury it, its memories, its meaning.   

We want to forget, and we wish we could remember.

Despite our differences, all of us have so much in common.  There are few of us who don't know how to cry, though we often do it alone when nobody will ask us "what's wrong?"   We're afraid we might have to answer.

If you want to know what a Vietnam veteran is, go to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC, or a travelling wall, on Veterans Day.  There will be hundreds there during the day.   But if you want to see the unseen among you, go in the middle of the night around 2 – 4 a.m.  That’s where you’ll see many of us.   Watch them.   Listen to them.  We'll be there, in Vietnam again.   

Don’t be afraid to talk to veterans or those old guys in the military hats.   Don’t be afraid to just say "hello" or "thank you" or "welcome home".   Even the ones who tell you they don’t need to hear it, do appreciate your effort more than you may know or they will ever admit.   

I am a Marine Corps Vietnam Combat Veteran, and after 50 years I think I am beginning to understand what that means.  

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