Sunny: The Hippie Chick

By Dawn Natelle

Reviewed and Edited by Eric

Chapter 16 – If you are going to San Francisco, wear some flowers in your hair

New Years was not a joyous time for us in the house. The Human Be-In was held early in the month, but no one from the house attended. Ben was pensive, trying to decide what to do about his draft notice. Some of our more radical friends suggested he burn his draft letter at one of the demonstrations that were popping up in the area. Another group suggested he flee to Canada. Mary actually told him that if he did that, she would go with him, getting a job as a waitress if necessary. Ben was strongly opposed to that. She was a lawyer and could only practice in California. He would not see her cheapen herself and take a lesser job. In the end he decided that he would report on the requested date.

He learned that army pay started at $78 a month, and with free room and board he could save all of it. He initially said he would send $39 a month to Mary and the same to his mother. Mary noted that she would not need a share of the money. All she wanted was letters while he was away. Ben then suggested he would send all the money to his mother, who was struggling to raise his eight brothers and sisters. Sunny suggested that he should only send her $60 a month, which would cover her rent, and keep the other $18 for incidentals, like buying birthday presents for his siblings.

On the 24th Ben headed to the induction center to take his physical. None of us doubted that he would pass: Ben was just too fit not to. Then it was off to Fort Ord, taking an Army bus from the induction center in the city. His first letters arrived a few days later. He told us that mail to Mary would be private, but letters to Sunny and/or I were more public and could be shared. He would also write his mother regularly. Sunny went to Oakland once a week to share the letters with his family, and to comfort his mother.

The first letter Sonny got described the induction process: getting a uniform too small for his chest, having his head shaved in less than a minute, and getting put into a platoon of 30 men, sharing a barracks.

It was the next letter where we started to see some of Ben’s humor come through. He referred to the 20-mile hike they went on as “a little walk.” It turned out that halfway through the “walk” most of the recruits were totally spent and stretched out for several miles along the trail. Of the 10 men in his squad, only Ben and one other were fit enough to do the march. Ben organized the squad at that point, taking regular rest breaks instead on continuing to walk steadily. By the end of the march Ben and the other man were practically carrying three men back to the base, while the other five were limping badly.

More than 20 other men in the platoon had finished the hike by the time Ben got his three injured recruits to the sick bay, but his squad was the first to get all members to the finish line, thanks to the help and support of the two fit soldiers.

A later letter talked about taking a “walk to a playground”, which turned out to be an obstacle course. Again, Ben seemed to ensure that all the men in his squad got through before he completed it. He also spoke of ‘skeet shooting’ where the smallest man in the squad proved to be a better shot than all the others, including Ben.

Mary didn’t say much about what was in her letters, which bothered me at first because we shared the letters to Sunny completely. Then Sunny explained that Mary’s letters were more likely love letters, meant to be kept private. It finally clicked in my dumb male brain and I no longer asked Mary what Ben was telling her. Mary wrote Ben daily, while Sunny wrote nearly as often and he reported that others in the platoon were jealous about all the mail he got. Apparently, his mother was also writing often.

In late January I got a phone call from Eureka. Mom spoke for a minute, first to me and then to Sunny. Then an excited Melanie got on with me. “Uncle Mitch,” she squealed. “I got an A plus in my science test. There was a big question on mitosis, and I was the only one in the class to get it perfect. And I also did well on my math test a day later. Thanks for your tutoring.”

“I’m sure you earned those marks by working hard. I guess Sunny and I will have to get the bed ready for you for June.”

“I hope so,” the teen replied. “I really want to get down there this summer. All the kids are so jealous. And tell Sunny that my knapsack is the hit of the school.”

Long distance calls are usually shared by many people and finally Norma got on the phone. She said Melanie was not only doing well in school but was also acting much more mature around the house, looking after the smaller kids, and even teaching her younger sister to play the guitar rather than just sitting alone in her room.

Sunny was thrilled with the call, even though it was mostly to me. We got a call from Eureka about once a week or so from that time on, often when Melanie was having trouble with something at school that I had to help her with. It was hard to answer some things on an expensive long-distance call, so often I followed up with a letter mailed out the next day. I learned later that those letters were often shared with her classmates, so I wound up tutoring the entire class.

In March Ben came to visit on a weekend pass from boot camp. Sunny and I didn’t see much of him in his spiffy-clean Army uniform. Most of the time he was with Mary. But we did find out that he was being shipped to Vietnam soon after his leave ended for a one-year tour of duty.

The big news of the trip was that Ben had been made sergeant. His platoon lieutenant was from Georgia, and fairly racist, and wanted another man to be troop sergeant, but the Captain of the company was from Detroit, and awarded Ben the stripes based on the way he had led the troop in the hikes and training events. The lieutenant objected, but was overruled, and was forced to have the first black sergeant in his training platoons.

We got letters in early May. Ben said that Nam was ‘hot and dirty’ and the camp was crowded as it filled with replacement soldiers to get up to a full contingent. He noted that the new soldiers were treated with scorn by the men who had been there for a few months and the mess hall was segregated in practice, if not officially, with all the black soldiers sitting at tables at the back. The only times they had left the camp was for short hikes, with several long-time troops joining his all rookie troop.

In April we learned of his first real experience in Nam. “We went out skeet-shooting yesterday,” he wrote. “This was a bit longer than anything we had done in the past, and we were to patrol 15 miles to the east. At first we were doing okay, making decent time on well-worn paths. Each troop was together, spread out from the others. As the newbies, we were to the rear.”

“Anyway, about 12 miles out I started to get a feeling of something wrong. I had my troop all drop to the ground. Well the lieutenant didn’t like that and worked his way over to where we were. He found where I was laying on the ground, and started giving me hell, accusing me of cowardice. He ordered me to get the troop up. That was when a bullet hit him in the gut, knocking him down. Seconds later all hell broke out, with the other troops all firing wildly in the direction of Charlie. Our medic crawled up and tried to stop the looey’s bleeding. Young Billy was near and I quickly realized that we flanked Charlie, who were focused on the other troops. I told Billy to start picking off the enemy at the rear of their formation, and then I started firing at others near the front.”

“It took several minutes before Charlie realized they were being covered by us on their flank. Eventually they started in on us, but seconds later they started to retreat since we were clobbering them. As they left we could see that there were about 50 escaping and we picked off a few more as they left. The sergeants of the other troops were eager to chase, but I called it off, noting that they would be headed for a stronger position. And since our lieutenant was gut shot, we needed to get him back to the base quickly.”

“I picked the looey up and slung him over my shoulder. I took Billy, the medic and two other brothers and we headed back double time. The others came back at a normal pace, covering our rear. As we ran back Billy told me he was sure he had hit 11 men. I figured that my count was three or four, and the rest of the troop got as many. I don’t think that the other troops would have hit anything, the way they were firing wildly.”

“We trotted into the camp and I went straight to the MASH, only dropping the looey on a table as the doctors and nurses came in. We were a good 20 minutes ahead of the others, who were slowed down by four wounded from the other three troops. As a result, I was called on by the major who wanted a report. I reported that we had come across about 60 VCs and had shot 20 or so, killing most, but probably only wounding a few. The major took notes and said his report to the Colonel would be that we met up with 150 enemy and had killed 45 with no fatalities and only five wounded. It was a blatant lie, but the glare the officer gave me told me in no uncertain terms that his numbers would be official.”

In May we got another call from Melanie. She was still working hard at school and getting great marks. She really was a bright girl when she was motivated. But her friend Lisa was no longer in the picture for the summer. The other two girls who had been planning to run away with Melanie and Lisa had left alone during the Christmas break and got to San Francisco a day later, although one of the guys they had hitched with turned out to be pretty scary. But they blew their money within days and had to call a parent to come and collect them.

Lisa had not worked as hard as Melanie in the term, and was actually in danger of failing the year, let alone meeting her targets to be able to come south with Melanie. Instead she also ran away and tried to hitch to San Francisco. She only made it halfway before her father found her standing on the side of the road trying to get a ride. He took her home and insisted that she would stay at home over the summer babysitting. So Melanie was resigned to come alone. Sunny told her that she would want to be here for June 16, which was the start of the Monterey Pop Festival. Apparently, that would be the last day of exams at school. I insisted that school came first, and if she had an exam that day, she would be picked up that evening and we would drive through the night to get to Monterey for the second day of the festival.

While I was on the phone talking to Melanie, Sunny sat in the background playing the new song by Scott McKenzie: “If you are going to San Francisco, wear some flowers in your hair.” That only served to escalate Melanie’s excitement.