People you meet along the way...
Ronnie was about six foot tall and nearly 220 lbs. He was surfer good looking, casual, loose, and as free a spirit as I ever met. He came to Huachuca like the rest of us. If you got back from Nam with less than six months left, they discharged you and sent you home...if you had more than six months to go, they sent you somewhere to finish up. Most of the posts in the States were overflowing with shorttimers that no one knew what to do with. I was "lucky"...I got sent to a place where there actually was a job to do. They had just opened a truckdriver school in southern Arizona and needed instructors. I was needed...so was Ronnie. Except that most of us came back as E4's or E5's...Ronnie was a slick-sleeve, a buck private.
See, Ronnie was a serious student of martial arts...karate in particular...and when his R&R to Japan was turned down, he hopped a series of flights and wound up in Japan anyway. He studied with some really good Japanese teachers for a month or two, then went back and turned himself in. After three months in LBJ (Long Binh Jail), he finished his tour in the green place and ended up in Huachuca. Where he heard some really good teachers from Okinawa were going to be in San Francisco and he asked for a leave to go...was turned down...went anyway...came back a few weeks later...and wound up in jail again.
My favorite Ronnie story is one I had a hand in. Friday night on the way to Tucson (about a seventy mile drive) to see my sweetie, I saw Ronnie thumbing a ride near the gate. I stopped and picked him up and off we went. He wanted to get to Tucson, too. After some discussion, I learned that he had a grand total of fifteen cents to his name. He had a half pack of cigarettes, and no luggage. I wasn't too well off myself but felt I had to make some kind of offer but he cut me off with his big grin and said all he needed was to be dropped off at the Tidelands Motel and he would be okay. He told me he had been very successful there in the past. He had his swimsuit on under his pants, he planned on going straight to the pool area of the motel, drop his pants and t-shirt and expose that beautiful physique and he would be fine. I only half heartedly laughed because Ronnie WAS cut like some kind of statue. So I dropped him in front of the motel and waved goodbye...headed for the UofA dorm and found my girl and didn't think about Ronnie the rest of the weekend.
Sunday night we sat around the steps of the barracks conducting an after action review...comparing tactics and such... a very expensive roar preceded the litle foreign sports car into the company street...driven by a movie star quality blonde with Ronnie smiling in the passenger seat. After a Hollywood quality good bye kiss, Ronnie got out, was handed a cartoon of smokes, a gallon of Red Mountain Wine...given another serious kiss...then the little car spun around and roared out into the night. We sat amazed...we knew Ronnie was good...but this was special. As he passed me going up the stairs into the barracks, he opened his hand to show me a nickel and a dime.