Remember These Things: Neighborhood Connections

By Xlibris US

Three middle-aged men who grew up in various states along the Northeast corridor migrated to the Washington D.C. area and by co-incidence moved into the same newly built neighborhood situated inside the Capital Beltway. They become friends practically immediately since they were of the same age group as were the ages of their wives and children.
What cements their acquaintance and friendship is when they became aware they were all Vietnam veterans serving in different years and in divergent capacities, one an officer in the Army, the other an enlisted man in the same Army unit with the third serving as an enlisted Marine.
They socialize often with their families and among themselves through children's sports events. Their youngsters attend the same elementary school which enhances their social and neighborhood connections. And there are many neighborhood gatherings that all neighbors were welcome to attend.
What breaks this placid neighborhood scene are the recent activities of a robber/ opportunist rapist who perplexes the local police departments from advancing any type of lead. The vets through their walks and wanderings with their dogs in Rock Creek Park locate a possible hideout. They share their thoughts and memories of wartime experiences together and attempt to solve the issue without the use of lethal weapons.
The story is about their quest for justice and their intimate friendship that proves that not all Vietnam vets turned to drugs and alcohol and became homeless vagabonds and isolated forest dwellers. Many of them like these three guys who still carried their wartime memories succeeded in life and became responsible professionals and caring citizens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499049763

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by George M. Watson, Jr.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4990-4977-0

                eBook           978-1-4990-4976-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/16/2014

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Meeting Up

Chapter 2 The Trio’s Chosen Environs

Chapter 3 The Confluence of some Early Plans and Thoughts

Chapter 4 Some Flashbacks

Chapter 5 A Memorable Scene and a Professional Schemer

Chapter 6 The Marriage Contract

Chapter 7 Another Hit and Another Loss

Chapter 8 Dogs’ World

Chapter 9 Fall

Chapter 10 Christmas Season

Chapter 11 Issues other than Sports

Chapter 12 Other Connections

Chapter 13 Leo’s Pickup

Chapter 14 Between Seasons

Chapter 15 Catching the Culprit or a Walk in the Woods

Chapter 16 The Strategy of Attack

Chapter 17 Epilogue

The Major Players

Acknowledgements

I began writing this book in August 2012, following my retirement from a forty-year career as an Air Force historian. David Goroff, my neighbor and a retired full partner in a private practice law firm in Washington, D.C. offered his editorial skills early in the process and I accepted. He provided some very significant thoughts and detailed suggestions.

Another neighbor Mr. Robert English, who retired from a thirty-plus-year career with the Environmental Protection Agency perused an early draft. He often complained that fiction writers, when writing about a real neighborhood, often got street names wrong. All they had to do to correct this was walk the area or purchase a street map. Since he was very familiar with the area I was writing about, I asked him to read the piece. He obliged me and soon confirmed that I had passed the road test. I also benefited from additional catches he observed and passed along.

Col (Dr.) Elliott Converse (USAF, Ret.) a friend, an historian, author, excellent copy editor and former colleague read the manuscript and suggested dividing the longest chapter into two, a sensible action that I made. I incorporated most of his editorial finds into the text. He generously agreed to read a second draft and his comments definitely provided a cleaner version.

My brother-in-law and Vietnam veteran Charles Chuck Sanders enjoyed his initial read and genuinely believed that even non-veterans would enjoy it.

Dr. Robert Duffner, also a Vietnam veteran where he served as platoon officer, and fellow Air Force historian and important Air Force scientific author read an initial version and encouraged me to move ahead with it.

Very early in the planning for this book, my vision for a cover included some type of forested scene since much of the action takes place in and around heavily treed Rock Creek Park in Washington D.C. and Maryland. I was rewarded with a superb photograph. Lon Anderson, a friend whom I have known for over ten years, graciously allowed me to use his prize winning photo of an early dawn scene of Dolly Sods, West Virginia, for the cover of the book. Lon has served for many years as spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic and also has been a professional newspaper photographer and owner-operator of a photo studio and camera store in Olney, Maryland.

And as usual I am grateful to my long-time office mate and friend Dr. Richard I. Wolf who presently heads the Air Force Historical Studies Office in Washington, D.C. He helped get it ready to print.

To the above, and any others I might have overlooked, I appreciate their advice and encouragement.

The Cover Photo that was taken at Dolly Sods, West Virginia captures a cloudy sunrise across the mountain tops in late September 2012. The image won top honors in the annual photo competition at the National Press Club that December. The photo remains the property of Lon Anderson and may not be used or duplicated without his permission.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to all Vietnam Veterans and to the conscientious and concerned citizens who comprise the neighborhoods that provide the

framework for the towns and cities of the USA.

1

Meeting Up

The crickets chirped their vibrant and piercing tune accompanied by the pounding base beat thumps of many tree frogs that at times seemed to create a blended yet incessant and jazzy blare. The three men easily attributed an occasional rustling in the brush to a busy squirrel, fox, raccoon or deer churning the earth for grubs and acorns or just bedding down for the night. These were sounds that captured the trio‘s speculative imagination every summer from the vantage point of their decks overlooking the spacious, heavily treed and beautiful Rock Creek Park. Or maybe the three conjectured the sounds today were from the culprit who had been terrorizing the neighborhoods, inside the Capital Beltway for the past three months. The three men contemplated how they would outwit and perhaps even locate and capture the perpetrator. Yet while they conjectured that they would have to play a waiting game the threesome hoped that the perpetrator would make a false move or even a fatal mistake.

It was early September 2003, the third year of the new millennium or fourth if one counted 2000 as the first year. The Washington D.C. metropolitan area already had endured an extraordinary number of alarming crises for a fledgling millennium. A government intern, Chandra Levy, disappeared in the spring of 2001. Her body was not discovered until a year later and the search and the revelation of her affair with a five-term congressman from California and his reelection loss became national news. But following the 9/11/2001 Taliban terrorist attacks against the New York Trade Center Towers the Levy case disappeared in the back pages. The Trade Center tragedy claimed 2752 souls including the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11 (North Trade Center Tower) and United Airlines Flight 175 (South Trade Center Tower). American Airlines Flight 77 that the terrorist crashed into the Pentagon ended the lives of 58 passengers, four flight attendants, two pilots and 125 people who worked in the Pentagon building. The final terrorist attack occurred when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania killing all passengers and crew. The terrorists perished along with the innocent in all four incidents.

Barely a year later, the news turned to the elusive sniper who terrorized the general populace of the Washington D.C. suburbs during October 2002, killing ten and critically injuring three others. If that were not enough excitement, the panicky populace of nation’s capital region had to endure further alarms. Indeed, on March 20, 2003, the U.S. along with its coalition allies invaded Iraq following months of agonizing over the decision to attack. There were many reasons spouted for the allied assault not the least was the overthrow of the tyrannical Saddam Husain regime because of his irresponsible treatment of United Nations sanctions and his purported production of and hiding of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The controversial decision for war was painstakingly accomplished by the George W. Bush administration whose leader soon proclaimed victory in a war that time would prove to be long from finished.

The rapist/robber had been active since early July 2003 causing news commentators, rumor mongers and purveyors of sometime truths to consider that the miscreant might be a jobless student on summer leave requiring funds and desiring some spontaneous sexual gratification from a target of opportunity. That theory ran afoul when the school year commenced and the robberies continued although the rapes declined. Well perhaps then, as some wags opined, the rise in tuition and fees had necessitated an extension of the criminal activity. Then others asked were the rapist and the robber one and the same? Was money the object and the rapes a matter of convenience? Was there more than one rapist or robber? No one really knew nor was there a description other than an estimated height of around six feet and weight about 180 pounds. And the assumption was that the rapist was presumably a white male as most of the violated women recalled.

The three neighbors had gathered on one of their decks that stood above the piercing darkness of the expansive Rock Creek Park. It was almost as if they were planted in a tree house since their land sloped down toward the forested Park and thus the furthest point of the deck was about fifteen feet above the ground shrouded by the adjacent trees. The main portion of the Park within the District of Columbia (D.C.) claimed more than 1,700 hundred wooded and rocky acres that penetrated the center of the district with the creek meandering through its interior. If the many finger parks like Meridian Hill and the Palisades were included the total acreage would then exceed 2,800. Then, if the thousands of acres that formed a line of parks that flowed from Rock Creek through Montgomery County, Maryland, that provided a westward stream of greenery all the way to the forested hills and mountains of the Appalachians were included, a huge access trail to wilderness country could be claimed. So, just as the many deer and other wildlife could find foraging access to this area why not as the three men reasoned couldn’t well-informed Homo Sapiens secret themselves within the area? As the three men sucked down their wine or beer they reflected on the nature of the culprit and his access and escape routes to and from the park.

It was Craig Dalton who first suggested that the perpetrator could be exploiting an innate knowledge of the Park since many of the thefts occurred at homes that were fairly close to there, at least in northwest D.C. and southeast Montgomery County. If one knew the perimeters and parameters of the Park as well as the many short cuts and trails he would definitely have a home court advantage, Craig surmised.

Hell said Emmett Ferris "he could even have a weapons stash and other night vision equipment hidden out there in Park.

Look how long the search took to find the major pieces of Chandra Levy’s body, Emmett added.

Yeah hundreds of police and park officers marched through the park in close formation for several weeks and found nothing said Frank Nance. It was a guy searching for rare turtles that happened to chance on her remains which were located in an area that had been searched repeatedly and trampled on by the park officers, and others, Frank added.

Hey, do you think this guy gets special acknowledgments from turtle counting groups across the country? Emmett asked. Yeah yeah, he is known as ‘Turtle Dundee’ among his cronies Craig cracked as he sipped his beer.

Spitting out his beer as he laughed, Emmett quipped, would that title be awarded by hard shell aficionados or the soft shell contingent of the tortoise world court?

No shit head, said Frank blurted It’s the annual award of the Testudo Admiration Society of America for the most perfected performance accomplished by a slow mover— which would let you out, since I have seen you play softball, and you are slower than a terrapin. When you run you look like you retract into a shell and stay there. No better still, I think your best natural position for the game of softball is a base, and second base is just too far for you to go between games, never mind innings.

Oh shit Emmett added here is the pompous one showing off his ‘edge-a-mucation’ again. Everyone knows that testudo was the mobile siege shelter used by the Roman legions when they moved their shields together to form a sheltered roof. And that somewhere along the way the Romans and their enemies applied the term turtle to this operational maneuver.

Oh wow, now I am really enlightened, Craig chimed in.

The three men had known each other for more the 15 years. And over that period they steadily improved their abilities at pulling each other’s chains, or as Frank called the process busting each other’s humps. All had moved to the D.C. area from Northeastern cities for schooling and most importantly, employment. They had children about the same age and the usual kids’ activities helped cement their relationships. They belonged to the same neighborhood swimming pool and their kids swam on the same team. The kids also participated in soccer, basketball and of course Little League baseball, although not all on the same teams. And besides their fathers, the children’s moms also became socially connected and, better still, they all got along. So it was a natural process of life that brought these three men together. They learned that there is comfort in numbers especially when dealing with similar issues and performing the toughest jobs of all—raising kids and getting along with wives.

All three of these upper middle-aged and middle-class men had received excellent educations. Craig Dolan was a lawyer whose roots were from the Irish neighborhood of Southie, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was brought up in a large Catholic working-class family. He knew how to fight and often did to preserve his dignity and sense of self. He was never a bully and always went out of his way to confront that kind.

Emmett Ferris grew up in a suburb of New York City of middle class family status and fallen away Catholic heritage. His family had fewer kids that included Emmett’s younger sister. He was a biochemist.

Frank Nance another East Coaster grew up in Maine’s largest City of Portland. He came from a lower middle-class background and from a large eight kid Catholic family whose ancestral ardency toward that religion had produced several nuns and a priest who gathered with a bevy of priests and monsignors who were family friends. Frank had opted for an academic career but because of the realities of the university job market, he became an historian for the U. S. Government, specifically the Department of Defense.

The real glue that knotted the kinship of these three men was their shared awareness that had all experienced the Vietnam War as soldiers. Even though they had participated in that conflict in various capacities, and at different times, that common experience had built a bond known only to veterans. Over the years, they would gather as the situation permitted and discuss their memories of that time, sometimes embellishing their experiences not for the sake of enhancing ‘stolen valor‘ but more to determine each other’s reaction. Or in reality ‘pull each other’s chains.’

In South Boston where Craig grew up, a nearly 80% of the residents were of Irish descent and families knew families and or relatives who knew families for several generations although the number of initial immigrants had given way to younger generations who carried the flag of the Irish connection. They knew they were Irish and were proud of it. Over a century many Irish immigrants had risen in social status from the early exclusion lists tainted with the tableau of Irish need not apply to become firemen, policemen longshoremen. The Catholic Church served them as a center of restraint, reason and assistance, while the local pubs served up a more fluid form of sustenance together with a similar sense of belonging, and comfort zone of identity and community. The following generations of Irish would produce teachers, lawyers and doctors while all generations of these Irish had produced union leaders, politicians and gangsters both insignificant and prominent. Craig was the oldest of five children that included a brother and three sisters. Craig was hauled home more times than he could remember from some bloody fight but believed that Southie was a congenial place to live—people knew each other’s roots, station, hopes, weaknesses and aspirations. Craig mentioned that a guy might take advantage of you one day, but the next day he’s by your side in another brawl or at work.

Emmett Ferris hailed from the swank county of Westchester, New York, living in a smallish town called Croton on the Hudson which he considered a suburb of New York City. His family was not of the pleasure boat or yachting crowd, yet they were of comfortable means, his father was employed in a middle management position with the New York Central Railroad. While Croton wasn’t The Big Apple, it was only a short train ride from Manhattan, close enough for Emmett to consider himself a city boy. As Frank Nance was fond of saying you’re a half-assed country river boy who believes he is from the big city.

Of course Frank would consider his own origins somewhat unique since he came from his state’s largest city that was often referred to as the Forest City in a state that was listed as 92% wooded. Or as Emmett would often add hey do you have moose antlers growing out of your back or is that a pine tree? Oh no, excuse me that’s your ugly neck. Emmett never liked Maine ever since his parents used to drag him up to Prout’s Neck Beach in the southern part of the state every summer for two or three weeks. All he could remember besides the dick-chilling cold water with the accompanying shrinkage was that it usually rained for over half the time. He was just miserable and would rather have been back at Croton on the Hudson hanging with his school buds or listening to the play-by-play of his beloved Yankees whose games were never allowed to grace the radio waves north of Mystic Connecticut unless of course the Yanks were playing God’s team, the Boston Red Sox.

Frank in his defensive mode would spout out Well didn’t your folks ever take you to Old Orchard Beach, the amusement park a few miles south from Prout’s Neck? Cripes if you didn’t like that scene as a kid then besides being a snot from New York you are a real asshole if not an outright fun phobic.

This less than dynamic trio could blow smoke up each others’ butts for hours about their backgrounds, wives and kids while pontificating about politics, schools and their neighborhood. They never, of course, settled anything conclusively. And for the most part, no one ever threw a fist in anger over any given debate. They just felt comfortable being around each other.

2

The Trio’s Chosen Environs

In early