who pointed to chew marks on my restraints and asked, “What’s this?”
I said, “There’s a fucking rat. He comes in every night and chews and chews.”
The doctor cracked up. He became the first human I formed a relationship with after I came back. He untied me. He gave me his arm and helped me walk to a toilet, so I could pee standing up for once.
Other doctors came. They gave me the psychological test where you pretend to be driving a car and you have to choose between running over a woman or a dog. They asked, “What would you do?”
“I’d run the bitch over. It’s her fault for being in the road,” I said. “The dog don’t know any better. He’s innocent.”
When they gave me crayons and asked me to draw something pleasant, I drew the woods, with stick-figure people in pajamas. I said, “This is my pleasant thing.”
It was obvious I was thinking of gooks in the woods, and I wanted to kill the gooks in the woods. They sent in a priest. I had no strong feelings about priests. I’d never interacted with one. He said, “None of your thoughts are in the right place.”
“Are they going to keep me locked up here forever?”
The priest said something very strange to me: “Your body is overrun with evil.”
I found this very unhelpful. “Why don’t you put your ass where I was, and then tell me what’s in my body? You fucking moron.”
“I just want to help you,” he said. “I apologize.”
The fact that this man apologized got my attention. The next day he returned and talked to me, without any mumbo jumbo. He said, “The powers that be are scared to let you go. They think you have not been rehabilitated to go among the general population. I want to help you get out.”
This priest came every day. We’d shoot the shit, but without any God crap. The man did help. I’m not saying he showed me the light, because I certainly didn’t go to church afterward. But he explained to me I needed to change my thinking when I answered the doctors’ tests.
A day came when the doctors gave me a new round of tests. Again, they asked me to draw something pleasant. I gave them a sunset. When they asked about my views on life, I became a flower child. I said, “I realize how important peace is. War is really bad.”
Their whole attitude changed. It’s funny, because these were army doctors. The army recruited me in jail after I was charged with attempted homicide. They trained me in better ways to murder and let me loose in the woods for a killing spree. They trained me to fly in the air so I could kill people that were hard to reach, and touse Chinese guns so nobody could finger America for the murders. But to go home I had to pretend I liked sunsets and rainbows.
Once I understood the game, I played it. The doctors knew I’d killed a bunch of people, but they didn’t know my actual personality. If they did, they never would’ve let me out of the room.
I left the army in late 1968. My army service cleaned my record. * I wasn’t a criminal no more. I was twenty years old and free. My mind wasn’t completely proper, but I was better off than most guys returning from Vietnam. I had a future. I knew I wasn’t going to be flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
* In response to my Freedom of Information Act request for Jon’s military records, the National Archives and Records Administration replied that its technicians were unable to locate his records. I interviewed one person by phone, identified in the book as Steve Corker, who claimed to be the man who served with Jon in Vietnam, and I found records of the soldier identified in the book as George, who died from friendly fire as Jon described. I have viewed Jon’s medical records, and he does have a metal plate in his head. I have viewed records indicating that one of his associates was arrested in connection with the kidnapping and attempted murder case that Jon claims resulted in his entering the army. Jon’s sister, Judy, recalls his entering
I said, “There’s a fucking rat. He comes in every night and chews and chews.”
The doctor cracked up. He became the first human I formed a relationship with after I came back. He untied me. He gave me his arm and helped me walk to a toilet, so I could pee standing up for once.
Other doctors came. They gave me the psychological test where you pretend to be driving a car and you have to choose between running over a woman or a dog. They asked, “What would you do?”
“I’d run the bitch over. It’s her fault for being in the road,” I said. “The dog don’t know any better. He’s innocent.”
When they gave me crayons and asked me to draw something pleasant, I drew the woods, with stick-figure people in pajamas. I said, “This is my pleasant thing.”
It was obvious I was thinking of gooks in the woods, and I wanted to kill the gooks in the woods. They sent in a priest. I had no strong feelings about priests. I’d never interacted with one. He said, “None of your thoughts are in the right place.”
“Are they going to keep me locked up here forever?”
The priest said something very strange to me: “Your body is overrun with evil.”
I found this very unhelpful. “Why don’t you put your ass where I was, and then tell me what’s in my body? You fucking moron.”
“I just want to help you,” he said. “I apologize.”
The fact that this man apologized got my attention. The next day he returned and talked to me, without any mumbo jumbo. He said, “The powers that be are scared to let you go. They think you have not been rehabilitated to go among the general population. I want to help you get out.”
This priest came every day. We’d shoot the shit, but without any God crap. The man did help. I’m not saying he showed me the light, because I certainly didn’t go to church afterward. But he explained to me I needed to change my thinking when I answered the doctors’ tests.
A day came when the doctors gave me a new round of tests. Again, they asked me to draw something pleasant. I gave them a sunset. When they asked about my views on life, I became a flower child. I said, “I realize how important peace is. War is really bad.”
Their whole attitude changed. It’s funny, because these were army doctors. The army recruited me in jail after I was charged with attempted homicide. They trained me in better ways to murder and let me loose in the woods for a killing spree. They trained me to fly in the air so I could kill people that were hard to reach, and touse Chinese guns so nobody could finger America for the murders. But to go home I had to pretend I liked sunsets and rainbows.
Once I understood the game, I played it. The doctors knew I’d killed a bunch of people, but they didn’t know my actual personality. If they did, they never would’ve let me out of the room.
I left the army in late 1968. My army service cleaned my record. * I wasn’t a criminal no more. I was twenty years old and free. My mind wasn’t completely proper, but I was better off than most guys returning from Vietnam. I had a future. I knew I wasn’t going to be flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
* In response to my Freedom of Information Act request for Jon’s military records, the National Archives and Records Administration replied that its technicians were unable to locate his records. I interviewed one person by phone, identified in the book as Steve Corker, who claimed to be the man who served with Jon in Vietnam, and I found records of the soldier identified in the book as George, who died from friendly fire as Jon described. I have viewed Jon’s medical records, and he does have a metal plate in his head. I have viewed records indicating that one of his associates was arrested in connection with the kidnapping and attempted murder case that Jon claims resulted in his entering the army. Jon’s sister, Judy, recalls his entering
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