prisoner and told him, “If you cut that woman, I will kill you.” You don’t put a gun to a comrade’s head. Not ever. But especially not in a war zone, surrounded by the enemy. His fellow soldiers thought the woman knew something important. They had no proof, but they believed torturing her for information might save lives. Bill believed they were losing, day by day, the values they were fighting for, and he refused to blur the line between right and wrong.
“It was easy to cross a line out there,” Bill told me. “Good people lost their way.” What had Bill lost? I think he lost his faith not just in the war, but in life. He didn’t know what it meant anymore. He couldn’t tell the good from the bad. He didn’t want that to happen to any other good young men. He didn’t want any more parents to send their boys to Vietnam.
But beyond a few speeches, what could he really do? He drifted. He drank. He’d get a job, work it for a while, and then one morning he’d light out, hitching mostly, not sure where he was going or why. Often, he didn’t even know he was leaving until he was standing on the corner with his thumb in the air. He made friends, but they didn’t last long. There were always people moving into and out of his life, mostly with bottles in their hands. Sometimes he moved because he didn’t like his new friends; sometimes he moved because he liked them too much. He didn’t want to get close to anyone. One summer he found himself in Alaska, so he bought a Harley-Davidson and rode it back to the Lower 48. That was the stupidest thing he ever did, he said, because it was twelve hundred miles of potholed, washboard, washout dirt roads, and his eyes didn’t stop bouncing for a month.
But what difference did it all make? Bill Bezanson was twenty-five years old and he was absolutely convinced that he wouldn’t live to see thirty. That feeling had started in the war. He had carried it home along with his scars and his medals, but he didn’t realize that at the time. It just became normal to feel doomed. A lot of young men came home that way. Set adrift from the normal world, they found each other. It was all they talked about back then, that they were living on borrowed time.
But Bill didn’t die. He just kept going through the motions, day after day, until he found himself in his thirties, with the 1970s winding down, and at almost the same place he’d started twelve years before. The war was over and his anger had cooled, or at least retreated somewhere else to hide. He had narrowed his travels mostly to the sprawling suburbs east of Los Angeles, but he was still working odd jobs, still leaving behind his old life every few months, still hitting the bottle or the road whenever the fear closed in. He’d somehow managed a degree in forestry from Chaffey College in Alta Loma, but beyond that, he was free: no friends, no possessions, no place to be. By June 1979, he was living in yet another Los Angeles suburb, working for a small company that manufactured travel trailers and truck beds and whose name he can’t even begin to recall. He was waiting at a stoplight on a nameless road on the edge of downtown San Bernardino, watching the early morning light burn off the haze of another California morning, when, out of nowhere, change came crashing into his life.
It hit like a concussion grenade, literally smashing down above his head. He heard the strike, then the echo, and instinctively he ducked. He waited, but the world around him was silent. He looked out over the dashboard. There were buildings along both sides of the street, but it was 5:30 in the morning and nothing moved. The alleys were quiet, the windows in the storefronts black. There wasn’t another car on the road. So Bill cracked his door and squeezed out to examine the top of his car. He figured teenagers had thrown something at him. Sure enough, there was a dent, with a black lump in the center. There were impact lines in the metal
“It was easy to cross a line out there,” Bill told me. “Good people lost their way.” What had Bill lost? I think he lost his faith not just in the war, but in life. He didn’t know what it meant anymore. He couldn’t tell the good from the bad. He didn’t want that to happen to any other good young men. He didn’t want any more parents to send their boys to Vietnam.
But beyond a few speeches, what could he really do? He drifted. He drank. He’d get a job, work it for a while, and then one morning he’d light out, hitching mostly, not sure where he was going or why. Often, he didn’t even know he was leaving until he was standing on the corner with his thumb in the air. He made friends, but they didn’t last long. There were always people moving into and out of his life, mostly with bottles in their hands. Sometimes he moved because he didn’t like his new friends; sometimes he moved because he liked them too much. He didn’t want to get close to anyone. One summer he found himself in Alaska, so he bought a Harley-Davidson and rode it back to the Lower 48. That was the stupidest thing he ever did, he said, because it was twelve hundred miles of potholed, washboard, washout dirt roads, and his eyes didn’t stop bouncing for a month.
But what difference did it all make? Bill Bezanson was twenty-five years old and he was absolutely convinced that he wouldn’t live to see thirty. That feeling had started in the war. He had carried it home along with his scars and his medals, but he didn’t realize that at the time. It just became normal to feel doomed. A lot of young men came home that way. Set adrift from the normal world, they found each other. It was all they talked about back then, that they were living on borrowed time.
But Bill didn’t die. He just kept going through the motions, day after day, until he found himself in his thirties, with the 1970s winding down, and at almost the same place he’d started twelve years before. The war was over and his anger had cooled, or at least retreated somewhere else to hide. He had narrowed his travels mostly to the sprawling suburbs east of Los Angeles, but he was still working odd jobs, still leaving behind his old life every few months, still hitting the bottle or the road whenever the fear closed in. He’d somehow managed a degree in forestry from Chaffey College in Alta Loma, but beyond that, he was free: no friends, no possessions, no place to be. By June 1979, he was living in yet another Los Angeles suburb, working for a small company that manufactured travel trailers and truck beds and whose name he can’t even begin to recall. He was waiting at a stoplight on a nameless road on the edge of downtown San Bernardino, watching the early morning light burn off the haze of another California morning, when, out of nowhere, change came crashing into his life.
It hit like a concussion grenade, literally smashing down above his head. He heard the strike, then the echo, and instinctively he ducked. He waited, but the world around him was silent. He looked out over the dashboard. There were buildings along both sides of the street, but it was 5:30 in the morning and nothing moved. The alleys were quiet, the windows in the storefronts black. There wasn’t another car on the road. So Bill cracked his door and squeezed out to examine the top of his car. He figured teenagers had thrown something at him. Sure enough, there was a dent, with a black lump in the center. There were impact lines in the metal
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