Aboard the USS Upshur, en route to Vietnam with 4,000 of my closest Army pals. City boys. Country boys. From all over the nation – California, Nebraska, Kansas, Alabama, New York. Most fresh out of high school, like me. Class of ’65, hoo-rah. Everybody antsy, sweltering in the heat, crammed below-decks playing cards, writing letters, trading paperbacks, listening to Armed Forces radio.
We shipped out from Oakland, California. It took a month to cross the Pacific. To kill time and tension, I taught Jon Sugden, my buddy from Fort Gordon, how to play bass on a pair of guitars we borrowed from the ship's chaplain, a former musician. Sug's not in this photo, but you'll see him in some others.