Mr. William J. Bryan III (Part III)

 

(Continued from Part II…)

During your military career—?

I was only in it for four years. For those four years, did you stay in Panama? I had seven weeks of Basic Training at Fort Jackson (April/May 1966, Co ‘A’, 2^nd Training Battalion and 1^st Training Brigade—King of the Hill).

Then, the Army shipped me to Monterey, California, Defense Language Institute West Coast for 6 months, where I was taught Portuguese. Oh wow. Yeah, I had two years of French at Russellville High School in Arkansas and two quarters of German at Georgia Tech, but I wasn’t a linguist! I only took the courses because I was told I had to take the courses. The Army said, “Oh you’re going to be a linguist.” I said (sighs), but it was nice… beautiful. I don’t know if you’ve ever been out to the West Coast or Monterey, in particular. No, I haven’t.

That’s where the people from LA come up to take vacation because it’s so incredibly beautiful. You have the Redwood Forest. Also, you have a tremendous coastline called Seventeen Mile Drive, and that’s where a lot of movies are shot. In fact, they have a regulation that in those seventeen miles, film crews, when they’re out on a boat, should not be able to see any human habitation. They want to disguise it, make it look wild, so that they can film movies. Monterey, California has a lot of movie stars. Clint Eastwood was mayor of nearby Carmel.

This was 1966. This was the beginning of the hippie era, and San Francisco was ground central for the hippie movement. I can mention that one of my first trips to San Francisco was the first time I saw multi-racial couples holding hands in public. Black guys, black girls, white guys, Asians, gays—we called them ‘homos’ at the time. Usually, it was guy-guy. You know, I just said, “I love it, I love it.” Yeah.

I’ll tell one little adventure I had with my buds. In fact, these are the guys from my language school. Three of these guys had advanced degrees. Passehl had a Master’s degree in math. Stigler had a degree; I forgot what his was. And Rooney only had a GED. I think he only had an eighth or ninth grade education, but he was leader of our group. He was smart. That’s incredible.

Our DLIWC class was given a field trip to San Francisco with one of our language instructors, Senor Peiria from Portugal. Prof. Peiria’s car broke down in San Francisco at about midnight. We pushed his car to a safe spot and left a note so that it wouldn’t be towed. We then caught an electric tram and went to a boarding house near Haight/Ashbury and spent the night.

The next morning, I got up early. One of our hosts was making breakfast when the doorbell rang. “That’s probably our mailman,” said our host. “My hands are covered in biscuit dough, would you please answer the door?” I went downstairs, opened the door and took a double take. It was a US Mailman, but he had long, wild blond hair and a scraggly beard, was wearing USPS shirt and cutoff USPS pants, and was carrying his mail in a wheeled gold tote. Welcome to San Francisco, 1966.

Colonel John Boyd is another one of my heroes. He was called Forty Second Boyd. Have you ever seen the movie Top Gun with Tom Cruise? I’ve heard of it so many times. I’ve been meaning to see it. Well, Flight of the Intruder is incredible. I have friends who were Naval aviators, and they really liked Top Gun. I mean, there are lots of quibbles. Give me a break, you can’t have a perfect movie, but the same goes for Flight of the Intruder.

When you’re in a top-gun class like Boyd, you have one plane that is sort of like a target. Another plane comes up behind you, and the clock starts ticking. They say, “Okay, it’s on,” and the person in front is supposed to lose the person in back. The person in back is trying to get radar lock so that they can hit you. This is “funzies” although some people die.

Boyd was called Forty Second Boyd because he could be in an unfavorable 6 o’clock position with the person behind him trying to get radar lock, and he could reverse positions in less than forty seconds, come up behind, and get radar lock—all in less than 40 seconds. Wow. A number of times, they would use different aircrafts—say, an F-14 against an F-16. It did not matter what sort of plane; it was still forty seconds or less that Boyd would get it. That’s incredible! He wasn’t just a great pilot; he was also a tremendous strategist.

When you got out of the military after the 4 years, were you happy that you had signed up for it?

Yes.

Did you get a benefit from it?

Yes, but I felt like I had not done much for the United States. I wanted to be patriotic and all that sort of thing. Other than what happened with the U.S.S. Pueblo, I felt like I really hadn’t done much. I was just in the back doing what we called “Intelligence Grunt Work.” Actually, the minimum-security clearance to work at Ops was ‘Top Secret.’

I got to meet some incredibly smart people. One guy in Panama would read 6 or 7 books a day plus 7 or 8 newspapers. Wow, how did he do that? He just had one of those types of speed-reading [abilities], and he could quote anything you wanted right back at you.

Other guys were tremendous linguists. One of my friends in Thailand—I called him Donald Duck, and I still forget his real name—was another goofy-looking person. Still, he was a phenomenal linguist. He knew Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Thai, Vietnamese, Lao, and a lot of dialects—French, German…

When did you go to Thailand?

That was from June ’69 until I got out in March of 1970.

So did you join [the military] again?

No, I came very close. They were waiving a promotion, pro-pay, tax free, all sorts of stuff.

(Showing me a picture) These people are pinning on E-6 stripes, and this sergeant here was promoted from Buck to Staff Sergeant. He was not a particularly nice guy, but I am going to tell you what a happened a few days after this picture was taken.

He was at a bar in Udorn, Thailand, which was about 10 or 15 miles from our little post, and was celebrating his promotion from E5 to E6. He dropped a 5 Baht piece (Thai currency), which looks about the same size as an American quarter and, at that time, was worth about the same as a US quarter.

Anyway, it was rolling around, and he stomped on it. Well, the whole bar went quiet, and a corporal said, “Sergeant, let’s get out of here; something weird is happening.” The sergeant said, “I want to drink; I want to finish my beer.” The other guy said, “Sergeant, I’m getting out of here” because he saw the owner of the bar tell someone something, and that person went running out of the bar. The corporal said, “I’m out,” so he ran out to the taxi stand. He either took a Baht bus or a taxi.

I was at the headquarters building of Ramasun Station. This corporal came in and said, “Something weird is happening. I’m concerned about Sgt. X.” The safety of him?

Yes. Thailand was very safe most of the time. Thailand is called the “Land of Smiles.” Anyway, he said, “Something weird is going on.”

About that time, the NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge) got a call from the Thai troops in Udorn, and they said, “Get your corporal out of Ramasun ASAP!” “Why?” “There are police, military, and civilians coming because the corporal was party to a high crime of treason against the royal family. You need to get him out RIGHT NOW!” Our NCOIC called the Korat Royal Thai Air Force base about 15 miles from us. “Send a helicopter to Ramasun, so we can get our man off our post ASAP.” Korat said said, “We’ll get him.”

While we waited for Korat’s helicopter to arrive, the Corporal described what had happened in the bar. Another GI who listened to the Corporal’s story gave us another short briefing about Thai customs:

The new E-6 sergeant was arrested because the 5 baht piece has a picture of the King of Siam/Thailand. Putting his foot on the King’s head (on the coin) is an act of treason, a five-year sentence for ignorant ‘round eyes’ (Americans) or a ten-year sentence for Native Thais. Any round eye even only with the person who committed this ‘treason’ would be just as guilty and also sentenced to five years in prison.

Long story short, that was in December of ’69. Sgt. X was in Udorn’s jail, AKA

Udorn’s Monkey House. We Ramasun troopies would make ‘care packages’ with food, clothing, cigarettes, etc. and hand deliver a care package once each day to Sgt. X. I and another Ramasun bud went twice to deliver food to Sgt. X. When we would visit him in the visiting area, he would just dig into the food. Each care package had multiple days’ worth of food, which Sgt. X could use as bargaining chips in the ‘Hell Hole’ jail he was in.

In March 1970 shortly before I left Thailand to ETS from the Army, I saw Sgt. X and delivered another care package to him. Sgt. X said, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know.” Combat vet Sgt. X was crying like a baby the last time I saw him. That’s too bad.

Our State Department briefing that we received when we first arrived in Thailand didn’t tell us that stomping on Thai currency was against the law. I could have been in jail like Sgt. X. There are other countries, most notably Turkey, which have similar laws, and “Ignorance of the Law” is not a valid excuse. You have to know the cultural landmines. 

In general, I know you are an activist now. What problems in the world are you most concerned about today, and what do you think can be done to solve them?

Well, education, energy, environment, and voter integrity are some issues I care about. I have been pushing choice in education via taxpayer-funded vouchers for kids to attend private and parochial schools since 1993. If you do not have a well-educated electorate, you can get people like Obama elected. I suspected that Obama would be very bad for America and America’s Society. By George, he justified my low expectations for him.

According to the US military, an average 8^th grade graduate from the year 1900 had better math skills, better verbal skills, better spatial skills, better all around thinking skills than the average 12^th grade graduate from the year 2000. The US military has been doing massive testing since before the Spanish American War. When I got in the military, you had to take verbal, math, and spatial tests.

We have a lot of junk science, and we have a lot of people that want us to have wars and wars and wars. I don’t want to play that stupid game, but the US keeps on doing it. We keep on turning a lot of our best and brightest people into hamburger meat. I don’t like that.

How would you define a successful and happy life for anyone or for yourself?

When I had my health, I could play tennis and do a lot of swimming or water skiing. I can still swim pretty well. A happy life would be a life of fulfillment and a life where you think that you are making a difference.

For instance, when I started on my quest in 1992 to improve education for kids here in America, there were only three or four thousand kids who were getting taxpayer-funded vouchers to go to private or parochial schools. Now in 2014, there are over six hundred thousand taxpayer-funded ‘voucher kids.’ Maybe a little bit happened because of me.

I’ve been giving these handouts out for over twenty years. The one I have with me was first given out in 2000 when I was running for board of education here. I had bought a house here because they had Vo-tech and college prep together. My son had been to private parochial schools all his life and was going to Landmark in Fairburn, GA, which is only college prep. I love Landmark. My son wanted to do auto mechanics, electrical work, etc., and he was two years ahead of the math programs here in Fayette County Schools.

For my last question, what advice do you have for younger generations like my generation?

Well, don’t focus on the name brands of schools. A lot of people are focused on Yale or Harvard, and that may not be the place they need to be.

As an example, one of my friend’s daughters wanted to go to Georgia State. I said that she needed to go to a junior college for the first two years because it would be a whole lot cheaper and she would get the scut work out of the way. She said, “No, I want to party.” That’s what she did for the first year (partying), and she almost lost it.

I gave the same advice to my brother Brad. I suggested Brad go for the first two years to a junior college, so he did. He went to DeKalb College, which is now called Perimeter College, and he got his two-year degree. All his credits were transferrable, so he then went to the University of Georgia. He got his BS degree in Hydrology, and then he got his Master’s degree in Hydrology. Then, he started work at the Bureau of Mines. For the last ten or fifteen years, he was with the USGS (United States Geological Survey) and retired about three years ago. He has a nice pension, and he did a lot of useful stuff. Also, when he graduated, he had virtually no education debt.

Mr. William J. Bryan III (Part II)

 

(Continued from Part I…)

How did you decide to join the military when you were in college?

I was so disgusted with Georgia Tech; I’d been beating my head against… I just needed to get away from my parents and get away from Atlanta. So, I went to an Army recruiter and said, “I’d like to join for two years.” [Recruiter said,] “You can’t join for two years. You have to join for three years.” “Okay I’ll join up for three years.” Bing! The recruiter’s eyes get big and said, “Boy, have I got a special program for you, but it’s a four-year commitment.” And I said, “what is it?” “It’s the Army Security Agency.” I said, “What’s that, a glorified name for an MP, Military Police?” He said, “No.” I said, “What is it?” He said, “I can’t tell you; it’s ‘SECRET.’” Boing! I was hooked!

They promised me that I’d get electronics training. I got in, and they said, “You’re not qualified for electronics training, Mr. Bryan.” I said, “Well, they said I could take classes which would make me qualified.” They said “Do you have it in writing?” That was the constant refrain of most of the guys that I talked with. I only met one person, Steve Holland, who got his promises in writing from the recruiter, and when he asserted his rights, the Army made his life Hell. Steve was one of the smartest, bravest people I’ve ever known, and I named my son after him. Steve didn’t have high school diploma; he had a GED!

They have a written rule in the military that once you graduate from Basic Training, the Army has six months to give you the class that you were promised. If they do not give you that class, you get an Honorable Discharge with all rights and benefits—education, VA benefit… Anyway, about three months after graduating from Basic Training, Steve had not gotten his class, so he wrote letters to his congressman. The Army didn’t like that, so they gave him what they call Permanent KP at Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

Steve would report in the morning at about six o’clock, and then he would work until 8 or 9 pm. They gave him the worst jobs possible: “Pots and Pans” and grease trap. They wouldn’t provide him with the protective gloves. You need to [have those gloves] when you’re doing pots and pans and grease. Your hands start turning… Anyway, so he bought some himself from the Devens’ PX. Well, the people who were giving him a hard time said, “Those aren’t Army-issued; you can’t use them.” “Well, issue me some,” Steve said. They wouldn’t issue him any, so he did it barehanded.

Then, he got “trench hand.” Ever heard of trench foot??? Oh yeah. [That’s what happened to people] especially during the Civil War and World War I. Is it pus and everything? You get trench foot when your feet are wet a lot and when they’re not allowed to dry. You’re feet just start dissolving. Anyway, his commanding officers wouldn’t let Steve go to the hospital or Sick Call. Finally, he did go to the hospital… without his officers’ permission. They didn’t like that either. Steve got a Doctor’s excuse saying that he did not have to do pots and pans or grease trap; he could do dry work for the next two or three weeks while his hands recuperated. Our Battalion commander, MoH winner LtC Millett, really didn’t like that!

Then, a month before the Army’s 6 month time limit was to expire, they gave Steve “FireWatch.” After Steve got off KP, he had to do eight hours of going around to see that the coal fire furnaces in the barracks had enough fuel. Also, he’d go through the barracks to see that nothing bad was happening. Officially, Steve’s commanding officers had Steve working twenty-four hours a day. The mess hall NCOIC thought Steve was getting a raw deal and allowed Steve to sleep a little bit at the cafeteria or the mess hall. Still, Steve was officially working 24 hours a day/7 days a week; and would until they broke him.

THAT created a congressional investigation to find out why these Official Turkeys—our officers—were harassing Steve so much. Eventually, he didn’t have to do the FireWatch, but he still had to do Permanent KP seven days a week. Two days before his sixth months were up, they shipped him off to Fort Meade, Maryland, which is “Spook Central.” Have you ever heard of the NSA? No. National Security Agency. They’re currently having a big boo-rah about monitoring American computer and telephone calls and billions of people world-wide who are being monitored (most everyday citizens). Anyway, they sent him there to the cryptographic repair machine school, which had something like an eighty percent dropout rate. It also involved some of the highest, TOP SECRET work in the US Army stuff.

Anyway, they sent him to Fort Meade, Maryland and I was sent down to ASASouthCom, Fort Clayton, Panama Canal Zone. A few months later, here comes Steve Holland. I said, “What happened?” He said, “Well, I graduated.” He was second in the class! Oh my goodness, wow. What can I say? It just showed what a person [can do.] I found out later that he only had an eighth grade education. His nickname was “The Duke,” which was sort of pejorative in a way because he was a quintessential nerd: pasty faced, thick glasses, short. It seemed like all the time, he was rumpled. Regular army guys just couldn’t stand his appearance.

When we get to SouthComs’ Ops Center, we had something like a big bank vault in the basement where Crypto was. Have you ever seen a bank vault? In movies. Yeah, well, the cryptographic people would come in, and they would relieve the previous shift. They’d lock that door, and they’d be in there for an eight-hour or ten-hour shift. What were they doing? They were cryptographic; they handled the code breaking, transmission of classified materials, and all that sort of thing. Wow. Then, they fed it to Fort Meade.

Was all this work for the effort of the Vietnam War?

This was for worldwide intelligence—Vietnam, Korea. In fact, this is a famous picture (showing me a picture of Pueblo crewmen prisoners giving the N Korean photographer “The Finger”). I played a small part trying to get these guys from becoming North Korean captives. These guys [in the picture] are U.S. Navy. Oh, okay. See, we were all part of the huge American intelligence gathering community. These guys were on a little intelligence gathering ship called the U.S.S. Pueblo. Here’s my Pueblo story:

One evening, I was drifting around our SouthComOps Center when one of the O5K guys said, “Bryan. Psst. Come with me.” He said, “Look at this.” It was an SOS from a ship, U.S.S. Pueblo. I said, “What the heck is the U.S.S. Pueblo? It says they’re off the Korean coast. We’re in Panama for crying out loud!” It was coming through loud—what we call 5 by 5—just a powerful, powerful signal.

O5K said, “This is weird. This is really weird. They say they’re a U.S. Navy ship, but it’s not a microwave or FM transmission. It’s unencrypted, and it’s on the International Emergency Band at 500KH—KiloHertz. What’s going on?”

I look. There were about two or three rows on the paper printout, and it was coming in real sloooww. “Hey!” said the O5K operator. “Are you O5H guys playing a joke on me?” (Some people did play practical jokes at our TOP SECRET facility… not me!)

I said, “If someone’s doing it, we need to spank him. Call Homestead to DF this transmission.” So he did. About two minutes later, klaxons go off in our Ops Center. This is a “Critique situation.” The head of our shift comes running in—Lt. something. I forgot his name. (He was real nice guy.) He comes running in and says, “This is legit, folks.”

A “Critique Situation” means that the transmissions that we’re picking up are fed directly to the president—President Johnson at that time—to his National Security Advisor, to The War Room, Joint Chiefs, etc. Everything that we get, they get almost instantaneously.

So did they find out what the ship was?

Oh yeah, they found out. That was the reason the klaxons went off—because these guys were doing what’s called a “touch-and-go operation.” The Pueblo was an old Liberty Ship from World War II converted to Intelligence work. They would go along the coast of North Korea and squish into North Korean territorial waters hoping to pick up SigInt, Signal Intelligence, and listen to the North Korean reaction with their electronic ears on for radar and other transmissions.

You don’t mess with the North Koreans. The Pueblo was supposed to have backup or a “Tripwire Protocol.” They were supposed to have constant radio communication with a carrier group. Something happened to communications.

Anyway, it was a big, long, pathetic story. In 2001, I got to meet the Pueblo’s Captain, Commander Bucher. Do you see what they’re doing [in the picture]? Not really. That’s a North Korean PR picture where they wanted to show the world that Pueblo crewmembers were being treated humanely. Oh, so they’re POWs. In that picture, yeah, they’re POWs.

Why was this ship on the coast of Panama?

No, it wasn’t off the coast of Panama, where I was. They were in Korea, North Korea. Microwave and FM signals are pretty much line of sight. An AM transmission uses the ionosphere; it can bounce. That’s why somebody with a—are you familiar with amateur radio? You mean just like radio waves? They call them Ham Operators. They operate on FM and AM. With a 50 Watt, AM transmitter, you could communicate with someone on the other side of the world, and it could come in clear as a bell if the conditions were just right. And that’s what happened to us.

So you were the ones who found out that these men were prisoners of war?

No. They weren’t prisoners at that time. North Korean jets and torpedo boats were attacking them. Without backup. They didn’t have backup. Right, well, they were supposed to have backup.

In July 2001, they had a plaque presentation down at the POW museum in Andersonville. I’ve been there, yeah. Okay. Considering how bleak the prisoners of war subject is, it was very inspiring place. Anyway, on that date, they had most of the surviving members of the Pueblo and Commander Bucher. They also had Rolling Thunder (a POW advocacy group) down there. A bunch of the guys had been on the carrier group that was supposed to provide them backup. They also had some people from NSA and CIA who were there.

Everybody was talking about why Johnson did not do anything to save these guys from being taken prisoner. The North Koreans and the Russians made a tremendous intelligence coup because the Pueblo’s crew wasn’t able to destroy all their crypto equipment and graphic machines. AND! Somebody put huge amounts of CIA, NSA archival material in the Pueblo as ballast, and it went all the way back to World War I! Anyway, I got to shake hands with Commander Bucher, and I gave him one of my handouts. Oh my goodness.

Anyway like Forrest Gump, I’ve been at a lot of interesting turns of history. Unfortunately, you don’t know anything; you’ve never heard of the Pueblo, but…

Well, you know, now that you’ve explained it and stuff, it does sound familiar.

See, only we were getting the Pueblo’s radio transmission; a carrier group was less than fifty miles away from the Pueblo, but they weren’t getting any of the SOS transmissions. The signal was going up and bouncing across them. It would bounce, bounce, and finally, it hit us around five thousand miles away, coming in as clear as a bell. That’s why what we were doing was so critical. That’s incredible.

That was one of only two critiques in the eighteen months I was at Fort Clayton. Beautiful, beautiful country—beautiful. A lot of military were retiring down there. Where is that? Panama. Not the Canal Zone, but the country of Panama. Well, the Canal Zone was very beautiful; it was like colonial Britain with these big beautiful white buildings with red tile roofs like SouthCom’s barracks. From a distance, they looked beautiful in big red tile roofs, but when you get into them, there was no air conditioning except for the officers and the Day Room.

Anyway, Panama is a very tropical place, and there are all sorts of things that grow down there. Every morning, your shoes would be covered with a thin layer of green fungi.

Wasn’t Jimmy Carter the one who gave the Panama Canal to Panama?

Yep, in the Canal Zone Treaty it said we could stay there for another ninety-nine years, but Carter chose not to renew the agreement signed back in 1903 by Teddy Roosevelt. Yes, Carter gave it back. There were a lot of us who were bitter about that because almost immediately Red Chinese Army “fronts” started putting a move on it. They are now controlling a lot of the Panama Canal. Oh, I didn’t even realize that.

A number of us think that they’re putting into place what are called “set charges” to destroy the canal in case of a big, huge emergency—like a war with the US.

So what other kind of history have you witnessed?

When I was down there—have you ever seen the Woody Allen movie Bananas? No. Okay. That’s when Woody Allen was funny! Anyway, in Bananas, they are doing a takeoff on a coup that’s going to occur, and they have [the main actor] describing it like it’s a sports event.

And is this the president of Panama? Well, no. In Bananas, the reason they call it “Bananas” is because the United Fruit Company had a lot of interest down in Central America. Bananas were one of their big, profitable fruits. We intervened in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Mexico. I’m trying to think if there’s any nation in Central America that we haven’t stuck our U.S. Marines in. I guess the only one may have been Belize, AKA British Honduras, but we’ve been a big bad bully in Central America for various, politically connected US companies.

In 1968, Panama had a free and open election, and candidate Arias won in a landslide. The commander of the Guardia National, Omar Torrijos was supposed to have a coup before the results were known because we pretty much knew Arias was going to be elected. He was anti-American and wanted to kick us out of the Canal Zone. Torrijos knew that if Arias came into power, he would kick Omar Torrijos out. It might not be very happy for Mr. Torrijos. So he said…(Mr. Bryan grumbles).

Torrijos allowed the people to elect Arias; he allowed them to have their victory celebrations. Then, about two days later, he sent Arias and his family, friends and relatives to exile in Miami, Florida. During this coup, only one or two people got killed, and that was mainly because of some college students who just didn’t take it.

They took their election too seriously. I mean, it was a joke—in a way. We were on alert for about seventy-two hours because we knew it was coming. Torrijos and the Guardia National did a really good job of just clapping down because the guys in the Guardia National pretty much knew that if Arias came in, they were out.

Was Torrijos pro-American?

Well, I liked Torrijos. I have a friend, Colonel Bill Camper, who was down there at the same time I was (different unit), and he liked Torrijo, too. Giving the reasons why I did like him would take a long time to explain, though.

Still, in the main, our US Government was acting like a big spoiled kid. (Read The Ugly American.) A lot of the Panamanians liked us as individual Americans, but they did not like our American government policies. That’s the message I got wherever I went, whether it was Thailand or talking to people from the Middle East or Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India. They just want us to mind our own business. Yes. Those foreign people are begging, “Leave us alone! Leave us alone.” Our leaders then and now just don’t want to do that.

 

(To be continued in Part III…)

Mr. William J. Bryan III (Part I)

 (Born August 1947)

Parents: Bobby and William J. Bryan, Jr.

Siblings: Bob, Brad, and Bruce

First Wife: Becky Bowen

Second Wife: Sunny Kim

Children: Steven Kim Bryan

 

So when were you born?

August, 1947, Durango, Colorado. Next year, another one of my brothers, Bob, was born there and in the same hospital, Mercy General. Oh, really? Yes, the next year, 1948.

Do you have siblings?

Yep, I have three: Bob, Brad, and Bruce. Oh, all B-names, Bill, Bob, Brad, and Bruce! And, my mom’s name is Bobby. (Bruce died over 20 years ago at age 40.)

What about your dad?

His name is William J. Bryan, Jr. I’m number three; he’s number two, and my grandfather is William J. Bryan.

What do you remember about your childhood? Is there anything that stands out?

Oh, there’s a bunch of things standing out. During my 1^st five years of life, our family lived at a number of locations in Colorado and New Mexico—Ignacio, Fort Collins, Albuquerque, etc…

One year we had a big snow, and I was just jumping at the bit to have some snow ice cream. Anyway, they had an advisory that we weren’t supposed to eat the snow because the Feds had blown-up an A-Bomb in the atmosphere; the winds changed and blew fallout towards SW Colorado. I asked, “So, why can’t you eat snow ice cream? Why can’t we have snow ice cream?” [My family said,] “Well, if you eat it, it’ll make you glow.” “Really?” I said. I immediately ran outside Grandma B’s house in Ignacio, and I started gobbling snow. “Why are you eating the snow?!” my parents asked? “I want to glow,” I answered. Telling a kid that he would glow was the wrong thing to tell a kid! Yeah, wrong… So that’s one of my stories.

Another time, I was at Fort Collins and we had a 12 inch snow. When the snowing stopped, one of my buds says, “Let’s go down to the train station,” which was about a mile away. So on our tricycles—in the snow—we went chu-chu-chu-chuing down to the train station. Once there, we went all over Ft. Collins.

What we didn’t realize was that there was an APB out for two missing kids ages 4-5, AKA me and my bud. ‘What had happened?’ ‘Where’d they go?’ We were out, I guess, for two or three hours—train station here, bus station there… just going all over the Ft. Collins exploring. Finally, the cops found us, stopped us, and took us home. We got—well, I got my tail whooped. I don’t know about my friend; I’m sure he did, too. That’s funny!

Another story: My brother Bruce has the distinction of being the only Pale-Face to be born in the large Ute Indian Hospital in Ignacio, Colorado. Here’s how: My very pregnant mother told my dad one spring day, “I’m ready to have my baby, let’s go to Durango.” Mom and Dad left me with Grandma B at her house in Ignacio, and they left for Durango in our junky automobile. As Mom and Dad were about to leave the tiny town of Ignacio, she told my Dad: “I can’t make it to Durango; let’s go to the Indian Hospital.”

My Aunt Geneva was working that day at the Ute Indian Hospital as a nurse and took a break to go outside to wave at her brother Bill and my Mom. Geneva was waving at my parents as they got to Ignacio City limits and when they drove into the hospital parking lot.

Geneva thought that our car was having problems so she offered to lend my Dad her nice big Mercury Coupe for the 30 mile trip to Durango.

“Thanks Geneva; but, no,” said my Dad. “Bobby’s about to pop! May we use the Indian hospital?”

“Yep,” said my Aunt Geneva.

And this is when Bruce was born? “Yep. That day the hospital elevator wasn’t working so my Mom had to climb two flights of stairs with my Dad and my aunt assisting. Oh my goodness. Mom gets up there and climbs on the delivery table. Nurse Geneva becomes Midwife Geneva and instructs my Dad how to carefully administer ether for pain. Mom gets a few snorts of ether—she wanted more—and, very quickly, boom—here comes baby brother Bruce. Anyway, he was—as far as I know—the only Pale-Face to be born at the Ute hospital in Ignacio, Colorado. Wow, that’s impressive!

Officially, the administration turned a blind eye to my white parents using a Fed hospital that only Indians could use. My parents sort of snuck in the front door, delivered brother Bruce and quickly snuck out. There might be a record of it; I do not know. It’s on Bruce’s birth certificate. That’s a crazy story. Yes.

What about high school? Was there a special hangout spot that your friends went to?

Yeah, there was. I’m—I hate to say it—a nerd and still something like a nerd. I am too; I love school. Well, my best friend Jack Hambrick introduced me to chess. I had seen it and tried to learn it, but I’d had a terrible teacher and really couldn’t play. Still, Jack was an excellent chess instructor and easily taught me how to play chess. He showed me how to play the first game, which he won, and then according to Jack, I beat him every time we played from then on. Wow.

Anyway, we took French and were in Science Fiction Club and Chess Club. For all those clubs, we would meet at Jack’s house. There weren’t too many places to meet in Russellville, Arkansas, at least for teenage kids. You know, you had school and church functions, but it was a whole lot more fun at Jack’s house. We would talk about various science fiction stories, current events, etc…

Before I read my first science fiction story, I only read history books, autobiographies, school assignments and stuff by James Michener.

My interest in science fiction began this way. In the 6^th grade one of my classmates, Linda K, gave a book report on Have Space Suit—Will Travel by Robert Heinlein. During her oral presentation, I said, “That’s pathetic; that’s not possible.”

“Oh, it’s in the book!” said Linda K. For instance, she said, “Oh, they crash landed on the Moon, and then, they walked back to Earth.” “No, can’t be…” I said. “Oh, well, read the book!” said Linda.

So, I read my first book of science fiction, and she was…WRONG. They walked back to the Earth station on the Moon after crash landing on the Moon. It was a great introduction to science fiction and I began a long love affair with Heinlein’s books. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein is my favorite, which I’ve read probably fifteen or twenty times. I get a little teary-eyed each time I read it because it’s sooo good, and it still holds up science wise, except Heinlein thought we’d be putting a self-sustaining colony on our Moon before year 2000. Then again, we might already have one there… (X-Files music)

Is that your favorite book, would you say?

It’s one of my favorites, and here are some others: Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy—I get teary-eyed reading that book… Unintended Consequences by John Ross, which is about yeh big (shows me with his hands). I just ripped through that thing; I have it highlighted.

When you read, do you annotate everything? They’re trying to get us to do that in school—to just write.

Mm-hmm. It may knock down the value of the book, but I don’t care. But it makes the value higher to you. Uh-huh. To realize, “Oh, let me go quickly to that particular section or that particular picture…”

What was your favorite subject in high school and in college?

The favorites for me were history, science, physics, and math in high school. I got all A’s and one B even though I had a 97% overall! After high school, I went to Georgia Tech in 1965. In ’66, I got sick of Georgia Tech and joined the military—ASA, Army Security Agency—and was there from ’66 to ’70. Then, I got out, and I went almost immediately back into Georgia Tech. I beat my head against the social [subjects] with the English department and all that, but there was one person in the social science department who was just phenomenal. His name was Dr. Brittain.

At Georgia Tech they have a Brittain Hall where they serve food. (I don’t know if it’s named after him.) Dr. Brittain had a PhD in Electrical Engineering, and as they say, he “made his bundle.” Then, he decided, “You know what? I love history, and I love instilling the love of science and engineering,” so, he got his PhD in History. PHS—Philosophy and History of Science—was his class’s name, and you [as a student] never knew what you were going to get into. I liked to think that I’d read a lot, but for every book I’d read, he’d probably read five. That was delightful because, usually, I knew more than many of the History or Social Science teachers.

But, in the English department, it was still excruciating! I took a course with the boring name, Technical Writing, taught by a Dr. Metcalfe. Metcalfe’s orientation class began something like:

“The best you can do, if you work with me, is a B in this class. And, if you work and I see that you’ve put forward effort, you get a C. But if you don’t do either of those, you’re going to get an F.” I know you think you’re smart (and you are smart), but you’re profoundly ignorant. You don’t know how ignorant you are right now, so I’m going to show you.”

You know our noses could have gotten out of joint when somebody tells you, “You’re ignorant, but you don’t know you’re ignorant.” Anyway, he proceeded to show us how ignorant we were by giving us “Metcalfe’s Orientation Pop Quiz.” Nobody got a good score, but his test was intriguing and nobody dropped out. I got a B in his class, and he showed us how to do boring, normal things like resumes. He also showed us the psychology of letter writing and advertising. He knew his stuff was an advisor to outfits like Coca-Cola, Colt Industries, Frito-Lay, etc… He was just a phenomenal, phenomenal person and a phenomenal, phenomenal teacher. Wow, that sounds amazing.

What was your major at Georgia Tech?

I started out in Chemical Engineering. I wanted to be a nuclear propulsion or energy engineer. Oh, wow. Yeah, and so that’s where I started out, but it was the English department that was killing me. I’ve read newspaper articles since then saying that they’ve gotten even worse [at Georgia Tech in the English department].

I have advised people not to go to Georgia Tech for the first four years. Don’t do it because of the English department—they really can’t stand the fact that a person with a just a new BS Chemistry Engineering degree would probably make as much as one of those tenured PhD professors in the Georgia Tech English department with just starting pay. So, a number of people have taken my advice and have taken the first two years at a junior college completing “Scut Work” classes in English, History, and Political Science. [Those subjects] have almost nothing to do with being engineers or scientists. Then, [those students can] go to Georgia Tech, but I still recommend Southern Polytech [over Georgia Tech]. A number of people who have graduated from Southern Tech thank me very much. They say, “Thank you, thank you, thank you” because at Georgia Tech, they brag about how tough they are. At Southern Polytech, the professors actually try to help their students; they’re not there to fail you. They’re there to help you. Yeah, I’ve heard some things about Georgia Tech, like how crazy competitive it is and how it’s just so stressful. Well, most of my problems were from the English department.

Have you ever heard of the actor Anthony Newley? He was just a quintessential British snot of an actor. He also sang… excruciatingly. Anyway, while I was at Georgia Tech, he was the head of the English department. When I found out that Technical Writing (which I enjoyed and where I thought I had learned so much) was not given credit as a requirement… “It’s considered an elective, Mr. Bryan.” (Speaking in a funny, high-pitched voice…) I said, “But I learned so much.” “We’re not here for skill development, Mr. Bryan. We’re here to enrich you, to broaden your perspective.”

I enjoyed reading everything from Xenophon and the Persian Campaign, which was written about 2500 years ago, which is a phenomenal piece of work. And Tacitus, Lives by Plutarch, where he compares great Greeks and Romans. For me, high school and college just drained the life out of good literature. That friend of mine, Jack Hambrick—when I met him in the ninth grade, had been reading the complete works of Shakespeare every two years. “Eww…” I said. I didn’t see the beauty of Shakespeare until I got out of college and went and saw the movie Romeo and Juliet by Zeffirelli. We saw that in school; I love that movie!

No way would Shakespeare write something as beautiful as the dialog I heard in Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. But I checked, and Shakespeare did! In high school, our teachers just drained the ever-lovin’ life out of Shakespeare’s works and other Classic

Literature. I was so disgusted with the English teachers at my highly rated high school and Georgia Tech and also with most English teachers today, who are continuing their assault against their students.

 

(To be continued in Part II…)