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The View From The Club

By Bill Davis

Bill Davis, VVAW National Office

My immediate memory of May 4th, 1970 was the warm sunny spring day that began with the promise of a pleasant afternoon and evening away from Lockbourne Air Force Base in the vicinity of the Ohio State University campus area, a place I lived without having to play air force.

Truly, I was the All-American alien boy. Two years in Southeast Asia—one in Vietnam, one in Thailand—had returned me to a place populated with strange people with stranger customs and on odd culture: home?

The Air Force place was not so exotic. Unfortunately it was familiar with drab structures and boring landscapes populated by either disinterested folks like myself or creatures called "lifers," some of whom physically resembled pigs but rarely exhibiting as much intelligence. I wiled away my duty hours and the four months I had left in the service by pissing off the lifer/pig creatures as much as possible.

Since the distribution of anti-war literature was my sole purpose, outside of an occasional meal, paycheck and laundry, in playing at Lockbourne AFB, the course of political events that spring captured by imagination and energy.

On the 100th anniversary of Ohio State University, the place exploded. Black students with demands for legitimate programs for minorities, for women's programs, the on-going anti-war movement all combined that day and boiled over into the streets. Local police running amok on farm day, blanketing the city with a could of tear gas, state police, campus police, national guard, people throwing things, shooting at each other, barricades, riots, concertina wire, bayonets, gas masks. Man. Now this was something familiar! And the participants were for the most part amateurs, what fun!

Each day several of us would shuck our fatigues and rush off to the university to observe or participate as the mood struck us. Gradually, the weight of living in a literal police state complete with armored vehicles and machine guns and marching troops ended our fun.

That afternoon, May 4th, Little Richie came bounding around a generator set I was learning on pretending to be occupied. I was alone in that part of a vast aircraft hanger, the first termer E-1's and 2's I was supposedly instructing having long since evaporated into the cracks of the air base.

Little Richie said, "Man, there's some bad shit going down. Fuckin' weekend warriors gunned down some college kids."

"Where," I asked, knowing they had pulled out of Columbus.

"I don't know, some place called Kent State here in Ohio," he said.

"Listen," I said, "You find Big Richie an' his wheels, we're gonna book-up for town mos schosh, you dig? They ain't gonna miss you but I'll have to give 'em some bullshit to slide. Make it dude."

Little Richie was gone, his specialty; I hurried across the hanger toward the maintenance offices. Guys called to me, "Ya hear, Ja hear Davis?" "Yeah, yeah," I responded, "Catch you later, OK?"

Up the steps, into the office, there he is Chief Master Sergeant Porker. I thought to myself, "It would be a lot easier if he didn't look like a pig to boot."

All smiles, the bunch of them, like we just won the war—the jerks. "Sarge, I gotta go to payroll and straighten out my clothing allotment pay."

"Bullshit, Davis, you're not gonna go anywhere." And before I could say anything, he added, "Shot the fuck outta you little commie buddies, huh?"

Too late I slid over the edge: "Fuck you pig face, too bad they didn't miss and get you. You're dead meat anyway if you jump the pond. If Charles don't get your, Oscar Meyer will. Write anything you want, asshole, I'm leaving."

He damn near swallowed his cigar whole, turned red as a beet and I thought his Alco nose would explode. His fellow pigs and their suck boys all stood there with their jaws down. I turned away out the door and out of the hanger, wishing for a camera or a frag or both.

Into the barracks, out of uniform, into civvies, Little Richie at the door, "Big Richie's at the Club."

"Let's go," I said, everything around me a blur, Richie's portable radio booming out a near hysterical reporter on the local FM underground station: "Four dead, a dozen or more wounded, no National Guard casualties."

I'm pissed. Trembling, to Richie, "They're killing us, man, over there, over here, what the fuck."

Little Richie had no answer, just "Man, oh shit, man."

The NCO Club was pretty empty: two groups, one glum, one exalted, at opposite ends of the bar.

"Hey, Big Richie, let's book."

"Sure, man. Let me finish this brew," he said.

"Fuck it, I'll buy you some in town."

From the other end of the bar a voice boomed, "What's the hurry, Sarge, join us for a drink; quite a celebration tonight, huh?"

"Fuck you and your loser lifer buddies, I wouldn't even shit near you."

Real time now. Everybody on their feet. "Kick your ass, boy." "See a boy, kiss his ass." "Yeah—yeah!" "Oh yeah!" Chairs, bottles, glasses—things seem slow in a range. Sergeant Swine flopping on the floor, so easy—so good, too. Big Richie with the hook out the door into the car; I'm shaking all the way to town.

The fun was over. Four young people lay dead at Kent, two more at Jackson State in a hall of police bullets. My rage was surpassed by the students at OSU. If the events of two weeks earlier had a carnival atmosphere at times, now the students and demonstrators saw the raw power of the state and responded in kind. We were back in our element. Big Richie, short on long political rifts, would chuckle, dryly, "Death don't have no mercy in this land."