Boehm - The Boys on Cherry Street: From the Crazy Innocence of College to the Loss of Innocence in Vietnam

Pat Reith My lifelong friend and college roommate for his good memory and great stories about our college life. His story-telling and inspiration is part of the reason I wrote this book.

Malcolm Bech, Tiger Favret and Corky Barris My buddies for being the subject of many of those college stories.

Col. Jack Rippy My Marine Corps buddy from flight school, squadron mate in Vietnam and California and source of many of these stories and for his help in editing this book.

Rick Spitz My friend from A6A training squadron, roommate in Vietnam and lifelong friend who is the subject of many of these stories.

Fred Bonati My friend from USMC The Basic School, roommate in Vietnam, buddy in California and source of many of these stories.

Dave Anderson, Tom Broderick, Dan DeBlanc, David Noyes and Phil Vannoy My Marine Corps friends for letting me use some of their stories of Vietnam.

Mike Sommers for his organizing of our Basic School reunions that brought back many of these memories and for his help in editing this book.

T here are many great books about war, the courage, heroics and sacrifice that those who fought in the wars experienced and demonstrated. In this book, it is not my intention to make light of war or the terrible results of war, the tragic deaths and the awful wounds, both external and internal that those who participated in it carry for the rest of their lives. War changes you forever.

But this book starts with the care-free innocence and craziness of my college days and then to the loss of that innocence in going to war as a young Marine pilot in Vietnam. This book, although it has stories about heroes and heroic actions, is mainly about the many comic occurrences and sense of humor that men in combat were able to show in some of the most difficult of situations. I believe it was that very sense of humor that was a coping mechanism used by many of us to deal with those stressful times.

The title of the book The Boys on Cherry Street came from one of the off-campus houses that my roommates and I lived in while attending college in Hammond, Louisiana. We shared a duplex on Cherry Street with another group of friends and did a lot of crazy and outrageous things together. But The Boys on Cherry Street is really symbolic of the young men of the Vietnam war era, my college roommates, my friends from the neighborhood, my classmates in high school and college, and my Marine buddies who flew and fought in Vietnam.

In writing this book, I wanted to share some of the funny and outrageous stories that I experienced in that most wonderful time in my life that made for such good sea stories in barrooms and at parties.

Regarding the authenticity and accuracy of my stories, I make the same disclaimer as Dave Marshall made, a Marine A-4 pilot flying out of Chu Li with MAG 12 in his article, Chi Li War Stories, in which he quotes another Marine, Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead who, when asked whether his book was fact or fiction, responded, I dont know. Its what I remember.

Ron Boehm

College

I n June of 1961, a boyfriend of my big sister Maggie came to pick me up from my home in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans to take me for a visit to a small college in southeast Louisiana. He was a star baseball player there, and I had just graduated from Holy Cross High School in New Orleans at which I was a very average baseball player. However, my whole life had revolved around baseball and I just wanted to continue doing what I loved. I was a little guy, five feet, six inches, 135 pounds, with a lot of hustle and drive. That was the start of one of the greatest and most fun times in my life.

In looking back, I remember that one day in my senior year of high school I had determined I was going to college. My family was blue collar, my dad and uncles worked on the railroad, and no one from my family had ever been to college. I recall telling my dad that I was going to college, and he said, Thats great, but how do you intend to pay for it? since I was one of nine children and the son of a railroad worker who had completed only the eighth grade.

I said, I dont know just yet, but Ill figure it out.

It didnt dawn on me that I might not be able to do it. When you are young, you just dont know about limitations. I ended up working that summer and saving all that I could, going to politicians and asking for grants to get enough money for the first semester. Now that I look back on it, I dont think that the politicians actually gave me grants but just wrote me checks out of their own pockets.

My second semester, having made a good grade average, I applied for a National Defense Loan. At this small college at that time, the tuition, books rental, room and meal ticket was only about four hundred dollars, if I remember right.

So on that day I drove with my sisters friend, Frank Misuraca, to Southeastern Louisiana College in Hammond, Louisiana, to check it out. I didnt know anybody going there other than Frank and on the way he told me all about the school and the baseball team. He told me about the championships they had won and I dont remember if he told me much about the academics. I didnt know much about college, other than I was going to go to one and this one had a baseball team that I had a chance to play on.

When we got there, I was impressed; it was like a big high school. I had gone to an all-boys Catholic high school and my graduation class had only about 120 students. This small college had a total enrollment of about thirty-seven hundred at that time. It was in the country surrounded by pine trees, and a railroad track went right through the middle of town and on both sides of the track was a street with shops, restaurants, the train station with a diner called the Beanery and bars. I loved the small town atmosphere and I immediately felt at home.