Smoke signals., February 15, 2002, Page 4, Image 4

4 FEBRUARY 15, 2002
Smoke Signals
Marine Veteran Will Walk For Honor From Table Rock to Grand Ronde
Continued from front page
At that time Bobb had planned
on enlisting in the Marine Corps,
an option for many young men
then. The plan was for two years -13
months of which would be spent
in Vietnam. Like many Veterans
of that unofficial war, Bobb saw
'Nam as neither a high point nor
low point, but in contrast with life
back home, a vivid point that
changed everything.
"When I came back I had a whole
brand new view of everything," he
said. "That's for sure."
Bobb achieved the rank of Corpo
ral and spent the bulk of his as
signed time there as an ammo tech
nician, that is, recycling ammuni
tion for further use. But his rank
and job mattered little in face of the
reality of the situation, that he "was
just a kid, only 20" and suddenly
thrust into not only a gruesome,
frustrating war, but one of the
darker chapters of American history.
"You ever see that Platoon
movie?" he said. "You know how
they say "They don't tell you any
thing'? "Well, that's true.
"The situation there was tense,"
he said. "It was sweaty, hot, hu
mid I didn't like it one bit."
His assignment didn't do much to
please either, as he spent almost the
first five months on guard patrol, a
duty that included the occasional
bullet straying near, and warnings
of grenade-loaded booby traps ("It
rattles ya"). He also had the luxury
of night patrols in unsecured areas,
sometimes alone.
"The first month there was
tough," he told me. "Every day is
long. You look at your calendar and
think 'Eleven more months! No
way!'
"But somehow you do it."
Most of his duties as a guard in
cluded "dealing with street punks,"
local residents who didn't appreci
ate the American invasion. But the
harassment of dealing with them
was fairly mild compared to one as
signment he and some fellow sol
diers were given tracking down
a Viet Cong trap specialist.
"This guy had been mowing down
patrols," he said. "He'd been set
ting booby traps along the guard
routes."
The trapster was never caught,
but they did secure one suspect who
made the error of running at their
approach, suspicious behavior and
in hindsight a mistake. Bobb and
the others had to march the sus
pect nine miles to turn him into
Vietnamese authorities, a journey
that included stops in assorted vil
lages, many of them where the man
was known. In other words, they
had to detain and capture an al
leged enemy in his own territory.
"If you can imagine someone com
ing in here (in the Governance Cen
ter) apprehending a Tribal member
and walking him out at gunpoint,
well that's how it felt," he said. "In
some of those villages we were ner
vous. We stood out so much and
everybody was watching us."
The suspect cried and begged for
mercy the whole journey, Bobb
said, probably because the authori
ties weren't going to be any kinder.
VC prisoners feared capture and
with good reason.
Bobb learned a lot about nerves
in his time in Vietnam, a period of
little respite. Even the off duty
hours were danger-laden, as pesky
VC would fire shots into the Ameri
can "hooches," tropical versions of
barracks. Racial tensions mounted.
Vietnam or not, war or not, soldiers
or not, this was still the era of civil
rights reform.
"You don't really hear much
about that," Bobb said. "They don't
really mention that much in the
books or movies when they talk
about 'Nam. But it was there."
And it was a powder keg. The
closest experience Bobb had with a
live grenade was in his bed, the re
sult of some ongoing feud between
black soldiers and whites. The ani
mosity had reached a boiling point,
and one individual sought to make
a point by rolling a grenade into
adjacent hooch, not too far from
Bobb's own. The blast knocked him
out of bed.
"The racial conflict was such a big
part of the experience," he said.
Of course, the VC did their part
too. The occasional bullet would fly
through the hooches, not often
finding a live target but leaving a
psychological mark. Guards still
had to be aware of booby-traps, and
add to that the fact the Vietnamese
jungle could be an uncomfortable,
mosquito-infested, malaria-ridden
hellhole.
Not surprisingly, many soldiers
turned to drugs and alcohol for es
cape therapy, if you will.
"At that time, that's what every
body did," he said. "That was the
way to deal with everything. I can
remember waking up face down in
the dirt more than once."
But Bobb didn't spend Vietnam
in a drunken haze. He made life
long friends, and ran into childhood
buddies, meeting up with fellow
Tribal members Mike Larsen and
Reyn Leno. He also witnessed the
grim but very impressive spectacle
of a napalm bombing.
As an ammo technician, Bobb re
used expended ammunition. The
material would often reach a satu
ration point where it couldn't be
recycled under any conditions. All
the dead ammo had to be disposed
of, and was often accomplished by
driving to the Laotian border and
dumping it. The Viet Cong caught
on to this routine and one day lay
in wait.
"We'd driven to where we nor
mally would dump the ammo and
they'd booby-trapped the whole
area," Bobb said. "They were hid
ing up in the hills."
The phantom planes got called in
while Bobb and the other soldiers
warned nearby villagers to "didi
mao" get out. Many residents
were remiss, not understanding the
magnitude of what was coming.
Within minutes the planes arrive,
leveling the hillsides, scorching and
blackening everything with na
palm bombs.
"When those bombs went off, ev
ery living thing blew by us birds,
snakes, lizards, cats, dogs, insects
everything," he remembered. "You
could see the concussion wave com-
Grand Ronde
Iff
Salem
Eugene
Table Rock
Twenty Miles a Day Veteran Steve Bobb will walk the 265 miles from
Table Rock to Grand Ronde, the same walk forced on our Tribal ancestors in
1856, to raise money for the planned Veterans' Memorial in Grand Ronde. Bobb
intends to walk about 20 miles a day and he has invited Veterans to join him as he
passes through each town along the way.
ing. It was like being slapped in
the face."
Villagers ran and biked by, now
fully realizing what the soldiers had
meant. Bobb still has a look of
amazement just recounting the
story.
With those kind of experiences,
and more, like visiting the carnage
of a MASH unit or seeing dead bod
ies on a regular basis, nobody
should be surprised that any vet
eran would return with a deeper
appreciation for the country and
perhaps just life in general. Bobb
is no exception.
He returned to America, and to
Willamina, profoundly changed.
He would marry Connie Majors,
and have three sons Steve, Jr.,
Billy and Cory. Those three sons
brought in nine grandchildren. Not
bad for a 52 year old Veteran.
Unfortunately, Bobb's post-Vietnam
years didn't always go
smoothly. In the late 1970's he de
veloped rheumatoid arthritis in vir
tually all joints, a condition that
created a twenty-year reliance on
prescription medicine that turned
out to he detrimental to his immune
system. In 1997, after six different
trips to the hospital and removal of
his spleen, Bobb was faced with the
last resort: complete lifestyle change
or else.
The alteration worked to perfec
tion, though getting there was by
no means easy. Bobb had to almost
eliminate red meat from his diet, as
well as cut back drastically on sugar
intake and increase protein and
vegetable consumption. And oh
yeah, he had to start exercising.
Again.
"I'd always been pretty good at
exercising, especially when I got
back from 'Nam," he said. "But once
the arthritis kicked in I had a hard
time just getting out of bed. I can
remember when my boys had to
carry me to bed."
In 1997 he began to walk five
days per week. A nightly exercise
regimen became his pre-bed rou
tine. When he first began 75 push
ups per day and a handful of sit
ups was a major undertaking. He
does 1,500 and 400, respectively,
seven days per week. He walks five
miles per day, during lunch break.
"At first it was tough, yeah," he
said. "But now that I'm in the rou
tine, I don't notice. It's effortless.
"Exercise eradicated my arthritis
altogether," he added. "I'm a big
proponent now. It does work."
And he recommends to all
younger people that now is the time
to start.
"When you're young you think
nothing will ever happen," he said.
"But once you get 40, you notice.
That's why I say start now and you
won't sweat it later."
But walking, in fact, has become
Bobb's avocation, more than just a
segment of his routine. If unnec
essary, he would walk anyway.
Call it a form of meditation.
"I just love to walk, getting the
change of scenery," he reflected. "It
gives you a lot of time to think. I
like the energy."
His feet are calloused over and
tough as leather now, having en
dured scores of blisters, and Bobb
has achieved such a phenomenal
level of fitness that the 265-mile
hike from Table Rock doesn't seem
the least bit daunting. In fact, he
obviously savors the chance, not
only because it's his forte, but an
opportunity to honor the Veterans'
community, to raise money for the
memorial and to commemorate the
Tribe's "Trail of Tears" almost a cen
tury and a half following the origi
nal occurrence.
The walk has, fittingly, a certain
symbolism for Steve Bobb. The road
to the Grand Ronde Reservation for
Tribal ancestors was no less turbu
lent and disturbing than Bobb's
own path to veteran-hood and his
new life. Neither was easy or for
gettable. The original march began on Feb
ruary 23 of 1856, starting in the
Rogue Valley where the Natives
had been virtually exterminated
during the Rogue River Indian
Wars. Led by Indian Agent George
Ambrose, 325 Natives made the
grueling march from the valley up
the old Applegate Trail to Grand
Ronde, losing eight members to
various forms of death but experi
encing eight births along the way.
Ambrose's journal of the walk was
chronicled in condensed form in a
continued on page 5