The Photo Gallery

Wait a minute! This isn't 1963. It's not even 1953! You're probably wondering why I would include a photo of me as a kid on a web site focused on the Vietnam War. Well, there is a relationship as I discovered a few years ago when I explored the origins of the various guilts I had developed after my tour in Vietnam. But that's the theme of my book, so if you care about that, you are just going to have to read it.

Besides, it's my site, and I wanted to. Anyway. . .

The Sisters of Charity wielded a heavy stick over the students at St. Gregory's, the elementary school that I attended. St. Gregory's was a small Catholic parish in a very rural area about 50 miles southwest of Louisville, Kentucky. In addition to teaching and implanting the fear of God in us, the wise sisters recruited altar boys to serve Mass at the church next door. By my age when this photo was taken in the early '50s (I think), I had memorized the Baltimore Catechism and been forced into slave labor as an alter boy. As you can see, I was very happy about that.