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Jim Geheran Personal Bio
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"To be better, you must be different"

The Irish In Me

I am one of four children born to James and Belinda Geheran.  My parents are immigrants from Ireland who, after a brief stint in New York City, settled in Bay Shore, New York where.  My father died in 1970. My mother, now 93, still lives in the family homestead on Long Island.  She is still active and is a passionate talk radio show listener. Her positions on current events highly correlates with the position of the radio personality to whom she last listened.  My early years revolved around the local Catholic parish church and school, St. Patrick's, whose namesake I later was to learn is of questionable authenticity, an appropriate metaphor in light of the Church's current crisis of credibility. 

Highly Miseducated

My misgivings about education were carefully nutured from an early age by the Sisters of No Mercy, who ran the local parish elementary school, affectionately known as Saint Patricks Penitentiary.  Their learning by rote teaching philosophy was so successful that, to this day, I remember such important facts as: two times two is four;  the sun is the biggest body in the universe; the Jesuits discovered America; the British are not to be trusted; and the Roman Empire fell because God does not send children to families with pagan leanings. 

Breakout

Although I was a fairly good student, my rebellious character was a source of contstant concern  to the good Sisters who feared for my immortal soul. Their worst fears were confirmed when I broke with tradition and elected to attend the public high school, rather than continue with my Catholic education in a high school named after another saint or bishop of dubious authenticity.  So, in 1959 I entered Bay Shore High School, where I was placed in  a curriculum designed to de-program me so I could enter the mainstream of modern ways of cursing, spitting, and empiricism that were sure to close whatever doors to heaven remained opened for me.  My high school years were fairly uneventful. I was a JV wrestler for four years (104 lbs.), had a constant crush on Susie Hall, who sat right behind me in Latin Class, was elected to the National Honor Society, and then removed for unbecoming conduct, the specifics of which I honestly cannot remember.  I spent my summers as a golf caddy at the Southward Ho Country Club and as a girl watcher at the many wonderful beaches on the South Shore of Long Isand and Fire Island. I never did ask Susie Hall to the prom.  In fact, I can't ever recall even speaking with Susie Hall although everyone in the school, including Susie,  knew of my situation. I eventual asked Myra Feldman to the prom, who was gorgeous, had a college boyfriend, and went with me out of pity and a sincere desire to go to the prom. 

High School
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Prom 1963

Miseducation Continued

High School graduation came long before I had any idea what I wanted to do with my life. My father wanted me to get a job at the local grocery chain. So, I decided to go to college.  This upset my father no end, who saw my decision as a slovenly avoidance of honest labor.  I entered the newly created campus of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Long Island in the fall of 1963.  By "newly created" I mean it existed mostly on paper.  The State University was still mostly a master plan modeled after the University of California System.  The plan reorganized a string of State Teacher's colleges into a University System anchored by four University Centers, one of which was to be constructed in Stony Brook, a sleepy, upper crust community nestled on the North Shore of eastern long Island.  In actuality, the campus, in 1963, consisted of two buildings: a dormitory, and a Humanities Building, which housed the library and all other academic functions. We affectionately called the campus "Mud with a Purpose".  It was at Stony Brook that my miseducation really went into high gear. I was systematically introduced to drugs, mostly alcohol and pot, and to a world of thought I never knew existed.  Although the Humanities Building was the formal center of learning, I spent most of my time at the Stony Brook Tavern, conveniently located just outside the northern campus perimeter on Rt. 25A.  At that time, Stony Brook attracted mostly engineering students.  I was a founding member of the English department, of which I was the only male member.  Somehow, I managed to remain sober long enough to earn a degree.  However, a glitch occurred during the first semester of my senior year.  If you recall, I wrestled in high school in the 104-pound weight class.  By the time I was a senior in college, I had beefed up to about 115 lbs and looked all of 14 years old.  I only bring this up because I was awakened one day in the first semester of my senior year. by a professor in whose class on Victorian Poetry I had an understandable tendency to catch a few winks so I would be fresh for a night at the Tavern.  Professor Abrams was very mature and polite about the whole thing as he advised me that his was an advanced course reserved for Senior English majors and perhaps I should consider going elsewhere.  With equal politeness but with undisguised glee, I told Professor Abrams that I indeed was a senior and an English Major and that I needed this course to fill my major requirements.  I will never forget the look of utter apoplexy on this man's face as he blurted out that I would never get a degree in English from this University as long as he had a breath.  I told him I understood his concern but I was pretty much a fait accompli so he might as well get used to it.  Somehow we actually developed a mutual respect through which I earned an A (Irish stubbornness) and a personal handshake from Professor Abrams, resplendent in his academic robes, on graduation day.

 

Me Jan '69
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R&R Taiwan

Me at Can Tho
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1968

36th Engr Bn
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Const Site

Steph & Matt
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Son and Youngest Daughter

Vietnam Closes In

The State University of New York, Stony Brook, in the 1960s,  was a bastion of brainy, middle, class ultra-liberals from New York City.  Through my innocent Irish Catholic eyes, the campus was the nearest expression of the Garden of Earthly Delights that reality could sustain.  Sex, drugs, music, and political turmoil permeated every aspect of campus existence.  Students protested everything legal, illegal, and status quo.  The lightning rod for much of this culture was the Vietnam War.  Teach-ins by "pinko", card carrying Professors were a constant event; The New York Review of Books was the Bible for anti-establishment wisdom.  The Students for a Democratic Society was the only politically correct political institution on campus.  For the most part, I remained above it all in my Stony Brook Tavern induced stupor.  I finally entered the fray, briefly, at the end of my junior year, when I decided to run for Senior Class President. This decision was based mostly on the fact that a student was running unopposed, which I thought was rather untoward.

Running on a solidly conservative platform that promised to rid the class of "yellow sunglassed hippies" who were giving the school a bad name, I secured the vote of one other person.  My resounding defeat made me forever after a strong proponent of conducting polls and market research before establishing a position.

My political defeat and subsequent alienation from the senior class was overshadowed by the growing reality of Vietnam.  The Draft was still in effect and the escalation of the war had reached such a level that anyone who was walking and whose parent was not a member of congress or otherwise politically connected, was being drafted.

 

I graduated Summa Cum Nobody with a BA in English Literature and a Minor in German Literature, Teaching Certification in the State of New York, and an Honorary Lifelong Membership in the Stony Brook Tavern.

 

That same month, I dutifully received an invitation from my local draft board to strongly consider serving in the US Army.  They would make all the arrangements.  So I was faced with a dilemma that confronted most of my male contemporaries.  My grades were insufficient for graduate school where I could hide from the draft for another year or so.  I could run to Canada, but I would have to make all the arrangements.  Or, I could accept the invitation, get to see war up close and personal, see the world, and get to wear a snazzy uniform.  For me it was a no-brainer.  However, through a series of maneuvers, I did delay accepting the invitation so I would have the summer to party.  

 

You're in the Army Now

 

I was finally inducted into the US Army on Oct 2nd at 3:30 in the afternoon, at Ft. Hamilton, Staten Island, New York.  I was immediately shuttled from the scene of the crime to LaGuardia Airport where I was flown to Ft. Jackson, South Carolina along with hundreds of my fellow inductees, many of whom I am sure have been spending these past springs pushing up daises.

Overnight, The Greco Roman world of learning, critical thinking, and unabashed debauchery I had known and grown to love, was crumpled like the first draft of a term paper and replaced with the Spartan paucity of drills, regimentation of all sorts, and a total commitment to killing as a way of life.

My fondest and most recurring memory of my Army training was standing with my company in neatly arranged files on a practice field jabbing at sawdust filled targets, with bayonet mounted rifles, as a drill sergeant with a bull horn was yelling "What's the spirit of Bayonet, Charlie Company?"  to which we responded enthusiastically and in unison,  "Kill, maime, Drill Sergeant!". There I was back to the rote learning ways of the Sisters of No Mercy!  Where was Professor Abrams when I needed him?

 

After eight weeks of that silliness I was given advanced individual training at Ft. Lee army base in Petersburg  Virginia, outside of which I vividly remember seeing signs on public lands saying "dogs, niggers, and soldiers, keep off the grass". So much for fighting for democracy.  My advanced training leveraged my considerable knowledge of literature and total lack of small motor skills, by teaching me to become a small arms repair specialist.  I was trained to keep the killing machines, from a 45 caliber sidearm to a grenade launcher,  in fine working order for the killers. who would get them all mucked-up. 

We  finally left for Vietnam from Travis Air Base in California.  After a brief stopover in Japan, we boarded another plane for the two-hour hop to Ton Son Nut Air Base just outside of Saigon.  We were immediately herded into a large hanger filled with hundreds upon hundreds of newly arrived fodder.  A very military looking sergeant was holding a microphone on a raised platform at the back of the hanger. He would periodically call the group to order and read from a list of names handed to him by some nameless clerk.  "The following men are ordered to the 20th Engineer Brigade, 36th Engineering Battalion, Can Tho:.....Specialist Geheran."  A few moments latter, a twin rotor Chinook helicopter was taking me to my new home in the Mekong Delta.

 

I spent most of my time in Vietnam driving in convoys that supplied various engineering companies positioned around the Mekong Delta.  These companies were responsible for building roads, bridges and permanent bases.  Steady employment was guaranteed for both sides through an unwritten understanding that roads would be built to a certain point by the US corps of engineers at which time the Vietcong would take over and blow the road up.  A generation later, my heart skips a beat or two as I hear about a soldier in Iraq who was killed by a roadside bomb as his convoy was on a highway.  An eerie redeux of Vietnam and a testimony to humanity's flat learning curve. Each time I hear of another death in Iraq, I am reminded that, because of some mindless game of cosmic roulette,  I am not a name on a granite wall in D.C. and my three children walk this earth instead of some other soldier's children who never were. .

  

My most vivid memory of Vietnam is the limited color spectrum.  The entire Mekong Delta, in the late 1960's consisted of three colors:  The ubiquitous lush green of the rice paddies and surrounding foliage; the black pajamas worn by the peasants,  and the black hides of the water buffalo who worked the rice paddies in plodding harmony with the peasants whose white shirts and not quite so white broad cone shaped hats completed the tri-color spectrum.

 

My worst day in Vietnam was Thanksgiving Day in 1968.  Thanksgiving fell right at the height of the rainy season.  The rain had rotted through the sand bags of  the bunker on the perimeter of the Can Tho Airfield where I was stationed at the time.  Sand and sand flies were everywhere.  The rain was so thick and noisy it obliterated all other sights and sounds. The turkey dinner that was to be trucked to me never materialized. By the activity of the helicopter gunships and the static on my comm headsets created  by the artillery fire,  I knew that Vietcong were probing my sector.  I was tired and desolate and alone.  I closed my eyes and went to sleep fully expecting never to awake.  A few hours later the chugging of an army truck dropping off my guard replacement awakened me. 

 

The days moved so slowly in Vietnam. Each day was dutifully marked on a "short-timer's" calendar, which every soldier kept.  The days were longer and every more agonizing, as they became fewer.  A person grew in stature and privilege as his remaining days in country became less and less.  It was a good day if you received a letter. Sometimes letters were not so good.  A man in my unit shot himself after listening to an audio tape, sent to him by his wife,  of her making love to another man.   Unofficially, a short-timer, someone with less than 60 days remaining in his tour of duty, was given extraordinary leeway to minimize his risk of "eating his lunch" i.e. getting killed or wounded.   He didn't pull guard duty.  He didn't go on patrols, if at all possible.  He would spend his time at the more secure Headquarters Company than the outlying companies. The person in the company with the fewest days would inherit the huge floor standing fan that ran off a generator.  The fan would be positioned at the foot of his cot and run full blast to blow air over him while he slept  and thus keep the bugs away and provide a modicum of a breeze in the otherwise stultifying night air. 

 

While I was in Vietnam, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.  There were riots outside the Democratic Party  National Convention in Chicago where police clubbed people to bloody pulps,  National Guard troops fired on and killed students at Kent State. Nixon was elected. president.  In some weird way,  what the US was sewing in Vietnam, it was reaping in its own back yard. 

 

BACK HOME1

I finally departed for "the land of the big PX" at the end of March, 1969. This was approximately thirteen months, one week, and one day after I had landed in Vietnam.

 

My fatigues were duly faded after months in the sun and rain.  I had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant.  I was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service.  Most importantly, I had carefully cultivated my hair so its length would allow me to seamlessly integrate with  civilians whose ranks I was about to join once I returned.  Alas, it was not to be so.  As I was called to board the "Freedom Bird" back home,  a newly appointed base commander at Ton Son Nut, issued orders that everyone was to be inspected prior to boarding the aircraft to go home.  I flunked the inspection. I had to go to the barbershop to get a military style haircut.  I had to wait another two days to get on another flight. That is the army in a nutshell.

 

Civilian American Stewardesses staffed the plane I boarded to go home.  I will never forget how big they appeared.  I could never imagine how a man could handle such large women.  I only mentioned this because it illustrates how differently my mind had become calibrated.  The stewardesses, of course, were average sized Americans, who are very large compared with their Vietnamese counterparts. 

 

About 24 hours after landing in Wright Patterson Air Force Base in New Jersey, I was honorably discharged from the United States Army and free to return to my home in Long Island, New York.  By regulation I had to leave the base in an Army Dress Uniform.  With no civilian clothes available to me, I had to travel by bus and then, from New York City, by train to Long Island in an Army Uniform.  I  received unfriendly glances from several folk.  A man I sat beside on the train out to Long Island asked me where I was coming from.  When I said Vietnam, he, without a word, got up and moved to another seat.

 

For lack of anything better to do, I returned to the State University of New York to earn my masters degree.  I was easily identified as a Vietnam Vet on campus and was occasionally approached by some misguided student, usually a female, who would ask me how I could kill innocent babies.  Psychedelics where in full vogue in 1969.   The cacophony of colors that adorned everything from tie-dyes t-shirts to garishly painted VW buses.  I would seek respite by going back to my room, pulling down the blinds and closing my eyes as I lay prostrate on the bed.

I earned my MS in August of 1970. On September 1, 1970 I left the United States for Europe where I lived for five wonderful years, . learned German and Spanish, and found my fortune.  On the island of Gibraltar, I married the girl who lived across the street from me during my high school years on Long Island.  We returned to the US in 1975.  We subsequently  parented three children.  My son Matthew 26, is an Eagle Scout, a graduate in International Relations from Eckerd College, St. Petersburg Florida. He currently works with small children waiting to go into foster care in the St. Petersburg area.  My oldest daughter, Jessica, is a junior at Warren Wilson College in Ashville, SC.  She is an ardent advocate for Human Rights.  Jessica was the first teenager ever appointed to the Commonwealth's Human Rights Commission.  She worked at Mother Theresa's Mission in Calcutta, India and was a Boston Women of the Year Awardee in 2000 along with the Boston Globe Columnist, Eileen McNamara.  My youngest is Stephanie who is a senior at Wellesley High, a Girl Scout Gold Awardee.  During Spring Break , Stephanie will travel to Honduras, where she will work on community service projects in association with Heifer Project International, a people-to-people organization that helps third world families achieve self-sufficiency.  None of my children have ever held, or owned,  even a toy gun.

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