TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

John Burwell Wilkes
a paving project widening one of the main arteries of Grand Rapids. I
was summarily rejected by the foreman when he realized I had a
college degree. The chief engineer overheard him tell me that he “did
not want no college boys on his crew.” The engineer called me into his
office and hired me as an inspector to judge some of the aspects of the
foreman’s performance.
Since I left Viet Nam, I was following the prescribed regimen of
slowly reducing my ingestion of the malaria prophylactic medicine. As
I tapered off the pills, I started getting short bouts of chills and fever,
usually while on the job. By the time I got home, I was completely
back to normal and could only tell my physician father what I
experienced. In the normal onset of malaria, the first attacks are
usually devastating and life threatening. My father suspected malaria
in spite of the fact that my attacks were very mild and short. In order
to make an accurate diagnosis, blood needs to be drawn during an
attack, which we were never able to do. My father took me to a
tropical disease expert lab tech from Panama at one of the local
hospitals, and she was finally able to diagnose the malaria about the
time I was getting seriously sick. I spent two weeks in treatment,
including heavy doses of quinine that completely blocked my sense of
balance. For most of the rest of my adult life, I would be plagued with
intermittent mysterious night sweats probably caused by a malaria
residual.
In the mid­seventies, while practicing as a young lawyer in
Nashville, and my wife and I were out of town, our house was burned
almost to the ground. All my records and mementos of Viet Nam were
lost in the blaze. Since I could not replace them, I decided it was best
not to dwell on that part of my life anyway. The loss of my three
nineteen­year­old Marines was still heavy on my mind and
overshadowed the adventures of that year. Even though I maintained
an active reserve career, I lost track of most of the friends I had made
in Viet Nam, except for two of my wonderful troops, Steve Biesiot of
North Dakota, and Virgil Hoffman of North Carolina.
In 1989, I was living and working in western Ireland as the
Executive VP and COO of an international airplane leasing company.
One day, while visiting an Irish pub with some of my Irish workers, I
was accosted by a radical individual whom the Irish folks knew as an
IRA terrorist. The man was inebriated and extremely obnoxious with
his radical views. When he called me a terrorist for fighting in Viet
Nam, the fight started. Luckily, my team physically intervened before
any serious injuries were delivered and pulled us apart.
In 1996, I retired from the Marine Corps with 31 years longevity.
The good folks at the Marine Reserve Headquarters in Kansas City
gave me a retirement parade at the Richards/Gebaur Air Base. The
officer that was put in charge of the parade and who pinned on my
meritorious service medal, was a full colonel whom I had only met
once before in my entire life. Somehow we had never crossed paths
during our reserve careers. He was the very same officer I had relieved
in 1968 as the commander of the 1st Provisional 155 howitzer battery.
In May of 2019, my Basic School class of 2­67, held a 52­year
reunion in the Quantico area. The chairman of the reunion committee
was an outstanding recon officer and Naval Academy graduate named
Bill McBride. As a result of the reunion, we have become close
friends. Bill encouraged me to write these memoirs. Bill has become a
true scholar of the Viet Nam war and has recently completed his
second return trip to the country. After reading my memoirs, including
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