May 2011 Newsletter
Rogue
Valley Chapter 156 News
Newsletter
of Rogue Valley Veterans for Peace Chapter 156
Visit
our website at: http://rv-vfp156.org
Volume
1, Issue 4
May 2, 2011
May
meeting this Wednesday at the home of Dennis Clancy
Our
chapter’s next meeting will be held at 6:30 pm this Wednesday, May 4, at the
home of Dennis Clancy.
Dennis' address is 4599 Thompson Creek
Rd in the Applegate area. For more information call Dennis at
541-846-6287 but the directions below should get you there. See a
rough agenda for the meeting near the end of this newsletter.
Here are directions:
From Grants
Pass area:
Take Redwood Hwy (Hwy 199) to Williams Hwy (Hwy 238). Drive south on 238
for about 17.8 miles. Make slight right turn onto Thompson Creek Rd.
If you cross the bridge into Applegate, you’ve gone too far.
On Thompson Creek Rd drive about 4.6 miles east. Dennis’s driveway at
4599 is on your left. Please park in front of the house, not by the
garage.
From
Medford area:
West Main Street becomes OR 238 (Jacksonville Hwy). Turn right onto East
California Street (Hwy 238). Follow 238 about 15.4 miles. You will
be driving through Jacksonville. When you come to the village of
Applegate, cross the river on 238 and take the first left onto Thompson Creek
Rd and drive about 4.6 miles. 4599 is on your left. Please park in
front of the house, not by the garage.
This
information is on our website on the Activities Page, at the top. I
checked with Dennis and he said that the instructions are correct.
Member
of the Month and Newsletter Profile: Daniel
Guy
Editor’s
Note: Now
that Emmet Band has vacated the presidency of our chapter, the mantle has
fallen to our former vice president, President Daniel Guy.
I thought this would be an excellent time for us all to get to know
Daniel better, so he is our Member of the Month and the subject of this
month’s profile.
Daniel
is retired and lives in Medford in a lovely home with his hard-working wife,
Vicki, who is a manager with Tree Top (formerly Sabroso) in Medford.
They are empty-nesters, having raised two daughters, Katherine and
Suzanne, both of whom live in Portland.
When
Dan was younger, he tells me, he hoped to become a career Army officer, and he
joined the ROTC in college and became an officer in the Army Reserve and
National Guard, but because he came along just after the Vietnam War was over,
he never was called into active duty. He
might have served 20 years or more in the National Guard, had an employer not
threatened to curtail his civilian job if he didn’t go inactive in the
Guard, and if a life-threatening brain disease hadn’t laid him low for a
time. In those days he was also a
Republican. But we are getting
ahead of ourselves. Let’s begin
at the beginning and let Daniel tell his own story.
Q:
Where were you born and raised?
D:
I
was born in Syracuse, NY, on Oct. 12, 1954.
But my family moved often. My
earliest memories are from the short time we lived in Port Orchard on Puget
Sound. My father was an
electrical engineer who grew up in a very poor family in Mississippi.
He entered the Navy at age 18 in 1946, then went to college on the GI
bill at Georgia Tech. My mom was
born in Bellingham, WA. Her
father was a lawyer, but not a wealthy one.
I
went to grade school and part of middle school on the East Coast, then we
moved to Southern California, and a couple of years later we moved again to
Portland. I was a junior at
Wilson High School in Portland when my father died in a scuba diving accident.
I think he took it up because I
was interested in it. After that, my mom had to move us again, so I finished
high school in Albany, OR, in 1973. I’m
the oldest of the three kids in my family.
Q:
Where did you go to college?
D:
I
went to Willamette University in Salem my freshman year, but it was too
expensive, so I transferred to OSU (Oregon State University) in Corvallis in
’74. I joined the ROTC at OSU as sophomore. This was in the post-Vietnam War
era, and as an 18-year-old student, I helped to re-elect Richard Nixon.
At that time I was lacking in both awareness and political sensitivity.
When I was commissioned an officer in the Army ROTC, my girlfriend
pinned the lieutenant’s bar on me. That
girlfriend is still my girlfriend – my wife Vicki. She
was a grad student in food sciences who robbed the cradle.
I actually proposed to her when I was stationed at Ft. Knox.
I
graduated in March ’78. I’d
taken time off to work on the work on the Alaskan oil pipeline.
I was up there in 1975; I skipped spring term and worked up there at
Prudhoe Bay about as far north as you can get for four or five months and made
enough to pay for the rest of my college.
They started me at a low-paying job and I worked up to $11/hour and
there was nothing to spend money on. I remember one time when a buddy and I
had a couple of drinks of Johnny Walker Red Label and decided to go
skinny-dipping. We didn’t stay
in the water very long.
I
got my college degree in History, which I’ve always enjoyed. I also enjoyed
the ROTC, which got me an extra $100 month.
During summer vacations our ROTC unit went to summer camp in Ft. Lewis,
WA, and I did
an extra program as a cadet in 9th Infantry.
Later, I was assigned to armor and trained to be a tank platoon leader.
Q:
What did you do after college?
D:
After I graduated, the Army sent me to Ft. Knox for the basic course
for armor officer training. For
weeks I lived around the tanks and rotated leadership positions with the other
trainees. I applied for active duty and got all the required recommendations,
but they weren’t taking anybody because the Vietnam War was over and they
were downsizing the military.
After
the course ended, I returned to Corvallis and joined a branch of Army Reserve.
Vicki and I got married in
September 1978, and then moved from Corvallis to Marshall, Minn., for
Vicki’s first job there. I
moved with her for her job in the food industry, and I became active with the
Minnesota National Guard. As a
civilian I worked first as a stereo store manager and later as circulation
manager for the local newspaper.
Q:
How long were you affiliated with the
Army reserves and National Guard?
D:
I was in for more than 14 years. In
Minnesota the National Guard unit didn’t have armor, so I became a member of
a light infantry unit, the 2nd Battalion, 155th Infantry, the old First
Minnesota Regiment, which was one of the first units to answer Lincoln’s
call for troops in 1861. I was a
rifle platoon leader, then a company executive officer and later a battalion
staff officer. While we were in
Minnesota, the unit had a foreign exchange program with the Norwegian Army, so
in February 1983 I went to Norway and spent a month doing winter survival
training – cross country skiing and such.
We had the weekends off in Oslo to fritter around museums, and I met
some people I really enjoyed getting to know.
Q:
When did you move to the West Coast?
D:
In November 1984 we moved to
southern California. I switched
from the Minnesota to the California National Guard.
I was a captain in a mechanized battalion.
In 1988 I went to South Korea with my unit.
I served as an umpire for military exercises.
My umpiring team was on its own for about two weeks.
Just two NCO’s (non-commissioned officers) and me traveling around
together. The Three
Amigos movie just come out and one of the NCO’s was Hispanic and he
started calling us the “tres amigos.”
I
enjoyed my time in the California Army National Guard.
At different times I served as company commander, S-2 staff
intelligence officer, S-1 battalion adjutant/personnel officer and
communications electronic warfare officer.
I would still be doing it probably.
Q:
What happened?
D:
I was working in retail for
Longs Drug. I was a department
manager, then assistant store manager. It
was made clear to me that I couldn’t get promoted if stayed active in the
National Guard, even though the law required them to keep me on, they didn’t
like me going away for two-week trainings in the summers or working long
weekends each month with the Guard. I
had wanted to get in 20 years (in the Guard), but I decided my civilian career
was more important, so I went inactive in the National Guard in 1995.
Of
course, my Guard career might have ended a couple of years later anyway
because in 1997 I started having a long string of headaches.
I’d had a few migraines in high school, so my doctor at first thought
it was just migraines. But then
one day a neighbor saw me collapse on the street when I sort of “browned
out.” The neighbor was
concerned and that got me to go back to the doctor and they did a “CATSCAN.”
As soon as they looked at the scan, the docs immediately hospitalized
me, and I underwent the first of four brain surgeries the next day.
It turned out not to be a cancerous tumor.
It was a cyst that was growing and putting pressure on my brain.
I would’ve been dead within weeks or months, if I hadn’t gone in
for the scan when I did.
Q:
You’ve told us that your short-term memory is sometimes not as good
as it used to be, but that overall you’ve had an amazing recovery.
How would you assess your life since the surgeries?
D:
It’s amazing how brain
surgery can make you smarter and cause you to realize the negative effects of
American militarism and the cost of empire.
In
some ways I’m smarter and feeling better than ever before.
I’ve been doing a lot exercise, mostly cardio and weight training, at
OZ Fitness. I also enjoy hiking
and other outdoor activities.
Q:
When did your political views begin to change?
D:
During my recovery I had lots of time to read and think about things.
And I remember a conversation that I had with my younger daughter
(Suzanne) when she was 17 that really opened up my mind.
(Before
that conversation,) I had always felt that marriage could only be between a
man and woman and when my daughter challenged my views, I really listened.
Not too long after that I started going to the U-U
(Unitarian-Universalist center down there (in Southern California).
I’m now a total advocate for gay rights and for doing away with the
“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy in the military.
In 2000 I voted for George W. Bush.
I rapidly saw what a mistake that was.
I guess it was about that time when I started rethinking a lot of
stuff.
Q:
When did you start getting involved with peace activities?
D:
I started participating in peace rallies down in Southern
California. Then,
after Vicki and I moved to Oregon in 2006, when Vicki got a job with Sabroso
in Medford, I got involved with Citizens for Peace & Justice and started
attending their rallies against the war.
I went to several protests. I heard about Veterans for Peace through
CPJ. I guess I was ready and
looking for change and I liked the people I met who were in the peace
movement.
Q:
Do you have any ideas or goals that you think VFP 156 should consider
to further the cause of peace or improve our chapter’s standing in the
community?
D:
I would like us to work on expanding our membership, and especially
some racial diversity in the group. Also,
I would like to get some women veterans to join.
I
really want to see as many chapter members attend the annual Veterans for
Peace national convention in August in Portland (August 3-7 at Portland State
University). And I’d like to
see our chapter continue to emphasize working with other peace and justice
organizations.
A
Rough Agenda for Wednesday evening’s Meeting
1.
Minutes from April meeting.
2.
VFP convention in Portland in August.
3.
Old business. One item that may need discussion is lifetime
membership in VFP.
4.
Boatnik parade update report.
5. Treasurer's
report.
6. Location of June 1 meeting. For a change, we might consider meeting at a restaurant, conference room, or maybe a picnic. We could, for example, have a picnic at Valley of the Rogue State Park.
7.
More copies of Addicted to
War given to Josephine Community Libraries.
8.
Discussion of ways to find new members to our chapter.
9.
Changes and updates to our website.
10.
Do we want to be in the July 4th parade at Ashland?
11.
VP slot needs to be filled.
12.
Here is a wild idea for a discussion: If you recently received the VFP
Annual Report in the mail, what inspired you the most
about what you read in
this report?