Sometime during springtime in 1971, shortly after shooting that officers’ wives fashion show, I completely ran out of photographic printing paper. I told the lieutenant who was in direct charge of me, Lt. T. Gordon Barber (Thomas Gordon Barber eddiebar@bellsouth.net, 770-740-0419, 600 Glen Hampton Dr Alpharetta, GA 30004-3067), to get me some photo paper, or there was not going to be anymore photos printed. He didn’t like that at all, but he came back into my photo lab later and handed me an army supply company order form which had photographic supplies listed on it. I immediately, happily filled it out and turned it back into him that very same day.
Two weeks later, Lt. Barber comes up to me, in my barracks mess hall right after I had eaten lunch, and excitedly says that he has something to show me over at my photo lab. I hadn’t been over there very often during those two weeks, because I had no photo paper to print my negatives with.
When we got to the entrance of the Mole Hole, I saw that a big pile of heavy, wooden crates had been dropped off in the short entrance tunnel there just outside the large, underground vault style door to the bunker.
Lt. Barber gleefully, proudly said, "Look what I got for you!"
I was pleasantly surprised; I was so happy to see those desperately needed supplies that I was nearly jumpin’ up and down; there was a huge, wide smile of relief on my face, for about a lightning fast second and a half, until it registered in my brain that the crates had PROPERTY OF U.S.M.C. emblazoned all over them in large, black, painted letters - those crates were stolen from the United States Marine Corps.
It was a crushing experience for me, because I was in the U.S. Army, therefore, to the best of my knowledge, back then and now, I had no right, in any way, shape or form to be in possession of any U.S. Marine Corps property.
I looked at the U.S.M.C. logos on the crates and thought, "Holly shit! I’ve got way too much stolen Marine Corp property to hide in my little photo lab."
The reason that I say stolen is because it was Marine Corps stuff. I just talked to a Marine Corps Recruiter on the phone about this. We spoke for a few minutes, and he had enough time to spare for us to concur that in the eyes of most Marines, it would have been stolen property, and if certain ones of them had caught me with the stuff, I’d a been in for some kind of a butt whuppin’.
I stared hard at the U.S.M.C. logos on those contraband crates and angrily asked Lt. Barber, "Where the hell did you get these?"
He was still gleeful and proud of himself as he replied, "I have a friend who is a captain in the Marines."
That Marine captain had done his friend the Army lieutenant a personal favor that probly was a returned favor or it had to be returned at some later time. You can bet your butt that both of their butts would have been in a sling if certain other Marines had found out about it. Marines are famously dedicated to Semper Fi; they are ever faithful to their beloved Corps; that captain had done his fellow Marines wrong.
As I stood there surveying the scene and focusing in on the shocking facts of the situation, I realized the fact that the crates were stacked up nice and neat right out there where anybody who walked anywhere near them would definitely see the U.S.M.C. logos painted on them, and therefore identify them as stolen Marine Corps property. I could feel an avalanche of painful, shocking realizations pouring down on me and adding to the weight of the crushing anxiety which I was feeling as a result of me suddenly, unexpectedly being in possession of those stolen crates of photographic paper.
I was pissed-off.
I realized right away that this could cause me serious legal problems, if the wrong person found me to be in possession of those crates. It may have been enough to send me to Ft. Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary to do hard time. The Marines were America’s worst supplied branch of military service, at the time, so I seriously doubt that their photographers were willing to peacefully part with any supplies at all.
I felt even more crushing weight coming down on me, when I looked closer at the crates and saw that they were clearly marked — THIS PAPER FOR USE WITH RED SAFE LIGHT ONLY. My photo lab had a reddish orange safe light.
I informed Lt. Barber that this paper could not be used in my lab.
"Whaaat?" Lt. Barber said, looking a bit unbelieving of me.
I nearly snarled at him, like a bear who had just stepped into a solid steel, jagged toothed, leg hold trap, and I growled, "Comere! I’ll show ya."
I opened a crate, took a box of paper out of it, and then walked into the lab with him following me closely; he was sporting a mean scowl on his face and was mumbling curses lowly towards the back of my head.
I opened the box of paper in my photo enlarger room, where it was very dark, except for the reddish-orange glow from my safe light, and put the paper into the developer. It turned completely black, very quickly.
"See, it’s the same as taking it out in the white light," I growled at the scowling, and still mumbling curses lowly, lieutenant.
Then he marched on out'a there in front of me, whilst cursing and mumbling lowly down towards his shoes.
The facts of this matter get worse.
Those damned crates had been placed right next to where the 30th Arty Brigade commander’s chauffeur driven official U.S. Army car’s official parking place was. Anyone visiting the brigade commander, who may have ridden around with the him while touring the island and/or our missile sites, could have seen the U.S.M.C. logos on those large wooden crates. Any visitor who was given a tour of the Mole Hole would have had to wind their way around the pile of crates in order to enter the underground communications bunker. I wasn’t worried about my brigade commander, who was a full bird colonel, seeing the crates, because I figured that he had to be in on it all - in some way.
But, if those Marine Corps crates had been discovered to be there in the entrance to the Mole Hole by a visiting Marine, or any high ranking U.S. military or government official, or any one of the Japanese Army Officers or government officials who were occasional visitors to our missile sites, which the Japanese were going to take command of after Okinawa reverted to their control in upcoming 1972, or if the crates had been seen by any regular GI who thought that it was his sworn duty and obligation to report the situation, or who just wanted to start a bunch of trouble, and possibly get himself a promotion for doing it, if any of those completely feasible scenarios had occurred, then I would have been in deep doo-doo, for sure. It could have cost me hard time in Ft. Leavenworth Penitentiary.
Angry, racing thoughts had created fleeting visions of fragments of each and every one of those feasible scenarios across the inside of my forehead, as we walked back out through the entrance way, past the U.S.M.C. emblazoned crates, and I looked from that angle out towards the colonel’s parking place and back to the crates and back out towards the side door of headquarters office building.
If I had been charged with possession of stolen Marine Corps property, anyone who believes that Lt. Barber would have owned up to giving me those stolen government goods please raise their hand. OK. If all of you who raised your hands will kindly give me the numbers to your bank accounts, I have millions of legal dollars that I wish to store in your bank accounts.
I had given Lt. Barber a complete list of the supplies that I needed to be able to continue working in my photo lab, and all he got me was a great big pile of serious problems.
As furiously fleeting thoughts about all of the facts concerning this Marine Corps property situation were racing through my mind, the scowling, growling, mumbling and cursing Lt. Barber and I walked all of the way out of the underground bunker’s entrance way and into the brightly sunlit outdoors.
Lt. Barber turned, shook his hands and arms up and down in his unjust furious frustration, stomped his right foot down and forward towards me, and said, "You have friends in other units who are photographers don’t you?’
I was hotter than the east end of a west bound Nike-Hercules Missile, and getting warmer by the split-second, as I dryly answered, "Yeahhh."
Lt. Barber then inquired angrily, "Well then, why don’t you get what you need from them?"
I had asked myself that question many months before that, and I gave Lt. Barber the same answer as I had given myself, "Because they aren’t into that kind of a thing.
You gotta be some kinda hustler to know how to do that and not get caught. They’re not like that."
Then I angrily laid into him with, "Damn it! I gotta have them supplies! I ordered ‘um two gah-damned weeks ago, now where the hell are they?"
"Well bitchity-bidgidy-boop (unintelligible gripes) Crews! I’ll see what I can do, but you ought'a try and do something yourself," Lt. Barber blubbered, in a tone more pleading than an army officer should allow himself to use when speaking to a lower ranking enlisted man, like I was.
I had two friends who were also U.S. Army Photographers stationed on Okinawa. Both had attended Army Photo Lab Tech School with me. One was Bruce from Pennsylvania, and the other was a southern boy named Bob.
Bob had landed a job in the smallest and most top secret army intelligence unit on the island. Bob sure as hell had to have a good clean record to land that intel job. I wasn’t thoughtlessly ignorant enough to ask him to take that chance for me. Or more precisely, I wasn’t thoughtlessly ignorant enough to ask him to take that chance for the 30th Artillery Brigade personnel who wanted me to produce photographs of them at work and play.
Bruce definitely wasn’t capable of pulling off any midnight scrounging maneuvers for me. He was too gentle of a person. He couldn’t deal with the natural guilt and the worry of getting caught. He also had a good job. He worked for the public information office of a large Army Intelligence Unit. There are scroungers in the military, and there are non-scroungers who often make good use of the scroungers. Bruce was not the scrounger type.
I couldn’t deal with asking Bruce or Bob to scrounge up (steal?) stuff for me. It would not only have jeopardized our friendships, if they got mad, but if they had gotten caught it could have meant some real trouble for them. I was born and raised with an ample supply of common sense, so I was not going to ask a man who is assigned to a military intelligence unit to take stuff from their company for me, because, as you probably know too, they have spies there who spy on the spies.
On top of that, in the springtime of 1971, I was far too stressed out from being saddled with the guilt of knowing that my photo lab negated the emergency use of the decontamination chamber, and worn down by the anger that came from me having to pay out of my pocket for photo equipment and film to do my 30th Arty photo assignments. I was not going to add midnight scrounging anxieties to that load of garbage that I was saddled with.
Bob and Bruce loved their jobs. When Lt. Barber had tried to talk me into jeopardizing their choice photography jobs, his tone of voice and body language insinuated that I was neither smart enough nor dedicated enough to my job to have considered the idea of asking them to scrounge for me. He was also insinuating that I should go door to door to every army photo lab that I knew of and to beg like a stray dog for the supplies that they may have been short on themselves, that every other army photographer was allowed to order via his company’s supply clerk. That was a like a painful kick into my groin.
It was one painful, crushing thing after the other, for me, over at the Mole Hole, that day.
There was, is and always will be scrounging and swapping of equipment and supplies going on amongst people in the military. I knew about it as a kid.
For one thing there are plenty of scrounging and swapping scenes in war movies. John Wayne often had him a slick scrounger in amongst the troops who were close to him in his war movie’s, and they were always funny and popular to the audience; in the movie The Green Berets the character Peterson was my favorite scrounger of all times. I also knew of a few real scrounging and swapping stories from my military veteran father and uncles. I understand and endorse the afore mentioned activities.
Right after I had informed Lt. Barber that I would not ask my photographer friends to do the lieutenant's and the supply clerk's job of securing me photography supplies, as he furiously stomped on over to, opened, and walked through the side door of the 30th Arty Bgde headquarters office building, I turned back around, looked hard, and unbelieving, at the pile of U.S.M.C. crates.
I thought about it all.
I realized that I couldn’t get my supplies through regular channels, Lt. Barber couldn’t scrounge up the supplies that I needed, I never lucked into a friendship with an army photographer who was in a position to help me out with scrounged stuff, I hadn’t had the right connections amongst supply personnel to be able to scrounge up the supplies myself, I came to the shocking, crushing realization that I was never going to get the supplies that I needed. That still hurts. I wanted to continue doing good photography.
During that lightning fast second and a half before the Marine Corps logos on those crates had registered in my mind, my soul had soared; and when I had believed, for a pleasantly surprised, jumpin’ up and down, happily relieved, fleeting moment, that I was finally going to be able to print up the photo assignments that I had shot in the previous three weeks plus all of my future photography assignments, I was very happy. But after realizing that I was never going to get the supplies that I needed in order for me to do the job of an army photographer, which I had voluntarily signed up in the Army to be trained to do, my spirit was just about thoroughly crushed to death.
I had done a great job as a photographer for the 30th Artillery Brigade, until my supplies ran out.
Lt. Barber wrote some untrue, unkind words about me in my personal army records. He came to the 30th Arty Bgde in January 1971, which was well into the period where I had become fed up with the photo lab situation. I would understand his point of view and why he wrote those things in my records, except that he had to have known that my assignment to the 30th Arty and the photo lab were against Army Rules and Regulations.
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