Oral History Program Bill Stansbury Interviewed by Don Cavalli 06 August 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Bill Stansbury Interviewed by Don Cavalli 06 August 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Stansbury, Bill, an oral history by Don Cavalli, 06 August 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Bill Stansbury. The interview was conducted on August 6, 1971, by Don Cavalli, in the Adult Halfway Home on 3370 Washington Boulevard in Ogden, Utah. The interviewee discusses his military experiences in Vietnam, with drugs, as well as his opinion of the criminal justice system in Utah. DC: Mr. Stansbury, if you don't mind me asking, could you perhaps tell me a little bit about your early childhood—where you were born, raised, etc. BS: I was born in Salt Lake and I lived there until I was about six. My mother got a divorce and she married Carth Crosby—an okay guy, you know, a real swinger. He worked for Kennecott and he owned a small farm in Magna, Utah. I was sort of brought up in the hicks, riding horses and the whole works. DC: Did you ever actually live on a farm? BS: Yeah, it was a small farm, and let's see, we had seven horses, six old yews, a couple of pigs every fall, you know, a whole house load of chickens. I went to school in Magna and I graduated from Cyprus and I was on their wrestling team and their swimming team. I was married in '66 and I got a divorce in '69 and then we got married again— bummer. DC: Are you presently married, then? BS: Yeah. DC: How many brothers and sisters did you have? 1 BS: Well, let's see—five brothers and one sister. DC: How many times was your mother divorced? BS: After I went in the service, she got married again in '69. Then she got another divorce in '70 and, oh, she was having a baby by this third marriage, she had a stroke and she's got about the mind of a three-year old now. I mean she's, you know, it kind of hurt but that's the way it is. The baby came out all right. It's a cute little varmint—mean as hell. DC: Who takes care of the baby? BS: It's my aunt. She's living with my aunt here. They rent a motel, I mean they run a motel over there—something like this Halfway House, only a little better, I think. DC: What was the first encounter that you had with the System? BS: Oh, I guess it was back in ’64 when I started to work for Safeways, and any time you start working with the public, you get definitely involved with the System and what's going on. DC: Now was this the first time you had been employed? BS: No, I had worked for a horse feed mill in Granger—hauling coal, grain, and hay, taking tests, different quarters and shifts. DC: What was the first encounter you had with the Criminal Justice System per se? BS: Oh, would that be like a ticket violation? DC: Not exactly. BS: February 2 of I guess, '71. DC: What was the violation? 2 BS: I was busted at Skaggs Drug Center. DC: For shop lifting? BS: No, second degree burglary. DC: This is the reason why you are at the Adult Halfway Home then? Were you sent to the Adult Halfway Home or was it a decision of your probation officer? BS: No, it was decision from Judge Wahlquist and I think it is the best one. DC: Have you ever spent any time in juvenile detention? BS: No, I had no record up until now. The only thing I had on my record when I went to court was an honorable discharge, two purple hearts, a sergeant in the Marine Corps and I think that is what saved my neck. DC: So this is actually your first encounter with the Criminal Justice System? BS: Right. DC: Would you like to tell me a little bit about the Adult Halfway Home—what you think about it, is it worthwhile? BS: Well, yeah, it's like I think society is wrong. But I know they're doing it wrong, but I don't know how to improve it. You know, it's worked its way up into a vicious circle. It's so big now and it's, I don't know, it's kind of put itself in its own position, I believo. Like I said, I know that they're doing it wrong, but I don't know how to improve it. DC: How long have you been here in the Adult Halfway Home? BS: I've been here about nine days now. DC: I guess that they have group therapy? 3 BS: Yeah, once a week—every Tuesday. DC: Is this helpful? BS: It helps you unwind a little. You leave jail or you leave prison and you're wound up like a big alarm clock that your mainspring is about ready to bust, and you come here and you can unwind a little bit easier without jumping into society with your eyes closed because sometimes, I think, society’s' water is a little shallow—people can get hurt by just, you know, there you go—get 'em tiger! It helps you so you can think about it and not make the same mistake twice. DC: Why do you think you made the mistake that you did? BS: Well, there are so many reasons that I've thought of while I spent about sixty-nine days at Weber County Jail and I spent nine days hero and all I've done is think and think and I kept running into questions—the same question that you asked me—why? You know, over and over and over and all I could do was make myself excuses. I was just fooling myself and if there's anybody that I don't want to fool—it's myself, because, you know, life's too short to blow it. DC: I guess you have seen what jails and prisons can do to people? BS: Yeah, it will either make 'em or break 'em completely. DC: Of course, only those for whom there is hope for are given the opportunity to come to the Adult Halfway Home, I assume? BS: No, I think everybody from the pen should get it. I know that some of them spend anywhere from one...there is probably some of them that have been out there twenty years. They remember society as it was and society advances so quickly in leaps and 4 bounds that when you come out, the picture that you had of society is turned completely upside down. It's like having to stand on your head to cope with it—to even see it. DC: Well, what about the Weber County Jail? You said that you spent some sixty days there. Tell me about the Weber County Jail—some of the experiences you had there, and what you think of it? BS: Well, it leaves a lot to be desired. They are doing the best they can with what they've got. DC: What kind of services were you provided while you were there? BS: Oh, all of the humane services that, you know, I mean it ain’t no class. The only thing that they provide is the humane things like keeping a roll of paper by the toilet, a blade and a razor, and they come around with a commissary for cigarettes and candy bars. DC: So they feed you and they cloth you? BS: The chow there is... I mean, I'll say it's, and I ain't over exaggerating, I believe it's close to anywhere from 80-90 percent starch. You spend too much time in that place and you can eat and eat and eat and hardly get full. DC: You can lose weight quickly there. BS: Well, no, you gain it because of the starch, but you're hungry for something—you're hungry for meat and you're hungry for more protein like milk. DC: What floor were you on? BS: I was in the pent house—room 12. DC: Isn’t the twelfth floor maximum security? 5 BS: Right. I was up for a felony and they dropped it to a misdemeanor for breaking and entering. Then when they did that, I went to a trustee. DC: What happens in room 12? What is maximum security all about? BS: It's for felony cases—people with a higher escape risk. They got the cells fixed up so clamps go over the doors and that from the outside and they can pull a lover over and clamps go on the doors where the other doors don't have it, I'd say it's pretty maximum. DC: It would be pretty tough to break out of there? BS: Really, you're not really going to go nowhere unless you really go over the deep end. DC: What kind of people did you meet up there? BS: Oh, people from one to twenty—in the prime of life. That was people that was hanging paper, people in there for assaulting a policeman. DC: What do you mean by hanging paper? BS: Checks—bad checks. There was people in for assaulting police officers, people for rape, people for grand larceny, second degree burglary—same as me, a lot of younger people in for narcotics, stimulants and what not, and off the course, there may have been three or four people had a different rap they wore going up for. I mean like there would be twelve of you in one side and twelve or thirteen on the other side, and maybe out of the twelve people say on the north side, there were three in for the same thing, four of them are in for the same thing—you very seldom find a stray in for something— when I was up there. 6 DC: Did they have any interesting stories about their life? I imagine that you had a lot of time to talk and open up to each other. Did they have any interesting stories to toll—anything that might be pertinent as far as improving the Criminal Justice System? BS: No, you don't say too much. Like this one guy was telling another guy. He said, "You leave my time alone and I'll leave your time alone." I mean you play cards and you joke around with checkers and that and you talk about your case somewhat back in court and that but as far as...you hardly have any privacy up there at all. When I was up there I spread it around, you know, that I had to get married and stuff like this, I mean, because somebody would pop off with some wise crack and it does nothing but make your time a little rougher up there. Cause that many people, and you all have to get along—you all have to live together and not tolling how long because courts are so backed up now and unless your lawyer pushes you through, you can spend a lot of time up there. I don't see what the big holdup is on this. If we need more judges or if the system, I moan, if they put ill more hours or what. I don't know, like it seems to me like judges have even better hours than banker hours and then they keep complaining about the backlog they got. I don't know, I mean, I can't jump in and say that this is wrong and this is right because like I have never been a judge and I wouldn't know through experience what the trouble is or anything or why they are so backed up but what I've seen and the only thing that I can take an evaluation from is that they don't spend very many hours in a court room. DC: Did you feel frustrated and did the other prisoners feel frustrated because they couldn't be taken before a judge and tried and either found guilty or found innocent? 7 BS: Yeah, that's it. I mean, that's all dead time unless the judge gives it too you and a lot of them will and a lot of them won't and I guess you're up for a felony, you know you ain't going to get the time up there cause you're either going to be found guilty or innocent and you either get prison or you get free and all that time up there is dead time. The more you set up there, by the time you get to court you don't care if you’re guilty or innocent. I mean the frustration of even getting on the elevator and riding down to court and seeing a girl or something. I mean, wow man. "I went to court today." "You did?" "Yeah" "Well who did you see?" "You know her and her and her, boy sure looking good." "Yeah, what did the judge say?" "Oh, I can't remember." You know, that is about how it is. And then he says, "My attorney is going to come and talk to me." And about two weeks later, his attorney comes up and talks to him. In the meantime, there is nothing like knowing what's on your mind and what you have to tell somebody and then nobody comes. Even if it's in your defense or against you, I think the attorney should be a little bit more, especially the court appointed attorney, should be a little bit more conscientious of their clients. They might, you know, "I'm doing it for nothing," but, I think the state pays them. I'm not sure on that. If you're not going to be a servant of the people, then get out and let somebody who will. DC: Did you know that courts appointed attorneys then? BS: Yeah, I did. DC: Did you know any one that was incarcerated in the same area that you were did not have a court appointed attorney—that had one of his own? BS: I'd say that the biggest majority of felony cases are all court appointed and that's sad because once you get a court appointed attorney, you just pray and hope for the best 8 one. Say you know you're guilty and that, but a good attorney will get you so, maybe like this—the Halfway House, or maybe a good attorney can got you probation, or a good attorney will cut it down from five-to life to two-to life or something like that. Since they're dealing out there anyway, they might as well use a straight deck. DC: It's just waiting and thinking? BS: Right. Like I said, I wouldn't want to have their jobs. But they got them and they also have the responsibility that came along with them. And whether they meet the responsibility or not—that's something else. But, if they can't handle it, they ought to get out. DC: What about other activities in the county jail? You say you were a trustee? BS: Yeah. DC: So you were given certain privileges? BS: Not really privileges. They give you a chance, like I said, to get out of the cells and that. Sure you have to do a little bit of work and that, but you get so tired of setting around doing nothing that oven sweeping or mopping a floor is next to Christmas. If you get down in the kitchen, you get to sneak you an extra peanut butter sandwich or something. I didn't expect it to be good up there. I expected worse than it was. The only thing that really hurts is that you hurt yourself up there—that's your mind. I mean your mind is the only thing that can really work up there and it goes overtime. You lie awake at nights thinking. DC: Do you think the jail should provide you with other activities that would keep your mind off of... 9 BS: No, I think they should set up shorter period to court. The faster that you can got into court and find out if you're going to do time or if you're not going to do time, I mean, you're going to go either way. But up there, you don't have nothing to work for. Say you get a two-twenty, well you got something to work for, you know, two years. I'd say if I went to the penitentiary, I already had my mind made up I was going, and I was going to take my guitar down there and I was going to come out of prison with people begging me to play at places. I made up my mind that I was going to get something worthwhile out of it instead of bucking it all the way. I was going to use that time for like I would school or a college. But where I didn't get the time... I'm glad because of my wife and my kid's coming. I figure right now, I've got one strike on me and if I would have went to the pen, I would have had two and coming out an ex-con, I would have three strikes. So you can't even make it to the batter's mound in society, yet alone, swing at the ball. DC: Do you have any other children besides this one that your wife is expecting now? BS: Yeah, by my first wife, I had two—a little boy and a little girl. DC: Do they live in the area? BS: They live in Magna. You could say that I was the long-haired freaking people. My exwife told me, she said stay away. She said, "at least let me try to raise them in the church and let them know what I figure is right before you let them know what you figure is wrong." It sounded like common sense to me. There's about three days in the year that I can't live. I'm sort of like the Wolfman when the moon comes out. That's Christmas, my boy's birthday, and my little girl's birthday—because you know—up the wall, and especially Christmas, you know, joy to the world and all that stuff. 10 DC: Do you have the opportunity of home visits, visiting your wife and... BS: Yes, I get one tomorrow—It's my first one and I'm looking forward to it in one way but kind of wish I didn't have it in another way. It's nice to get out and see your wife—to be with her, but knowing you have to leave her and, you know, there's nothing worse than a wife saying, "No, don't go." Now me, I've decided that I'm going to go all out in this place. Like if I make it here big, if I can make it here, I can make it out there for sure. I've signed up for school at Weber State starting fall quarter and pulling down a part-time job. With a part-time job and my GI bill, I'll be an educated con and be a little bit more to make it. DC: Now you're going to major in Music, but what's the job that you presently have? What do you do? BS: Well, it's checking the store, ordering, and helping customers. Like I had three years’ experience at Safeways like I told you at the start, and it seems like that experience has helped me find a part-time job. I like retail business. It's a challenge. I like it but I love Music. I figure if you get a job in something you like, you can put out better. If you go to work hating it, you start hating yourself for working there. I figured if I love music, there is no reason why I can't give it my all and maybe teach somebody else how to love it as I do because I don't know, I put a low value on money. To me, money was made to buy another man's freedom. All I want to do is be natural—try to be what I am or be a selfmade man to what I want to be—not to what somebody wants me to be. If I do put in with eight hours a day, it’ll be towards something that I figure is the cause instead of a part or piece of machinery or something. Man has come to a part where his advancement is killing him. That's the way I see it in my eyes, but you hear this in the 11 news—everyone is aware of it and what's going on because the media or the press has opened up almost to its fullest. It is going gang busters now. They let the people know what's going on now. Before, it wasn't quite as good, of course communications wasn't as good. People are starting to get documents from Vietnam that they really never knew about. When I went back and started telling a few friends about it over there. They asked and I figured it was really nothing to brag about. They would ask me a question and I told them. They're stammered, "I've never heard of that. Really? You do that?" "Yeah." DC: Let's talk about Vietnam, if you don't mind. You've spent a number of years in the military and you have been over to Vietnam, of course, I'm sure that you've had a tremendous number of experiences. Tell me about Vietnam. BS: It's a piece of land on the earth, about the size of California with a population of about half the United States on it. It's hell over there. When you first go over there, like I went over there with the attitude, "I'm going over there so my son won't have to. I'm going to go over there and fight so that it don't reach the homeland. You get over there and you find that it is nothing political and it is a crying shame that when a country that is as big as the United States has to go into war because of their financial status. You get over there and pretty soon, you lose a few buddies. Yet on the other hand, the vietcon over there, they're fighting for their country, they're fighting for what they believe in. I ain't saying they're right or wrong and I'm not saying that I'm right, and I pray to God that I’m not wrong—when I went over there. It gets so that okay, in your squad, you lose a couple of buddies and pretty soon it's not a war of patriotic waving the flags, it's not a war of seeing marching men in ranks of file and that. It turns into definitely not a glorious 12 war over there—it's a dirty war plotting holes behind grass houses and that. It turns into a hate war to where you are hating somebody instead of fighting for what is right or wrong. You come back and you found out that at least 70 percent of the population wasn't backing you up anyway. And you think oh Lord, not in vain anyway. You go over there and the people even act like they don't want you over there. I mean, we're bringing our society, our religion—we've sent over missionaries to preach the Christian to what we feel is right, and they've been taught, in fact, I think Buddha is even older than the Christians. How would you like a gook to infiltrate and start teaching Buddhism? I started putting myself continually in the other man's shoes. At the time, I really found out what the Golden Rule was over there—do unto others. I've seen babies burning in their mother's arms, I've seen guys step on mines and pick up pieces for hours, so you can put it in a bag and send it home. I’ve been sitting next to people, gap right between the eyes, they fall off the log that you’re both sitting down eating a can of beans on. You figure, why, why you in this hell? Society has put what they call a war culture into their society now. They've created war culture. They've created medals of Honor, medals for being wounded, medals for being over there, medals for joining during a crisis. They work on the man's pride. They go in there, and they start giving you false pride—when it should be just in the line of duty. They have created such a war culture that it's glorious for you to go over there and fight for your country, it's glorious for you to be wounded, it's glorious for you to be killed and you didn't die in vain and all this. They teach you in basic training in the Marine Corps, they got a history class and they hit you with so much pride—false pride—that you can't really see that it should be in the line of duty. I mean, somebody goes over there and gets hit—sure he got hit but 13 he was shooting in the first place and somebody was just firing back for what they believe in and you were shooting at them for what you believe in and it was in the line of duty and I think that the war culture that the United States has created is a monster. DC: What about some of the experiences you had with drugs and narcotics in Vietnam. Were they a problem there? BS: Oh, yeah. I was squad leader over there for a while and you got fourteen guys that look at you for everything—ammunition, food, a place to sleep. We would take our squad and go over there for the night and they expect you to make the right decisions at the exact time. They expect this because you don't get a squad loader...by going over there, you don’t automatically be made squad leader. A squad leader learns the bush, he knows what it is like to be under fire, he knows what it is to call in air support or ground artillery, he knows how to set up the men to where each man covers another man. Where you got fourteen men in your squad, you find it real hard to sleep at night, you find yourself going out like into division and I don't really call it stealing but from division, you take a couple cases of beer and throw it in the jeep, a couple cases of extra food and throw it in the jeep and you take it to your men. You take care of your men—they don't take care of you. Where they been out in the bush anyway, I figured they deserved it. Now, if I would have been caught, it would have probably boon a court- martial, but it wasn't for me so I figured to hell with it. If I was going to drink all that beer myself and I was going to eat all that chow, I would have hoped to hell that I had got caught. But it was for somebody else and you get so whore people start depending on you and all that, you got to start getting sleep and that and your nerves are completely tight all the time and I started smoking weed over there—it helps you sleep. You wake up and no 14 hang over. I found with me, and I'm very level headed and I won't do nothing without experimenting with it awhile. If I thought that it was going to slow down my judgment and my thinking that fast, I wouldn't have done it. But, it kept me calmer to where I wasn't in hysterics about worrying about making the wrong move, I could think faster because I was calmer, I could turn from right to left and know exactly what to do because when you're so wound up over there so scared of making the wrong decision, you can turn your head from right to left and see the sky. I mean, you're so scared. But if you're calm, I took it sort of like a sedative over there cause I had too many lives on my hands to blow it. I guess I needed some help—I don't know what it was. DC: It was an aspirin then? You took it in order to buffer, your headache or your problems or whatever it was? BS: Right. It seemed like I got heavier sleep, I didn't need as much sleep, when I went to sleep, I could get a heavier sleep to where maybe three hours would be enough for the whole day. "Where before, eight hours wouldn't even come close because I would wake up every five minutes. I would wonder, well, I had better go check my holes—make sure that none of my men had their throats slit or something. I still worried about it when I was on marijuana, but it came to the point where I would get them all together in a group and I would say, "Hey guys, you're killing me." I would explain my situation to them to where I felt so bad if one of them did happen to get killed because they were my responsibility whether I was there or not. I am their squad leader and I'm the guy that has to collect up all his personal items and mail them home with a note, like what do you say? So I told them, I said, "I don't know how to spell and I don't want to write no notes." I said, "You guys, if you're over here and you hate it, just change your attitude." I 15 said, “You're over here—that's your job." I said "You're going to go home eventually one way or another and it's up to you how you're going to go home." I said, "I expect to be obeyed. If I call up that radio man, I expect cover for him the way up the line. I expect the regular combat routine that they teach you in the service." I told them, "I expect everything and more in the service corps.” DC: How many of them was using marijuana at that time? Or any other drug? BS: All of us in the squad was on marijuana and I am happy to say that I only lost three men—and that was by booby trap and like I say there was no way of telling. DC: How did you obtain marijuana? Did you have to buy it from someone? BS: You're walking patrol and you go through a village and you're probably about the three millionth patrol that has went through this village. Momma Son has already taken and dried her weed and rolled it up into joints and put it in a plastic bag and gave it to little boy Son to sell. It's so cheap that it is flabbergasting. DC: Do they have lids over there? BS: Yeah, you can buy it in any shape, form what so ever. You can buy it opium-cured, hash-cured, heroin-cured. You can buy it anyway you want it. DC: Were any of your men using drugs other than marijuana? BS: Not that I could tell. If they were efficient and did their job, if they followed orders like if I say, "Hey, why don't a couple of you guys grab this and put it over there." If I had somebody like, "Oh do it yourself." or something like that, I'd come up to him and say, "Hey man, what's your trip?" And he would say, "Well I don't like the idea of you doing all this and telling us to do all this and this and this," And I would say, "Listen, I won't tell 16 you nothing that I haven't done or nothing that I wouldn't do myself." I would say, "I'm asking you to do this so that I can go do something else. We're a team and all right, I'm team captain. If you want it, I will go to the colonel and I'll put in the proper nouns and everything else and if you want my job, you can have it cause I've had it long enough. "Oh no, it ain't that I want your job or anything, it's just that I'm on bad opium and I'm kind of grouchy." And I said, "Well, why do anything that ain't worth doing?" He looked at me and smiled and said "Well there isn’t any sense doing something that ain't worth doing." and I said, "Well, stay away from the opium if it does that to you. I need people that are workable." It puts you in a lighter spirit over there. I mean, you're far enough down anyway. You get to where when you're coming into base and you've only got a half a mile, I'll yell back at the squad, "Let's sing into the gates." Have you ever been on patrol for three days and have someone say to you, "Hoy, lot's sing into the gates." But like we're back and we're all right and I want the colonel to know it. So we sing into the base. I was doing all kinds of little things like that just to make the guys fool a little bit easier. That's about all you could do. DC: Well, how extensive was the drug problem? What drugs are available? What percent do you think are actually using hard narcotics? BS: Marijuana is the highest extent, I think. I think that everybody who has gone over to Vietnam has smelled it or they have taken a hit or two or like I even knew a lot of officers—their tensions were so built up that—officers can't make mistakes, especially, officers in communications, officers calling in ground support from anti-guns. It was getting to the point where I knew quite a few artillery officers who were taking marijuana just to sleep over there. People say, "Oh, you took it for the kicks and everything over 17 there." You took it for the sleep and something to relieve the tensions. You know that officers coming out of college that most of them are pretty well level headed and know their own minds and know their own foresight. They know which way they are going. They've got their lives picked out. They know what they're going to do, they've got certain goals and they're going to do them. So what, they take marijuana to take edge off the knife so that they won't get cut so bad. DC: What other drugs besides marijuana are BS: Opium, Hash. Opium is a killer. It puts your mind in a state to where you don't need nothing. All you want to do is day dream. I think that opium really works on the subconscious mind—puts you in a subconscious state. Marijuana keeps you in reality— it does. I've been smoking it four years now and it keeps you in reality like, before Christ, marijuana was used in China for the old people for arthritis and for growing old pains. I hope they legalize it because I don't see nothing wrong with it because I've done it and it didn't load to other things on me. I've been to parties and "Hey, come here, you want to hit a speed." There's girls there and everything and I guess it takes a bigger man to walk away from it, but, you've got to stay at that party. You're rides sitting there and so you've got to stay there. Sometimes, you can be a victim of circumstances and sometimes, it only takes one hit. DC: Of course, as you know, even if you're caught in the area where narcotics are being used, you're still, as far as the law considers, as guilty as they are? BS: Right, you're an accessary to the fact. People point this out to you when you're at parties like, "What's the matter man, you don't like our dope? What's the matter, are you going to bust us?" Paranoia and anybody that is doing dope can lead to something bad. 18 If somebody came in here and offered us a hit of speed, you'd drag him off to jail. But on the other hand, if you went into a room of people who were hitting speed and you tried to say, "Well, you better not do that, I'm going to tell." Ten to one, you wouldn't walk out of there. I'm just putting myself in the other guys’ shoes again. DC: After you left Vietnam and when you came back home, is this when you started wearing long hair? BS: Yeah, I kind of got a "Dear John" from my wife while I was over there. I can say this because there is no sense lying about it. I was true to my wife over there because man, those gook women carry everything under the sun and I figured well, hell, there is no sense ruining my life for just a little pleasure over here. I waited for six months and I could go see my wife—went to Hawaii, and then I went back. And then I got another one in about my ninth month and I went to Hawaii and I seen my wife again—it's really worth waiting for, I mean—great. She was a virgin when I married her. I mean every guy dreams of marring a girl that is a virgin and is so true blue that her name is Odie Colony. For her own reasons, I know that she wasn't going out with other people and that. She wanted to find her own mind. She wanted to live her own life. We did get married awfully young. DC: How old were you? BS: I was eighteen and she was nineteen. That's still old but it is still too damn young because all of a sudden you got the responsibilities of a fifty-year old man and you're eighteen and you've got to cope with it—you got too—that's the law. I'll say that this last two and one-half years since I've been out of the service, I've grown up more than probably the last ten years. It takes a lot of growing up and learning yourself before you 19 can really start stumbling with someone else. I mean, the road is hard enough. I guess they say that it takes a man, a Texan, to really make it. It's not what you know, It's not what you've done, what you've got in your past—it's who you know. It's who can you go to, to maybe swing this job like damn I'm only clearing $4.50 a month. I sure wish I was clearing $6.50. Let's see, they need a man over here and pretty soon you, through greed, which is not really greed, but you're holding responsibility, you start like I said in the first. You start getting that competitive feeling going that society has driven into you over since you went to Kindergarten about George Washington throwing the dollar over the Potomac. All of a sudden, you say, "Wow, I'm doing what society wants me to do. I've got the competitive urge, I'm doing well for myself. I really wasn't qualified for the job, but I got it. This is good and it's bad. Somebody that goes to school. It's pretty hard to go through school— pretty hard to make it with inflation, cost of inflation, crowded classrooms, school equipment is poor. It's getting to the point where a student is taught as an individual anymore. If you go to school now, it's all self-fortitude—either you do it or get out and be another member of society. I figure there is probably three classes of society. There is the lower class—ghettos, there is the middle class—and then there is the high class. This teaching of being better than somebody else or you want to get this job instead of that job, you have to advance. Somebody in the ghetto—there are people who make it but, I've been through the ghetto before and it's a different world. DC: What do you mean, you've been through the ghetto? BS: I don't think there is any ghetto in the United States that is worse than the ghettos in Vietnam. I went through some awfully bad places to where another campfire was built two hours ago, mother has moved it off to the side and where the dirt is nice and hot 20 from the campfire, she digs a little hole, pads it with blankets and stuff and lays the baby in it so the baby can keep warm. There are so many things that people have to do for survival. Like comfort to them is roughing it for us. Roughing it for us is comfort for the guy on the hill. This competitive spirit that they put into the three societies, like somebody in the ghetto is trying to make middle class. About the only way he can do it is to steal. The guy in the middle class is trying to make it to the top class and he don't want to have it taking all his life time so he steals. The guy on the top, they stole or they wouldn't have been there. DC: When you got out of Vietnam, you've been over there and you're smoking marijuana, you've held a lot of responsibilities—being a squad leader, you've seen a lot of people die, What was your feeling when all of a sudden you came back to the United States knowing that some fifty odd percent were opposed to the war, and all these things had happened to you, what happened then? BS: Well, after my wife sent me the "Dear John" and I had lost everything I had been fighting for—I had lost the self-pride that the military had given me, I mean the false pride, I really had no reason to do anything else but what I wanted to do—no matter if it was against the law or for the law or whatever. I was going to do exactly what I wanted to do—and I did for a long, long, time. I played it smart I didn't get busted, I dealed a lot—I didn't have to work for two years and I was still bringing in anywhere from like last year—month of June—$2000. Sure it was illegal but like if I started coughing myself off now, they would throw me down there now and throw me the key. I ain't going to start doing that, but I was going to say, the law is strict—that is if they catch you and it's getting to the point now where the law is becoming more inefficient that they have to put 21 so many more men on. They say crime rate has gone up. Maybe it has, but the law enforcement has gone down too as far as efficiency. I remember a sheriff in Magna before he was killed. He knew everything that was going on*--he knew all the gossip, he knew that Joe, Harry and Sam was behind "S" building of the high school smoking, He was one of them small town sheriffs and to my knowledge, he wasn't a cop, he wasn't a pig, he's the only one so far that I've met that was a peace officer. There is a lot of difference—either you're in it for the job or you're in it for the money. I don't how the officers of the law go in and the reason they did go in, but, I don't think too many of them went in on the basis of doing a job for the people—as a servant for the people. Instead they know that they have to be in the oath they take that they will be a servant of the people, but all of a sudden, they get into the police force and these old veterans that have been in there fifteen or twenty years, they know all the tricks and they start passing them down and pretty soon the guy is a six-month veteran, I mean a six-month rookie with about fifteen years of experience behind him and he still don't know his job. Maybe he learned too fast, I don't know—just the efficiency of the law officers have gone down so much to where, I think, they got a lot of prejudice in them. DC: Are you saying that it is quite easy to break the law? BS: Oh, yeah, it's easier to break the law than not to break the law. They got a law for spitting on the sidewalk which is cool. It's only good couth. I wouldn't want to walk in somebody else's spit—I'm just using the Golden Rule. If people would just use the Golden Rule— do unto other as they would want people to do unto them, but, I think when man was designed, arranged and put together, he was put together with love and hate. He was put together with emotions for all kinds of different feelings and a grain of 22 greed, that in some people, grows like an oak tree. Some people just can't get enough. Their eyes are bigger than their whole life. DC: What year was it then that you actually returned from Vietnam? BS: Oh, it was February 2, 1969. DC: So what you're telling me then is that when you came back from Vietnam, and after being jilted by your wife, who I assumed you loved very much that... BS: Well, like I said, I keep finding myself making so many excuses for myself that...it did happen and it did put me in a different state of mind and it is a fact that it did it, but I can't blame it on her for what I did. DC: Do you think though that you would have gotten involved with the drug scene to that extent, if you hadn't been in Vietnam and hadn't had the exposure, and you hadn't lost your wife through the divorce? BS: I don't know. I never wonder what's going to be or what could have been, I just wonder what I can do. I don't wait for yesterday, I don't wait for tomorrow, I just live today. I live the moment. If you use time thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, then you waste the minute today that you were thinking about it. So it's just like trading a $30 saddle for a $10 horse. DC: What about religion? Was it an integral part of your life? Should it have been? BS: My mother was very good, she never made us go to church. She never went to the extent or anything. She drank coffee and Coca Cola, but she didn't smoke. She was Mormon. I decided to go see what it was about and for two or three years while I was in high school, I held an almost excellent record in church attendance— church basketball. 23 I graduated from high school and I got married and I became an elder passing the Sacrament and the whole works. I love my religion. If man can feel it or taste it or look at it—it must be faith. If I love faith, it's faith for the church. I'm not saying that everybody in the church is right. There are hypocrites-, in everything. There are hypocrites in life, religion, and in jobs—everything. All I'm saying is all right, I don't go as much—I just smoke now. I'm far from being a model Mormon but, I won't have on ray roll book up in Heaven, under hypocrite, I ain't going to have a worry. I ain't going to be a Saturday Satan and a Sunday Saint. DC: The reason that I asked that question is because yesterday, when I interviewed another resident of the Halfway Home, he told me that he knows of no one who has led. The life of crime, I don't mean one that has made a few mistakes but one who leads a life of crime that has ever been really religious. They usually have very little to do with religion. BS: I really wouldn't know. I haven't been that involved with knowing people with criminal backgrounds. But, I would say that when I was over in Nam, when guys wore facing death or the possibility of death even the guys that said they didn't believe in God, the first word that would come out of their mouth in fear of death or being hit or something is "Oh, God!" It didn't come out psychologically or anyway else. All of a sudden, the guy needs something that he never needed before. DC: So what you're saying is that religion has meaning to everyone—it's just a matter of extent? BS: God has a meaning to everyone. Religions are man-made. I would say that my religion was man-made too, but, as I understand it, it was man-made under the guiding hand of my Savior. I can't say that anybody else’s religion is wrong, but, I don't want anybody 24 telling me that mine is. I believe in what I have boon taught. It sounds logical— everything is backed up. I've taken my religion and hashed it out two or three ways. It has worked scientifically. Like, what do you say, taking one item and putting it down, taking another item and putting it down—checking it out, eliminating—process of elimination. I'll take this thing and study it until I can understand it so completely that if it was wrong, I could catch it and see that it was phony. You know, that is good, and it's just taking elimination and you got more things on the good list than you do on the bad and I've tried it that way. I've tried it through praying and faith and it's worked. Just about every way that I've tried it, it's proved itself to me. I keep figuring, who am I to keep testing my religion like that; but, if you don't test your own religion and you can't believe in it thoroughly, than you are just being a hypocrite about it. DC: Let me change the subject a little bit—the drug scene. You know the drug scene is a great concern. What do you think of the drug scene? Is it really all that bad? Is it extensive? Is there just a small percentage of people who are using...? BS: It's too big. You ain't going to stop it. They've got to learn how to cope with it now. Like alcohol, they tried to do away with it and that had already grown to the stage of too big and all of a sudden it turned into the year of gangsters. I figure that the '70's now are like the ‘20's—it's just a new way that society has found to break away from society. DC: When you were dealing, was it easy to sell? Are there all kinds of people that are dealing? BS: It's easy to sell, but, not too many people knew I did sell. Probably a lot of people knew I used it cause I had long hair and a beard and I wore nothing but a pair of Levi’s and they were cut off. I was clean though, I kept my hair washed all the time and bathed a 25 lot. The biggest group of people that have put themselves into a working business or a company is the FBI. The FBI has advanced so far that it is pretty hard to do anything because the federal communication, like my finger prints are down in the federal thing under an IBM card. All I have to do is like break into another store and get one print and zap they got me in a day. The mafia can't do this because, I'm not going to say that don't have the money for it, but on the other hand, the mafia is the largest. Before the mafia, they used to deal in bootlick, Now the mafia, they don't really deal in weed, they don't deal in opium—they get something like smack. That's where the money is at because once somebody gets on smack, you can't get off it. They can get off it, but they would just as soon have it than not have it. The body withdraws and everything is so great that a guy will steal to do it. I'm all opposed against somebody that will take and hook something into somebody just so they can keep resupplying them to make the other guy fatter. That's about all the mafia deal in is something that they know will make the money. DC: Is there such a thing as a mafia in the state of Utah? BS: Oh, I could say yes or no to that cause I don't know. I mean, I was just reading this in a book up in the jail that the FBI is the biggest organization and the mafia is the second largest in the world. DC: What about here in our community? You’ve spent time around here and you know what is happening, how young are they using narcotics? How ingrained is the abuse of narcotics and drugs in this area? BS: Oh, I've seen young guys as old as nine smoking marijuana, and I've seen guys as young as fifteen shooting speed, and I've seen guys as young as fifteen shoot some 26 smack and stuff before. Plus, I've probably tried about everything—not because of the kicks, it was like will this really lead to this or will this really load to this. I wanted to find my head as far as if I wore going to do drugs, which ones I was going to do or for what reasons, you know, elimination. DC: What percent of the young people in Weber County, in your opinion smoke marijuana or use LSD or other drugs? BS: I don't know, I'm not from Weber. I've been here approximately three months and two and one-half months of it was in jail. I know that this is Washington Blvd. that we're on, and I know a few other streets- Wall and I know Harrison up there by the University and a few others, but, I've been almost around the world but fifty miles from Salt Lake and I've never been there. DC: Did you ever see drugs being used up in the Weber County Jail? BS: No, it's pretty tight there. I'd say that it's tighter than the Salt Lake jail. DC: Have you spent time in the Salt Lake Jail? BS: I spent twelve days there once for bull shitting around getting thrown in for vagrancy and stuff. DC: Did they cut your beard and mustache while you were there? BS: Oh, no. They can't, they can't in the Weber jail either. DC: It's your own decision then? BS: Yeah, when they got their thumb on you, even to cut your -hair so they would stop twisting their thumb feels a little better. 27 DC: Well, is there any area, any facet of your life that we haven't covered, that you think is relevant that you would like to talk about? Anything about the Criminal Justice System— perhaps your attitude about the police officer? BS: Well, like I said, I wouldn't want their job. When I was speaking of judges and attorneys, I was speaking of law officers, too—anybody that is supposed to serving the people. If they don't want the responsibility that comes alone with it or if they can't handle it, or if they are not doing their job, they should get out. Let somebody in there that can do the job. There are hundreds of people that are out of work and a lot of them wouldn't become a police officer, a judge or anything else. Judges have to be schooled to an extent and have so many years in the bar, and so many years in the public eye. Sometimes, they have to be elected and sometimes they are appointed. As far as law officers, boy, they've almost dropped every qualification they had for a law officer. The only thing is that a law officer, now, can't have a felony charge against him, and he can't have too big of a police record. You can still have a police record. DC: You'll be happy to hear that this is really now changing. We are now, through the program that I am directing, providing in-service and specialized training. The state requirement is that you have to have a high school diploma. They are now using a polygraph machine when they interview, sound, dates— for the police department in Ogden City and Weber County. If it indicates that they have very little use of narcotics or drugs, then they are eliminated. So they have really tighten it up lately. California, for example, requires that you complete six credit hours of university work within six months after you have been hired. A number of the chiefs-of-police have Master 28 Degrees. In fact, most of them have Master Degrees in California. There is quite a change taking place. BS: Maybe it is just in my eyes, but the law efficiency has went up. But it went up with numbers. Percentage wise, with the men that is on and the rate it has went up—it really hasn't went up—the efficiency of a law officer. Sure crime rate has gone up but the efficiency of the law officer has gone down. DC: One major problem is that crime has increased, and city councils and county commissions haven't seen their ways start to provide their departments with additional man power. They start out at $500 a month—which isn't an uncommon starting wage in the state of Utah. I know a sheriff who makes $480 a month and ho has been a sheriff for sixteen years. BS: Right, he is doing it because, not of the pay. Now there is probably another peace officer. He is not doing it because of the pay. He is doing it because of the job. He is putting something into it instead of getting something out of it. DC: Can you say anything else that you would like to relate or discuss that you might think is pertinent? BS: We could talk and talk and talk for days on end and still never even hit the highlights of this large monopoly of society. I mean, it's gone to such a size like I don't believe what the other guy thinks, and the other guy don't believe what I think is right and it goes all the way down the America pass-the-buck line. Say I don't like Nixon but somebody else does or he wouldn't be there. I'm not saying that I don't like Nixon—I just used him as an example. I bet he is the biggest criticized man in the world. He probably has got so 29 many eyes on him that when he goes and shaves he better use a Gillette. I don't know what they’re doing wrong, but there must be something. DC: What effect is the veterans from Vietnam having, upon society as far as crime is concerned? BS: Well, I'm taking advantage of the veterans to go to school. But, it's like the veterans just keep that old war locked in society going to Sure, they're working for the guys that have come back—that's the good thing about it. They're working for even the guys that didn't come back—they're helping their families and that. I really see nothing wrong with the veterans. DC: A large majority of soldiers in Vietnam have had access to and have probably used marijuana, opium, heroin or whatever you want to call it. When they come back into the society, do they continue to use the drugs? BS: Not to such a large extent cause it's not as readily available. It's so available over there and so cheap, it's easy to get going on a $50 habit over there which might cost over here $700. DC: A month or a day? BS: Well, I've been up to $250 a day over here. DC: On smack, I assume. BS: Yeah, crystal, speed. I don't know, I'm against downers—anything that takes away your will to even live. Smack will take away your will to live. The only thing that smack gives you is a will for more smack. It keeps you in a semi-unconscious mood all the time. Then the body withdraws—it's almost worth another arm or something. I got kind of 30 hung up on smack before and I thoughts oh, no, so I tried uppers—speed, and oh, tiger. It gives you an urge and a will to do anything. Like tonight, you said that I was pretty good on the guitar, and I've only been playing nine months. But, you figure the first four months that I started playing the guitar, I may have slept four or five nights. All I would do is practice and practice and practice and I worked so hard at it that's about the only thing I got to show for a speed trip. But, at least, it is more than I would have to show for a smack trip. I hate speed. I can really say that because I've been through it. When you go completely through the vicious circle of speed freaks, you find out how unnatural their life is and I wanted ray life as natural as I can make it. DC: When you say a speed freak, you are saying one that is dependent upon speed—has to have it? BS: No, you don't have to have it. Speed leaves no physical withdraws except sleep and you need some sleep after you get through. It's like grabbing hold of a freight train going sixty miles an hour and the rush is so exciting and so thrilling to your mind and body that psychologically in your mind, you become addicted—but it is not an addiction like smack would be—it's something that you put on your own mind where I found that out, I don't know if anybody else has told you that but where I found that out was I found it that easy to quick. DC: So right now, you can honestly say that you are in no way addicted to any drug and you've been able to do it primarily on your own? BS: No, I did a lot of praying. I have kicked it—almost every drug that I was doing. I say most because I haven't really had that much experience to go out in the circle now and see if I can turn it down. But, I want a chance at it. To take a hit, I'd be failing myself 31 more than I would be failing these guys that are here trying to help. I was doing nothing but all my money, all my income was being used for my body thrills. All my sneaky, conniving way were being used to one state of mind and that was to do some more. It kind of leaves you bewildered to wonder if you have stopped. I guess it would be like an alcoholic— one more drink and that would be it. That's why it would probably be one more hit and I could probably get strung out again. I don't want it because the last time, I got hepatitis so bad, I got infectious and serum at the same time. They called it acute hepatitis and I was in the veteran’s hospital and the first three days that I was there, I was unconscious. I woke up with a third of a liver. It's regenerated now to about eighttenths. I'm healthy now, I'm stronger now, and I'm getting more out of something that I thought I wouldn't—that's music. I'm learning it more natural instead of speeding. Speed makes you a perfectionist because you haven't got nothing but a lot of speed and time on your hands. You're going gangbusters and you're going nowhere fast. You keep playing and playing until you get it right—there is no feeling in it. It was all mechanical. Now, I'm learning the guitar the way a guitar was made. Somebody designed it and put it together with a feeling for music—not for the mechanics of music. You put the mechanics so that I will be a lot easier for somebody to learn a little of it. DC: Bill, I think that you have had a lot of interesting experiences. You are certainly to be admired for the Purple Heart, etc. Maybe they are just medals to some people but to most people they have a great deal of meaning. Somebody who has gone through that deserves a great deal of credit and it's somebody that I admire and the vast majority of people admire. I'm sure that jail is no place for that type of person. A Halfway Home, at least as I perceive it, is great. It gives a person a chance to integrate back into society 32 the way they want too. It's the kind of supervision that we all need at one time or another in our life—we all do—everybody has problems. Some people are lucky enough to get some supervision and somebody to help them a little and I think that is something that you are fortunate to get. Something that a lot of people never have the opportunity of getting. BS: Like I said that when Judge Wahlquist gave me this time, I think it is the best thing for me. It's like my old man reaching out and grabbing me by the collar and saying, "Set down here for a minute." I haven't seen my father in so long that I was really eating all those wild oats, he was telling me about. DC: Well, I really appreciate your time in letting me interview you and like I said before, I will make a transcript of everything that has been said. When I say transcribe, I mean to type it out verbatim, and provide you with a copy. BS: Leave all the profanity out. DC: No problem. We all express ourselves in certain ways. BS: Sometimes, there is only one word that will express the way you feel about it. 33 Summary This is the interviewer speaking. I would like to explain exactly what the circumstances were surrounding the interview. To begin with, I had a seven o'clock appointment with a resident of the Adult Halfway Home who had spent a considerable amount of time in Utah State Prison. He has gone through the entire Criminal Justice System from beginning to end and I had planned on interviewing him for two or three hours. Unfortunately, when I called at 7:00 p.m., I found out that he was not available because of his employment and he would not be home until later on in the evening. I asked the Halfway Home counselor if there was someone else at the Halfway Home who might be interested in being interviewed, who would like to tell his story and relate some of the experiences he had with the Criminal Justice System. He asked the interviewee if he would be interested, in talking with me and so he put him on the phone and we discussed it for fifteen or twenty minutes. When I finished, he said he would be very interested and I told him that I would be there in the next fifteen minutes. So I hopped in my car and I drove down to the Adult Halfway Home located approximately two and one-half miles from my home. I walked in to the office of the Halfway Home and talked with the counselor there. While I was talking with him, I heard someone singing in the background and playing a guitar. I later found out that it was the interviewee and that he was quite professional with the guitar and that he sang very well, and that he had only started about nine months ago. I talked with the counselor about five or ten minutes and then finally the interviewee walked into the office and asked if I was ready to go. So we walked down the stairs into the group therapy room and sat down. I sat down on the couch and he sat down in a chair approximately two and one-half feet 34 away from me off on kind of a south-east angle. My tape recorder was placed on the right side of me in full vision of myself but completely out of the line of view of the interviewee as was the microphone which was placed on the carpet about a foot and one-half away from the tape recorder, so as not to pick up the sound of the motor of the tape recorder. I would occasionally check the tape recorder to make sure that it was operating and I closed the door of the interview room, at least partially, to keep out outside sounds—automobile motors, voices. The primary reason for this is that it is located, the motel or the Adult Halfway Home is located adjacent to the main street of Ogden which is called Washington Blvd. After discontinuing the interview, I talked with the interviewee for approximately forty-five to fifty minutes about some of the things that I was doing in the program in the area of corrections. I discussed with him a behavioral modification of chronic alcoholic offender’s project which is an attempt to rehabilitate a chronic alcoholic through behavioral modification approach. It's actually the creation of an Adult Halfway Home, if you will, for the chronic alcoholic. I talked to him about a misdemeanant project which is an attempt to provide to the misdemeanant a probationary service to attempt to provide him with the help that he needs in order to become rehabilitated, to divert him from a life of crime so he will not become a felon. I talked to him about several other projects that have either been funded through the program which I am director of or a program which we anticipate being funded. He was very enthused about the programs, thought very highly of them and repeated time and time again the need for juvenile group homes for girls and for boys and additional Adult Halfway Houses, His personal opinion was that this was the greatest thing that has ever happened to him and ho hoped that more 35 people, that are in the position that he is in, would have the opportunity of being a resident in an Adult Halfway Home. When I first began the interview, I was very disappointed because it was my opinion that he had not had a great deal of experience with the Criminal Justice System and that he had been arrested only on a couple of occasions, spent some time in jail, but that was the extent of it. However, I was very happy to later find out he had led a very interesting life, he had a great deal of experience in the drug scent, being a pusher as well as an abuser of drugs—supporting a very expensive habit and being an addict. His experiences were very interesting and I was very surprised that the interview did last more than a half hour. As we got into things, and I pushed a little bit harder and dug a little bit deeper, then he opened up and he revealed a great number of things about his personal life—his attitudes, his religion, his habits, his own personal marital relationships, and his experiences ho had while in Vietnam—after he returned home and his perceptions of the Criminal Justice System and those who administer it. For appearing to be a bummer when I first started, I feel that the interview turned out extremely well. I'm extremely pleased with the outcome of the interview—especially when I think back a ways and remember that after I was in the interview for just a few minutes— I actually thought that it would end in about another ten minutes because he didn't have an interesting story to tell. I hope to go back at a later date and perhaps dig a little bit deeper, go over the transcription and see if there were other points of interest that I didn't follow upon in the interview and see if there is additional information that I can abstract from the interviewee. 36