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Roberto Jose Baca was raised by his Aunt and Uncle, Paul and Lydia Mercado, who owned a nice suburban home in Ventura, California, not far from the family farm at Oxnard. They called him ‘Bobby Joe,’ an Anglo handle for my fellow K-9 Corpsman. I called him, ‘B.J.,’ an appellation he enjoyed. ‘Uncle Paul’ and ‘Aunt Lydia,’ as each insisted I call them, hosted me at their home during the summer of ’68 when we were on leave from Vietnam, having finished a full tour of duty. We both had volunteered to serve another tour, but that service commitment was far from our minds at the moment. Our attention focused upon the diversions offered by Southern California. Our friendship was borne of a genuine mutual respect, perhaps derived from the fact that we each came of age in cultures completely removed and unknown to the other, but bonded through the overarching commonality of our shared mission in Vietnam, and membership in the close-knit K-9 world, which included barely 65 members at any one time at the Bien Hoa base. That mission, specifically, was to patrol and secure the outermost perimeter of the massive military complex, forming a chain composed of adjoining posts that linked one to the other, ranging from one-half mile in width to a quarter-mile in depth, covering all manner of the tropical terrain common to the area. We patrolled only at dark, alone. The K-9 team consisted of one man and one dog. We would be dropped-off from a truck on a perimeter road at sundown and picked-up after daybreak, depending on circumstances. Our only connection to interior support positions was by radio. We were equipped with minimal weaponry, though the compact AR-15 was lethal. We moved in the darkness like predators, scouting and hunting, roaming with a pattern but never following a predictable track. The sounds and smells of the night were sifted constantly, and night vision was honed remarkably. We learned how to unlock the power of peripheral vision, so adept at noting movement, even in darkness, and allowing the eye to detect shapes amidst camouflaged surrounding, without conscious effort. We melded our limited senses with our highly-trained K-9 in a manner that projected our ability to detect intruders throughout each post, and beyond, to remarkable distances. It was an unrelenting, physically demanding, and psychologically intensive assignment that could not be easily explicated to others, nor easily articulated among ourselves. Admissions of fear and trepidation were not allowed in our unwritten code of conduct. They were luxurious distractions that could not be indulged as they hindered our ability to perform. The self-confidence that came from knowing the abilities and limitations of our K-9 team gave us an inner calm essential to fulfilling the heavy burden of our protective mission. The failure of one team could be catastrophic to many dependent on this unseen, often unknown, layer of active protection that moved in the darkness beyond the confines of the base. B.J. was as happy as me to lay down this immense responsibility and immerse ourselves in the enjoyments of the ‘world,’ as we called the U.S.A. The Mercados honored us with a cookout at their Lombardy-tree lined farm, introducing me to many friends, few of whom could understand my Southern dialect any more than I could understand theirs. This was a time when service in the United States military was considered reputable and service in Vietnam most honorable. No community paid for this honor with more blood than that from which B. J. came. He was most proud to show me the Los Angeles area. We began at Malibu Beach, drooling over the Gidget-like young ladies wearing two-piece bathing suits and the occasional, breath-taking bikini. We wore our finest, hand-tailored, Hong Kong clothier suits to dinner at a fine restaurant, determined to appear as classy as James Bond on assignment, followed by a late-evening visit to the new phenomena known as the ‘Go-Go.’ It was as fun a day as we could’ve imagined back in the ‘nam. We were delighted for the opportunity of personally experiencing the pleasures so commonplace in the ‘world’ we believed we were protecting by our service on the frontlines of freedom at the outermost fringe in Southeast Asia, where adverse and mortally-hostile ideologies competed for the hearts and minds of a strife-torn nation. B.J. knew the freeway route back to Ventura, and the ride was made enjoyable by hearing a favored song of the day, Jose Feliciano’s version of California Dreaming, which then topped the L.A. Pop charts. It had been a perfect day, almost. A short time after Dreaming ended, blue lights began flashing behind us. We thought the LAPD were in pursuit of another vehicle when we noticed they closed on us, headlights flashing. B.J.’s expression changed quicker than mine. I was in denial, still believing in the fantasy world I had concocted in my mind during hundreds of midnight patrols in the jungle. That denial immediately ended when I turned to see a handgun pointed at my head, and another trained on B.J., who was emerging from the car, hands raised. When I began to exit from the passenger side, a voice shouted, ‘Freeze!’ and I heard the telltale click of the handgun hammer being cocked, and could see from the corner of my eye the barrel fixed on me. B.J. showed his California drivers’ license, his military identification, and told the officer we were home on leave from Vietnam, showing a copy of his orders. They also took my identification and appeared puzzled by this curious combination of Latino and Redneck. There was no provocation and, in our minds, no reason for the stop. The officers seemed disappointed that they had no cause for citation, or were embarrassed that they had harassed two young men who were in active service to the nation. No apologies were given. They let us go. I could tell that B.J. was embarrassed by the episode, though he didn’t say it. He felt the stop was due to operating a vehicle, in his words, ‘while Mexican,’ though the Baca family was American before there was an America. The California Dreaming bubble had burst and with it our illusions. This was the ‘world,’ a very real and cold world. B.J. summarized it, saying, “You know, we served in Vietnam and went through mortar, rocket, and ground attacks, then we come back home to L.A. and have guns aimed at our heads.” There was nothing more to say. That’s how it was, and how it remains in this, the American Age. Footnote: Bobby Joe remained in Vietnam for a third tour at Bien Hoa, where his only brother, Ricky, was stationed. Ricky was killed in action on June 19, 1969. B.J. remained in the military until retirement, then died in a motorcycle accident shortly afterwards.
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