My MILITARY and THESIS Work ...

My work, shooting for a few different Army Public Affairs Offices over the years ...

Then ... Later on, in Grad School, in Chicago ... Yeah, my thesis on two generations of military, combat photographers!

A MARINE: David Douglas Duncan. A WWII Marine combat photographer, and later, a LIFE Magazine photographer for years.

And then Dick Durrance, an ARMY combat photographer, during the Vietnam War, who later went on to shoot for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC for many years, before ending up teaching photography up in Maine.

Two generations of MILITARY photographers, one in the Marines, the other in the Army.

And then a couple images shot by Robert Capa, another very famous Combat Photographer

The man that pretty much made combat photography his life's work, after coming from Hungry just before World War II and then shooting for LIFE Magazine for years.

Yeah, what a trip, that was!

Me, at a real, ART COLLEGE, in Chicago, like ten years AFTER graduating from my undergraduate college, with a degree in HISTORY (and teaching!) ... Go figure.

And yes, my first photography job was working for The Department of the Army, as a civilian, over there in Bremerhaven, Germany, back in 1985- 1988.

Now true, I did VOLUNTEER as a photographer for some of the Army Public Affairs offices before that, on the bases I lived on back when I was actually married to a women (a Dance and Art major) who joined the Army after college ...

That was when, and where, I actually BEGAN, you know, really taking pictures!

Well, once I ACTUALLY learned photography, that is!

No, see, I really began halfway through my first motorcycle cross-country trip, on my old, classic, Honda CB-350 (or was it a 360cc?) bike, like right after I graduated from high school, back in 1973.

I was eighteen (18), and once I got out to Douglas, Arizona, ahh, from Pulaski, New York, yeah, my mother gave me a Kodak 110 Instamatic camera as a graduation gift.

Yeah, she had remarried, and left before my Senior Year. I stayed back (come on! MY SENIOR YEAR!), and first lived with my grandfather, but since I drove a motorcycle, and lived in Northern New York, yeah ... I didn't plan that one out very well ...

The story of my life.

No, then my football coach (and Math teacher!), and his wife (my English teacher), and their two daughters, at the time, took me in for the remainder of the school year, you know, once the weather turned against me!

True story.

And yes, that was why, and how, I actually "became a teacher" all those years later! They changed my life.

See, I was NOT ever going to go to college. Period.

No, I was a VOCATIONAL SCHOOL student, in, get this, LANDSCAPING and GREENHOUSE MANAGEMENT, in both my Junior, and Senior years in highschool ...

Come on! I'd been "mowing grass" for years!

Due to our family's low income, yeah, I started working under some state, or school, or something, since I was like, 14 years old!

No, college was never not in "the plans", because ...

I never had any PLANS.

No, I was having too much fun in high school! Remember, I was both the Sophomore, and Senior Class President, one of the football team captains my Senior year, and yeah, played basketball, and ran track, heck! I was even in two School Plays, as a "One Line Wonder", ahh, like both times!

Hey! "You have to know your limitations"!

And yes, I learned that one from DIRTY HARRY!

Which yeah, in case you don't know, that extra "H" stuck between my first and last names, stands for, you guessed it! My grandfather's FIRST name!

HARRY.

See, he was Harry David Hessell, and I was, and still am, David Harry Hessell.

Go figure.

And you wonder why I HAD to live with him my Senior year! Are you crazy?

I mean, here we were, way up off Route 11, in Up-State New York, on a dirt road, that strangely "changed names" once it crossed into another County ... Yeah, we lived on HESSELL ROAD (Oswego County), not Van Wormer Road (Jefferson County)!

Same road, different names!

I kid you not!

I can't make this stuff up!

Yeah, both my grandfather, and my father, were born in that very same house!

Really.

One in 1901, the other in 1933.

And get this! I was actually born out in CALIFORNIA, of all places, in 1955.

Yeah, my father was going through his Army "Secretary School" (or whatever they called it) at the time, out near Riverside, California.

Really.

Like I said, I can't make this stuff up!

Oh! And did I mention that my grandfather just got electricity in his house, like, the year before I moved in with him?

Like in 1971, or maybe early 1972 ... Something like that!

Again ... Really.

And that we had no running water in the house.

Which also means, yeah ... The "Bathroom" was an "Outhouse", actually out in the woodshed. With a bucket of "ashes" from the wood burning stoves, to cover everything with. Yeah, that was all part of the equation ...

But yes, we did have toilet paper!

And yes! That "box thing" would have to be emptied every few months, or so ...

Again, really.

Yes! Living there was, ahh, "OLD SCHOOL", to be sure!

But I did miss the old kerosene lanterns we used to use as kids! Yeah, walking up those stairs at night ... YIKES!

I can remember my grandmother's old fur coats (she passed away before I was even born!) hanging up on the wall on the side of the stairs ... With that light "flickering" like it did!

It was a trip!

Oh yeah, and he had an old John Deere tractor (with a "flywheel" thing, or whatever) out back, that had a "wheel type thing", you had to spin around, to get it started!

I kid you not!

It was CRAZY!

I can remember riding with him on the tractor, down the gravel road, as a young kid, wearing my old, Army helmet "liner" thing (much lighter!), that I got from my father (yeah, I played a LOT of "ARMY" growing up!), and it fell off after a "bump", or something, and yeah, got crushed by the back tire, or the old wood cart, that, you know, carried all the cut up pieces of wood that he cut each trip!

Silly me.

It could have been, you know, worse, but yeah, we won't go there!

Yeah, lots of memories from that time, and place!

Plus, I lived there after I got out of the Marines as well ... While going to the not so local Community College, about 30/40 miles away, up in Watertown, NY for two years

Two years of actually "LIVING IN HISTORY", before, you know, actually going to study history! I was 24 years old, been out of highschool for six years, and yeah, remember, "was never college material"! Or so I thought!

I did pretty good, with the help of some great tutors! And had a blast! Even taught Judo in the Summers!

I then moved over to Brockport, NY, right along the old Erie Canal, where I went to college for JUDO! I mean, SOCIAL STUDIES!

Or, like I said, HISTORY!

No, really.

I was accepted into a few colleges, you know, after getting my Associate Degree in Liberal Arts. I even made some "NATIONAL HONORS" thing, and did real well, with the help of some great tutors, and advisors, I might add. Yeah, it was a FUN couple of years!

At first, I then was going to attend one of the State Colleges down in Cortland, NY ... I had spent some time down there with some, ahh, "friends", that went there, back in the day, so yeah, it made sense to me!

Then, like the summer before school started my "last year", I was down at my friend's Body Shop, where I "hung out" (I knew NOTHING ABOUT CARS), but I could "clean up" the place pretty good!

And hand him his tools!

Yeah, then one of our friends came down to the shop, and we got talking ... He was younger, and was just starting college ... He mentioned that the school he was going to had a JUDO Club.

Say what?

I had served in the Marines, over in Japan, and yeah! Had gotten into Judo! I had a Brown Belt at that time! I had even taught Judo through some Community Program, or something, at our "old high school", during the summers, like, right there in Pulaski!

I kid you not, and it was one of the colleges I had been accepted to already! So yeah, I "changed over" as fast as I could, and finished my Bachelor's Degree in HISTORY, at the State University of New York (S.U.N.Y.) over in Brockport, New York.

That was 1983.

My former wife also went there, and yeah, after our first year there (she was the girlfriend of one of my "suitemates", or whatever we called them), but when I returned from my motorcycle trip up to Alaska before my last year at the school, man, she was very happy to see me!

They had broken up that summer ... Who knew?

We got married that next June, after I graduated.

I know, CRAZY!

We spent a few months on our "HONEYMOON TOUR", on a motorcycle I might add, and then yeah, we spent the next TWENTY years as a married couple, while she went on to become an Army Officer ... We lived in both Germany, for three years, and then Korea, for one, where I finally earned my, ahh, BLACK BELT, in Taekwondo! You know, that I had started, like, years before after high school, up there in Watertown, New York!

Pretty cool.

I then signed up for a course through the mail, in photography, with THE NEW YORK INSTITUTE of PHOTOGRAPHY, while at the same time, I volunteered as a photographer for those various Army newspapers on the bases we lived on. Then, after Germany, and while getting ready to go to Korea for a year, the same guy, a staff sergeant that I met at Fort Bragg, just the year before, was also there in Seoul, Korea, on the same base we were at!

Really.

I ran into him in the bank, or someplace, like the first week I got there!

He kept me busy, oh! And yeah! His wife worked for the American School, there on base, and yeah, that was how I became a, I kid you not, a real, KINDERGARTEN substitute teacher, for a month, while the REAL teacher went back to the States for some family emergency, or something!

Again, can't make this stuff up!

And yes! There were at least three, real, you know, "Korean Kids", in the class that spoke little, if any, ahh, you know, English!

I had my little, Korean buddy, "Han Bulh", or however you spelled his name, yeah! He TRANSLATED for me, while giving directions on what we were going to do next!

What a RIOT!

I LOVED it!

And yes, that movie, say it with me ... "KINDERGARTEN COP", had just come out around that same time, and yeah!

I just laughed the whole time I was with those kids!

Little did I know, that just a couple of years later, hello?

It pretty much came true for me in "real life"!

After my then wife, was "RIFFED", or released, from the Army, after the first Gulf War, we somehow ended up in Lenoir, North Carolina, where I first got hired as a Special Ed. teacher at South Caldwell High School.

With NO, and I mean none, experience working with Special Ed. kids at all!

Well, no, that's not true.

I did ride up front with a few Special Ed. kids on the school bus, while going over to that Vocational School that I mentioned earlier!

Yeah, ..That "counted"!

I mean, come on! I had them singing the "Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round", and other loveable kid songs on the ride over every day! We had a blast!

And, in fact, that first year, before I ever got hired full time, I did substitute once, for a Special Ed. teacher, right there at Granite Falls Middle School, just once, you know, before actually being hired to fill that same position, at South Caldwell High School, that very same year! Like, a month, or two, later!

Really.

Yeah, I became a first time, Middle School Special Ed. teacher, before ever taking a single class in, ahh, Special Education, in college!

At the ripe, old, age of, ahh ... Thirty-eight I believe it was!

After working as a photographer for TEN YEARS!

Or something like that!

Funny how THAT all worked out!

Yeah, and a "few years later", they finally caught on, and yes, I actually took a certain number (like six!) of Special Ed. classes, up there at ASU, during the summers, to become, you know, an "OFFICIAL", North Carolina, middle school, Special Education teacher!

But trust me, I learned all I really "needed" back there on that school bus in high school!

I just "helped" kids with what they had a problem with. Period.

You name it.

READING, MATH, WRITING, SPELLING, oh! And yeah, SOCIAL STUDIES, SCIENCE, GEOGRAPHY (I held The NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SPELLING BEE every year!), and anything else they needed "help" with!

Ahh, like tying their shoes!

I won't even mention zippin' up their pants!

Yeah, I even helped out one of our 7th grade SCIENCE teachers one year with, ahh, that whole FROG DISSECTION thing they do!

Ha! You can only imagine!

A small class, of just 8th grade boys, and NOBODY had any idea what they were doing!

Starting with me!

I, and by that, I mean we, never LAUGHED so hard in our lives!

Until now, just thinking about it, that is!

Yeah, and that's all I'll say about that!

Where was I?

Oh! Really?

Of course, my "background", or lack thereof, in becoming a real, North Carolina, Special Ed. middle school teacher.

Yes, first in highschool, then ... THE MILITARY!

Of course!

See, I joined the Marines, like, three years after I graduated from high school.

And AFTER the end of, ahh, The Vietnam War.

Yeah, "The LOWEST POINT IN MARINE CORPS HISTORY".

Really.

Not my words, see, a few years later, I read a book about it ...

But yeah, I knew it.

I mean, I lived it "first hand"!

Didn't need a high school diploma at that time.

And remember, I only had a "VOCATIONAL SCHOOL" diploma ...

Thing was, I was not your "normal" twenty-one year old, Marine recruit.

I didn't swear, I didn't smoke, I didn't drink, and I didn't do drugs.

In 1976.

And, like I said, I had a "VOCATIONAL" HIGH SCHOOL DEGREE, or whatever it was called!

Or wasn't called.

Which was more that most of my fellow Marines at that time.

And I was OLDER, and got promoted faster, than most Maridid at that time.

I made Sergeant (E-5) in two and a half years.

I was made a "Section Leader" over there in Japan, rather quickly.

I was MARINE OF THE YEAR, in my Detachment, and "won" a Summer Navy Cruise, around the "Western Pacific", back in summer of 1977.

Crazy.

All I remember is being SICK, like "BG TIME", sitting in the BRIG, which was "stuck way up there" in the very front TIP of the ship (where I "worked" by watching just ONE sailor) as we circled around, and around, the Philippines, for THREE DAYS, where we were supposed to stop in Manila during that time. But no, we got "caught up in a BIG typhoon thing", and just "waited it out", doing big circles, "round and round! Over and over again!

And up and down, up and down ... And more ups and downs, for three days and nights!

It wasn't pretty.

And that's all I'll say about that.

Did I mention I was stationed in Japan, on dry land, and lived in a barracks, in my own room, with my own bed, and walked down the hall, you know, while my feet touched the floor, not up on the sides of each wall, as I rolled back and forth, while walking down the ship's hallways!

And I didn't have to STAND there, in the chow hall, and pretend to try to eat my food, while moving back and forth, back and forth, like, all the time I was in there! With no tables, or chairs, or anything, in the whole place!

Nope. Just back and forth, back and forth! The whole THREE days!

Nope, I'm not a "Real Sailor", or even close to it!

Thank GOODNESS!

But I did get to visit some pretty cool places!

What?

Like, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and, ahhhh ... Yeah, I think that was it!

So yeah, I LOVED the "ADVENTURE", but Lord help me, that whole "NAVY SHIP" thing, was yeah, a bit too much!

And yes! I've been on a few CRUISE SHIPS since then (like this last CHRISTMAS!), but it's not even close!

No!

Well, that said, except for that first trip down to Antarctica! Yeah, THAT was way worse!

BIG TIME! Not even close!

THE ROUGHEST OCEAN IN THE WORLD!

That said, the second time down there, not so much!

But yeah, the WESTERN-PACIFIC (or WESTPAC"), was like, way out there! On a HUGE, and very old, actual Naval Battle Ship, from like, WWII, yeah, was was it?

The USS OKLAHOMA CITY, I think, or something like that!

Nailed it!

Yeah, I checked!

It was the "FLAGSHIP" of the Seventh Fleet, back in my time! Like I said, back in 1977.

Whew, that was nice, but yeah, sure glad I got back to my own bed, in my own room, that I mentioned earlier, and on solid ground once again! Where I could ride my motorcycle up into the mountains, and swim in that nice, cool river in the summer, that we used to "hang out" at, you know, back in the day ...

Which reminds me!

Yeah, another cool moment on the trip ... We actually stopped right "On The Equator" for a day, threw down some nets, and yeah, got to "JUMP OVERBOARD" (no diving!) into the, ahh, "deepest swimming pool" I ever jumped into in my life!

Unreal. Down, and down, and down, and down ...

Yes, they had Marines up there, on the ship, with loaded M-16 rifles, you know, on "SHARK WATCH", the whole time we were out there!

Yeah, all part of some old, CRAZY, "Naval Tradition Thing", when "Crossing the Equator"!

And yeah ... That "Other Part" of that whole thing ... What?

Like crawling around on our bellies, through these "GARBAGE TUNNEL" things" (really!), that were made out of cloth, while being "beaten" by these short, fire hose things, by all the people on the ship that had "Crossed the Equator" before! Something about "SHELLBACKS" and "POLLYWOGS", or whatever! Yeah, they beat you while you crawl in front of them, and then you "pop-out" of those tunnel things, and have to get this olive, or grape, or something, out of the belly-button of some, sailor, with lard smeared all over his rather FAT, hairy, stomach!

Again, I can't make this stuff up!

I have, or had, an OFFICIAL piece of paper with my name it and everything, you know, "to "PROVE I'm that Crazy", around here somewhere, or, at some point in time, anyways ...

Or, at least I used to, ahh, it's been a few years now ...

Gotta love those old, MARINE CORPS DAYS!

My time in the military.

That said, I did leave Japan (I could have stayed), and headed to "THE REAL MARINE CORPS" back in 1978!

Yeah, for my last six months in the Marines ...

Like, at Camp Lejeune, you got it! Right here in North Carolina!

I got there knowing NOTHING about the 60mm mortars they used ... I had been trained on the much larger, 81mm mortars, that we had out in California, like TWO YEARS prior!

And yeah, they were crazy enough! All this "MATH" and "SCIENCE" stuff, that I really never truly got the hang of in the first place!

Be glad I was never called into a real war! That is for sure!

I'm not a real, MATH/SCIENCE type of guy!

I did mention LANDSCAPING and GREENHOUSE MANAGEMENT, right?

And HISTORY, right?

And then, yeah, PHOTOGRAPHY, right?

Ha ... And there I was, in charge of twenty-something men, who had tons of experience with these things for, yeah, like, ahh ... YEARS!

Luckily, I had some good Marines, that knew what they were doing. They made me "look good" that was for sure!

I "faked it", for six-months, and that was that! I took care of all the MARINE stuff, they took care of all the MORTAR stuff!

Worked for me!

Oh, and best of all ... Yeah, my classic, re-built, 1976 Honda CB750 motorcycle, that I bought right before I left Japan, finally arrived, by way of some Navy Supply ship, or whatever, to some Naval Base in Virginia ... What?

Like, ahh ... Let me check my atlas ...

Naval Station Norfolk, yeah, that it is ... Or what it is called now! I thought back then it was called just, ahh, Norfolk Naval Station, or Norfolk Naval Base?

I don't know ...

But one of the men in my Section, had a pick-up truck, and yeah, we drove up from Camp Lejeune, and picked it up, in a nice, big wooden crate thing!

And then, yeah, dropped it off at some local Honda dealer, right off base, and yeah, they made sure it was ready to go!

CLASSIC.

With the original, Japanese, colored paint theme, an oil cooler added on to it, and yeah, like I said, "all fixed up" for my trip after I got out, just a few months later, on 2Mar79.

Since it was SPRING, and I lived in Up-State New York, yeah, I headed down to Florida, where my mother, and my younger, sister and brother, had moved to, after their year out in there in Douglas, Arizona.

I know. Crazy.

I then spent the next few months down below Lake Okeechobee, and even took a "little trip" over to the Bahamas, where I stayed out on the beach, you know, for a "few nights" before heading back to Clewiston, and then making it up to New York, where I moved back in with my grandfather, and started my Community College adventure ... Where I took Liberal Arts classes with the help of some good tutors!

I even made the Dean's List a couple of times!

Ha!

And then two more years over in Brockport, NY, where I graduated with a degree in History, and my teaching degree in Social Studies.

Ahh, those were the days!

Yeah, FOUR years of college, in exchange for THREE years in THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS.

Funny how that all worked out, you know, without ever ahh, "planning a thing"!

The story of my life!

Did I mention I am a retired, ahh, Special Ed. Teacher, and a College Art (photography) instructor?

Go figure.

That all came later ...

Got it?

If not, yeah, just ask me the next time you run into me, I just might be able to come up with something to help "fill in the blanks"!

Maybe.

Good luck with that!

Just get out there, and do what you do ... With a camera, or your phone, or whatever!

Just make art, I mean ART!

You can do it!

I mean, like I said, SOMEHOW, I managed to "pull it off"!

Funny how that all turned out ...

Well, most of it, anyways. There is that whole marriage thing.

Another story for another time ...

That would be "THE REAL STORY", trust me!

Did I mention my mother and father?

Yeah.

Not sure you (and by that, I mean ME!), are, you know, ready for all that right now!

Just get out there!

Make your life happen the way YOU want it to! You only have one!

Good luck with that!

Just "PUSH THE BUTTON".

Easy, right?

Yeah ...

Make it so.