and thought he threw some wrapper out the window. A minute later, I looked into my rear view mirror and saw a Toyota truck quickly pull up alongside us. We then heard a loud noise as the window behind our heads shattered. I said to my rider, “Get down, he is shooting at us!” I could feel the adrenaline racing through my body and the pulse-beat of my heart as a thousand things flooded my mind. Just then, the road for the military base was coming up and I turned into it hoping he would not follow us in there—but he did. When I looked in the rear view mirror and saw he was coming after me, I felt both anger and fear rise up in me.
Who was this man and why was he after me? I was driving a Chevy half-ton truck, faster and heavier than his, so I revved the engine and tried to outrun him. He stayed with me and I figured I had better get him before he got me. I put a little distance between us, then I made a quick U-turn and told my rider to hold on—we were going to ram him! He looked at me like I had to be kidding or crazy or both. I was not kidding. I figured I would take him out before he took another shot at us. As we got closer, I saw the horrified look on his face. It was a Guamanian; I hit him head-on at about 35 or 40 mph. The collision totaled his truck, and did a lot of damage to ours.
Miraculously, we were not injured except for some cuts from the flying glass. A woman who lived in a house nearby was standing outside her home and witnessed me turning around and ramming him. She ran inside and called the Guam police and they were there in seconds. They arrested me for assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder. A vehicle is a deadly weapon when used that way.
My passenger and I were handcuffed and put in the back of the police cruiser. I remember wondering how in the blue blazes I had gotten myself in this mess. Going to jail in a strange and remote place for assault and attempted murder against one of the locals was not a good thing. I asked my friend sitting next to me if he had any idea why that guy shot at us. He said that as we were going down the road, he had thrown a piece of the pie he was eating out the window and it hit the guy behind us in the face. “So that’s why you were laughing,” I replied. Then the police officer spoke up saying that the man involved in the accident with us was continually in trouble with the police. The police arrested him also and he was being taken to jail in another police car.
JAIL TIME
When I was booked into jail, there was this huge Samoan guard, the largest person I have ever seen. He put the man I had assaulted and me into a cell together and called the other guards to watch. The guards said to us, “O.K., you guys want to kill each other? Go ahead. We want to watch.” We looked at each other, shook our heads no and did not concede. As angry as we were with one another, we were not going to let the guards use us for their entertainment. The guards were disappointed and then moved him to another cell.
I laid down on the concrete floor. That’s all there was—no bunk, no sink, just concrete and the steel bars that separated the prisoners from the outside. I could see the jungle approximately 100 yards away. When the sun went down, the mosquitoes were thick and they came right through those bars and devoured me. A guard brought me a single sheet that night which I wrapped tightly around my body. The mosquitoes were so many, they found a way in and I was swollen all over my face and neck for days.
I had no heroin in my cell and the withdrawals made me wish I could die. I truly wished that the misery would end. The only food given to us was one bowl of rice a day, and one bowl of water. Some of the local men in that jail had family who dropped off food for them, but I had no family, only the basic food given to keep me alive. At 19 years old, I was learning some hard lessons. I found myself thinking about God…if I took my life somehow, would God forgive me? I laid on the hard cement floor and found that a peace and comfort came over me when I prayed or talked to God. I said things to Him from my heart; I said I was sorry. If He would help me, I sure would try to live my life in a better way.
A message came to me early in the morning on the fourth day. A Navy lawyer from the Communications Station had met with the District Attorney and arranged for my release. Someone from the base would come for me today. I thought, all right, maybe everything will work out somehow. The guard came to my cell around noon and opened the steel bar door and said something to the effect that he had better not see me again in his jail. He said they did not like us honkies and threatened that the next time something might happen to me. He took me to the R&R center (Receiving and Releasing), where I was released to a Navy driver.
He drove me to the Navy base. I hoped that my wife would meet me and say something like, “Are you alright?” Or maybe, “I missed you and am glad you’re home.” No, there was nothing like that. I cleaned up at our house after a few days in jail without being able to shower or change clothes. She called me from work. She said someone had called her and told her I was out of jail and back on the base. She said, “Carl, you are destroying your life. I want out of the marriage,” and then she hung up. I felt like everything had been knocked out from under me.
A week later, the District Attorney called me for a meeting at his office in downtown Agana, Guam. I was scared. I could not even imagine what it would be like if I got convicted in this place and sentenced to who knows how long. The District Attorney explained to me that the young man who came after me was someone who had a long record with them. They were not happy that we had thrown a pie provoking him. However, they were offering to drop all charges if I would not file charges against him. I said, “Sure thing, where do I sign?” It was a done deal; I went back to the Navy base feeling that something unusual had just happened. I felt very lucky, but something was telling me it was more than luck. Could that little prayer inside that cell have made a difference? Something sure made a very big difference.
FAILED MARRIAGE
I was coming to the end of my time in Guam. My wife wanted a divorce; she got an attorney who drew up papers. She and her attorney called me to a meeting shortly after my release from the car chase ordeal. They wanted me to sign divorce papers which I did not want to do. I did not want to give up so easily. The attorney said she could force me into it somehow, and convinced me to at least sign a legally separated paper. I get angry when I am hurt, so I said, “Fine, you don’t want me anymore? I’ll sign.” I went immediately and filled out a request to be transferred—a request I knew would be granted. I had already done about a year longer than most Navy people do in Guam. In fact, in one week, my transfer was approved, and I was being relocated to a ship homeport of San Diego, the U.S.S. Long Beach CGN-9. This was one of the Navy’s most powerful ships! It was a nuclear–powered cruiser, 735 feet long. I was surprised that the Navy felt I deserved such a highly desired duty station.
I gave my wife all the furniture and household items we had bought in Guam; she agreed that I would keep the Toyota truck we had. I was allowed one vehicle to ship to my new duty station, so I dropped the truck off at the naval base at the other end of the island to make the trip to California. I would pick it up in four to six weeks in Long Beach, California.
As I packed my belongings, I could not help but reflect on all that had occurred in the last two and a half years in Guam. I was pretty sad; the hardest thing to deal with was my failed marriage along with the drug use I had gotten involved in which was way beyond anything I thought I would ever do. I was very concerned about what the future held for me. Would my parents be quick to figure out I was on drugs? What would that do to my relationship with them? Would my marriage somehow end up working out over time? That would be a real miracle. What new job would I be assigned to on the ship? There were so many questions and so many unknowns.
To top all that off, there was this negative buzz going on. President Nixon, the Chief Commander of the Military, was being forced to resign or the public was going to impeach him for the Watergate scandal. Was there anything in this world that was solid? Was there anything honorable that a person could trust in and not be disappointed? It felt like the world was crumbling around me. I wanted to cry, but rarely did. I found temporary relief in snorting China White, smoking pot and drinking alcohol.
CHAPTER TWO
