First to Last: The Tale of a Biker. Dennis Lid

I contributed to the mess. A decade later, after a bit of alimony and years of child support payments, the marriage was annulled. It was a very negative and disillusioning time of life for all concerned. The quest for the Holy Grail seemed all but halted. Even thoughts of motorcycles and the life of a biker were temporarily shelved. I was like a blind man groping in the dark for quite some time. I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel a number of years later and started living life again. The bottom line to this part of my life is that divorce or annulment is an episode to be avoided if at all possible. The best way to ensure that is to be wise enough to choose the right spouse to begin with. As Shakespeare once wrote, “All this the world well knows, yet few know well how to shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.” Let’s leave it at that.

       Acclimatization to Army Life

      After attending Infantry Officer’s Basic Course and Airborne training, I was assigned to Fort Lewis, Washington for three years of Infantry duty with the 2d Battle Group, 47th Infantry. For another year, I attended the Defense Language Institute at Monterey, California, and studied the Vietnamese Language and culture. Thereafter, I went off to war in Southeast Asia as a Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) Army Battalion Advisor. That lasted for half-a-year in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in II Corps at a place called Tan Canh near Dak To. Things experienced on combat operations in the highlands will fill another book some day. I finished my combat tour of duty at Tuy Hoa on the coast of the South China Sea as a Psychological Operations Officer advising the South Vietnamese Army G5 Section (Psychological Operations) at that location. That was “fun time” as well, but the telling of those experiences is reserved for a more appropriate time and place. The basic lesson learned was that war is an ugly and numbing experience best avoided if at all possible. It should definitely be a last choice in attempts to rectify the human condition. Yet, in a humble and belated defense of the Vietnam War, and in the words of a respected source, I dare to say: