anunholymess

[anunholymess]

FUNNY STORIES ABOUT VIETNAM, GROWING UP IN THE 1950’s & 1960’s, COMEDY, CALAMITIES AND MORE

[anunholymess]

AN UNHOLY MESS

A BOOK BY RICHARD DOBBYN III

(A memoir of his first 27 years)

Comedy and calamity are interlaced throughout the stories of a WW2 war baby - the eldest of what would become nine children in his family. The book opens with Military Police Lt. Dobbyn (Dick), trying to get his platoon loaded onto a chartered plane for a flight to San Francisco from Georgia and then onto a troopship destined for Vietnam. That evening, as the ship glides under the Golden Gate bridge, he reflects on the similarities of his current situation with those experienced by his parents during their war.

Rick tells the story of his parents caught up in the turmoil of WW2. His Dad was an Army Captain in India and was away for two and a half years. He wrote letters which chronicle their romance and the spirit and valor of our troops.

Dick grew up in Boston and Providence. In a Boston housing project, he morphed from a very religious choir boy to an angry rebellious punk. The family moved to a better environment in Providence. He attended LaSalle Academy and played football, basketball and the drums in a rock band.

He graduated from Boston College. The military draft was on and Rick’s mother encouraged him to join the Army ROTC program and become an officer, because he would never be able to take orders as an enlisted man. During summers, he burned the candle at both ends by lifeguarding for the newly opened Cape Cod National Seashore during the day, and at night, he sold ice cream to the tourists and played in a jazz trio.  

In March of 1966 Second Lieutenant Dobbyn went on active duty and after MP school joined a newly formed MP company in Fort Benning, Georgia, as a platoon leader. He found that his case of prickly heat and chigger bites, along with pygmy rattle snakes proved to be excellent training for Vietnam.

The troopship to Vietnam carried a battalion of Army Engineers, Marines and his MP Company. Tension built slowly aboard ship when the engineers and marines started taunting each other and a few fisticuffs arose. Mayhem broke out when the ship docked in Okinawa for fuel. Rick and a Marine Lieutenant had their hands full that day.

In Long Binh, Vietnam, his platoon ran convoy escorts for the 1966 U.S. troop build-up. He was nearly court martialed for refusing to obey a direct order from his commander. He finagled a transfer to Saigon and tells of a few dicey situations and some rather amusing ones.

Back in the States Dick was assigned to Fort Devens, Mass. He was promoted to Captain in charge of (not confined to) the New England Confinement Facility located on the base.

In 1970, the Army called up Dick, and twenty pissed off vets for two weeks, to train a national guard unit. On duty they raised holy hell and Captain Dick cleverly escaped a court martial.

Read more about Dick’s foibles, adventures and funny stories about Vietnam at: https://www.anunholymess.net.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dick, aka Rick, grew up in Boston and Providence. He was educated by the St. Joseph nuns, the Christian brothers and the Jesuit priests. He graduated from Boston College with a BS in accounting. He was in the ROTC program at BC and received a commission as an Army officer in the Military Police. He served in Vietnam and stateside and escaped with an honorable discharge. Despite a weakness in mathematics, Dick earned a CPA while working for Price Waterhouse (PWC) in Boston. The stories in his memoir are from this rowdy and chaotic period in his life.

The academic knowledge from BC, the leadership experience from the Army and the hands-on accounting skills at PWC all contributed to a 35-year career in financial management. Along the way, he was a drummer, a video gamer, and loved to mess around with boats. He worked for several international manufacturing companies and retired as the chief financial officer of a manufacturer in Sarasota Florida.

Dick and his wife Dee retired to the Southport area in North Carolina. They currently live in Fort Mill, South Carolina.