Memoirs from Phil as written to some fellow Veterans and friends:

in 1964 fort ord was closed from an outbreak of meningitis, and unlike you i did get sent to fort polk louisiana, 2 dec. to feb.1965...the first day of processing the army interviewer asked me what my civilian job was?...trucker i said...do you want your army job to be a trucker?...sure i said ...ronnie, do you remember when i went to so. cal. military academy in long beach for 5 years, 5th through 9th grade?...well the army said that qualified as prior military training, then they gave me an armband with temp. coroporal stripes and said i was exempt from extra duty, and the squadleader for this squad of raw draftee/recruits, and for me to teach them facing maneuvers (my 1st lucky break)...

i left fort polk after completing basic training and arrived by train at night to my first duty station, u.s. army garrison with the 101st. airborne at fort campbell, ky...while checking into hq the duty sgt. said, their company clerk just got transferred and asked, does anyone here know how to type?...i can type, i said...in my high school senior year i was the first ever rancho male to take the elective class typing/bus. machines, plus i was in my 12th year of classical piano training...luckily my fingers and reflexes were lightning fast and i finished the class as the fastest typist with 92/0 w.p.m. and beat all the girls...my typing class partner wrote this in my yearbook; "phil, to a real swell guy and the best typing partner a girl could have"...judy ellis "61"...so the sgt. said; pvt. foto you say you can type huh, well sit down here and take this typing test...it had been 4 years since my high school typing test 92/0, but i still could knock-out 60/0 w.p.m...the sgt's. jaw dropped as he exclaimed, damn you really can type. i've never seen anyone type that fast with no errors...(my 2nd lucky break) pvt. foto you are the new company clerk (the major's private secretary, see attached) which includes your own private quarters and you're exempt from extra duty...

that lasted from feb. to may 1965, then i got orders assigning me to the 1st cav. div. which was being transferred from so. korea to so. vietnam (20,000 initial nam invasion force)...i had 2 weeks leave to say goodbye before shipping out of treasure island navel base aboard 3-300' troop carrier ships, and i boarded the uss gordon along with 7,000 other shipmates...to crew the ship, persons with surnames A through D were given jobs...gally crew had blue i.d. ribbons, maint. had red, and deck swabby's had yellow...i had some sailing experience to avoid sea sickness and as soon as we sailed out the golden gate, a storm began to toss the ship up & down and side to side for 3 days nonstop...me and a handful of other sailors never got sick, but 6,990 other troops were puking their guts out...the gally had chest high tables to stand & eat at, if you can eat with everyone surrounding puking in their metal trays, but the head (toilet) was the worst...military ships have low riveted steel bulkheads (ceiling), the head had the usual crapper stalls and a very long, from port to starboard 50' stainless steel urinal...the stalls are full of puking crappers and the urinal drain is plugged with puke...so as the ship rolls from side to side a giant wave of urine and puke would crash into the urinal end, splashing out of the urinal as it rains down dripping everywhere from the bulkhead...so you have to time it when the wave is moving away, you run up and pee...if you don't get finished you pinch it off, back out and wait until the next roll, wouldn't have missed that never-matched experience for the world...

my sleeping compartment was mid-ship 3 levels below deck with 1,500 troops sleeping in one room on canvas bunks bolted to steel posts 2 side by side & 4 high from deck to bulkhead...i had a top bunk with some headroom, but the bottom 3 bunks offered only 6 in of space from your nose to next bunk...it takes forever to feed 7,000 troops and there was a 5 hr wait in line to get into the gally and eat...the ship's duty crew had open access to the gally so my friend ted amato acquired brooms and yellow ribbons for some of his friends which we hid under our bedding, no more waiting in 5 hr lines to go eat...

for 23 days our ship along with our submarine escorts zig-zagged all over the pacific ocean, and finally land...inchon korea is the shallowest harbor in the world and the distance between the low to high tide marks is over a mile, so they off-loaded the troops into assault landing craft...i could hardly believe my eyes and ears as we wadded ashore while an army band played sousa march tunes, is john wayne here?...then it hit my nose what is that awful rotten smell?...that's korea foto, i think i'm going to puke...

i was assigned to the 1st cav. at camp ames on the dmz as a payroll clerk while waiting to transfer to vietnam, but the transfer was ceremonial only with an exchange of unit citations and campaign battle ribbon flags, but they left me in korea with the 2nd inf. div. and i was pissed-off because i hated korea and working as a payroll clerk, so i filed a transfer request for voluntary vietnam re-deployment and waited for my request to be approved...

one day i got a 24 hour liberty pass and i told my friends i was going to go find a different job...they all laughed and said foto are you crazy this is the army, they say what your job is you don't...as i walked out of camp ames with my 24 hr pass in-hand along came a donut dolly (red cross nurse) driving a mobile library bus and she stopped and offered me a ride to the 2nd div. recreation center #1 (my 3rd lucky break)...

we were visiting as she drove and i mentioned that i was a folk singer who played 5-string bluegrass banjo earl scruggs style...r.c.#1 housed the army special services div. which included the 2nd div. commanding general's private party favorite folk singing band the "travelers" but the travelers banjo player had just returned to the u.s. so the travelers were looking for a folk singing banjo player, would i like to meet them she asked?...yes indeed i said and i did, and they did, and we did...and the 2nd inf. div. commanding general chiles personally phoned the company commander at camp ames with a verbal order transferring pvt. foto to r.c.#1 as a folk singing banjo player with the general's pet band the "travelers" effective immediately, and he denied my transfer request to vietnam...my friends at camp ames went crazy when they heard the commanding general had phoned and i was being transferred to a new job (see pic attached, my 4th lucky break)...

the "travelers" played 200 live performances, many radio & television performances, plus 3 command performances while i was an active traveler member...as traveler dick cruse once said; "in 1965 korea it was the best job you could have in the u.s. army"...

Wed. 11/11 is Veterans Day, a day for remembering and for wishing all my veteran warrior friends a happy Veterans Day...we were hippie soldiers too...phil foto...then he hung up...