All across America and around the world, this
is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. And
now, your host for today's program... Is what?
It's Dale Throneberry. Is he going to be your
host today? I'm not sure where our announcer
meant. He must have stepped out of the room for
a moment. Anyway, you're listening to Veterans
Radio and we want to welcome all of you to our
program today. We're very excited to have you
here in beautiful downtown Ann Arbor where it
is snowing. That's right, it's April 10th and
it's snowing, but what else is going on in the
world? It's kind of a strange place out there.
And we've got a couple of really great guests.
The theme of our program today is humor in uniform,
and we want to have a good time. So we've got
a couple of great guests. We've got Bob Woolsey,
and Bob wrote a book entitled The General's Briefer,
and just reading the book is a very funny book,
and he talks about his experiences working in
Army intelligence. I know, ba -bum -bum, yes.
We will be talking about that in a little bit
after we take our first break. And during the
second half of the program, we've got Mark Benevito,
and Mark is going to be talking about his experiences
at the Virginia Military Institute. And we'll
talk more about that with Mark in the second
half of the program. I want you to give us a
call today. If you have a story about the service
that you can relate to with our guests, please
feel free to give us a call here on Veterans
Radio. The number locally is 734 -822 -1600.
That's 734 -822 -1600. You can listen to Veterans
Radio on the WAM website. You can listen to it
on the veteransradio .net website. You can listen
to our podcasts at our website. You can also
follow us on Facebook. Veterans Radio at Facebook.
We're on Twitter. What else are we on, Nina?
I can't remember all the other different social
media things that are out there, but you can
always follow us and we're always interested
in hearing from you. We'd love to get our story
ideas from you because those are the best kind.
We love telling the stories of America's veterans
and military and we can get them from you. They're
even better than if we dig them out ourselves.
So again, you can send me an email at dale at
veteransradio .net or you can send Bob an email
at bob at veteransradio .net. I do have to let
everybody know that Bob came through his surgery
successfully as far as we know. I talked with
him earlier in the week and he was feeling pretty
good. So we're hopeful that Bob can get back
on the program in the next couple of weeks and
bring his perspective of the world. to us all.
I think it'll be exciting. A couple of announcements
for you. Number one locally here is the Iraq
and Afghanistan Veterans of America are having
a fundraiser on April 16th, 2016. It says they
are having a live trivia game, prizes and foods
at the Plymouth VFW. That's in Plymouth, Michigan,
Southeast Michigan, supporting the IAVA. And
they've got a number of businesses that are going
to help them out. They've got My Trivia Live,
Valentin Vodka, Snap Fitness Center, Bonefish
Gill, Grill and Novi, Tony Sacco's Cold Oven
Pizza, Tattoo Parlor, My Little Needle Tattoo,
Plymouth Cyclone Speed, U .S. Hockey, and Michigan
International Speedway. Anyway, their goal is
to raise $10 ,000. to contribute to the Iraq,
Afghanistan Veterans of America in order to support
their online environment called Vets Together.
And Vets Together, like this event and visibility
of events, to connect all these veterans from
these last conflict that we have been involved
in. And so we invite you to go to the IAVA .Shannon
Adams at outlook .com. That's Shannon Adams.
She's a community leader. for Iraq and Afghanistan
Veterans of America locally. And you can give
her a call for more information at 734 -233 -1799.
734 -233 -1799. This all begins on April 16th.
And it is, again, as I said, it's going to be
at the Plymouth VFW, which is on Mill Road or
Mill Street in Plymouth, Michigan, starting at
7 o 'clock and goes until you're finished. So
have a great time and go. Go help out the IAVA.
For the little older generation, we've got a
Vietnam Era Veterans Commemoration event coming
up at the Ann Arbor VA. And this is going to
be on May 6th, 2016 from 9 o 'clock in the morning
till noon. And this is at 2215 Fuller Road, Ann
Arbor, Michigan, Vietnam Veterans Commemoration
event, May 6th. 2016, our guest speaker is going
to be Lieutenant Colonel Charles Kettles, who
is hopefully going to be receiving his Medal
of Honor at any moment. And we will be meeting
in the auditorium, B14. And music is going to
be presented by Kelly Trudell. There's going
to be, for all you Vietnam veterans, there is
a Vietnam War commemorative pin presentation
to all of us. There's going to be the colors.
There's going to be a military memorabilia exhibit,
all kinds of things. Buddy to Buddy Veterans
Program, the National Security Administration
is going to be there, a different information
booth. So write it on your calendar. This is
why Bob always says to make sure you have a pen
during Veterans Radio for May 6, 2016, 9 o 'clock
in the morning. See you there, I hope. The last
event coming up, as we mentioned last week, is
the Anki Air Museum is presenting their 12th
annual American Bistro Night, the 1940s USO Dinner
and Dance. And that is on Saturday, April 30,
2016. Doors open at 5 .30. Dinner is at 6 .30.
And this is to raise money, obviously, for the
Yankee Air Museum to keep their planes flying,
to keep their static displays going. This place
is amazing. You've got to get out there and see
it. The Yankee Air Force is a great organization,
and we're very happy to always publicize what
they've got. For more information, you can go
to yankeeairmuseum .org. YankeeAirMuseum .org
and you can go dancing 1940 style on Saturday,
April 30th at the Yankee Air Museum. And the
last thing is just a little free advertising
for General Motors. I picked this out of the
Detroit Free Press this morning and I don't know
how many of you are aware but they have a veterans
buying program at General Motors and it was initially
for only the, I don't want to say only, but for
the veterans that have been discharged in the
last year or so. Well, they have opened this
program to all veterans. Every one of you, all
22 million of us out there, it is now open to
you until the end of May. And so all you've got
to do is contact your GM dealer and ask them
about their veterans buying program, and they'll
be more than happy to help you out. It says,
GM Widen's Military Veteran Discount. So you
get a special deal on some of the cards that
are available. When I was looking it up today,
they have, you know, 2015, 16, and 17 models.
It's not for all the GM products, but it includes
Chevrolet, Malibu, GM, Sierras, Buick, Encores.
For details, it says visit gmmilitarydiscount
.com. Okay, so we are going to take our first
break, and then we'll be right back with my first
guest, Bob Woolsey, and you're listening to Veterans
Radio. And we're back on Veterans Radio, and
I have the privilege of talking to another Jersey
boy today as one being from New Jersey, so we'll
be able to talk a little bit about that as well.
But my guest is Bob Woolsey, and I've got a great
background here. Let's see. He graduated from
St. Peter's College in Jersey City. He majored
in German classical literature. He was awarded
a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany,
and while abroad, he traveled extensively. throughout
Europe. He's fluent in Italian and German and
Jerseyese. After returning to the US, he studied
law at the University of Virginia Law School,
got his JD in 1967, and then I think he made
a misstep somewhere along the line, and he entered
the United States Army Intelligence Corps as
a first lieutenant in 1968, serving for two years
as a briefing officer to the general staff at
the Pentagon. So Bob, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Hello. How are you doing today? Very good, thanks.
How are things in Jersey? It's not snowing. It's
over cold. It's about 60 degrees, I guess. But
as long as it doesn't snow, we can get the way,
Paul. I think we'll be all right. I think so.
I totally agree. Being from Jersey myself, I
can relate to the whole thing about that fine
state. Good. Nice to hear that. Well, I do. People
don't understand that New Jersey is a beautiful
state. You can go skiing. You can go to the shore.
You can do anything you want, pretty much, in
New Jersey. Sure. It's a great place. So tell
me about this experience that you had after you
went to college. Did you go through college on
a ROTC program? Yes, I did. I went and they sort
of guaranteed me a post in Germany. This was
in the early 60s. So you could just sort of pick
out where you wanted to go. And in the early
60s, even though there was a draft, I said, sure,
you can go to Germany. And then the Vietnam came
along, and between college and the grant to Europe,
I went to law school at the beginning of 1964.
I didn't like law school very much, but it piqued
Vietnam. It kept promising us that the war was
going to be over. Yeah, that's what they told
me, too. I applied. I asked for Germany, but
I didn't get it. Oh, well. Yeah. All right. So
once you're back, And you have to end up going,
where did you do basic training? Was it basic
training or off the training? Yes. I don't know
what the difference is, but it was basic training.
We had to run through, do the mile and run about
obstacle course and the map location and things
like that. And I was very poor at that. And I
couldn't run. And fortunately, the job that I
got was at the Pentagon. You didn't need to run.
All you had to do was talk. So I was the world's
worst. If your definition of a soldier is a guy
who fights a rifle and is able to find supplies,
it wasn't me. But I got, they had an odd way
of selecting people to go to Washington. And
I asked the colonel who was in charge of our
unit at Pentagon, why he picked me. He said,
well, you were a lawyer and we need somebody
in the overall briefers department at our unit.
And so this will pick you. And so I spent two
years, very good years, between July 68 and March
70. Well, your experiences, you also had some
interesting experiences down in Georgia at Fort
Benning. Oh, yes, yes. Several chapters about
my experiences at Fort Benning. and with the
map, getting lost with the maps and attacking
at home. But I made it through. All you had to
do was just make it through. And I was an intelligence
officer. I wasn't an infantryman. But everybody,
they didn't want people that were out of shape.
I could understand that. So they gave us basic
training for 10 weeks, then they sent us to intelligence
school, which was really easy. What would intelligence
school include? Well, it was how to interrogate
a prisoner. Everything then was Vietnam, and
it was how to find out certain things. I wasn't
cleared for the highest kind of intelligence
that I was going to be briefing at the Pentagon,
but it gave me basic intelligence. I can't even
recall what it was. interrogating people who
were prisoners of war, things that I really never
had to use when I was briefing. And I did six
weeks of it. I bet it was just sort of to get
your feet wet in the intelligence business. And
then I got word that I was going to the Pentagon.
I said, this is great. I'm only 250 miles from
home, and it's not Germany, but it's pretty nice.
It wasn't too shabby. So what would describe
your first couple of days at the Pentagon? Yeah,
well, fortunately, I was there a couple weeks
before the big head of intelligence, General
McChristian, arrived. He came up with Westmoreland.
He was the head of intelligence. In the beginning,
I would get in at 3 .30 in the morning, and my
boss and I would compile an oral briefing. And
this was 10 or 12 minutes of people who were
officers who were sort of falling asleep. And
we'd keep them awake for a while. But this all
changed when General McChristian got in. He wanted
to see the briefing. I mean, he actually took
an interest in it. So he said, well, why are
you got 20 expert desk officers? And we had desk
officers from Japan and China and Latin America,
Vietnam, of course, South Asia. And the general
was pretty smart. He said, well, why do you have
these two guys here for producing a briefing
for The morning, I think they were lying at their
desk offices. So from now on, they read what
the desk office has given them. So that's what
I did. So from late July or the beginning of
August 1968, I would just read from what we call
the black book. And that was 15 minutes of stuff.
A lot of it was Vietnam. But you know, in the
Middle East, there were skirmishes between Syrian
and Israeli troops. student unrest in South America,
and the two biggest events that happened weren't
in Vietnam when I was in the service. The Chinese
and Soviets had a little war, and the Soviets
and the Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia.
How did the Pentagon react to that? I mean, I
know that in our experience, you're talking to
people on Veterans Radio, we found that, you
know, the one thing that the military does is
they plan, they plan, they plan for pretty much
any possibilities out there. Well, we had plans,
we had all sorts of intelligence sources, but
we were surprised by the Czechoslovakian invasion.
And we had a special briefing on it and I went
in to see the Eastern European desk analyst.
I said, what happened? He said, we were all caught
with our pants down. We didn't know that the
Russians and the Warsaw Pact were going in and
they shot to Milwaukee. So this briefing is courtesy
of the New York Times. So we had a couple of
facts that was top secret code word that we threw
in to make it sound like was top secret. But
we just didn't realize the Soviets had been planning
war games. We knew about these war games, but
suddenly they turned the war games into a natural
invasion. Into a real war game. Yeah, into a
real, live war game. And so they invaded Czechoslovakia
along with Poland, Hungary, and East Germany.
And I got a call around two o 'clock in the morning.
We said, you know, you've got to come in in a
few hours to talk about this invasion of Czechoslovakia.
by all the rest of Eastern Europe. Wow. We're
talking with Bob Woolsey here on Veterans Radio,
and his new book is called The General's Briefer,
and his job was to take all the information from
all these various expert people in the Pentagon,
and I guess put together a 15 -minute presentation
every day that you would give to just the head
of the security? Who did you give this to, everybody?
Well, first of all, the main briefing was that
the insistence to use the status of intelligence
who was a two -star general called Joseph McChristian.
He reported directly to General Westmoreland.
And then we'd give a courtesy briefing to a three
-star general, and I think his name was Stillwell.
He was the son of the World War II, Stillwell.
And we'd give him a briefing around 8 o 'clock.
So between, all our work was done between 5 .30
and, say, 8 .30. It was very hectic for about,
well, particularly putting the book together.
But after the eight thirty when you come back
from that briefing to the head of operations
for the army we'd get talked to the colonel a
little about what happened that morning and that
was it and so we sort of we had other things
we had to deliver this black book to different
generals like in Baltimore and different places
around the DC area And I told one of the chapters
where I had to deliver it to Fort Oliver, which
is in Mount Baltimore, handcuffed my wrist. Oh,
one of those? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there was the handcuff.
And the key stayed at ISB, which was our office.
And I had to do everything with that damn briefcase.
I had to eat with it. And that was because I
didn't want to lose it. So I had to go to the
bathroom with it. Yeah, you have some very interesting
stories in the book and it sounds like you had
a pretty good time. Yeah, I mean some of the
best people I've met, I mean we were at the Pentagon.
It was like every phrase else, you know, you're
good guys, you've got bad guys. But most of the
guys in our office were pretty good. The head
of the office was very good. And, you know, we
had, it was a nine, I'm not going to say nine
to five job, but it was early. But we only worked
five days a week. We didn't work Saturday or
Sunday. And we couldn't believe it was the Pentagon.
I lived in a high -rise in Arlington for most
of the time there. That's not too shabby. No,
and I got paid for all this. That wasn't too
bad. Now tell me, when were you at the Pentagon?
I was in the Pentagon from early July 1968 until
March 1970. And you mentioned, the reason I ask
that question is Many of our listeners are our
age and they live through that time period. You
give us a perspective of not only what was going
on with the generals, but what was going on in
the country at the same time. Starting in 1968
was when things really went bad. Yeah, there
was a bad year. We had all sorts of... Martin
Luther King was killed, Bobby Kennedy was killed,
the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia. But then
we had a good time. Later on, when I was there,
we put a man on loan. And it wasn't all bad.
But one thing that I liked was General McChristian,
who was the intelligence chief, liked me. He
thought that I was a good briefer, and he even
asked me to brief on the Czechoslovakian. situation.
So I enjoyed myself. A lot of the book tells
not only of my days at the Pentagon, but the
Army is very great with vacations. They gave
it a month, a year. So I had vacations and you
could take planes and they provided free flights,
the cargo planes to Europe. You could get on
there for nothing. And so it was a fine time.
And as I said, Washington DC was only three hours
from home. So I had a fine time. Unfortunately,
a lot of people who were in the Army at that
time had to go to Vietnam. Right, yeah. We've
talked to a few of them too. Yeah, yeah. But
what I wanted you to talk about is some of these...
adventures that you did have. You mentioned that,
you know, you were able to catch flights overseas
and I thought you were, if I remember reading
it, you were going to meet somebody over there
and you didn't quite hook up until the end of
their time period? Yeah, well, there's a chapter
in the book where I talk about what we explored,
where to go, because I only had flights to Rio
de Janeiro, but there weren't too many of these
things, but there was always a flight to Frankfurt.
Frankfurt was sort of like the hub. We figured,
okay, we could take a flight to Frankfurt, we'll
get there and we'll take the trains out to Costa
del Sol, a place in Spain. And it'll be nice,
nice and warm weather in May. And we had it all
planned out. Unfortunately, the flights were
restricted in the beginning because there was
hazardous cargo on board. The only thing that
was flammable, you couldn't get on. So we had
a... hang around in Dover, Maryland for three
or four days. Then I went to Europe. I got the
flight, went to Germany. There were four of us
going over. I got the flight with the guy I liked
the least out of the four of us. So I went to
Frankfurt with him and said, hey, we've got to
split up. We're not getting along. So I left
him, you know, I called up, he was staying in
the hotel. And so then I went to visit an army
buddy from Fort Benny who had been stationed
in Germany. Then I visited my family in Italy
and we traveled around a little bit and I came
home. But the cargo, the flights... but weren't
too bad. I mean, if you could catch a flight
over there and catch a flight back, you'd have
a lot of money. Yeah, I am sure that you would.
After you spent two years in the service, what
did you do when you got out? Well, after that,
I went to become a lawyer. I got out in 1970,
hunted around, and of course military experience
didn't hold any water with any war firms. But
I finally got different positions in different
firms. And I became a trust in the states lawyer.
And I was pretty good at it. And I was a trust
in the states lawyer from, I think, downtown
New York on Wall Street for about 30 years, I
guess. Oh, okay. So are you retired now? Do you
still live in Jersey? Sort of semi -retired,
yeah. Well, I don't go into any of this in the
book, but the exemptions now, I was pretty good
at getting people state tax savings. Oh, okay.
Attempts because they're so big now for married
couples like 11 million dollars, right? I don't
know anybody has 11 million dollars. I don't
know too many myself It was a little different
and then you know, we had exemptions of 1 million
million and a half to there were some people
where people have had that kind of money but
not too many people have 11 so you don't have
to have too many people that That needn't estate
plan. First of all, you leave money all to your
wife Right. Yeah, that's 11 million dollars for
tax free anyway And you've got an exemption of
like five and a half million dollars. There's
no planning anymore. And so I do some work versus
some other attorneys, things like closing and
some estate planning, wills. And you write books.
And I write books, yeah. I'm trying to sell books.
Well, we're working on that for you. We'll see
what we can do with that. We've got a couple
of minutes to go. So tell me, actually, why did
you sit down and finally write this adventure
of your life? We've got two minutes. OK. I wrote
this book a long time ago. It's called No Fighting
in the War Room. It didn't sell. But I had faith
in it. I said, I think this is a pretty funny
book. And I think some of the people would want
to read. So why go and just... get a book out
that's not proofread or edited. So what I did
was I had the thing proofread and edited, made
it hardcover, and decided to put it on the market.
And I gave it to people, and people liked reading
it. And Vietnam, it was long ago, but not all
that far. And we have things in common, you know,
like there was a riot at the Chicago Convention.
Who knows? It could be right at the Republican
convention this year. There might be. Things
have a tendency to repeat themselves as we're
finding out. They do, yeah. We had an unpopular
war in South Vietnam. Now we have an unpopular
war in the Middle East. We don't want to be in
Iraq, I don't think. We're there, and we're in
Afghanistan. But I don't know. It does tend to
repeat itself. I wrote the book as a funny book.
It is a funny book, and I have to kind of end
our interview quickly because I'm getting jumped
on from across the room. The name of the book
is The General's Briefer by Bob Woolsey. You
can find it on Amazon. You can find it on our
website. Please check it out. I found it to be
a very humorous book. Bob, thank you very much
for being on our program, and let us know if
we can help you out in the future. Thank you
so much. All right. All right, we will be back
in just a moment with our second half of our
program, and our guest is going to be Mark Benavito
Benvenuto, excuse me. And we're going to be taking
a look at the Virginia Military Institute. We'll
be right back. And we're back on Veterans Radio.
We're playing a little Army theme, although it
probably would not necessarily be appropriate.
I couldn't find a VMI fight song that I could
download quickly enough. But joining me now on
Veterans Radio is Mark Benvenuto. I'll get it
right one of these days, Mark. He's the author
of a funny little book titled Twisted Tales from
VMI, Real -Life Stories from the Virginia Military
Institute. And a couple of comments here by his
buddies. It looks like it says one said, I laughed
till I stopped. Me too. A roommate was in serious
need of some psychiatric help. That was from
one of his roommates. The funniest thing I've
read since the last funny thing I read. The one
I liked was, I am now convinced that my brother
Rat was dropped on his head as a youngster many,
many times. Then there's a little clip at the
bottom of the. back cover the book that it says
Mark was a member of the Virginia Military Institute
class of 1983 and thinks he's as sane as a bucket
of dirt and checked with his mom who claims that
when he was little she only dropped him on his
head only once or twice. So joining me on Veterans
Radio is author of Twisted Tales from VMI, Mark
Benvenuto. Mark, welcome to Veterans Radio. Well,
good evening. Thanks a bunch. Love that intro.
I had to practice. One of the problems I always
have with people's names is I like to add letters
and it's not right to do that. I don't worry
about it. It's very Italian and it means welcome.
Benvenuto. That's all you get out of it. There
I got it now. I got it now. So Mark, tell me
about that. I have to tell you that when I sent
out the flyer, I had put something in there that
VMI was the West Point of the South and I immediately
got bombarded with emails from people I didn't
even know listened to our program from a place
called the Citadel. Oh no. That's you hasn't
ended, has it? They're the Citadel of the South,
they'll tell you, right? That's very on the West
Point of the South. And I said, oh brother, I
guess I'm going to have to give them a program
as well. But anyway, so we got a response. I
thought that was fun. It's good to know folks
are listening, eh? It is. Because sometimes you
feel like you're talking to yourself. But anyway,
Mark is actually in our area here in southeast
Michigan. What do you do in your civilian life?
My copious free time when I'm not writing books
about how crazy it was in the military. I'm a
chemistry professor at the University of Detroit
Mercy. Ooh, smart guy. Oh, come on now. One of
those intimidators, right? Stop it. Somebody
has to do the job, right? I know, I know. All
right, so how did you get there? How did you
end up at VMI? Okay, I think like... That's a
good part. You know, it's a veterans radio. We
all got to admit it I think when we were 10 years
old everybody wanted to be in the army or the
Navy or Marines or something like that You know,
my dad was in the Air Force. I want to join the
Air Force Most of us grow out of that. I guess
I just never grew out of that In the 80s no Exactly.
So well, why did you choose the MI? How come
not not, you know, the other academies or schools?
Oh, it was let's let's give a shout out to the
people who said hey the Citadel is the West Point
of the South Well, I wanted to go into the service.
So I When it was time to apply for college, I
applied to West Point, VMI, and the Citadel.
That was it. And I think the Citadel and VMI
accepted me with this accent. I come from up
here. Actually, I come from upstate New York.
And when VMI had said yes, I said, that's far
enough away from home. The mom won't come to
visit all the time. It won't drop me on my head
anymore. And close enough to home that she can
come visit when I need money. So that's kind
of where it ended up. OK. All right. That makes
sense. The other thing as I was reading your
book and then I tried to do a little history
background on VMI is that it's a little more,
I don't know what the term is I'm trying to think,
more Spartan I guess, you can say that in Michigan,
but more Spartan than it was even at West Point.
You know they take great pride in the misery
they inflict on their cadets, at least they did
when I was there. That's kind of where the book
ended up coming out of. We used to joke about
this, the guys, well, we still joke about this,
the guys who get together here in Southeast Michigan,
the chapter of alumni for about once a month
for lunch. We used to joke that we had more free
time in the Army than we ever had at VMI. They
had more time out of uniform and whatnot. And
I always joke, oh, that's why I met and married
my wife because I had so much free time. Careful
what happens with all that free time, right?
Exactly. So when you arrived at VMI in 1979,
Yeah, very good. Fall of 79. Okay. You were called
Rats. Oh, yes, we were. What's a Rat? Oh, come
on. Anybody at the bottom of a military totem
pole has to have some sort of horrid title, right?
So I guess at the Academies, they're, what is
it, at West Point, they're plebes. I forget what
they are, what the lowest ranking midshipman
is at Annapolis. But VMI, they called you Rats.
And so for the rest of eternity, you're apparently,
everybody went in together, we're all brother
Rats. Okay, so you were a rat, and how well were
you received at VMI? Oh, with all the 80 decibel
pleasures that any guy with a bad haircut can
give to you. As I recall, they took a 3x5 card
with your name on it, tinned it to your T -shirt,
and then eventually your white shirt, and you
ran around with that for a week until they got
you decent name tags. What was the name Benvenuto
you just said about having problems? Trust me,
every guy from Virginia couldn't pronounce that.
Absolutely every single guy on the cadre couldn't
pronounce that. I have to relate. I can relate
to that because I was stationed in Alabama and
I couldn't understand anybody there. Understood.
So it's a lot of physical exercise, I'm sure.
A lot of mental cruelty and calling your parents
various names. Oh, all sorts of things. Anything
they could do to get a rise out of you. The first
week that gets called Cadre Week, which in most
universities and colleges they have this welcome
week and there's prologues and transitions. No,
this week was to try and get people out instead
of try and embrace you into it. So yeah, after
that... You're still a rat who's still in the
rat line and all this sort of stuff going on
You're still at the bottom of the totem pole
But at least classes were going on and the people
that from a rat's point of view were the most
sadistic guys in the universe At least had to
go to class and so we quickly learned that was
one of those sorts of things when Someone was
messing with you and they they would ask you
these questions and you're only supposed to say
yes, sir No, sir. No excuse sir when it got long
you kind of say how are your grades sir? Let
it hang there That's true. We're talking with
Mark Benvenito from Twisted Tales from VMI and
we're trying to find out what life was like at
VMI in the late 70s, early 80s. So did you have
to eat square meals and, you know, strack the
wall and all that stuff? No, let's see. The exaggerated
position of attention is what they call it. It
was called straining. I mean, you tucked your
chin into the back of your neck if you could.
had your breastbone sticking out and your arms
back and all that. The square meals at the mess
hall had turned into, it was called sitting at
attention, where you had to sit with your feet
together and what not. You could shovel it in
as fast as you could, but you had to sit there
on the front couple inches of your chair and
all that. All the usual miseries that make people
sort of think, why on earth did I come here?
Like I said, they did their utmost to make sure
we were. Welcome as little as possible and then
you'll see who falls out and the rest of us are
supposed to be tougher because we took it, right?
That's right. Yeah, we're tough. We can stand
this stuff. Exactly. So you could shovel it in.
I only did that as a warrant officer. We just
had four weeks of officer training. And so we
had to eat, you know, try to eat the square meals
where you know the bring this spoon up and into
your mouth without spilling and if you spilled
you got the merits and when you got the merits
you got push -ups and you know all that other
good stuff. So, I found the book to be very humorous.
A lot of things I could relate to, not only from
my own experiences, but also from experiences
of other veterans that we have talked to on our
program. So, from being a rat, what was the worst
thing that you had to go through in that first
year? What other wonderful traditions did they
force you to go through? You know, I thought
you were going to come up with that question.
What was the worst of all that misery? The thing
at the end of the rat line, the seniors, the
first class come up with a date and when this
mania is supposed to end and you just go back
into being a regular, you're a class now and
go to class and you're on the bottom of the totem
pole with all the elements screaming ends, there
was this thing called breakout. I put a chapter
in there, a chapter, it's 40 short stories, so
it's a little short story in there, about the
class that didn't have breakout because the superintendent,
who really is a military officer, said to their
guys, hey, guess what? You gotta let the rats
out of the rat line with breakout in the next
couple days or else. And a lot of miscommunication
there. But when I was there, it was a sort of
ritualized combat. No one was supposed to actually
get killed or broken legs or anything, but you
had to charge up these three flights of stairs
up to the fourth floor, because the barracks
was like a figure eight open to the sky, and
you basically had to get up there with all these
guys fighting you trying to keep it down. The
rules where you weren't supposed to throw any
body fluids or dead animals, who would enforce
such rules? The fact that they had to make them
means people were doing that. That was pretty
much a long -term memory that, now that you've
mentioned it, I'll probably dream about again
tonight. I know. You'll start therapy again tomorrow.
Exactly. Did you guys live on particular floors?
Did you move up in the dorm as you went through
the program? Other way around. You were a fourth
-classman. You were up there on the fourth floor
of the barracks. And the fourth, because there's
attrition all the time, a few guys lived on the
third. They put them all together. But every
year you move down one. So your sophomore year,
which was called your third class year, you were
down on the third floor. Your second class year,
which is your junior year, you're down on the
second floor. And your first class year, your
senior year, you're finally down at the bottom.
The rationale for that, why people wanted it
that way, is it's quicker to get to class if
you don't have to go down four flights of stairs.
That's true. or get back to your room for inspection.
Tell me about George Washington, the statue thereof.
You know, some of our listeners may have seen
that George Washington. That George Washington
statue at what was called Washington Arch is
in Lexington, Virginia. I believe there is one
in Richmond, Virginia. I'm not making this up.
I've seen the same statue at the side of Trafalgar
Square in London. The reason it's over at the
side of Trafalgar Square, we apparently gave
it to the British, another copy of this famous
statue. Oh, yes, and there's a smaller version
at Mount Vernon. We gave the one to the British,
and they weren't sure in the first war which
side we were coming out at. We gave it to them,
I think, in 1915. So they put it in cold storage
until 1921, then they popped Georgie up on the
side of Trafalgar Square. Nelson's much higher
than him, because, you know, he's the British
hero. But, yeah, one year I was sleeping in a
room that was over Washington Arch, they called
it. I heard this bizarre clinkling sound that
I couldn't peg down. You know, there's times
you should just let it go, just go to sleep.
No, not me. I stuck my head out the window. These
two maniacs are out there TP -ing George. They're
wrapping him up in that big industrial roll of
toilet paper. I mean, cane and hands and everything,
except the head. They put this gigantic pumpkin
over his head. And I'm completely mystified.
I think we've just been done with a rat line.
I'm looking out the window, and finally I just
yelled down to these two bozos, why are you doing
this? You shouldn't ask these whys, because there's
always no reason. There's never any good reason.
One guy looks up and goes, hey man, it's tradition.
Oh, sure. OK, thanks. Good night. Going back
to bed. Yeah. And George stood there and took
it off. Poor George. Poor guy. Well, let's remind
our audience just real quickly that VMI has a
very excellent reputation for turning out incredible
military officers. Thank you very much. George
Patton started there, but he was crazy enough
to do West Point as well, so he sort of did the
Rat Line twice. General Marshall, George C. Marshall,
is the only five -star Army general who did not
go to West Point, went to VMI. And God knows
there's plenty of other ones that have gone there.
You mentioned going to Virginia from Michigan.
How did that play out? Again, I know when I went
down south to go to my basic training and stuff,
being from the north, I was immediately a Yankee.
Oh, yeah. And the war of secession. Oh, come
on now. It was the war of northern aggression
down there, wasn't it? Yeah, that's right. We
were the aggressors on that one. I'm going to
get some emails on that one, but that's all right.
What was your experience like? I mean, I know
it was funny. And this is like, folks, reading
this story is like any of us out there who went
to college at the same time or any time and,
you know, had to go through some of the traditions
that Mark is talking about. And some of them
are just so outrageous. You wonder why people
even thought of them. And then, you know, as
you mentioned earlier, they come up with the
rules against them. Yep. They had to come up
with a rule to stop them from killing themselves.
Somebody was doing that, exactly. No, I said
I came from upstate New York. I don't know if
you remember this one, but we both may be old
enough. In the 1970s, late 1970s, New York was
trying to get more people to come visit. Do you
remember that advertising jingle about, I love
New York? Yeah, the heart. Oh my God. You had
to, when the upperclassmen stopped you and said,
you know, sound off, you had to say... your name,
your last name, your initials, and then where
you're from. And so mine was always Benvenuto
MA, Henrietta New York. And when they heard New
York and they heard that Yankee accent, they
would swarm around, sing it, sing it, sing it,
rat. Oh God, I'm sitting there singing, I love
New York. And you know, I didn't join a glee
club for perhaps rather obviously, you know,
obvious reason. Yeah, exactly. And so, I don't
know, and if they didn't like it or I didn't
sing it well enough, it was off key. It was more
push -ups. I was pretty strong by the end of
the rat line. You're a real Weisenheimer and
you're a Yankee and you can't sing. Yeah, I ended
up doing a lot of push -ups. I know. Push -ups
are good for you. Yeah, apparently they built
character. One of the guys that I on purpose
put some words in the back of his mouth and put
them on the back of the book, he said, yeah,
you're a character, man. You built a lot of character
that way. Speaking of character, we need to take
a real quick break, Mark. We'll be right back
in just a minute. uh... with with mark benvenuto
and their book is twisted tales from p m i will
be right back after this on veterans radio and
we're back on veterans radio and we're talking
with mark benvenuto uh... v m i and uh... we're
talking about at the experiences of spending
four years in that wonderful institution in lexington
virginia Four years in the same clothes, right?
Never had to decide what to wear in the morning.
That is a good deal. I had forgotten that about
the military. That's true. I never had to decide
which color I was going to wear. I think that's
fishing for the silver lining, but at least we
found one, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. Okay. So
tell me about some of these other unusual roommates
that you might have had that somehow survived
their four years. Oh, there's a good bunch. The
guy I quoted on the back there about saying I
was in need of serious psychiatric help. He was
a, Matt was a son of a military family. I believe
I got it right in saying his great -grandfather,
his grandfather, his father I know, and his older
brother all went to VMI. So, yeah, he was kind
of expected to go there. Let's see, the other
two that make it in there with pseudonyms, the
one who's Brad Dunbar in the book. He actually
ended up as a colonel in the United States Marine
Corps. He was a real Marines Marine all the way
through. He used to win the cadet awards for
something or other almost every year, and I think
it was senior year. Now this is long before the
internet or anything like that. He called his
dad about something. He came back and he said,
he was from Texas, he says, my dad ain't gonna
come. He told me unless I win the Medal of Honor.
His dad was fine with his son winning a bunch
of other stuff. The fourth one who goes by was
a Marcus Greenhoe in the book there. He ended
up becoming a civil engineer, did several years
in the army, along with me and Matt, and I think
he's in Colorado right now. He and I don't keep
in touch as much as we should, but I guess we
all came out of it sort of alive, despite some
of the ridiculous crap we did, including, I think
you said you read the book, you remember that
one about the turtle? About bringing a turtle
in from a biology field trip or whatever? That
really happened, that wasn't... an embellished,
made -up story or anything like that. My roommate
brought that silly turtle in. We were trying
to keep it in a shoe box to see if the TAC officers
wouldn't find it. I think it ate its way out
of the shoe box and crapped on my bed and all
sorts of things. The place wasn't weird enough
without a turtle in your room that you were trying
to keep from the TAC staff. Well, those guys
come in and destroy a room if there's anything
like my TAC officers were. Yeah, exactly. They'd
tear it all apart. It's fine a bank turtle out
there. So they tear it apart. We got rid of them.
They tear it apart and say this room is a mess.
Exactly. Some things haven't changed and it doesn't
matter where you go. I'd be willing to bet every
single vet listening to this has that fond experience
of cleaning a room up to a perfect military order
just to have some inspector tear it back to shreds
and then tell you it's a mess. It's a mess. We
had a guy. We had the guy who he threw all our
mattresses out the window. Yep. Every single
one, because they weren't made correctly. Or
the one I always enjoyed, and I learned that
first rat year that there is no correct answer
to the question I'm about to pose. They get done,
they tear at all the shreds, and they say something
to you about how it looks, and then they say,
do I look stupid to you? Oh, it's tempting. You
know, there's no good answer to that. Yes, sir,
is incorrect. How stupid do you think you look
sir is also incorrect? There's a whole bunch
of varieties there and all of them are incorrect
No, you always have to say it sir in my opinion.
That's right humble opinion sir Well, you look
stupider than a lot of people I know that got
a lot of push -ups, too I mean heck everything
seemed to end up with push -ups Thank you, Mark.
This is fun. This is a silly trip down memory
lane, right? It is, and that's the point. Again,
this book is Twisted Tales from VMI. It's available
on Amazon, and where else can they buy it? I
authored it through Friesen Press, so you can
go to just one word, Friesen Press, F -R -I -E
-S -E -N, FriesenPress .com. It's a little cheaper
there, but you can buy it, as you said, at Amazon
.com. If anybody's listening from all the way
from Lexington, Virginia, The fine folks at the
VMI bookstore, I called them and they say, oh,
you're Mark Benvenuto. Hey, we've actually got
your book. So they've already got the book there.
Oh, great. If you want to pick it up at the bookstore
there. There you go. Head on down to VMI. Yeah,
reasonpress or amazon .com will do the trick.
OK. We've got about, what, four minutes left?
OK. As you head toward the end of the hour. What
was it like when you finally got to be the top
rat? or a lower rat, the head cheese there. Yeah,
the top dog, the first classman. Strangely anti
-climactic. I know that when I was the rat, I
thought to myself, these guys have got to be
the baddest people ever. Walk the face of the
earth. The only thing that kept me going sometimes
when things were bad was the thought of what
my mother's face would look like if I had to
go home and say I failed. And then when I was
up there on the top of the totem pole, I thought
to myself, I feel strangely like I always have.
I don't feel supermanish or anything like that.
I don't know. Maybe it's all a big illusion,
right? I guess so. You went all the way through
the whole thing without appearing to attract
any real attention other than doing push -ups
until your final year when they made you some
sort of leader. Yeah, it was first class year,
senior year. Every class had to actually meet
up outside a building, call roll, and go into
the classroom. And that person was called the
section marcher. And I did everything to skate
even under that radar. And one of my professors
forced me to be the section marcher. I had a
friend in that class come up to me one time and
said, could you be a worse section marcher? Because
it'll give us a little more time after the bugle
blows if we're late. Could you drop your pencil
and do a bunch of things and scratch yourself
and whatnot? You look at this guy and think,
we're paying to be educated here. And you're
telling me to make it five minutes less of class
each day. What do you say to something like that?
I just listened to him and then was going to
complete stupidity said. Yes, sure. Okay, I can
do that. Yes, exactly. Well, as we approach the
end of the hour here today, I strongly recommend
this book. This is just a really fun read, Mark.
Thank you. And it does bring back a lot of unusual
behaviors from people I knew and things I'm not
going to admit to. Well, and I'll be the first
to say that when I argued it out with my editor,
sticking VMI in the title, they said, are you
sure? And I said, trust me, the alumni are pretty
rabidly loyal. I said, but if you put this down
as military humor, I don't care where you went
to school. I don't care where you went to basic
training. I said, you're going to read this thing.
You're going to get a few laughs out of it because
it's going to be recognizable. Sound like you
had that and I appreciate it. Well, it was great.
And we're going to talk to everybody we can about
this book. And when I get the guys from the Citadel
on, you can give them a call. You want to have
me back on and we can have that Citadel VMI feud
and you can officiate? I'll be fine with that.
I'd be happy to do that. I think it was fun.
Marco, it was a pleasure having you on. You're
a funny guy and a joy to have on the program.
And thank you very much. And we will be in touch
with you. Thank you very much. Take it easy now.
I will do that. Have a good night. Thank you.
All right. Well, I'm strongly suggesting to anybody
out there who's been in the military, if you
had any barracks experience, that this is something
that you should read because it brought a lot
of chuckles and smiles to my face and reminded
me of a lot of experiences that I had to go through.
that we all had to go through. We're going to
end up our program today on kind of a special
note. This week, Merle Haggard passed away. And
Merle has been a strong, strong supporter throughout
his career. And we have played many songs on
our program from Merle Haggard. And so we're
going to go out with one of his today. And so
I want to say thank you to Merle for all of the
music that he provided to us. and to all the
people of the world, of course, and I think it's
going to be very poignant. It's not one of his
sad songs. I think it's one that you'll recognize,
but I think it should be very well done. Next
week, we're going to have a gentleman. It's called
Battle Rattle, and it's a story. He's a 94 -year
-old World War II veteran who is going to be
talking about his experiences. Battle Rattle
was a terminology from the World War II for post
-traumatic stress. So until next week, we're
going to pause. you are dismissed. living right
and being free we don't make a party out of loving
but we like holding hands and pitching moves
we don't let our hair grow long and shaggy like
the hippies What's this go to do? Weather boots
are still in style for manly footwear Beads and
Roman sandals won't be seen And football's still
the roughest thing on campus And the kids here
still respect the college dean Down at the courthouse
White lightning still the biggest thrill of all
And white lightning still the biggest thrill
of all