Mike McMahon- August 5, 2018
It seems fitting that during a week where we said good-bye to one Vietnam War hero, that we might find the time to hear another patriot's story. Voluntarily enlisting in the Marine Corp during a war all but guarantees combat. Mike McMahon was eighteen-years-old when he arrived at Parris Island in 1967. Before that, as a Rhode Island native, he had only been to Long Island and nowhere else. Soft-spoken, but dead earnest and sincere, his eyes at times reflect that certain look only attained by people who have persevered through hardships 99% of us will never experience. Not expected to survive, he was told his life was basically over. He left Vietnam on a stretcher and began absorbing what would eventually become half a decade of pain and misery. But he's not the kind of guy that wants your sympathy. Far from it. Giving no quarter, this interview was conducted in his home fourteen years after his 2004 retirement. He was a dispatcher for thirty-six years on the Pawtucket Fire Department, and this is what he said … TT- Are we talking about Pawtucket born and raised? MM- Yes. TT- Where'd you live? MM- I grew up on Orth Street. On the corner of Columbus Avenue and Orth, up above Tomillini's Market. I lived there until I went into the Marine Corp. TT- Inducted what year? MM- 1967. TT- How old were you? MM- Eighteen. TT- Did you graduate from Tolman or Shea? MM- No. Vocational. I didn't graduate. I quit to go into the military. TT- Why'd you pick the Marines? MM- I always wanted to be a Marine. One of my best friends was in the Marines and on the same day I got hit in Vietnam, he got discharged. So every year now he and I go away with another buddy of mine who was in the Army. TT- So you showed up at Parris Island ... MM- Yes I did (laughs). TT- Talk about that. This is 1967, which is fifty years ago. Nowadays it's a tough place to be, but back then it must've been a real shit-show. MM- I was just talking to a woman. Her son's at Parris Island now. She said, "Oh, my son was going through the gas chamber today." And I went, "Well, how do you know that?" She goes, "Oh he texts me every night." And I go, "What?" (laughs). She goes, "Oh yeah. We text back and forth." And the mothers text each other about how their sons are doing. And I couldn't believe it. TT- Because back in the day, you had no contact with anybody. MM- None whatsoever. TT- Did you get one phone call a week? MM- No phone calls. The only time I got a call was at graduation. My mother came down, my aunt, and another guy who people probably, a lot of guys on the job today probably don't know this, but one of my best friends was Wayne Vignalli. He ended up on the fire department on Engine 2, and then he caught some rare disease and he died at thirty-years-old. TT- Shut up. MM- Yup. TT- What was the disease? MM- They never found out. I told his wife I thought it was Agent Orange. TT- Wow. So he was dead in '78, '79? MM- 1980. I had just gotten married to Mike and Matty's mother. TT- So Parris Island, you get off the bus, Drill Instructors are running around, The Round Browns, raining down hell-- MM- And I went, "What the hell did I do?" (laughs). TT- It's a different world, right? A different galaxy. Had you been out of Pawtucket before that? MM- Long Island (Laughs). That was about it. TT- So you went from Rhode Island and Long Island to Parris Island. MM- Yup. TT- Obviously, when you get there it's a chaos. Everybody's screaming, you get stripped down and they give you whatever you're gonna need for the next, how many weeks was Basic back then? MM- Twelve weeks. TT- That's a long road. MM- It seemed a lot longer. (both laughing) TT- When you were at boot camp, did you see anything crazy or funny? I mean it must've been a show. MM- The first week, there was three of four guys that tried to commit suicide-- TT- Jesus. MM- Whether they lived or not we never found out, but I walked out of the bay one time and there was a guy bleeding to death. He had taken a razor blade to his wrist. So when they took him out, the D.I. gathered us up and said, "If you're gonna do that, don't go this way (horizontal), go this way up your arm, we can't save you." TT- (Laughs). Way to share some instructional information. MM- (laughs). TT- Now is this because of the draft? How long had that been going on for? MM- There was always a draft. Since World War II. That stopped in I believe it was 1976. TT- That's right, I forgot there had always been a draft. MM- I was appointed to the draft board when I finally came back from Vietnam. TT- So four guys are trying to kill themselves just to get out of there the first week. This kind of place, you gotta dig deep. Or just be too young not to care, right? MM- Well, let me tell you. Vietnam was like a vacation comparatively. (Both laughing hysterically.) TT- Now as far as--I was never in the military, so pardon my stupidity if I ask stupid questions. So what time did the day start at Parris Island? MM- Five AM until eight o'clock at night. Then we got a shower, stood inspection, and then it was lights out. TT- Bunch of tired guys, right? MM- Oh yeah. You slept great. (laughs) TT- When you were done with the twelve weeks and graduated, did you get to pick your M.O.S. or specialty? Or did they just say, "This is what you're doing." MM- The night before graduation, they got us all up in the middle of the night and gave us our orders. We were all going from Parris Island (South Carolina) to Camp Lejeune (North Carolina) for more training. Most of us were going to 'Nam. There were very few that weren't. Most of us were going. TT- So it wasn't like you signed up thinking you were gonna be in communications but they handed you a rifle instead. They told you what you were gonna do. MM- Yes. That's right. I mean they promised you the world, but ...(laughs). That buddy I was telling you about, Wayne Vignalli, we grew up in the same neighborhood together. He went for electronics, but he ended up in 'Nam too (laughs). TT- All roads led to 'Nam. MM- Yes. It was him I joined the Marine Corp with, and I also joined with Dick Lemay's brother-in-law. Tommy Collins. TT- On no way. MM- Yes. So the three of us went in under the buddy plan. TT- You were eighteen in '67? So Lemay is two years younger than you? MM- Yes. TT- He went in in like '69, I believe. So after Lejeune, what did they tell you? You're a rifleman going to Vietnam? MM- Yes. TT- Infantry. MM- They call them grunts. Infantry is the Army. TT- Jesus, sorry about that. I told you I had no idea what I was talking about. What did you get put into? Give me the whole battalion, unit ... MM- Once I went to Camp Lejeune, that was just training. We were in the Second Battalion. Then when we graduated and I came home for twenty days, then I went to Camp Pendleton for more training, and then we went to Okinawa, and then to Vietnam. TT- Did they send you to Okinawa on boats? MM- Naw, naw. We flew TWA. (laughs) TT- Nice. MM- Once I got to Vietnam I was assigned to the Third Battalion, Twenty-Six Marines, K-Company. TT- How many guys in K company? MM- Thirty of us. Well, in a company there's a lot more, but in my section there was thirty of us. TT- So K-Company is made up of four smaller units? MM- Well, they're all the same. You got M-Company, K-Company, Bravo Company, Alpha Company. TT- How many guys in the Third Battalion? MM- A few hundred anyway. But half of them we never saw. They could've been in a different part of the country. I was up north. TT- How long were you in Okinawa. MM- Six days? TT- Now what did you show up with? What were you allowed to take? MM- Nothing. TT- Just a sack full of clothes? MM- Right. TT- And a gun? MM- No. We didn't even have a gun at the time. No rifle yet. TT- So you showed up basically with a sack of clothes. MM- Your sea-bag. One bag. You didn't need much when you went over there (laughs). TT- You're going to war, right? This ain't no disco. MM- (laughs) TT- Are you nineteen at this point or still eighteen? MM- Eighteen. TT- Wow. That's pretty big, man, right? Eighteen-year-old kid going to war? That's pretty fucked up, pardon my French. Now, were most of you eighteen, nineteen, twenty? MM- Yes. We had a few older guys, a couple of guys were a little bit older, but most of us were eighteen, seventeen. TT- Couple guys snuck in. MM- Yes. TT- What's the age limit to enlist in the Marines? Thirty? MM- Something like that, but now it's different. Like the fire department today, at one time the age cut off was thirty-two. Now there isn't one. TT- So six days in Okinawa and then what? They load you up and say, "See you later." MM- Yup. They give you your orders and we landed in Da Nang. And from there I took a helicopter to Hill 51. TT- Now Da Nang itself was the base for all incoming and outgoing soldiers? MM- Yes. That was the main base. When we got off the plane, we did a 360 around us, and the Air Force guys are laying on their jeeps getting some sun and laughing at us. (Both laughing) MM- We didn't know what to expect. TT- Chair Force. Those guys were chilling. (Both laughing) MM- That night before they shipped us out, all you could hear was the bombs going off. The 105s in the background. TT- The Howitzers and stuff. MM- Yes. It was ... It made you grow up pretty quick. TT- Now, this is '67, '68. Shit's turning bad over there, right? This is the time of the Tet Offensive. (9000 US and South Vietnamese deaths, 35,000 wounded) MM- '67, '68. It was getting bad. TT- So you get in-country when? Do you remember the date? MM- September of '67. TT- How long were you detailed? MM- Thirteen months. That's how long I was supposed to be there. TT- Did the Army do the same thing? MM- I think the Army was twelve months. TT- And most of the guys drafted had to do what, two years? MM- Yes. I joined for four. TT- You signed up for the whole bit. So you were a gung-ho dude. I mean people don't voluntarily enlist into the Marine Corp during a war and expect anything else, right? MM- You knew it when you joined. That's why you joined. TT- So you ended up on Hill 51? Where's that at? MM- Up north. Near the DMZ. TT- Where was the DMZ? In the center of Vietnam? MM- That was right near North Vietnam. Our orders were we couldn't go over that line. TT- So you had to hold whatever that line was, that position. Your area. MM- Right. TT- How big an area are we talking about? MM- Well, I don't know because half the time they sent us out we had no idea where we were. We did what we were told. We would have firefights, and lost a lot of guys. TT- You're in K-Company. Did all thirty guys go out on patrol together? MM- Sometimes we would, other times my squad would go out. Which was four guys. TT- Four guys in a squad? MM- Yes. Squad leader and three men. TT- That's pretty hairball, right? I mean what did you guys have? You had a radio and a gun, right? MM- Yup. And half the time the radio didn't work (laughs). TT- The radio gets wet and fries out. That's crazy. MM- The worst part as far as I was concerned was the L.P.'s, the listening post. They'd send you out at night, basically 500-600 yards from the main group, and you'd be out there all night long, alone, just the four of you. And you'd be watching for the enemy. And now when the enemy, when you could see them, we would call in and say, "We can see the enemy." And they would say, "Wait for contact." (both laughing) MM- Yeah, right. We're gonna wait for contact? We're gonna be in the middle of where you're shooting at. TT- Right? Did you guys have Claymores set up? As a defense at night? MM- No. TT- Jesus. Wow. That's crazy. So you'd be around Hill 51, right? This was the perimeter watch? MM- Yes. Well, I was at Hill 51 for a short amount of time, and then I was on convoys running from Quan Tri up north, to Phu Bai down south. And other times, my main camp was Camp Evans. After Hill 51. We'd just go there for the day. Clean our gear, try and catch a little sleep, a shower if we could, then go back out to the field. TT- Wow. Now driving convoys can't be safe, right? MM- No. Especially if you were going through mountains. You'd drive through and all they would do is lob down hand grenades. But November 10th is the Marine Corp birthday. And we'd be doing a convoy and they'd be having a big celebration back at Phu Bai. We were gonna have a nice meal. Well, we got attacked. So we spent the whole night out in the wilderness. TT- That doesn't sound like a very good party. MM- No. TT- Now, for people who don't know, or guys like me who never served, walked the line with an M-16, when you get into that first moment of contact, the first time you--I mean what is that feeling like? It's gotta be freaking intense. MM- You're scared shitless. (laughs) And if anyone tells you they're not they're full of crap. TT- I guess it is like the fire department in a whole lot less deadly way, where you would follow someone who knew what the hell they were doing, right? MM- That's right. TT- Because you don't know. MM- Right. And two months down the road, you're the old guy showing the new guys. TT- Imagine that? Two months in and you've already seen so much that they're following you. MM- It's churning over. Who gets shot, who gets killed, and who goes home. TT- As far as, do you remember your first firefight? MM- Oh yeah. TT- What happened. MM- It was around sundown. And they started lobbing in mortars and firing, and now it's just holy hell. You know when they say don't look down, always stay up? That's not true. When those bullets are flying you might stick your head up once in a while but ... (laughs). TT- When you were in the bush, on the hill, how often would you come back to the base you were talking about to clean gear and eat? MM- Like every week and a half. TT- So we're talking like a day and then you'd be going right back out. MM- Yes. TT- Now what was the recreation? Were guys sneaking in booze? MM- No. One time, this guy that I grew up with in the same house, he was in the Army at the same time. His mother had said, "Joe is in Phu Bai." So, when we were making convoys to Phu Bai, I spent the whole day looking for him. And as I'm going through the Army base they had beer. And they're like, "Have a beer." "Oh, sounds good." It turns out he wasn't at Phu Bai he was at Foolung, so I spent the whole day looking for him and he wasn't even there. TT- So the Army had beers and you guys didn't? MM- Not all of them. This was their main camp, so they had a few beers around. But out in the field no one had anything. We were supposed to have two beers a day as part of our rations, but out in the field forget about it. And half the time, by the time we got up to Camp Evans, everybody had already stolen everything. TT- (laughs). Now would you guys interface with the Army a lot? Or were the Marines on their own? MM- We didn't see much of those guys. TT- Were they in the same area as you? MM- Yes. Another guy, Ray Mathieu, who was the job as well, he went to Vietnam two years after me. And Camp Evans, which was a Marine Corp base, by then it was Army. TT- Vignalli. What happened to him? Where did he go in Vietnam? MM- You know, I don't know. We never talked about it. I never spoke about Vietnam until a couple of years ago. It wasn't a war where you bragged about it because people spit on you, some people hated us. My buddy Joe had to sneak out of a hotel when he got back because he had his uniform on. TT- That is fucking crazy. MM- Well that's how it was back then. I got my purple heart up there, I never... I put it in a box. My second wife, Jackie, she said, "You take it out. You be proud of it." I am. I'm very proud of it, but back then it was a different story. TT- That's a tough part of our history. What the America public did to its own sons. A disgrace really. MM- It was a tough time. They called us baby killers. It was a tough time for our military. That's why today, if I see a military man, I walk up, shake their hand, and say, "Thank you for your service." Just like the fire department. It's the same thing. TT- People forget about that aspect. Today, they're welcomed home like heroes. Back then, they were sneaking you guys back in. Flying you in at night. That's pretty crazy. MM- Even some of the guys you knew, when you came back--except for me, I was in the hospital for couple years when I got back--but guys you knew would be hanging on the corner, and you're saying to yourself, "Wow, these guys have changed." Well, it wasn't them, it was you that changed. You're not a kid anymore. TT- You can't get a more transformative experience than war, right? MM- Right. TT- So Vietnam was going along, getting worse, things are getting worse. At this point, are you guys holding your positions? Trying to advance? It sounds like a ground game. Like a stalemate. MM- The Ho Chi Min Trail is how they would bring their supplies down. From the north to the south. And we would try and cut those supplies off. So everyday, you'd go out looking for the enemy in certain places. If they had enough guys you'd have a firefight. If they didn't--they had a great--we found one of their camps one time and we had to crawl for a like a half mile through the jungle. And when we got there they had more C-rations than we had at our camp. TT- Wow. MM- When it came to booby traps and hiding places, they'd been fighting there for thousands of years. TT- That's their backyard. MM- Right. We could've really wiped them out, but it was a politicians' war. "Don't shoot here, don't do this, don't do that." TT- They tied your hands. You could've carpet-bombed them into the stone age. MM- Yes. TT- I think that might be the first political war, right? Where's it's not really a war, it's like a conflict. MM- That's what they called it. I had one of the radiomen, when I was working at fire headquarters downtown, tell me, "I was in the Big One. WW II." Because someone had told him I was in Vietnam. So I said, "Well, how did they die in that war. Is it different than the 'conflict' I was in?" (both laughing) He just looked at me. Does it matter if you call it a war, a conflict? You're still dying the same way. TT- I never really looked at it like that but you're right. That war could've been over in a week. Now, when you're over there, and you're ground pounding with the grunts, and you see these guys going down around you, you're buddies, what is the process with this? Immediate evacs? Did they pack up the wounded guy's stuff and send it to him? MM- Nobody sent me anything after I got hit, so the guys probably helped themselves to my stuff. And God bless them. When we got hit, we were in the field. When I got hit, they had to clear jungle so the helicopter could land and take me out. TT- Jesus. Were you on a patrol when this happened? MM- Yes. TT- Explain that day. MM- It was December 8th, 1967. We were making sweeps through the Ho Chi Min Trail. My best friend over there, I've always known him as Wade. So when I used to go to the Wall, because I heard everybody got wiped out. And I always looked for him but my memory was shoddy. Turns out his real name was Jim Wade. I thought Wade was his first name. Anyway, we're making the sweeps. You walked flank. There was a main column, and then you had the flank-men. Two on the left, two on the right. TT- How far away from the column are they? MM- Maybe fifty feet. TT- So they're watching the sides making sure there's no one sneaking in. MM- Right. So there was this big open spot. The flank-men were covering the column. Well, this Jim, he was out there, and we stopped for a break. He had about twenty minutes left on his shift on the flank but I told him, "Don't worry about it. You go in the column and I'll do the flank." I was second flank-man and the guy in front of me set off a booby-trap. And when I walked I looked down and that's when I saw it--then it went boom. TT- Wow. Holy Jesus. Any idea what it was? MM- They said it was a Bouncing Betty. TT- Did he live? MM- Yeah he did. He got a little shrapnel, but I got the worst. TT- And you were behind him. MM- Yes. What they do is, they have a delay. So if it was the column, they don't want the first guys, they wanted the middle of the column to get everybody they could. TT- Jesus. So this thing goes off. Are you knocked unconscious? MM- Oh yeah. I remember a little of it. I was told my whole outfit got wiped out. And I thought that for thirty-five years. When I found out they didn't, this guy Wade told me, he goes, "(After the explosion) I heard you calling for me. So I came up and you go, 'Gimme a cigarette.' So I placed the cigarette in your mouth. It went in your mouth and came out here." My throat and chest had been blown open, so the smoke was just seeping out. After that, I woke up in the operating room and then I went out again. I don't remember how long I was out. TT- Now the injuries themselves, what're we talking about? MM- The whole front of my body. My hand. TT- Right hand, right leg, torso, throat, the face-- MM- Part of my chin and ear got blown off. This is my good leg-- (At this point Mike McMahon lifts his pant leg to reveal a scarred shin. There are deformities and divets.) And this is my bad leg (this shin as well is scarred and pockmarked, but it looks as if someone took an ice cream scoop and scooped out the front of his leg.) I still have shrapnel come out even to this day. TT- That's what Lemay said. He said every now and then a piece shrapnel works its way out of your body. MM- It does. Fifty-one years later. (Both laughing) MM- Here's a quick story. When my mother-in-law was dying downstairs, I had an operation. One of many. I've probably had seventy-five operations-- TT- Did you just say seventy-five operations? MM- Yes. So I'm laying up here, my wife is now taking care of her mother downstairs, I'm up here in pain. So she comes up to take care of me and as she's leaving I go, "Jac." She goes, "What?" I say, "Come here, come here feel this for a second. What's this?" She comes in and feels the top of my head and goes, "Mike, it's just a piece of shrapnel." She gets downstairs and stops dead in her tracks. She says, "It's just a piece of shrapnel? Like it's normal?" (both laughing.) TT- From what I heard, your injuries were so severe, so extensive, that they flew your parents to Hawaii so they could say good-bye. MM- They flew my father to the Philippines. They had given me the last rites. TT- Holy shit. So from the explosion to the Philippines, how long are we talking? MM- I'm not sure, because I was in and out. I think it was sometime after Christmas that they sent my father. Not my mother, just my father. He came with the parents of two other injured guys. And out of the three of us, they said I was the one that wasn't gonna make it. The other two had a chance. Well, the other two died, and I made it. TT- Wow, that is so completely crazy. So you weren't even supposed to leave the Philippines alive. MM- Nope. They gave me the last rites, and then they came in one day and said, "You got company coming in." And I went "What? Did the priest come and see me?" The guy goes, "No, your father's here." Now, my father wouldn't even go to Ann and Hope. (laughs) He was not a traveler. TT- He's a Rhode Islander, right? They can't drive anywhere longer than twenty minutes. MM- God bless him. He got on that plane. They had to get him a passport and everything. The Red Cross sent him. It was a new program. And if they hadn't sent him, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you now. TT- Why do you say that? MM- Because I would've died without him. I was pretty bad. I would go into convulsions, I was all torn up, and he'd just yell, "I told your mother you're a fighter!" TT- Wow. He was your rock, right? MM- Yes. TT- How long was he there for? MM- Well, he was only supposed to be there for a couple of weeks, and they said, "When are you leaving?" And he goes, "I'm not leaving until he goes with me." TT- Wow. Holy shit. MM- While he was there, General Westmoreland, who was the general in charge of the war, and his wife, they lived in the Philippines. So his wife used to have my father over for supper every night. Not only did my father take care of me, he took care of everybody else on the ward, too. He was taking care of everybody. So one night General Westmoreland's aide, I think he came from Boston, he came in and said, "You mind if we take your father out? He's been here two or three weeks." I didn't want him to leave even though they were only going out on the town. So they go out, they're picking up this nurse, and they get jumped by a bunch of Philippinos. So my father goes, "Here I am, they got knives and they're coming for us." And the nurse, she got out and cooled everything off. He says, "They took me right back to my room, because they grabbed a bunch of guys and went back..." TT- Payback. Now, so how long was dad there? MM- Four or five weeks. TT- You went home too? MM- Well, I couldn't walk. They flew me to Chelsea Naval Hospital. TT- Chelsea, Mass? MM- Yes. TT- How long were you there for? MM- Just about a year? TT- A year? Oh, man. MM- And then they discharged me and sent me to the V.A. Another story, after I got hit, I weighed seventy-six pounds when I got back. TT- Oh dear God. MM- They had given me bad blood, it was hepatitis, so anyways they put me on a two beer a night ration to put some weight on. Every night I'd have my two beers, I get over to the V.A. where they're operating on me again, and they realize I'm not twenty-one. They had to call my mother and get her on tape so they could operate on me. So, like three days later after I was feeling better, I said, "I think I'll have my beer now." And they go, "You can't have a beer. You're not twenty-one." TT- No. MM- I go, "Are you kidding me?" (laughs) TT- That is crazy. MM- Isn't it? TT- So, it's easy to lose track of this, but you were like only nineteen at this point, right? MM- Yes. I had my nineteenth birthday over in the Philippines. TT- In bed. Jesus Christ. So you got home, you were in the hospital for a year, and you're basically re-habbing all these injuries, right? They fix one thing, there's another operation, they do this-- MM- Altogether I was in almost two years. TT- That's a long road, man, right? You have to be a fighter to do that. I'm sure there were guys that were like, "I'm out. This is too much." Right? MM- There was a lot of overdoses, because they were giving out pills. I mean if I ever told you how many pills-- TT- These guys are horribly wounded, right? They're trying to get them as comfortable as possible. But the side effect is death. MM- Yes. And all of a sudden they're hooked. TT- It's a horrible situation. How much pain-- MM- See I'm not, for me, I'm not one for taking medication. Sometimes my doctor's get mad, they're like, "You gotta take it or you'll--" but I've just seen so many guys get hooked on drugs. TT- Right? The lessons are right in front of you. So basically you're eating pain for three years. Rehab on its own is bad enough, but throw in a couple dozen surgeries to boot. So you get home, you're discharged from the Marines. MM- Right. TT- Honorable discharge. MM- Right. Well, uh, that's not really accurate. It's a discharge, but not really. You're always a part of the Marine Corp. Because you were wounded. TT- Those hospitals, I've seen 'Born on the Fourth of July--' MM- Yeah, I don't watch any of those movies. TT- But the hospitals themselves, was it sub-standard? MM- Yes. Chelsea Naval Hospital was condemned in 1952. TT- Jesus. MM- The main hospital wasn't bad. But when you--even when I got up, even though I had a cast on, they gave me a job during the day. I worked in the nursery signing in kids there. TT- Really? MM- Oh yeah, you were still in the military when you were up there. TT- They probably wanted to get you up and moving around instead of-- MM- Laying in bed. Yes. But that part, when you left the main hospital? That's the part that was condemned. The first shower I took, I had a plastic bags covering (my wounds,) and someone flushed a toilet and I got burned. TT- Jesus Christ. MM- It was terrible. TT- So you get back to Pawtucket. You're nineteen. What happens now? MM- I was saying to myself, "What the hell am I going to do with my life?" I wasn't doing much but then a buddy of mine, Joe Marx, said, "Hey, I work with Frank Sylvester, Bob Thurber, Tom Magill. They're on the fire department. Why don't you see if you can get a job driving the fire truck." My main thing after the Marine Corp was that I wanted to be a State Trooper. That was my dream. But I knew at that time I wasn't gonna be a State Trooper. So I go down to city hall and say," Hello, I'd like to get a job driving a fire truck." (laughs) Personnel says, "We don't have any jobs like that. But we do have a job opening up dispatching." So I says, "That sounds good." I take the application, I go home, put it on the bureau, I'm in Margaret's Ice Cream Parlor when I run into my buddy Joe, Joe Thomas, he was a Pawtucket cop. I hung around with his son. He came in and goes, "Hey, Mike, how you doing?" I go, "Not bad, not bad." I said, "I put in for a job as a dispatcher for the fire department." He goes, "Oh yeah?" He leaves. He calls me the next day and says, "Mike, where's your application?" I go, "On my bureau." He flips out and says, "Get that thing and get down here. I'm over here talking for you and they're telling me 'who the hell is this guy?'" (laughs) So I went in, Vinny Doyle, Jimmy Doyle's father (Jimmy Doyle would later become mayor), he was a retired cop. He became Public Safety Director. I went in to talk to him and he says, "You know, Mike, since you were in Vietnam, I'm gonna give you the job." I said, "Thank you, sir." He says, "Go talk to the chief." Romeo Monast was the chief at the time. So I go over to Romeo and he wouldn't talk to me because he had somebody else in mind. TT- He wanted to give the job to his people. MM- So I went back to City Hall and say, "Well, what do I do now?" Doyle goes, "Go home, I'll call you tomorrow." So he calls back and says, "You start Monday." Chief Monast, for a year, didn't talk to me. Stretch Tuite, who was his driver at the time, I was talking to Stretch and I said, "Boy, he can't stand me. He never even talks to me." Stretch goes, "Are you kidding me? When I pick him up in the morning and he hears you on the pipe, he says, "Good. We got Mike working today." And I'm figuring this guy hates me. TT- But you knew what you were doing. Chiefs like that, right? MM- Absolutely. Best thing that ever happened to me. TT- There's gonna be a lot of names in this, because this Stretch Tuite guy I just found out about. I heard he was a character. I heard he was one of these dudes that was just into the history of the job-- MM- He knew everything. TT- Knew the dudes, knew the city-- MM- Knew every box. That's when we had street boxes. TT- I'm not sure how to talk about all of this. We'll start at the box stuff. Now, the story I heard about Stretch was, was that if a box would come in, it would open--like the radio and speakers would open up, and you would hear the clicking of the box? And he knew what box was coming in by the clicks. MM- Yes. That's right. TT- That's crazy (laughs) MM- When I retired in 2004, I bet I knew every street in the city. When Matty (his son) started working for Medtech Ambulance, if he had a run he would call me. I'd tell him where to go. Now, it's reversed. After a while, your memory ... But Stretch Tuite, he was a hell of a guy. Chief Thurber was another one, one of the greatest guys in the world. TT- These are guys everyone speaks highly of. People loved Chief Thurber. And Stretch, but I never met Stretch. MM- With Stretch, whenever he went on trips, it wasn't how many miles but how many beers it took to get there. (both laughing) MM- Back in those days everyone had a cooler in their car. You wouldn't dare do it today. TT- Back then things weren't like they are now. Everybody is a busy-body. Now, Stretch went from driving the chief to lieutenant. MM- That was a bid spot, driving the chief. Iggy Carrol, Chickie's dad, he became the cheif's driver after Stretch. TT- So is this when they went from three battalions to four? MM- Yes. Like 1973, '74. They went from working three-three-and three, to four-on, four-off. TT- When you were dispatching, what were your hours? MM- Two-two and four. TT- So you were doing our schedule--two days, two nights, four off. MM- Yes. Every shift was different. And every Battalion Chief ran his own ship. So things could change depending on who was in the car. TT- Now at this time, we're talking about the Paul Keenan's, Massee, Smitty, Heaney, Dan Cronin was running around-- MM- Dan Cronin. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while. Great guy. TT- People loved that guy. What was he like? MM- He would've made a great Marine. He didn't take any bologna, but he was so respected. You must've heard of Frank McVeigh? TT- Yes, but I don't know a whole lot about him. MM- He was on Ladder 1 A-Platoon. Same thing with him. TT- Now this is back when the city was burning. They rammed I-95 through the city and they boarded up a lot of stuff. MM- There were no sprinkler systems yet-- TT- I've looked at some of the logbooks and it's just incredible the amount of code reds you guys had. Like every other day was a two or three-bagger. So, you get on in 1970? MM- 1969. When I got on, I think I weighed 80 pounds. TT- Jesus. Now this is in the beginning of your rehab and surgeries and followed by more rehab, and all of this took years. It's a miracle story, a miracle you survived, and even more of what you turned yourself into. Now, at this point, dispatch was all civilian? MM- Yes. When I started, everybody was like 60-65. TT- And you're a twenty-year-old kid. (both laughing) MM- That's right. A year later I was like number two in seniority, and a year after that I was number one. TT- That's some turnover. Now, you were also teamed up with another legendary character named Moe Barris. MM- Great guy. TT- And you were partners for years, right? MM- When I started off, I was working with Leo Delaney. He was on Engine 4 and when he got older he bid into Fire Alarm. Ray Tattaglia was my partner as well, then I bid off his shift. TT- So if nobody bid in, they would take guys off the line? MM- Yes. When Ray Tattaglia was working with me, a lot of times he would have Moe work for him, because he owned a fence company on the side. Moe was on B-Platoon, I was on D-Platoon, and we both ended up bidding to C-Platoon. TT- Now Moe, I mean we're talking about a guy who went to D-Day, right? MM- Oh yeah. You know what? He never told me anything about it. I never even knew until someone else told me he was there. The best part of the story is that he had met up with his brother on the beaches by accident. I still, maybe once a week or every two weeks, his son will call me, and we'll meet over at Quinn's for a couple of beers. He goes, "You know, I don't have my dad anymore .." TT- How old was Moe? You were twenty, and if Moe was in WW2 he had to be in his forties by the time he met you. MM- Yes. He got on under the Emergency Employment Act, in like in 1973, so he had to be forty-one or forty-two. When we got into the union, he was too old by then to get into the pension plan. So he stayed in the state pension. TT- We're talking about a salty bastard. I heard stories about him, that he kept ground beef in his locker and that it would turn green and he'd still eat it. MM- I went in one day and they had a two and a half inch hose blasting out his locker because he had left a bag of moldy potatoes in there. He was the biggest character. His son was at home one day, and the chief calls up and asks, "How's your father feeling?" And Kenny goes, "I guess he's feeling pretty good because he's still on the cruise." Up in the office Moe goes again. (both laughing) TT- What did he do before he got on? MM- He worked for Dottie's Catering, Rome Vending, he was a hustler. TT- Then he got on the fire department, he's eating good knows what out of his locker, just an old-school, hardcore--was he in the Army? MM- Navy. TT- What was he doing at D-Day? MM- He was driving the landing craft. TT- Jesus. Imagine that? MM- Yup. And he met his own brother on Omaha beach. I think Moe was eighteen, only a kid himself. TT- That's nuts. Dear God. Any other Moe stories that are funny? MM- There's a lot of them, but not a lot I can tell here (laughs). TT- So he was just a chainsmoking-- MM- Boy, could he smoke. And he drank Heineken like it was going out of style. TT- And he lived into his eighties, right? MM- Eighty-six. And weighed like a buck-ten soaking wet. TT- Chainsmoking and pounding brews and he lived to be eighty-six You gotta love it. MM- I was just dating Jackie at the time, and I had to come over and get her car. We were working that night. He picks me up, I lived on Cala Drive, over near Pinecrest. So some guy cut him off, the guy's swearing at us, Moe's giving him the finger, I go, "Oh, great. Here's what's gonna happen. He's not happy. He's gonna stop. And do you think he's gonna hit you? (Moe was older, and by now Mike McMahon, who stands an easy 6'2," would likely become his target. Other than a few missing fingers and a couple of scars, his past is indiscernible.) So he drops me off in front, and you can hear the guy at the wheel screaming. So Moe takes off, I come in to get the car, and I go, "Where is he?" Because now I'm like legitimately concerned the guy's after him. So I'm trying to find him in case he needs my help. So I guess, he lived in that little white house over here on Halliday? He goes around the corner and his neighbor's like 6'6". Moe's there with the neighbor. The guy pulls up, the neighbor goes, "Oh, no. You get out of here." So he took off. TT- Moe was no dummy. Sometimes it's good to have 6'6" friends. MM- Another time. Almeida's Liquor Store? Over on Main Street? The JK Club was across the street. So coming in--I was smoking at the time--so I stopped to get some cigarettes and lottery numbers. Moe's across the street having a few beers in the JK Club. So he comes over and I go, "Come on, we gotta to get to work." He goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He goes to leave, and I'm talking to the guy. Meanwhile, some Hispanic guys had parked behind him. Moe comes in and yells, "Hey, move that car!" Oh great. Now it's on. So I go, "Guys, calm down. Let's calm down here." They're like, "We'll take him out back and kill him!" Well all of a sudden a couple of Irish guys jumped in and said, "We'll help you." So they ended up moving the car. The way Moe walked in, you would've thought he weighed 280. TT- He wasn't afraid of nothing. Probably came back from D-Day and was like, "Fuck it, it's all gravy now." (both laughing) TT- How tall a guy was he? MM- Like 5'6." TT- Oh, he was a little dude. MM- Oh yeah. He was skinny. TT- I didn't know he was that small. That's even funnier. Now, he worked until when? MM- Until I retired, 2004. January 20, 2004. He said, "I don't want to go." I went, "You know, we're starting to work with the grandchildren of the guys we started working with." I was always used to having a coffeepot on, all these guys are drinking Diet Cokes in the morning. I said, "It's time to move on." TT- It's funny because guys say that. Greg Brulé, I talked with him-- MM- Another great guy. TT- Yes. I was talking with him and he had the same realization one day. He's like, "I used to come in, and there would be two shifts at the kitchen table, and everybody's hanging out having coffee and talking shop, and now I walk in and there's one guy on his phone, another guy on his iPad, and nobody's talking. I knew I had to go." MM- When I married Michael and Matty's mother, I lived on Charles Street in one of the apartments. We bought a house near Fatima hospital. The day we moved, I bet there was fifteen pickup trucks out there. And I'd say, "We gotta take this, load that ..." and by the time I got over to the house with the last truck, pictures were up, the beds were made, everything was unpacked. If you needed help--and I don't know about today, because we always think our generation's better, but if somebody needed help-- TT- They got it. MM- Yup. If somebody was sick, they were there. TT- It's a different day now. MM- A lot of guys, like Chickie Carrol, Matty loves Chickie, because when the kids would come down to visit me at Station 2, Chickie would let them play on the trucks. TT- Your kids grew up with Chickie. MM- Yup. When Matty got sworn in, he went over and said to Chickie, "I'd love to have you at my swearing in." And he came. TT- It's like a changing of the guard. These guys' kids coming onboard and now even some of them are retiring. MM- I worked with Ray Massee Senior and Junior. That was a shocker when I got the call that he had passed away. TT- I heard that was a real kick in the teeth. MM- It was. TT- As far as guys with huge reputations, and I never met Tom Heaney, but nobody's said a bad word about him. I've never met him, but he's another-- MM- There are so many great guys from that era. Heaney, Paul Keenan, Ronny Sweeney, he ended up living with me for a year, him and his wife had a little problem, they got back together. He was in my wedding party, and when I got back from my honeymoon, he was helping Mike Szczoczarz (So-zarz) put in a driveway, and he had a heart attack. After that he had other problems and he ended up dying. Great guy. TT- You've seen the whole generation. Now, you have two sons? MM- Three. One of them is from my previous marriage. He lives in Bristol. TT- I know Mike and Matt. You raised them right. Their work ethic is impressive. Any regrets? MM- Not one. People sometimes ask, "Do you wish you could go back and not go in the Marine Corp?" No. That's what I wanted. Thank God that I'm here. All the guys I met, like Dick Lemay, when you talk about a rescue guy, Dick Lemay to me is number one. TT- He said that you sent him on more runs than anyone else. MM- Not only did I send him on more runs, even when I wasn't sending him he took them. (laughs) (Lemay was notorious for taking runs before he was even clear of the hospital.) He'd be going, "Rescue 1 transporting to Memorial." "Roger." Then we'd dispatch another run and tell the engine company, "We'll get you an out of town rescue," and immediately you'd hear, "Rescue 1 will take that." (laughs) How he did that--people ask me, "How the hell did you spend thirty-five years in Fire Alarm?" How the hell did he do it on the rescue? You know what I'm saying? TT- Forget it. It'll never happen again. MM- Mintsmenn was another one. TT- Mintsmenn, Tomlinson, twenty-eight, thirty-year guys. It'll never happen again. MM- Dick, though-- TT- The sheer load of misery that that guy absorbed, and he told a story about you guys. About how after he retired, Vietnam came back. MM- Yup. TT- And he hadn't expected that. He was so busy doing his life that he never had to deal with any of it, and now he had all this free time, and it came back. So he ran into you, and you guys were at a bar one day-- MM- Quinnie's. TT- Yup. And he's like, "Mike McMahon did more for me than the V.A., and everybody else." MM- I'm glad to hear it helped him. TT- You were able to put it into a certain perspective. "You had two jobs, got your ass kicked at both of them for years, raised a family, didn't have a free second for anything, and now it all came back." He said after he talked with you he was able to put it to sleep. When I first got on the job, I didn't have any fire background. I wasn't a legacy, didn't have any family on the job, didn't grow up with Chickie, so when you got here you started seeing the guys who knew the right thing to do. Regardless of the situation--fire or medical--those were the guys you needed to follow. Whatever the situation was, they knew what to do. They went out of their way for people, treated everybody with respect. MM- When you think of it, the fire department is like the military. You want to be trained the best you can, because when you go into a fire, you want to make sure the guy behind you, just like in combat, is ready to go. TT- You don't want to be with an idiot. MM- That's right. That's why, sometimes they have to get rid of a guy. TT- They're out there. Some guys get on this job and seem to have no idea what they signed up for. MM- This is why I always said, "You didn't get hired to sleep. If you can, great. But that's not what you got hired for." TT- Dispatch back in your day, I mean I was in that room, and it terrified me. Mainly because I had spent my adult life in the trades. So I didn't have to deal with phones and computers and people. So I was way behind the eight ball. But I was on C-shift. MM- Chickie, Will Maher,-- TT- Kraweic, Callahan, Marshall, Reed, Robin--C-shift downtown--you know--was a lot of fun. MM- We had such a ball as a shift. TT- I was lucky in dispatch. I had Rob Thurber and Pacheco, Biz as partners. Thank God. MM- When we were over on Armistice Boulevard, they started with the computers. Of course they never asked anybody that works on the job. So they were gonna put them in service, and they say, "If you get box 1234, and it's Zone 0, everybody goes." And I go. "No." "What do you mean no?" "Well, you have Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3, Zone 4..." "Well nobody told us that." "Well, did anybody ask the people that work in there?" So they couldn't put them in service. When they finally did, it was twenty minutes. Upstairs. The training. And I said to the guy who was supposed to teach us, "Are you telling me that you can get the trucks to a fire faster than I can?" And he goes, "No, I'm not telling you that. I'm telling you somebody downtown is probably going to lose their job because of the paperwork." "Isn't that great?" TT- Lose their job for what? I don't get it. MM- Well, at that time, everything was log sheets, and somebody had to write them in. Moe and I, towards the end, it was very unusual that I would even have to look up who was going. I always did it after I sent them, because in case you had a Code Red you wanted to see who was going next. But the computers didn't make it any quicker. TT- Now the day of the Hargreaves fire you were in the room, right? MM- Yeah. It was a Sunday. TT- From what I heard it was a nice sunny day-- MM- Yup. It was quiet that day until two o'clock when all hell broke loose. TT- When you're in there, and you're listening, and it's just getting worse and worse, it's just one of those events where it's not getting better. MM- You knew that something was going on. TT- Now that day itself, when the guys came back from that, Hargreaves wasn't dead. He was in Connecticut and then went to Boston. MM- He died like four weeks later. TT- No one knew he was gonna die. They just knew he was really hurt, right? MM- Not really. They knew he was pretty bad. TT- First and second degree burns on his hands and face-- MM- They said when he came out smoke was coming out of his mouth. That he was burning from the inside. TT- Brutal. That's probably the worst day you ever had in there, right? MM- For people we know, yes, but we had a fire on Japonica Street where we lost a whole family except for one boy. TT- Oh yeah. That's right. They got stuck, right? Upstairs? MM- Guys came back, they had kids that were melted to the floor, the tile floor. That's when I seen, besides myself in combat, when I've seen grown men crying. That's something you're never prepared for. TT- Now that was a night fire, right? MM- Yes it was. During the night. TT- Winter, right? MM- I believe it was. Something to do with the heating system. TT- Four kids, a mother, a father. MM- Nightmare. TT- There were a couple of other awful events. Were you working during Star Gas or Greenhalgh Mill? MM- No. Greenhalgh Mills, I was supposed to be working but my mother was in a nursing home, and I was with her. I worked Newel Coal and Lumber, over on Taft Street. That was a bad one. TT- I heard there was just oceans of black toxic smoke from that place. MM- That was, we didn't even know who we had in the city. The radio system was absolutely terrible. I went to a union meeting one time and said, "I'm telling you guys. Someone's gonna be calling me for help and I'm not gonna hear it." TT- Talk about the room itself. Back in the day, these are street boxes. There isn't any 911 yet. MM- When I first started. 911 came on line soon after. TT- So these street boxes would get pulled, it comes into Fire Alarm, and is this the Stretch Tuite thing with the clicking? MM- Yes. It was big circuits. When you walked in, to your right, that was all big circuits. The bells would go bing bing bing. At night you could lay down and you'd never sleep in there. That's why so many guys had heart attacks. Out of nowhere, bang bang bang. TT- Really (laughs) Jesus. So the box comes in. Is that when you heard the clicking? MM- No. For us, the bells would be going off. The clicking was in the stations. They could hear it very feintly. TT- So you guys got the bell. MM- At that time, you had over in the corner, it was like a round disc. So say you had you a box at Broad Street in front of Kennedy Manor. You'd go over and whatever box, you hit it to reset it. You'd pull the lever and it would set off sirens. So back then they had beat cops, and when they heard the sirens they would stop the traffic. TT- Get out of here. MM- We're talking like 1969. TT- So when you're pulling the lever, what was that doing? MM- It was setting off a horn. Say, if it was at Montgomery and Exchange Streets, if there was a cop on the beat there he'd know enough to stop traffic. The box would come in on the teletype, and you'd read the teletype. After you sent the box out, the other guy would pull the lever. A lot of guys stopped using that because eventually half the horns and sirens weren't even working anymore. TT- So the horns were up on poles? MM- Yup. They used to have boxes for the cops to call in too. TT- When did 911 come into play? Late 70's, 80's? MM- I was married to Mary Ann, Mike and Matty's mother. You ever hear anything about 911 with me? I'm working, Moe and I, and we get a call. 540 Wilcox. It's Engine 1's district. We send them out. I'm going, "Wilcox doesn't go that high." I said, "The only street I know of that goes that high numerically is Walcott." Engine 2 was clearing the city garage. I told them to take a ride by 548 Walcott just in case. They get over there, Code Red. TT- Uh-oh. MM- Boisclair was the chief. I'm going, "This is gonna be a problem." I wait until after the fire, like 6:30, 7 o'clock, and Chief Boisclair comes in and I go, "Chief, I gotta talk to you. I think there's gonna be a problem." He said, "Let me listen to the tapes." He goes, "No, Mike, you did everything right. Don't worry." I said, "Okay." I go home, next morning I'm in bed. The wife comes up and says, "Your father's on the phone. It's important." "Yeah, dad, what's up?" He goes, "What the heck happened? It's all over the news about this fire." I go, "No, everything's all set." "No it isn't." So I get up, we were living in Cranston, so I drive down to headquarters. Well, the democrats wanted 911. The republicans didn't want it. So now it's a political mess. I'm listening to one of the talk shows and they had the guy who's in charge of 911 saying his dispatchers didn't do anything wrong, and they're trained for it for like eight weeks. I'm like, "I've been on twenty freaking years." (laughs) Anyways, they finally made a deal. When they listened to the tapes objectively, it's right there. He says Wilcox originally. Engine 2 got there quicker than Engine 1 got to Wilcox. TT- That's thanks to you entirely. MM- So they said everything was gonna be forgotten, but I says, "Yeah, chief everything's gonna be forgotten, but on the radio they're making me out to be an idiot." He goes, "Mike, Just let it calm down." TT- Everything's always been taped. So 911 goes in in like the early 80's? MM- Had to be the mid-80's because I had built my house in Cranston in 1985. So it had to be '86, because I'm sure Michael had been born. TT- You got anything else? MM- Another bad fire was Dexter Street. When those two guys were melted together in the window. There were so many bad fires back then, I'm sure after you leave I'll remember a whole bunch more. TT- Lot of people died in 70's. Joe Gildea was talking to me-- MM- Did you ever hear about the St. Joseph's fire? TT- No. MM- Well, I got an award for that. I was at Murphy's Lounge (laughs), and as I'm going home I look down Division Street where St. Joseph's is, and there's smoke. I'm thinking the guys must be on scene and maybe they need a hand. So I get there but nobody's there. The priest had pulled under the carport, went in to the rectory, and I guess the car caught on fire and lit the place up. So now I'm banging on the door, screaming, I hit the street box. Finally the priest gets up and gets the Host from the church. I ended up working there all night long. Almost lost my car, because I had it in front the church and the steeple was getting ready to tip over. TT- There's a lot of history. MM- I used to tell the young guys, "You just hit the lottery." Because, while you're not gonna be the richest guy in the world, you're gonna make good friends and have the greatest job in the world. TT- Can't beat it. Especially for the guys who went out into the world. These twenty-year-old kids don't know how lucky they have it. MM- Most of the guys would come through Fire Alarm. And I would tell them, "This guy never even had a job." Get a job, go work construction, drive a truck, cut a lawn, get some perspective. TT- Thank God there wasn't any age restrictions or I never would've got on. I was fortunate to have the jobs I did because they kept me in great shape. I was old enough to be some of these young guys' dad, and was in better shape than half of them. (both laugh) TT- This has been an honor. If you think of anything else please call me. Lemay came back three or four times and spoke for hours, so if you think of anything else, do not hesitate. MM- Sure thing. TT- You're one of the strongest people I've ever met. Thank you for speaking with me. MM- Thanks for coming over.
1 Comment
9/3/2018 08:56:40 am
Tom, Great interview with Mike.You are doing as great job.Hope all the info I gave you help.Stop by when you can and let's talk about the Pawtucket Fire.
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AuthorTom Trabulsi was born in the Midwest, attended high school in Rhode Island, and graduated from Boston University with a degree in American History. He was a bike courier in Boston and New York City, worked construction in the mountain west and east coast, and is currently a firefighter in a northeast city. Archives
August 2022
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