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News of My Death Was Greatly Overstated
By Howard A. Daniel III
December 27, 2007 |
Many years ago during the Vietnam War, I was often staying at a safe house in Bangkok, Thailand. It had been a tourist motel but all of its rooms were rented by an unnamed U.S. government agency for special operations and intelligence personnel on R&R or to live there while working in Bangkok. I used it for both purposes, and I also had some numismatic activities while there.
It was a very safe place for us to relax because it was guarded 24/7 by the Thai Army special military police in civilian clothes. Most of us staying there knew each other even though our duty stations were in four different Southeast Asian countries, and we were very much a close knit family of many brothers. Most of us were in our 20s but there were also some old farts in their 30s and older.
We were all professionals and had been in Southeast Asia for many years. When I departed Vietnam for the last time in uniform, I had six years there in two tours. Counting wounded, it was not unusual for them to have 150 percent casualties per year, so we were often talking about those recovering from wounds, those not coming back because of their wounds and those who "bought the farm."
These talks were usually over our umpteenth beers by lunch time and we often pondered if we would see 30 years of age. So we made it a goal to live to 30 years of age. The great majority of my work was in a headquarters so I was not in harm's way all of the time like most of them, but once a month or so I would sneak out to spend an afternoon or overnight with them in the boondocks.
I was out with them during some attacks but luckily only got scratches and bruises. But after almost "buying the farm" during a third assassination attempt on me in Saigon, my counter-intelligence man told me to immediately disappear on a 30-day leave. Then he reported me as badly wounded and likely dead within our intelligence network to see if that would help stop the assassination attempts on me.
I flew to Bangkok in civilian clothes on a passport and came back the same way. The ruse seemed to work because I did not have another assassination attempt before I completed my first tour about 18 months later. I did not see any changes in my pay or other affairs, so I assumed no one in the Army saw anything "official" about my demise.
When I completed that first tour of 56 months in August 1970, I arrived at Oakland Army Terminal to pick up a box the Army had me leave there with uniforms and other articles I would not need in Vietnam. The supply clerks ran around for quite awhile before telling me they could not find the box. I asked to talk to their officer-in-charge (OIC) and a second
lieutenant came to the counter.
He was laughing as he told me the files showed that I was killed in action (KIA) and that my box had been disposed of. I was an "old" senior NCO of 29 who had no sense of humor when I was dealing with anyone who had not done at least one tour in the war. The lieutenant stopped smiling after seeing my reaction and apologized. He quickly got his men working to issue me new uniforms and other gear.
In late October 2007, my wife and I returned to "her" condo in McLean after staying in "my" Bay House in Deltaville. There was a message on her answering machine from Joe Boling inquiring about my demise! My wife considers talking about death as unlucky so she was not happy. Joe explained that I was in the "In Memoriam" part of the November issue of The Numismatist.
When we listened to his message, it was Joe's usual bedtime so I typed an e-mail to him that I was alive! I thought about it for awhile and determined it must be about my reporting the passing on of Forrest Daniel to the ANA's Membership Department because I read in The Numismatist they were going to give him a 40-year or more membership pin. Someone had deleted me and kept Forrest on the rolls.
There were a few more messages on her answering machine and two more of them were asking her about my demise. Late the next morning, I checked my e-mails and I received about a dozen inquiring about my health. Some of them remembered me recently beating cancer and wondered if I had a relapse. Others wrote that it was impossible I had passed on and how did the error occur.
I answered all of the e-mails and then wrote two more to several of my friends at Krause Publications and Amos Press. Almost immediately, I received an e-mail response from David Harper asking me if I would write up my experience with this event, and I agreed to write this for him. Colin Bruce in Iola and Michele Orzano in Sydney were the first of many to respond in the numismatic press.
Then I sent an e-mail to Brenda Bishop at the ANA to tell her I was alive and not to cancel my club table at the Phoenix ANA. Brenda did not know about me passing on and assured me my club table was still in the works. About 36 hours later, I was back at my Bay House and sometime during the week I came back from lunch to find a message from Ken Hallenbeck at the ANA.
Then I received an e-mail from Gail Baker at the ANA wondering what was going on. She wrote that it had to be a mistake and told me she would reinstate anything for me that was missed because of my demise. I thanked her and replied that I had not yet received The Numismatist which had me listed in the "In Memoriam" section.
My e-mail in box has had a steady flow of e-mails from people in the United States but then they started coming from Asia. Quoc Nguyen from the U.S. and Vietnam was on a trip in Singapore and Bangkok and he and everyone else were talking about my demise. I replied that I was still here in this world and to please tell everyone over there about the mistake.
I also received an e-mail from Bruce Smith in Shanghai. Then the e-mails started coming in from Europe and other parts of the world. It was very gratifying to see so many people concerned about me, but my e-mail In box, which I could usually keep down to 20 or so unanswered e-mails, was hanging in there with over 100 unanswered e-mails!
I returned to McLean for the coin and stamp show in Vienna and walked onto the bourse. Three or four people came up to me and said they were relieved to see I was still alive. When I walked up to some of the dealers at their tables, they looked at me in disbelief. But there were two people on the bourse with grim looks on their faces. Sorry about that, I was still alive.
The e-mails and telephone calls kept coming in over the next week when I was at my Bay House and I immediately answered most of them but there were still many in my in box. Then I returned to McLean again for the coin show in Baltimore. One of the smokers standing outside of the entrance pointed at me and told everyone I was supposed to be dead. It was fun watching their disbelief.
As I rounded the corner to the Registration counters, one of the show's primary volunteers ran out to shake my hand and welcome me back from the dead. Inside on the bourse, many of the dealers, and a few of the collectors, also came to shake my hand. It was good feeling but the wife of one dealer cried when she saw me, but she was happy that I was still here. Sometimes I do not understand women.
It has been almost three weeks since Joe Boling called me and my wife and I am still getting inquiries about my demise. They say that three times is the charm, so I am working on my last life because the next time I am listed as passing on, it will probably really be a fact. If you want to contact me, my e-mail address is HADaniel3@msn.com. I hope I am here to answer it!
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