Piece two: Jerry Vincent in Kalamazoo

Jerry Vincent in Kalamazoo

Woody Tauke
1053 words
New York Times Magazine

In 1970, at 19, as the reality of the Vietnam War was just beginning to permeate US culture, Jerry Vincent enlisted in the Air Force and left his home and family in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Today, 43 years later, he and I sit in a crowded painters office, surrounded on four sides by ceiling high shelves, covered with years and years worth of paint cans, on the campus of a tiny liberal arts college in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  I have known Jerry for close to a year now, he smiles often, speaks very slowly, and closes his eyes to tell me the stories of his life.  One, like this city, his home, caught in transit.  

            The idea of enlisting in the Vietnam War, in retrospect, seems reckless, foolish, some might even say suicidal yet Jerry spoke coolly of the decision, “I was on the verge of being drafted, I’d received a notification and at that point you can either be drafted, or you can join and I said ‘Well, I really don’t want to be cannon fodder at this time because if you were drafted at that time you were in the army.  You were a bush beater.  You were canon fodder.  So I joined the Air Force.”  After his enlistment, Jerry was packed up and shipped to Texas (*) for basic training.  In those short six weeks he was promoted to Squad Leader, faced down Vietnam era army bullies, and intimately learned the frustrations of dealing with less than objective leadership,  “I almost managed to graduate top of the class but there was this Staff Sargent there and,” Jerry recalls with confidence, “—he says to me ‘Ya know, actually you were gonna be the top of the class but I fudged the test just to give him the top of the class because it looks good on his resume because he’s going to be career and you’re not.”

            The Air Force then flew Jerry, and the rest of his graduating class, to Grand Forks, North Dakota, in the middle of winter for technical training.  He chuckles at the thought, “It was fucking freezing.”  After six more long weeks of having to, “learn all these forms and requirements and regulations regarding the process and the means to do the shipping of people and things” he once again graduated and, in may of 1971, was shipped away.  Jerry is sent to war.  Maybe war is a stretch, but he was sent to the “tropical paradise” of Thailand (*), where he spent is service, “—moving people and their personal household goods around the world.”

            Jerry only spoke briefly of his time abroad, he seemed to dance around the subject, and it was only in that brief moment when his demeanor changed, his face darker, his voice more jaded.  Not uncomfortable, but bitter.  The conversation progressed, briefly we would later touch on his time in Vietnam, hinting at things the US army probably wouldn’t approve of me publishing, but never directly addressing the experience. 

            1975 was a big year for Jerry Vincent, namely he returned from war, five years older and with a wealth of stories.  That year he found himself in California, just outside of San Francisco, and spent his time driving up and down the state, going in and out of the cities.  Decompressing from a time that we don’t care to imagine, and many forget about in the day to day.  He spent nearly a month with friends in Denver: Jerry finally relaxed.  He had time to himself, and the opportunity to live with little responsibility, freely, like most young men in their 20s, but instead Jerry returned home.  A place robbed of him, a place that many of us find ourselves away from in that time of life, but one that remains pivotal as an anchor, as a tether to our individual realities.   And this is where we find Jerry today, comfortable and happy in Kalamazoo, Michigan. 

            It was also in 1975 that Jerry met Hans, his now partner of 38 year (*), a German immigrant and hairdresser.   Having just spent the past five years shipping people and things around the world, Jerry found himself a job in the, then booming, travel industry as a travel agent.  For another four years Jerry packed people up and shipped them to places like San Fransisco, Texas, and Thailand.  Exhausted by the frustrations and tedium’s of the industry, “I said fuck this.” and Jerry quit in 1979.  Out of work and with Hans breathing down his neck Jerry begrudgingly went to look for work once again. 

            At a cocktail party one night, after a month of floating around, and Hans getting madder and madder, Jerry met a member of the, “Foreign Study Program, ya know? which is CIP now” who promised him a secretary job.  Jerry came to Kalamazoo College and settled, but not with either the Foreign Study Program or with the CIP.  Instead, Jerry found a niche with Facilities Management as a dorm painter.  Jerry’s father was a professional painter, and Jerry spent his childhood working on and off, with his father.  At FacMan, in the summer of 1990, Jerry developed the student worker program and took twelve student employs with him to renovate Harmon Hall.  For Hans and Jerry, the rest is history. 

            Jerry still employs students and keeps that tiny campus in Kalamazoo looking fresh, and Hans now owns his salon just up the street.  They smoke a lot of cigarettes and live happily together.  Jerry’s mother still lives in Portage, and he helps take care of her several times a week.  While, Jerry has spent the vast majority of his life in Kalamazoo, it’s tough to say whether or not he feels it’s his home.  A boy forced to either give the formative years of his life to his country or die, Jerry seems a little lost, perhaps he is still making up for lost time; a transient being in a transient home.  Perhaps this place holds some calling for him, and he truly is at rest here.  Regardless, Jerry is one of the most interesting individuals I have happened across in my young life, and he still has many things to share with me, and the world. 

People have a lot of stories for those just willing to listen.