Rainbow dumplings
Silence at our table as we ate dessert
Barbarella Fokos 4:16 p.m., May 21
Ray Westberg
Westberg, a Vietnam veteran and a high school wrestling coach from Ellensburg, Washington, was recruited to write for the Reader by editor Judith Moore, who had lived in Ellensburg as a young housewife.
Among his more remarkable stories: Rebels without an Engine (bicyclists vs. cars) | Did You Fight in the War? Yeah. (Vietnam revisited) | Tarawa (WWII veterans talk)
Westberg died from a heart attack while teaching his high school English class in 1997.Articles by Ray Westberg
I Don't Ever Tell Death How Not To Take Me
They went from MCRD to Khe Sanh, Con Thien, Dewey Canyon, and finally San Diego
A lot of them — the kids, I mean — went to boot camp, came out of boot camp, got on an airplane to Vietnam, and went straight to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). One such ...
An unhampered look at Carlsbad's Army Navy Academy
G'Bye mom, So long Dad, Where are the girls? West Point of the West
Societies have often tried to whip their young into adulthood with calculated brutality. Yet even this, intolerable as it is, probably causes less pain — and may even give rise to less brutality in the ...
Did you fight in the war? "Yeah."
From San Diego to Vietnam the second time.
There is no more vile, despicable thing in nature than the man who runs from his demons. — Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad Some people wear everything on their sleeves, they’d run naked through a ...
Doctors After the Fact
The men and women who extract justice from death.
Boyer’s and Bailey’s bodies lay quiet in the sun; time hadn’t passed for muscles to stiffen, and limbs were still limp. Bailey — six or seven holes in his neck and torso — had gurgled ...
Tarawa
San Diego recruit fought in the bloodiest 76 hours of World War II
"What I saw ... was, I am certain, one of the greatest works of devastation wrought by man. Words are not adequate to describe what I saw on this island of less than a square ...
Sanctuary
Fight a bad rep at Morse High
“One of our students, a tenth-grade boy, committed suicide right after New Year’s. On that first Friday back, a 15-year-old boy collapsed on the P.E. field — an aneurysm or stroke — and lost his breathing capacity.”
Rebels Without An Engine
Breakdown in trust between San Diego motorists and bicyclists
Standing on Pringle Street near Kettner Boulevard, looking up a precipitous grade of snaking asphalt, I tried to imagine Freddie Hafner's thoughts - aged 41 — one second before his death. Dressed in purple mesh ...
Back To School
Mr. Van Winkle asked the Student Council Reps, to indicate to the classes that if they can convince him through sound logical arguments that they should ride skateboards to school that he will reconsider his position.
To Hell and Back With the Weekend Warriors
Marines tell Kuwait stories
The Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center on Pomerado Road is a large cube of brick. Inside, Marines and sailors hustle and bustle, and the atmosphere is casual. A young woman Marine takes me to ...
