Seeing the Sights in San Francisco

...And everyone, including the sheriff, knows that Larry stopped a napalm truck last summer, and that he still has a weekend or two to serve in jail to complete his fifteen-day sentence...

...Hawkins and Lt...

...But now and then a note of true jubilation is sounded by those seamen who have amassed small fortunes in war-zone pay...

...infantry died on May 20, 1967, and was laid to rest here on May 26, 1967...

...Background to this particular offbeat outing is readily available to tourists who can spare the time for a brief visit to the mortuary home on Valencia, situated in the famous Mission district of the city...

...Larry will tell you that it was a merchant seaman he ran into in San Francisco in the spring of 1966 who told him about the shipments from Port Chicago...

...The Naval Station is a leisurely ten-minute walk from the town of Port Chicago, and you will not, of course, be permitted to enter the confines of the station, which is designated as government property, but the distant masts and rigging of the docked munition ships silhouetted against the clear blue sky is the most picturesque of sights...

...It is also fascinating to watch the sleek Navy limousines making their daily deliveries to this efficiently run funeral home...

...They will now be able to purchase homes for their families, and even finance a son's or daughter's college education...

...On each container, stencilled in black, are the words, "do not tip...

...But if you take a moment to kneel down and push aside some of the floral offerings you may read on neatly typed cards, framed in metal and covered with sturdy transparent plastic, that Pfc...

...Last year I frequently suggested to sojourners in these parts that Sunday was the best day of the week to make a tour of the fabulous Golden Gate Cemetery which lies in all its verdant beauty in the rolling countryside just beyond South San Francisco...

...For the most part everyone's been very helpful," he will tell you...

...On my first visit to Port Chicago I had the good luck to find five words intact on a cardboard placard otherwise nearly entirely destroyed by fire...

...This is because the contents have been packed in ice at the Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon, and, despite the high degree of refrigeration, there may be some loose water in the container by the time it reaches its destination...

...On one occasion a totally illiterate seaman regaled me with a hilarious story of his attempts, on the trip he had just returned from, to get transportation from Saigon to Danang, through enemy lines, to see his GI son who was in an army hospital there...

...The man had made two or three trips to Vietnam and his conscience was beginning to bother him...

...Larry describes himself as "a non-Christian minister of truth," and he says that his hope is to be "a point of light and truth for others to see the dignity of man...

...Each limousine, fitted with clothes-racks, brings as many as twelve or fifteen fine new uniforms to the mortuary...

...That destination may be as far from San Francisco as New Jersey or Rhode Island, or as close as Nevada or Washington State, but there is no doubt in the minds of the military authorities, or in that of the director of the funeral home, that wherever the young man's family may reside, this official gesture is highly valued...

...The seasoned traveler will not feel self-conscious about eating it quite openly, even though a number of hardy visitors who stand before the Naval Weapons Station may be observing a twenty-four hour fast...

...Some of them—and this is reassuring confirmation of the rigid economy practiced by our military—have been in use since the Korean War...

...Enter into the free and easy atmosphere that prevails, and you will come away with a wealth of interesting information...

...The seamen, speaking in their quaint dialects (many come from the Deep South), will tell you of the difficulties that are encountered in getting crews together...

...It is not at all unusual for the remains of returning servicemen to reach the base three or four days after demise in Vietnam...

...If questioned, they will be glad to tell you that ninety per cent of all the explosives sent to Vietnam, including napalm bombs, leave from this busy port...

...or that Lt...

...The containers, speedily emptied of their contents at the Valencia funeral parlor, are then returned by truck to Travis, loaded on to Star-lifters, and rushed back to Tan Son Nhut Air Base to serve again...

...Another example of the forethought with which this operation is handled may be noted in the fact that, the embalming completed, a one-man military escort accompanies each individual flag-draped coffin to its home destination...

...Although Larry's hair is longish, it is neatly trimmed, and although he does have a bright blond Van Dyke beard, he is in no sense a hippie...

...If taking your lunch with you presents a problem, a simple regional meal may be procured at modest cost in the little restaurant in the heart of town...

...They said, "Men are not our enemies...

...For instance, the property owners of the town are wholly absorbed in a united effort to frustrate the Navy's plans to buy out the town so as to take over the entire area for increased shipping facilities...

...The Travis Mortuary Affairs office, however, is justifiably proud of the fact that never during the course of any previous war have erstwhile combatants been transported within such a short lapse of time from the battlefield to the embalmer's table...

...Before setting out at the end of the day on the beautiful return drive to San Francisco, take a moment or two to pick up a memento from the debris of bright, discarded cans, flowering cactus, and broken bottles that have been tossed by passing motorists...

...They know now that whatever happens, we're here to stay...

...The Golden Gate Bridge...

...The military escort usually spends the night in the former serviceman's home, and it is customary for a brief notice to this effect to appear in the social column of the local paper...

...Marines died on June 18, 1967, and was interred in this beautiful spot on June 23...

...Seeing the Sights in San Francisco by KAY BOYLE There are any number of unique spots of interest in this vicinity which are, unfortunately, not known to the majority of tourists who flock throughout the year to our beautiful and festive city...

...Another resident said he had no intention of selling his $30,000 home for $11,000, which is what the Navy is offering...

...Nob Hill...

...Stuart Hawkins, for instance, of the U.S...

...Everyone also knows that Larry has to come out from San Francisco by bus now, as in August of this year the two cars he used to bring visitors over in for a day's outing were, one after another, destroyed by fire...

...On Sunday, one did not at that time run the weekday risk of being delayed an hour or more at the gates by half a dozen or so hearses bearing flag-draped coffins, and by the unavoidable accompanying press of the cars of families and friends...

...Thus a visit may be planned for any day that suits the sight-seer's schedule...

...David O'Hara of the U.S...

...Indeed, after visiting this and other out-of-the-way sites, you will have an endless stream of unusual memories to take home with you...

...The names of the young men from Port Chicago who destroyed the cars are known to Larry, and he raises his hand in greeting to them as well when they roar past in their jalopies, their spit often striking his face or the faces of other visitors standing before this vast expanse of government property...

...Few signs are displayed by this handful of young people, and their presence can be easily overlooked...

...You will find bits and pieces of the shattered frames of what were placards in their time, charred syllables of words which once spelled "women" or "children" or "Vietnam...

...So as to take advantage of every moment of sunlit air and lively sea-breezes, it is recommended that you take a box lunch with you...

...It's a kind of status thing, and the family appreciates it very much," the director of the Valencia funeral parlor told me...

...The cable cars...

...The men working here and the Navy personnel know we aren't going to be frightened off, and they respect that...

...The partially burned and scattered lexicon you can salvage there will always make a fascinating conversation piece, and may even prove one day a unique supplementary document to our current history...

...Miss Boyle's most recent book is "Nothing Breaks But the Heart...

...We give the same care and attention to the preparation of servicemen as we would if they were on a retail basis...

...By the time they are ready to go home, they all look just as lifelike as the art we practice can make them," one of the embalming assistants told me...

...For a complete change of scene, I would suggest a day at Port Chicago, on the other side of the bay...

...O'Hara were walking around the streets of Saigon or Danang or somewhere like that, and this is quite an arresting thought...

...Indeed, his dignified figure suggests that of an old-time, frontier preacher who has strayed for a moment from the Hollywood set where a western movie is being filmed...

...For untrained, unskilled men, such rewards were merely pipe-dreams before...

...Other young people standing there before the gates, through which passes a constant stream of armored trucks marked "Explosives," will tell you Larry is a graduate of a California ministerial school, and indeed there is a suggestion of benediction in the friendly hand he raises in greeting to all who pass...

...As of late June, only the dependents of servicemen already resting there are being accepted, and this makes for a far more leisurely atmosphere...

...The director, a personable young man with three young children and an attractive wife who live right there in the funeral home with him, was kind enough to invite me in to view some of the remains so that I might understand the problems with which he is faced...

...On one side, under the bluest of California skies, he will see the sparkling waters of the Pacific, and on the other, beyond the flowering area, he will see, rising in dramatic contrast, the wild, barren hills which the government hopes soon to be able to procure for further cultivation...

...Despite the high pay and the generous bonuses, it is not an easy matter to man the munition freighters...

...If you feel so disposed before you go, do help Larry pick up the Pepsi-cola and lemon-pop bottles that didn't break when they were thrown...

...I have jotted down a few notes about two or three of these off-the-beaten-track places which vacationers should not fail to see...

...Lunching there also offers the attraction of first-hand contact and conversation not only with long-time residents of Port Chicago, but also with merchant seamen off cargo ships that have just returned from Vietnam...

...If the interested visitor wishes to explore even further behind the scenes, he will learn that competitive bidding in the San Francisco funeral services' world has been brisk...

...What other sights, dear tourist, would you like to see here...

...On one of my visits there, I learned that there is frequently not enough left of the young serviceman himself to fit into the uniform the army provides...

...As one store owner put it to me, "I don't care what happens in Vietnam, but I'm not going to sell my four lots to the Navy for $700 each when each one of them is worth $1,200...

...They travel on C-141-A jets, poetically known as Starlifters, and these giant military birds, carrying a mixed cargo, touch down on the runway at the rate of thirty or forty every twenty-four hours...

...Dark blue and trimmed in scarlet and gold, they are carried with scrupulous care into the tastefully decorated interior of the funeral parlor...

...This sleepy little town is a pleasant hour and a half's drive from downtown San Francisco, and natives claim that it enjoys the best climate in the whole of Northern California...

...Among the many unusual visitors you will see standing before the gates of the Naval Weapons Station, the most impressive is a blond young man of proud and distinctive bearing who is known to one and all as "Larry...

...It has the distinction of being the one base to receive all the containers flown in from Southeast Asia...

...Because he was seen standing there for over a year now, Larry Cooper has become a familiar landmark...

...Marines as well as the workers who load the ships came out and expressed their sympathy about the destruction of the cars...

...It would be easy to picture him in his dark suit and white shirt, a soft-brimmed hat on his blond head, stepping out of an ambushed stage-coach in the wild and woolly days of the old West and persuading the shame-faced stick-up men to lower their guns and let the stage continue on its way...

...Once having reached this scenic wonderland, it will be well worth your while to leave your car or bus on arrival and stroll down the spacious, well-kept avenues that wind around and almost seem to embrace the grassy slopes...

...The town sheriff, quite a personable young man himself, will stop his official car beside Larry and smile as he greets him, and Larry will lean in through the car window and have a pleasant five-minute chat with this officer of the law...

...It may cross your mind before you get up from your knees that just six weeks or so ago Pfc...

...But the director of the particular home on Valencia, who got the government contract in 1966, maintains that it is not as profitable a deal as the number of bodies processed every week might lead one to believe...

...Each truck is equipped with tiers of shelves, or berths resembling those of a sleeping car, on which have been placed long aluminum containers, conveniently numbered and tagged...

...So even war has its unexpected compensations...

...She served as foreign correspondent for The New Yorker for seven years...

...He turns them in at the Port Chicago grocery store, and the refunded deposit money goes toward paying his bus fare back to town...

...Thanks to the noted clemency of our winters, an endless profusion of gladioli, iris, roses in a variety of colors, and gold and white chrysanthemums, presents year round a breathtaking horticultural display...

...One of the interesting sights there is the arrival of Navy trucks from Travis Air Force Base several times a day...

...It is far from being an enjoyable business," he confided...

...Happily, this year the same problem does not exist on any day of the week, for practically every well-tended inch of that vast, flowering expanse is now symmetrically covered with gleaming white head-stones...

...Indeed, the abundance of flowers often makes it difficult to find the temporary markers which supply the names of those who lie under these freshly spread coverlets...

...KAY BOYLE, the distinguished novelist and prize-winning short story writer, is a professor in the English department of San Francisco State College...

...Travis Air Force Base itself should not be overlooked as a site of truly exceptional interest...

...We feel we owe it to the boy's family that he goes home looking just as good as he did when he went away—and sometimes even better...