Roger Templeman

I didn't know Roger Templeman very well in high school. We'd been in a couple of classes together, had some friends in common, but for no particular reason we just never had much to do with each other. I wanted to look him up now because he used to be very easy to talk to, unassuming and direct, and we did have at least a slight acquaintance I could try to take advantage of. Michael mentioned Roger had been in the Army, and I realized I had never seriously talked to someone my age who had actually served. I'd known people who had been in Vietnam, but either they were reluctant to discuss anything about it or I was hesitant to ask, so I never heard very much. I didn't want to press Roger in detail about his experiences, but talking to someone from Yuba City who'd gone seemed potentially very useful, which did turn out to be the case, I believe, as you shall see.

Roger worked for Western Telephone, and he agreed to meet me at a bar called Joe and Val's on C Street when he was through at 4:45. We recognized each other right away, and sat at a booth in back so that my tape recorder wouldn't be drowned out by the juke box. No description is necessary this time. He looked like every guy on a phone company payroll. We both ordered beers.

Q: What do you do at Western?

A: I'm what's called a Microwave Operations Supervisor. Basically I service our long distance installations, in charge of the unit that keeps everything going. It's a nice job. Pay's good and I've got solid seniority by now. I went to work for them as soon as I got out of the service. What training I hadn't received there I picked up on the job.

Q: That sounds like one of those ads for joining the Army and learning a trade.

A: Not far from that, though during Vietnam it wasn't quite so simple. I started out in straight Infantry, my first tour of duty was with the 143rd Airborne. I was a Com Spec, which means Communications Specialist, a glorified way of saying that I handled the two-way radio on the helicopter operations unit I was assigned to. That was a job you got taught in about a week. I showed a little talent for keeping some real battered equipment going, and eventually I was transferred to a training unit near Tran Doc. The training was in all aspects of communications maintenance, then after that I was a trouble-shooter for awhile and also an instructor for new Com Specs.

When I got out and came home, I didn't really know what to do. I hadn't thought about it that much. Then I heard about the phone company, and they said my Army experience was on the button for training in what I do now. So I've gotta say, this has worked out real well for me. I never went to Yuba College or anywhere else, just to high school, and I do as well as a lot of guys who did go on , better than plenty of them, I could say. And the work I do is very technical, it's a specialist's kind of job, and I'm good at it. So, like I said, I've done OK.

Q: Then being in the Army worked out pretty well for you.

A: Yeah, I have to say it did. There's lots of guys who got a raw deal over there and came back messed up one way or another, if they came back at all, and lots of them who freaked out after they got back, but I've always been kind of together. I was able to handle what was thrown at me, and I never got injured or nothing, though I came close a few times, like everybody else. The vets who have gripes now are right to be mad about a lot of things. Just because I got some breaks doesn't mean I'm any better than they are or that I got different treatment. Maybe I was helped some by being in fairly early, so my advancement might have been simpler, but even if I was in on the ground floor, I worked my way up from there. I'm proud of my accomplishments.

Q: When you went in, were you drafted or did you enlist?

A: Oh, I was drafted. I didn't mind going, but I wasn't about to go until they told me I had to. After I got out of school, I was working as a mechanic, but it was only a part-time job so I could work on my car and have a little money. Do you remember my '55 Chevy? Blue, white trim, with a Roadrunner painted on the side? Damn fine car. Wish I still had it now instead of selling it when I went in. They're a lot harder to come by these days. Long time ago, buddy. I only did that for the summer, by September Uncle Sam had expressed an interest in me. If you didn't have a student deferment back then, you got called fast, so I guess it wasn't a surprise. I rolled with it.

Q: Rolled with it?

A: I mean I did my time and tried to take advantage of it. What would have been the use of making it hard on myself? It wouldn't have shortened my time any. Some guys who are whining now were probably crying before they went in and all during too. Even when you've got a fair complaint, there's always the ones who' Il make more noise.

Q: Do you keep in touch with guys you served with or talk to any vets from around here?

A: Sure. I've got some real buddies I see every now and then. Hot guys from around here, but we get together every once in a while As for the local guys, I've probably run into most of them one time or another. We know who we are and we've traded our stories with each other somewhere along the line. We don't do anything too organized, if that's what you mean. Once or twice a few of us have gotten together to do something for one of the paraplegics, or for this one guy who took a couple of years to come out of it after he got back, but we haven't done too much of that lately. Every now and then I'll run into one of them, you know how it is.

Q: What's the story about the guy who took a couple of years to come out of it? Who was he?

A: You mean who is he. He's not dead or anything, so you don't have to talk about him like that. Do you know Jack Finley? Probably not. He's a younger guy. Three or four years after us, I think. He'd only have been a freshman when we graduated, at the earliest. Anyway, it was a pretty common story over there. He soldiered real well until he finally got his orders telling him when he'd be shipped back. Didn't want to go home, even ran off into the jungle and tried to hide. Threw away his dog tags and everything. That happened all the time. There were plenty of special details sent out to find soldiers who were like that. They weren't deserters. They just couldn't handle the idea of coming back.

Q: Why didn't they re-enlist?

A: It wasn't that simple. The Army still had a policy of stateside leave before your new hitch began. It sounded like they were being generous, but we always figured they did it so they could spot guys like Jack who couldn't handle going back. Most of the time too, they didn't know they'd react that way themselves until it came time to start the separation paperwork going, and by then they were already too far off the deep end.

Q: What happened after they'd be found?

A: The Army had a hospital at Thuc Lo that was supposed to be mainly for psychiatric cases like that. They'd try to counsel them, give them enough tranquilizers, and then fly them back together with a bunch of other guys who had the same problem, That must have been some plane ride, huh? Probably fifty guys at a time going rice crispies over landing on this side of the ocean. What a scene. Once they were back here, a lot of them snapped out pretty fast. Some didn't. There's supposed to be lots of guys in VA hospitals even now whose heads are still back in 1973 somewhere, It was about two years for Jack before he started coming around, but by now he's fine. I haven't seen him for awhile, but a few of us used to check in with him every now and then, just to see how he was doing. He works as a guard at a cannery now, a very responsible job.

Q: Did you know Dennis Reicher?

A: Sure. You sound stuck on the bad cases. Yeah, the only Yuba city guy to get it. That's an old story, Anybody can tell you. A local celebrity, I don't know any more about him than you've probably heard already if you bring up his name, As long as you're buying the beers, you can get your money's worth asking about something else, I figured more you'd be asking about your old girl friend You don't want to know what she's up to these days?

Q: Maybe later you can tell me about her, but that's not why I'm here.

A: Oh sure. What a bunch of bullshit. Just in town because of Michael Willetts. Couldn't care less about her, is that it? Real funny.

Q: Come on, Roger. Maybe I can ask you about Michael, since you mentioned him. Have you been friendly with him?

A: I get it. Anything to change the subject. OK, If you don't want to know, I'm not going to shoot my mouth off. You want to hear about Michael. I guess I've got a story or two. I didn't know him that well in school, no more than I knew you I'd say, just to hang out a little, maybe bomb around town in my car every now and then. So, once we all graduate, I don't see any of you that much. OK, the story moves up now to about three years ago, something like that. My wife and I are bowling one night, and who comes over to say hello but Michael Willetts, He's not bowling or anything, just out and about, he says. I thought later it seemed kind of funny. Like maybe he was looking for me. Anyway, he starts calling me up, wanting to do this or that. Sometimes I would, sometimes not. Nothing real big. Once I helped him put in an exhaust manifold, and another time he gives me a hand filling out my income tax, that sort of thing. Then one time, maybe this was a couple of months after that night at the bowling alley, he calls up and says we should go out and have some drinks. I never say no to a suggestion like that, and that night while we were drinking, he starts in on all this Vietnam stuff, about what a tough time it must have been, the usual, It was real funny because we had never talked about any of these things, and I didn't even know at the time about the trouble he'd gone through with the Draft Board, nothing at all about it, not until after these murders just lately. But back then too, I had a feeling, a strong feeling, that he was talking down to me, that he was after something he wasn't coming out and saying. Instead, he just went on about how tough vets had it. I was just kind of nodding, not getting too into it, but he kept going on. I remember it real clearly, it was so damn strange. I got the idea quick he was buttering me up for something, and if there's anything that gets my goat, it's somebody who won't come right out and say what's on their mind. I kept being real cool to that type of conversation, but it was still like an hour and a half before he finally gets the hint that I wasn't buying this line of bull. After that night, I didn't want to have any more to do with him, and for a time he kept calling, but one day he must have got the idea on that too, and then I never heard from him any more. Now here comes the part that makes this a little more wierd than it already is. Few months later I'm out with Jim Wentworth. You might not know him either. No you wouldn't. He moved into town from Live Oak some time back. Anyway, Jim's a vet too, and it seems he knows Michael Willetts through Michael having struck up a conversation with him once in a sporting goods store. I only find this out because this time Jim and I are together when we run into Michael, so I learn that Jim knows him too.

Q: What's so unusual about that?

A: Give me a second. Don't get so impatient. It turns out, so Jim tells me, he's been through the same kind of thing with Michael, only it took Jim a little longer to catch on than it did me. After being friendly for a time, Michael took a real interest in his Army experiences, asking him all kinds of questions.

Q: Did Jim tell you what kinds of questions?

A: Quit interrupting me. Hold your horses a little bit. I'm trying to tell you what I know. Jim told me they talked about lots of stuff, and he was kind of vague about it. I pressed him a little, since I was naturally interested because of how I saw through Michael right off. Jim said from what he remembered, Michael asked a lot about missions he'd been on, how many casualties there were, how different guys in Jim's platoon got it. They talked a few times, Jim said, about things like bombings, and about what a squad did when they went in to clear a village. Jim said Michael knew a lot already without Jim having to tell him, either he'd talked to other guys or read about it or something. Jim said he didn!t feel like he wasn't telling Michael anything he didn't know. Jim's a good guy, but he's not the brightest light bulb burning around here, if you get what I'm saying, but Jim said sooner or later he realized Michael was getting to be a broken record always asking about the war, and Jim drops him too. A funny coincidence, huh? Two local vets he gets buddy-buddy with, each time he tries to pump them for info. And this is only two we know about. You wouldn't want to bet he's pulled the same routine with other guys.

Q: Isn't it possible he was just interested in learning about your experiences?

A: It sounds like you're talking down to me too, either that or you're not as sharp as I thought you were. You're not going to tell me this smells a little funny considering what finally happens around here? You don't think it fits real neatly into how those guys got it? I haven't told any cops about this because I guess there's a real small maybe that says I'm making something out of nothing, but between you and me, you've gotta admit, you've gotta say Michael being friendly with vets and asking things like he did could look real bad for him.

Q: If what you're saying is true about how Michael acted, I could certainly see how it might be interpreted.

A: You're goddam right you could. When this first happened, there was plenty of talk that it must have been done by some crazed Vietnam vet, like out of some movie. I never believed that anyway, because of how it was pulled off. Michael fills the ticket a lot better, a guy who never went who thinks he can do the same things himself.

Q: What was it about "how it was pulled off" that you're talking about?

A: I'm talking about how the operation was handled. I'm thinking about it now the way he or whoever did it must have been thinking, you understand, strictly the logical side, as if it was a strike I was going on. First off, I do have to say there were some real smart moves in there. It was far from a totally stupid plan, don't get me wrong. And look, I guess you have to say it was successful, every primary target was hit. You've got to say all the apparent objectives were met. I'm not finding fault with it there at all, not one bit. You've certainly got the element of surprise, solid schedule organization, and care about revealing yourself, not letting the enemy see you until it's too late for them to do anything about it. All that's real fine, no problem there whatsoever. From a number of other standpoints however, the thing was so damn sloppy, any real soldier would be embarrassed to be part of it. For one, the guy was damn lucky. There were too many chance things that worked in his favor. In a real conflict, you could never allow for so many elements to fall into place on their own, not if you could control it. Take the guy who got booby-trapped out near the football field. Now a football field ain't no damn jungle. There's no way you ought to be able to hide one of those things properly. In Nam when you were out there the ground always had some kind of shit or other growing over it, either that or a lot of mud and slime every place. It just wasn't like the ground here, all hard and flat and dry. That's tOO big a chance to take in broad daylight, to figure that in the middle of an open field your target is going to follow the path you've set up for the kill. Also, if the intended victim has any military experience himself, he'll just naturally react to camouflaged ground by avoiding it. That's a gut instinct you never lose. no matter how much time passes. And those Draft Board guys were all vets, weren't they? That's how they got the job. And the worst fault is those traps were rarely fatal anyway. You could get poked up pretty bad, but even with some kind of poison on the end of the poles or dipping them in shit, they were more a nuisance and a delay when you were trying to travel than any kind of casualty threat. So, that's a lot of things that could go wrong in just that one case. Now it did go all his way, but if you're talking about planning, that's a very sloppy way to make sure you'll get your man. I don't want to go through every part of those killings one by one, but you should see what I mean. Whether it worked or not, even a guy like me might have done a more thorough job of it.

Q: What would you have done differently?

A: Well, I could talk about that for hours and there'd be no real point to it. But for one thing, say I wanted to take out a guy in that field, without my having to be there when it happens, which looks like the point of the booby-trap. That's a real easy mine situation. You could rig up something simple. We used to do it all the time. You set it up with either a pressure plate trip or if you can cover it, a cord stretched a couple of inches off the ground would do the job nicely.

Q: Suppose the killer couldn't get his hands on that kind of equipment?

A: If you look at the other things he got hold of, the grenades and flame throwers and everything, a little ol' land mine should have been easy. No, it's more likely he just plain wanted to have one casualty the result of getting it with those poles, as if he preferred having one to be real crude and basic, more like the way gooks would have done it. He was trying to brag a little with that one, probably. Definitely a twisted mind.

Q: Why do you smile when you say that?

A: Because he's twisted the same way we were over there. Finding different ways to kill just to keep from getting bored. It's so twisted it's back around to normal again.

Q: You mentioned all the kinds of equipment. Do you think an average person would know how to use them? I doubt if I could pick up a flame-thrower or napalm unit or whatever it was and know what to do with it.

A: Aw, it wouldn't be that tough, if you were able to get hold of the stuff in the first place. Most of it guys with third grade educations could operate OX, since lots of times that's the kind of guys who were operating them. Army weapons are generally idiot-proof. Usually you point things and pull triggers. Of course it wouldn't hurt to have experienced people operating them, but it wouldn't be entirely necessary. At least I don't think so. Even a lot of the electronic gear that I worked with, as long as it was functioning properly, you didn't need that much Smarts out in the field to deploy them. I guess the obvious exception in this case would be the airplane. Also, unless it's a fighter plane, which none of the descriptions I've read in the paper or heard made it sound like, there must have been a couple of people up there. Fighter planes, see, would have pilot-operated armaments, so one guy could flA and shoot. In Nam, the only planes like that were jets, and those were mostly for plane-to-plane combat employing small rocket-missiles, not plane-to-ground strafings. For that, if they had to do low-level selective firing, they'd be much more likely to use helicopters. There haven't been propellor fighter planes since the World War II P-38's, so either this was a very old plane from who-knows-where, or more likely, there were two guys up in some kind of conventional plane, something like a crop duster, one guy to fly and the other to shoot. That scheme doesn't fit either.

Q: What do you mean "fit"?

A: Well, the main thing about these killings looks to be that all the deaths resembled Nam-style casualties, the equipment, the methods, everything. Over there, nobody got killed the way this guy did. It's not playing by the rules. Also, if there were two guys up there, only one of them could have been Michael, and everybody's saying he did it by himself. And even if it was two guys, visibility for the guy firing would be really limited. He'd be leaning over one side of the plane, firing a weapon that probably wasn't mounted, so that makes your chances of accuracy pretty low.

Q: Do you think Michael knew how to fly a plane?

A: I have no idea. The plane killing was the trickiest of the bunch, no doubt about it. To pick off one guy when others were standing right near by, that's a hell of a job, very fancy maneuvering. You've gotta fly in there real low and also be going slow enough to fire dead on. You sure wouldn't ordinarily do that to single out one target. It would be the safe way to strafe some whole group, just to disperse them and wipe out as many as you could in a hurry. That's what makes this particular one crazy. It took so much skill to pull off, but it was a dumb way to do it in the first place. There's plenty of methods they didn't use in any of the five killings that could have worked pretty easily here. There were no knives or bayonets involved in any of the five, for instance. After grenades, that was probably the most common form of killing over there, if you're talking about personal combat, not counting bombing, I mean. If he wanted to, he could also have tried something with chemical defoliants. A couple of these guys owned farm land, that might have been a way to do it. Like I said, I'm not that imaginative a guy, but I think I'd have done a couple of numbers better than these if I worked on it a little. All I'm saying is the way these were done doesn't look as impressive to me as to some people. It is true, he was good at getting them all within so short a time, and he did take care of every one of the five, but after that, there's not much to brag about. It wasn't efficient enough, not by a long shot. It was a big show, like that Deerhunter movie.

Q: What do you mean?

A; That Russian roulette thing. I never heard of that happening, but when I saw the movie, that's sort of the way it felt. It didn't matter if it was true or not. If I really stop and think what I went through over there, it was definitely a hell hole I would like never to go back to, even if I got through it all right. When I saw people at that movie getting sick over what they were watching, that felt exactly right. The same with these murders.. Even the way they were sloppy and could have been screwed up, it was like being back there again. If it was Michael who was the perpetrator, then for that I've got to hand it to him. However the fuck he did it, he brought Vietnam to Yuba City. And I think that's all I want to say about this stuff.