Dedication
Digger, Dogface, Brownjob, Grunt is a tribute to the author’s dearest friends. They are Gary Prisk’s reason—his brag—the chorus he listens to. His father—”The Major.” His Mother—”The Major’s” sweetheart. His brother Court—a man brave enough to fight the war twice. A farm girl—Linda his bride. His little girl, Kimberly—the Platoon’s baby girl. His son, Karl, a young man. And the men he fought with as Platoon Leader of First Platoon, Charlie Company, Second Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry as Platoon Leader of First Platoon, Delta Company as Company Commander and XO of Delta Company and as Company Commander of Charlie Company, Second Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry.
Never out of step, his friends watched with a single eye, a parade-ground eye, while Gary Prisk fit the crosswords into form for war and love and death. Reflecting his father’s honor, the words in this raw, gritty, fast moving novel—Digger, Dogface, Brownjob, Grunt—these words were rubbed into water-worn stones, then sand casted with his father’s memories. D-Day and Normandy the Falaise Gap the bridge at Arnhem the Battle of the Bulge the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen.
His Bride:
Upon completion of this book, Linda, Gary Prisk’s sweetheart, had just one comment. “Knowing something about the English language would have been a bonus.”
A soldier takes his sweetheart with him when he goes to war. Married or not, a soldier has a picture of the girl he is in love with. For Sweet Cheeks it was a picture of his ’56 Chevy. For the author it was a picture of Linda.
Linda grew up on a ranch near Lynden, Washington watching cows get older. When she joined the Army ROTC Women’s Auxiliary at the University of Washington she met Gary Prisk. They got married three years later and it has been an interesting ride ever sense.
Linda has nurtured her soldier back from combat.
The Platoon’s Baby Girl:
Kimberly was born on May 16, 1968, she was the subject of a clatter of betting pools—date of birth, weight, sex, and how long it would take the Red Cross to find the author to give him the news, 19 days.
Kimberly met her father in Hawaii on R&R with heat rash and a determined nature. A pistol in every regard, Kimberly is the mother of four boys: Lewis, Baxter, Edward, and Brian.
His Son:
Karl is a carpenter—a home builder really. The subject of many years of his dad’s coaching baseball mostly, Karl loves a good game. He also knows two important facts: One—if he’s looking for sympathy it’s in the dictionary between shit and syphilis; Two—life is short.
His brother Court:
The Major’s first son, Court was enrolled at West Point before he realized he was in the Army. A remarkable man, he stood his post when most men would have run. A paratrooper to his core, he was part of the first HALO Team to jump into a war zone, Laos, and commanded an artillery battery with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam in 1966.
See Court’s Bio of places he lived with “The Major.” View Court’s Military Time Capsule. Operation into War Zone D, Late September 1966.
The Boys from Philadelphia’s Thomas Edison High:
Sixty-plus young boys from Thomas Edison High lost their lives in Vietnam—in a war that wasn’t a war their lives wasted.
Porfirio Samuel Salano:
A man no one should forget, Sam was killed in an ambush eight days before his twelve months was up—one of 1,012 men from the 173rd Airborne Brigade who lost their lives during the two bloodiest years of Vietnam’s war, 1967 and 1968.
