What life was really like in the Green Machine.The Recruiter forgot to tell you what?Living a life of poverty and desperation I took a chance and did what so many of my peers did: joined the Marines just as Vietnam was heating up.I fully expected to make a career of the Marines but was soon faced with unbelievable sadism, arrogance, incompetence and outright brutality. The Marine Corps I had hoped to love proved to be an organization run in an authoritarian, "Because I said so" manner, not at all like I had envisioned. If you were a suck up you were promoted; should you question the obvious it was either Mess Duty or lack of promotion or worse, Vietnam. Such is my story.There were characters that came in and out of my life like actors in a Woody Allen movie: W.B. from Pittsburg, "Born to lead, not to be led so don't be mis-led." Disappeared one day and never returned. There was the drug smoking Pitt who, while on guard duty in Vietnam, decided to get high and leave a Chu Lai New Guy high and dry at an outpost.Thieves, liars, drug addicts and more pulled at my heart strings until I made the ultimate decision.I endured four years of indifferent and sadistic leadership coupled with the absurdities of an organization that rewards group think and obedience over individuality and integrity.

Gary Winstead, the youngest of eleven children, was born in 1948 and grew up in Pontiac, Illinois, an obscure farm town in the middle of the Illinois Farm Belt. At the age of eighteen, he joined the United States Marine Corps and served for four years, rising to the rank of Corporal (E-4), before earning his honourable discharge. He went on to receive a bachelor's degree in physical education, a Master's in educational administration from California State University, Fullerton, and a PhD in Veterinary Science. Gary is the award-winning director of a short film adapted from his story The Pony No-one Could Ride which appeared in Volume 1 of the Crimson Cloak Anthologies, Glodwyn's Treasure Chest, and Frogmore International, based on his story of that name in Volume 4, Consuming Tales.He lives in California.