Vietnam deserter readjusting to civilian life

[thedrifter]

Article published Jan 24, 2006
Vietnam deserter readjusting to civilian life
Greensboro News-Record

RALEIGH (AP) — Jerry Texiero's last official military duty was to complete a course on something he had mastered more than 40 years ago — leaving the Marine Corps.

After dropping desertion charges against Texiero, accused of fleeing Camp Pendleton, Calif., in 1965 to avoid serving in Vietnam, the military made the 65-year-old go through discharge procedures that included a class on adjusting to civilian life.

"They do this with everybody that's leaving," said Texiero, who was released from Camp Lejeune last week and back home in Tarpon Springs, Fla., where he had lived for years under an alias as a boat salesman.

"They go into how to dress when you leave the military. They tell you how the civilian world is completely different," he said Tuesday. "The instructor pulled me aside and said just go along with everything."

Texiero's fiancee, Elaine Smith, said military officials didn't seem to share her sense of humor when she offered an obvious joke: "I told them he already knew how to leave."

A military team that tracks down deserters caught up with Texiero last August through a fingerprint match. Texiero, using the name Gerome Conti, was serving 20 years' probation after pleading no contest to charges he defrauded the owners of classic cars he sold in the mid-1990s.

Texiero was held in a Florida jail until he was transferred to Camp Lejeune in mid December. Military officials declined to say why they decided to drop the charges, which carried a possible penalty of three years in prison.

Texiero contends he left the Marines because he was disturbed by stories of war atrocities in the Vietnam War. Raised in foster homes, Texiero said he joined the Marines not looking for war, but instead "for another home."

In the military prison, Texiero was assigned to work in the kitchen and ordered by guards to teach his fellow inmates how to properly make beds with tightly tucked sheets. He also lost 30 pounds, a drop he attributed to regular activity, spartan conditions, and 4 a.m. wakeup calls. Kitchen duty started with breakfast and went through supper, every other day.

"You're on your feet all that time," Texiero said. "That's why my legs were swelling up.

"They tried to make me a Marine. I'm a little long in the tooth to do that stuff. You have to address them by their rank and with my eyes I couldn't see the insignia."

On the weekends, he visited Smith, who stayed on base for about a month determined not to leave without Texiero. She also met with then-base commander Maj. Gen. Robert Dickerson about Texiero and went daily to see his assigned military lawyer.

Now that he's back home, Texiero said he is resting and looking forward to visiting his 85-year-old mother and other relatives in California. He thought she was dead, but Smith found a telephone number for the woman while doing online research and called her before Texiero left prison. She said the mother had seen her son on television.

"The day Jerry got out of the brig, I kept my promise to her and had Jerry call her," Smith said. "She just started giggling."

Ellie

[outlaw3179]

awwwww....what a heartwarming story ....they should make a movie about this guy and put it right next to brokeback mountain on the movie shelf.

[thedrifter]

I think someone is sugarcoating their opinion...

I feel they should be in jail..

Ellie

[rb1651]

Why don't the Feds go after him? He's been living under a false name, so how is it he's paying his taxes? Lock his a** up until an investigation is completed, and if he's filed false returns, throw away the key! Just a thought....