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May 19 , 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels March 26, 2004 Downtown War and reporting make for a full life Andrew Scot Bolsinger Growing up for Brad Knickerbocker meant trading in his A-4 attack aircraft for a typewriter he didn't know how to operate. "I had to decide what I was going to do when I grew up," Knickerbocker recalls. "It felt like I was beginning adulthood." He laughs at the irony that a married pilot with 91 combat missions flying a technological marvel amid hostile fire at a speed of 500 knots was just beginning to see life through the eyes of adult. But trading his trigger finger for typing lessons was the start of yet another interesting chapter in the life of the now Ashland-based Christian Science Monitor senior reporter. Life in 'Nam Like many newsmen who spend their lives reporting history, Knickerbocker describes his life in relation to familiar world events. He went to a small liberal arts college in upstate New York and graduated just as President Lyndon B. Johnson was sending many more American men to the jungle of Vietnam. "I wasn't married and I wasn't going to graduate school and I had nothing else that would keep me out," Knickerbocker says. So, trying to find some control over a situation that for all American young men was hopelessly out of control, he enlisted in the Navy and headed off to Officers Candidate School. Once he graduated from OCS, they asked him what he wanted to do. "I didn't know I had a choice. So I just said, 'I'd like to fly. What not?' "Just like that movie 'Officer and a Gentleman,'" he says with a chuckle. He was going to "get Jets," as Richard Gere and Deborah Winger said often in the 1980s film. The next 18 months or so were spent learning to fly. "I got my wings, then was assigned to an attack squadron," he says simply, with a matter-of-fact style that doesn't change much whether he is talking about the love of his life, Carol, covering President Ronald Reagan in Washington, D.C., or "punching out" of a crashing aircraft at speeds humans rarely travel. It's a trait he learned in the military. During crisis, "you're very pragmatic," he says. "You focus on what you have to do. You don't freak out." The moment of truth comes: "It's going to crash." Then you eject. Just like that. Knickerbocker spent his first tour of duty - "cruises" as the Navy calls them - assigned to the USS Saratoga in the Mediterranean. His ship arrived just as the Six-Day War broke out in Israel. "We didn't know what the heck was going on," he said "All we knew was a U.S. intelligence ship was under attack, as it turns out by our allies, not our enemies, of all things." They deployed, not knowing who or what to bomb. Thankfully, he said, they never engaged. The war was over "just like that." The rest of that "cruise" was spent, "keeping an eye on the Russians while they kept an eye on us. Typical Cold War stuff." Knickerbocker returned to the states, met and married Carol. The couple has one son, a doctoral candidate at the University of Oregon. The first few months of marriage were spent in 1968 "knowing that we were going to Vietnam," he says, again matter-of-factly. Cruise number two was aboard the USS Coral Sea, an aircraft carrier headed to 'Nam. Duty was 91 bombing missions in less than a year - most coming through Laos, looking for materials, troops and trucks on the Ho Chi Min Trail to attack. Looking is a figurative term. Traveling at a speed of 500 knots, often at night, through dense jungle, "you can't see anything," he said. You just fire at what you're told to fire at." Combat was combat. He summarizes it without fanfare. He was shot at "regularly enough," he says ... quickly noting that two of his roommates were shot down and killed. At the end of every mission came the landing. "Landing on the carrier was the most stressful part," he said. Life after war Knickerbocker finished his six-year stint in the military as a flight instructor, which included his "punch out" episode over the Sierra Nevadas. Once discharged, he and Carol decided to take some time off and head to Europe. They used their meager savings to buy a Volkswagen van, and spent the next eight months, including "a brutal winter," traveling all throughout Europe, living in the van. They kept in touch with the world around them, and for the first time Knickerbocker began to consider his role in Vietnam. He joined the same organization that now-presidential-candidate John Kerry joined in opposition to the war. He came back to the states and was surprised to learn that "thousands of Vietnam veterans who felt the same way I did. 'Man, this was stupid, and what was my role in it?'" The activism didn't last long however. "You can't be an activist and a reporter," he says. So the protest became silent and the resumes hit the mailbox. It was time to grow up, he says, fully aware of the irony of the statement. "I sent out resumes that read something like, 'I fly attack bombers, and I want to work for you as a journalist,'" he says, laughing. He applied to about 75 papers, got three interviews and one job at the Democrat Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y. Again pragmatic. "That was fine, I just needed one job." The only problem: "I didn't even know how to type," he says. He learned by writing stories, as many as three a day on anything that was happening in the city, like dog shows and city council meetings. Just under two years later, in 1972, he was hired by the Christian Science Monitor covering Boston City Hall. "The characters were amazing," he said. "It was either four Irishmen and five Italians on [the council], or the other way around." Next came a move to the San Francisco bureau. There, he first became interested in environmental issues that now are a main staple of his writing. He also did a huge series on then-presidential-candidate Ronald Reagan. He met the family, Reagan's brother ("the most interesting guy in the family"), Reagan and key political figures in California, including Pat and Jerry Brown. After Reagan was elected, he followed him to Washington, D.C. Soon he was assigned to cover the Pentagon just a short time before the National Security Council, a la Oliver North, John Poindexter, et al., were about to shift dramatically into the spotlight. The Pentagon beat was a perfect fit for a Vietnam vet. "As soon as they'd learn that, the conversation would go to another level." He admittedly "spoke the language." It's a language of war that unites people above the other lines that divide them. Knickerbocker points to current rumors of a Kerry and John McCain ticket, despite the two men serving for opposite political parties. It doesn't surprise Knickerbocker. "Those guys connect at a very basic level," he says. "They don't have to talk about it." The next turn New assignments took the Knickerbockers back for a second stint in Boston. Finally, as their son hit 8th grade, the couple starting thinking about settling down. "We wanted a different kind of life," he said. Carol, being a native of Klamath Falls, liked the West Coast. Brad agreed. They moved to Ashland in 1989. He began covering environmental issues, the changing face of "old economies" like logging, mining and ranching. Still life didn't slow down all that much. Following 9/11, Knickerbocker was sent back to Washington three times in the ensuing two years to cover national security issues. And so the story continues. For a journalist, there is always another story. Even for a man with so many stories already told. Andrew Scot Bolsinger is the editor of the Daily Tidings. Contact him at abolsinger@ dailytidings.com or 482-3456, ext. 3025. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams