After we had finished the crash course in Russian and just before we were shipped back to Ft. Devens, we were treated to a weapons display at nearby Ft. Ord. We saw all kinds of weapons, Russian, Chinese, British, Japanese. We were allowed to touch them, to hold them, to familiarize ourselves with them. Finally we came to this one rifle that I happened to pick up. I could hardly believe how heavy and clumsy it was. It was then that I was almost killed by the Master Sergeant guide who thought I was being a wise ass. All I did was ask a simple question, "What’s this?" The rifle was the M-1. The same one I had with me all through basic training. The same one I had to be able to take apart blindfolded and put back together. In less than a year I had forgotten something I had been using every day for six weeks.

I didn’t understand it then. I do understand it better now. Six weeks of intensive learning is not necessarily enough to lock knowledge into a dyslexic’s mind. I know because I worked with one dyslexic intensively for six weeks. He lived, ate, slept, and studied at the AVKO Reading Clinic. His reading level soared from the 4th grade level to the 9th grade level. His reading speed on easy reading went from 40 words per minute up to 120 words per minute. When he returned home to Texas, I gave his parents a detailed prescription on how to continue the AVKO program at home. Unfortunately, his parents failed to incorporate the tutoring program into their busy daily routines. Within six months all his gains had been lost just like my knowledge of the M-1 had been lost. With dyslexics the "use it or lose it" concept really applies.

My next stop was the Voice Intercept School at Ft. Devens. It was hush-hush. We weren’t supposed to tell anybody anything about what we were studying. Top Secret. Here we studied how to work with short-wave radios, tape recorders, and tell the difference between commercial Russian radio traffic and military Russian radio traffic.

We weren’t allowed to take anything into or out of the building where we studied. The competition was intense. One student sneaked some material out to study. He was caught, court-martialed, and given a dishonorable discharge. So much for the study ethic.

Our class was told that half of us would be sent to Europe and half to Japan. Whoever scored the highest would get first choice. Whoever scored second highest would get second choice, and so on until all the Europe or Japan choices were taken. Those on the bottom would have no choice.

The way the school determined passing or failing was by an arbitrary score of let’s say 750 points out of a possible 1,000. I don’t remember exactly. But I did know that I had already posted forty more points than the minimum for passing. All a perfect 100% would do for me would raise my passing score. I had already passed. I didn’t know which choice would have been better for me. We weren’t told where in Europe we would be assigned. We knew nothing about the working conditions of the different types of jobs our training had prepared us for. So I did what many dyslexics might do. Nothing. I put my name on the test answer sheet with the comment. "I’ve already passed this course. I don’t care to compete over where I’m going."

So, for the first time in my life, I graduated from a school dead last. My assignment: Japan. Looking back on my rather bizarre behavior, I now realize something else might have been operating in the background. I had just quit smoking cold turkey. At that point I was smoking a pack and a half a day. The way and the why of my quitting smoking is a little peculiar but revealing. I woke up one morning during my last week of school at Ft. Devens, sat up in bed, reached for a cigarette and then started my hacking and coughing up a bit of phlegm. A thought flashed through my head: I really ought to quit. Then another contradictory thought hit me: I can’t quit. I just bought two cartons of cigarettes and a new cigarette lighter!

If that last thought makes sense to you, then you don’t understand how logical most dyslexics are. I suddenly became angry at myself for being so terribly illogical. Quitting smoking was logical. That hideous, insidious and perverted rationalization of saving money by continuing to smoke got to me. I was so angry with myself for even allowing that irrational thought to enter my mind, I immediately gave away both cartons of cigarettes and my lighter.

About the only thing relating to dyslexia that took place on the troop ship to Japan had to do with seasickness and the concept of expectations. Nearly every soldier on board got seasick. They expected to. And they did. There were only fourteen of us specially assigned Army Security Agency personnel on board. We all knew that seasickness had to be more psychological than anything else and we weren’t going to get sick. Well, one of us wasn’t so sure. He brought along and took his Dramamine. He used drugs. Thirteen of us decided to enjoy the rocking motion and have a positive outlook. It worked. Only once did I come close to vomiting. That was in chow line. The private behind me puked over my shoulder and filled my tray with his vomit. The cooks were understanding. They allowed me to get a new tray and start through the chow line again.

The fourteen of us went to a processing camp outside of Yokohama. From there we were to be assigned. The ASA headquarters in Tokyo got first choice. So I didn’t go there. The ASA base in Hokkaido, the Japanese version of Siberia, got second choice. So I didn’t go there either. The bottom of the class is the last to be picked.

I got stuck with being stationed just outside the only city in Japan to be spared in World War II, Kyoto, the most beautiful city in Japan. How lucky can a dyslexic graduating at the bottom of his class get!

The next two years were undoubtedly the most enjoyable years of my life. At our base our section worked twenty-four hours a day. To do this we had four shifts but only three working on any one day. For example, my shift might start working six days (8 AM to 4 PM) and then get two days off. Then we would work six days (4 PM to 12 Midnight) and then get two days off. Then we would work six days (Midnight to 8 AM) and then have another two days off before repeating the cycle. But because my section was so overstaffed we usually had two days off each six working days. That amounted to four days of work and four days off. So when I took leaves I only took four day leaves on the four days I was scheduled to work. If I timed my leave just right, I could get 12 consecutive days off for the price of just four days of leave time. And I used up all my leave time while in Japan!

For the first time in my life I kept a journal. So many things were happening around me. And for the first time in my life I really began to educate myself. Up until this point, I hadn’t really been close to any truly educated and intelligent people. There is a difference. Despite my Ph.B. and my majors in literature and philosophy at U. of D, I was out of my league. Some of my best buddies would in casual conversations drop names such as John Dewey, Alfred North Whitehead, Immanuel Kant, and Bertrand Russell, just as easily as basketball fans can drop names like Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, and Isiah Thomas.

When I wasn’t working, playing chess or bridge, teaching English to Japanese English teachers at the American Cultural Center, visiting the bars, or playing the tourist, I was reading. Never before or since have I read so many books. Never before or since was I so determined to build my vocabulary, to make sure I could understand everything someone was talking about, to make sure I could understand what I was reading. I hadn’t realized until then that I had been in the habit of just blipping over words that I really didn’t know and not really knowing that I didn’t know them.

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of knowing what it is you don’t know.

If you don’t know that you don’t know, you can’t begin to learn.

This, I’m afraid, is the case of all the biggest names in education today. They know a great deal. They’re not dumb. They’re well educated. They keep up with each other’s work. But they don’t know what it is that they should know. Anybody’s work that is outside their own closed circle, the big names choose to ignore. For example, why should they read this book? They already know all they need to know about dyslexia and teaching children to read. They won’t read it unless they are paid to review it. At a book exhibit, they walk right by. Nose in the air. If they don’t stop, if they don’t look, and if they don’t ask questions, they don’t run the risk of letting people know that there might possibly be something they don’t know.

So many things happened to me while I was in Japan, that I could (and did) write a book about them.

Remember how I quit smoking? Cold turkey. Strong stubborn streak. But I liked to smoke. I liked to be sociable. The Japanese loved American cigarettes. So dumb me, after a year without a cigarette, thought I could smoke sociably. Uh huh. And the Pope is a Baptist who likes to hunt penguins in the Sahara. Sure. So, I started carrying cigarettes with me. They were only 15¢ a pack back then. I could afford that. And sure enough, I got hooked again. It didn’t take me long to start smoking two to three packs a day. A man of moderation in all things. Uh huh.

But not only did I learn history, literature, and philosophy by reading when I was in Japan, I also got the opportunity to study Russian. After about a year, one department euphemistically called Traffic Analysis needed an extra body. Our Voice Intercept was still overstaffed. And I was the lowest on seniority so I got transferred. What I saw was an incredible waste of time and money. Everybody in that section drank coffee, smoked cigarettes, wandered from desk to desk with papers in their hands, and shot the shit. By three o’clock they had an hour to go, and they got their work done. Everybody was ready to go at 4:00. I was shown what I had to do. After I mastered the intricacies of the job, I decided enough was enough. I wanted out and back to my Voice Intercept job with my friends. What I did was simple. I did my work. I did my work in forty-five minutes. Then, I sat at my desk studying my Russian. There wasn’t much they could do. I got called on the carpet, of course. The officer in charge of the section accused me of reading instead of working. I corrected him. I said I was studying. The subject I was studying was my primary Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). I told him I should be commended for my ability to do my work and for improving my MOS skills by studying instead of wasting time with frivolous conversation, as the others in the section were doing. He didn’t like my attitude at all. I wasn’t a team player. He threatened to assign me to a different daily traffic analysis report. I told him fine. I could handle that. I told him there wasn’t a job in the traffic analysis section that would take me over an hour to complete.

He sputtered, fumed, and dismissed me. He must have known that he was in somewhat of a bind. He could have tried to have me face some kind of kangaroo court-martial. But he also knew I was his superior officer’s favorite duplicate bridge partner. I played duplicate bridge with the C.O. at the Officer’s Club at Camp Otsu. Because I always wore civilian clothes and because officers weren’t supposed to fraternize with enlisted men, I was always introduced as being a civilian from the National Security Agency (NSA) staff that was on our base.

I don’t know if the solution to the problem was his, a group decision, or the commander’s decision. At any rate, I was sent back to my regular section on the pretext I was incompetent. For them to have properly made use of me, I would have to attend a special school. So by being supercompetent where I didn’t want to work, I got kicked back to where I wanted to be. I wonder if Professor Peter would have approved?

Being a volunteer teaching English in English to Japanese college students and Japanese teachers of English was an incredible experience. Twice a week I went down to the American Cultural Center and taught. I made a number of good friends and learned a great deal about Japanese culture and traditions. I also learned that when English is taught as a second language by someone whose native tongue is not English, the students rarely learn to understand spoken English. It took me a while to figure it out. Basically it’s the same reason why so many American students misspell the following phrases:

Correct spelling: Typical misspelling

supposed to sposta

used to usta

have to hafta

should have should of

what did you what you (whud juh)

When teaching English in English to Japanese English teachers and college students, I spoke in my normal American speech patterns and rhythms. I   DID     NOT    SPEAK    SLOW    LEE    AN’Duh   CARE   FULL    LEE    EEE    NUN    SEE    ATE    EACH    WORD.  Instead, I just spoke normally. This they wanted. They wanted to be able to understand Americans when they spoke.

But very often I would have to translate. For example, one day I started class by saying in my normal fast but sloppy mid-western speech,

"Whudduhyuh wanna cover today?"

I got blank stares. So I wrote it out on the board: What do you want to cover today?

I underlined What do you and said "Whudduhyuh." Then I broke it down "What" is slurred into "whuh" and "do" is slurred into "duh" and "you" becomes "yuh." Whudduhyuh means What do you. Want to becomes wanna. They all knew the meaning of the word cover. But they didn’t want to put something on top of another thing. They wanted to learn English. So I "covered" the idiom cover.

Another time a student was puzzled by the word affection. It didn’t make any sense in the sentence to him. So I started to explain what affection meant.

"No! No! It can’t mean that!" said one of the teachers of English from Doshisho University. "Affection means disease."

I quietly but firmly contradicted him with "I think you’re confusing the word affection with the word infection." .

Out came the pocket dictionaries. The whole class was gibbering away in Japanese. And then one after another they tried to point out to me that I was wrong. Unfortunately, I couldn’t read Japanese. I had to take their word for it that their dictionaries defined affection as disease.

Knowing I was right, I simply stated that even dictionaries can make mistakes. This they couldn’t accept. So, away to the huge unabridged American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language I flew.

I read and explained the definitions. But then I saw an entry that blew away my mind. There is a medical definition. Affection does mean disease! That part of the body affected by the disease is the affection!

All I could tell them was that the writer of their pocket sized English/Japanese dictionary must have picked what he thought was the most logical definition and ignored all the others. As a result he happened to hit upon a definition used only by the medical profession. Even then, most doctors and nurses of my acquaintance told me that they had forgotten that medical definition of affection when I told them this story.

Later on I was to draw upon these experiences in Japan to develop a method of teaching American students how to translate their speech, their "Ah wanna’s," "Ah gotcha’s," "Yor gonna’s," "We hafta’s," and "He sposta’s" into the correct written English equivalents of "I want to...," "I got you...," "You are (or You’re) going to...," "We have to...," and "He is (or He’s) supposed to..."