‘Green’ Writer Tackles Vietnam in 1st Battle in Publishing Trenches

If you want psychological insights, moral ambiguity or an interwoven tale of politics and warfare, look elsewhere.

However, if you want a “Mission Impossible”-style page-turner where the American fighting men are the good guys (their brows never creased by doubt), then the “true-life” novel “Men in Green Faces” (St. Martin’s Press) might be for you.

It’s the just-published work of San Diegans Gene Wentz and Betty Abell Jurus.

Jurus is a writer and a director of the San Diego-based Southern California Writers Conference. Wentz is a former SEAL who received the Silver Star and Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

Since leaving the Navy in 1978, he’s been a bodyguard, a private investigator and a letter carrier until he got attacked by a dog in 1987.

Wentz, 42, says he’s had the story of “Men in Green Faces” bottled up inside him since he returned from his second combat tour in Vietnam in 1971.

Wentz has little use for “Rogue Warrior,” by ex-SEAL Richard Marcinko, a decidedly more raunchy and kill-crazy view of the SEALs and Vietnam.

Wentz dismisses Marcinko: “He forgot the word team. He made it sound like he was the father of ‘security penetration.’ He was not.”

“Men in Green Faces” is the story of one Gene Michaels, a devout SEAL who leads a commando group into the jungle to eliminate a North Vietnamese Army colonel who has been terrorizing villages.

In the final battle, it’s seven SEALs versus 5,000 NVA regulars. The NVA regulars are outnumbered.

A review in Kirkus Reviews, no pushover in the book reviewing dodge, allowed that Wentz and Jurus “successfully re-create the manic intensity that characterized SEAL operations at their height during the Vietnam War. . . . All war, no politics. Grim but well done.”

Wentz makes no apologies for the no-politics approach:

“The people serving in Vietnam had nothing to do with politics. They were just following orders, doing a job.”

As I said, if that kind of thinking makes you uneasy, “Men in Green Faces” probably isn’t for you.

Crime and Punishment

Inside the system.

* Anything you say can and will be held. . . .

A San Diego cop gets a late night 911 call and speeds over to a computer store where a man is holding a gun on another man.

“Don’t worry, I’m a security guard,” says the man with the gun.

“Then who are you?” the cop asks the other guy.

“I’m the burglar,” he answers.

* A Vista woman with a drug conviction and a penchant for associating with motorcycle gangs is busted for allegedly selling methamphetamine.

In court, the judge notices that her prior conviction requires her to submit to urine testing for drugs. He orders a test conducted forthwith.

The woman protests loudly.

When the judge won’t budge, the women empties her bladder right there in open court, leaving soggy clothes and a puddle on the floor but not enough for a test.

But it doesn’t pay to irritate a judge. He orders her to jail, where Dixie cups await.

* A defendant accused of stealing musical instruments from the Poway school district explains to a San Diego judge why she wants a trial, not just a plea:

“I’m planning a career in law enforcement.”

Road Signs

On the road to wisdom.

* Rolling mid-life crisis.

License plate on a fire-engine red Toyota MR2 (the sporty model) in the fast lane of Interstate 5 near Del Mar: 4ME40TH.

* Spotted by Stuart Glassman of Rancho Bernardo, a bumper sticker on a Subaru: “When I Grow Up I Want to Be A Limo.”

* Ron Harper of Fallbrook saw a bumper sticker on I-15: “Sorry, My Karma Just Ran Over Your Dogma.”

Bumper sticker: “National Horse Stall Cleaning Week: Jan. 1 to Dec. 31.”

Seen on a pickup truck in El Cajon, naturally.

* Spotted being towed down I-805: A sailboat with the name on the stern, “Shut Up And Drive.”