"The skid marks are still there," says James Bundgaard, squinting into the sun and, unmistakably, smiling a bit proudly. Well, he's right: Telltale black marks snake across Porter Street, blemish the 8-inch curb, and then disappear where the sidewalk disappears.
Dry dirt spotted with drier grass gives way to a dramatic, weed-choked incline leading to a public housing project and a playground. This is a serious incline here. It's the sort of hill one would expect to see a troop of robed horsemen thunder down in a National Geographic documentary about the incredibly dangerous pastimes of robed horsemen. But, here in San Francisco, it wasn't a horse that tumbled down this hill.
Your humble narrator surveys the skid marks, the hill, and the playground at the bottom of this cliff. "Well holy shit, James."
Now he's really beaming. "Everyone says that."
A contractor and ship's engineer by trade, Bundgaard served 37 years in the Army reserve, retiring in 2005 as a chief warrant officer-4. He can tell you a lot about a lot. Especially when it comes to his 1943 G-503 model GPW quarter-ton Ford Army Reconnaissance Truck. What he can't tell you, however, is why that truck several years ago began rolling backwards down Porter Street, hopped that 8-inch curb, then — after four sickening, slow-motion, sideways rolls — found itself resting in a puddle of gasoline hundreds of feet below in the shadow of a play structure.
"The wheels were curbed," he insists.
Bundgaard enjoys teaching people lessons, most especially about the military and its accoutrements. On that day, he did not disappoint. Any number of police officers told him, in so many words, that if he thought he could manage to drive his vehicle away after a smackup like that, then he's crazy.
Well, maybe so. But Bundgaard did indeed motor off in the Ford Army Reconnaissance Truck (a designation that shouldn't be shortened to its acronym). "Of course I could do it! They didn't make them then the way they do now," he says. "And they were all amazed. Amazed!"
Bundgaard is a self-professed "high-speed, low-drag person." He's also relentlessly upbeat. So, if you're going to have a pristine piece of World War II hardware go hurdling over a cliff, best it's your smallest one. For all of you who've traveled through Bernal Heights and done a double-take at the sight of a hulking green military transport vehicle — that one is Bundgaard's too.
"My truck is somewhat unique," he says, seemingly oblivious to the inherently unique nature of a bus-sized military vehicle looming around Bernal. It's a 1941 G-4112 1.5-ton Chevrolet cargo and personnel truck. It's unique because Chevy, rushed into war like the rest of the United States in '41, still embossed the vehicle with the company logo in a manner ill-befitting a regulation military truck.
Also, it's parked in Bernal Heights.
If that one had gone over the hill, it would not have gone well. And more than meets the eye would have been lost. Bundgaard's pride and joy is secured in the back. That would be "Camp Patriot."
On the day your humble narrator met with Bundgaard, he was wearing military-style khaki tops and bottoms with what appeared to be a dungaree khaki tie tucked into his shirt. A khaki pith helmet emblazoned with a silver eagle insignia completed the ensemble.
Bundgaard is an aficionado of "living history," in which said aficionados don period attire and handle period props to impart to an audience how it was to live in a certain period. When he demonstrated to San Francisco's finest at the bottom of a hill what kind of a beating a steel vehicle built without crumple zones and without the notion of planned obsolescence could take, he was partaking in a bit of impromptu living history.
He may even have been wearing the pith helmet.
Camp Patriot is an assemblage of tents. But, in Bundgaard's eyes, it's way more than that.
He's collected tents of the sort used by American soldiers in every hot and cold war this nation has engaged in: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, and several from the present day. He's toted them to dozens of Bay Area events, set them up, donned the appropriate period gear, and amazed the kids.
"Give me just one generation of youth, and I'll transform the whole world," he says with a smile. He attributes this quote to Stalin, which is odd, but Bundgaard knows a good quote when he hears one (it's actually from Lenin, which is less odd but still odd).
What Bundgaard says he wants to teach those kids is about America's ongoing battle against tyranny and the greatness of our nation. Fair enough. But why tents?
Bundgaard doesn't seem to have an answer for this. But, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Every present and former schoolchild knows the highlight reel of American military history: Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Iwo Jima. But the quotidian elements of a soldier's life — tents, jeeps, cargo paraphernalia — tell a different story. Whether or not you agreed with what they were doing, this is where men and women spent their lives. Bundgaard notes that 19 out of every 20 people in the military is tied up in support — that's where he spent his life, certainly, in the engine room of a military landing craft. A tent, an engine room, a cargo truck: You need these things. These things symbolize continuity. Commitment. We can all be part of something great. Together.
How's that sound?
Bundgaard smiles, politely. That sounds okay. But only okay. If that idea went over the cliff, you probably couldn't drive it away in one piece.
Well, fair enough. They don't make them now the way they did then.
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