The Ghosts of November - From the Prologue by Jeff Brailey

“Shotgun,” shouted Suzy as my wife, Mai opened the
passenger door of my black 1965 Peugeot 504.

“Your mom has shotgun,” I reminded my 7-year-old, the
oldest of my three daughters, as she reluctantly climbed in
the back seat.

There was nothing in the air that would make me feel
Saturday, November 18, 1978 was anything but a typical
autumn weekend day.

I spent the morning packing the little French car with
beach balls, towels, blankets and all the other
paraphernalia that were requisite for a fun day at the
beach on the Pacific Coast. Mai put the finishing touches
on a carrot cake she baked the night before.

“Don’t forget the chau ya,” I said, my mouth watering
just thinking of my wife’s Vietnamese spring rolls. “How
many did you make?”

“I make hunert fifty, like you say,” she replied in
her pidgin English. A naturalized U.S. citizen seven years
out of Vietnam, she still didn’t speak her second language
very well.

Our bimonthly outings were for the express purpose of
socializing and spending quality time with other families
in which the spouses were Vietnamese married to American
servicemen. This not only gave our wives friends who have
a common culture, but who could act as a support group
during the frequent extended absences of their husbands.

Several hours after our picnic, I led the Brailey clan
in song as my 13-year-old sedan carried us over the
Thatcher Ferry Bridge back to our house in the Corozal Army
Housing Area.

“B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name-oh,” were words even
my youngest daughter, Debbie could recite. As the sun set
over the Pacific Ocean, and my kids sang at the top of
their lungs, I was reminded how perfect our day at the
beach had been.

An hour later, Mai tucked our two youngest daughters
snugly into the bed they shared. I was on my way to pick
up Tanisha, my first sergeant’s daughter, who had agreed to
baby-sit that night. Suzy, who was a little older than
Jennie and Debbie, was allowed to stay up an extra hour to
play Chutes and Ladders with her 15-year-old sitter, whom
she considered her dear friend.

Twice a month, on the first Saturday following our
bimonthly payday, my wife and I hit the casinos of Panama
City, Panama, where I was stationed as an Army nurse. Each
of us, armed with $20, invaded a popular gambling house in
one of the city’s hotels and played until the money ran out or we became too tired to play. We rarely retreated in
fewer than three hours and sometimes left victorious, with
quite a bit more cash than with which we arrived.

More 1,450 miles away in the jungles of Guyana, the
Rev. Jim Jones, founder of The Peoples Temple, dealt with
unwelcome visitors who were finishing a two-day stay at
Jonestown, the agricultural collective named for him. A
tense and extremely contentious exit briefing was conducted
between the cult leader and Leo Ryan, a congressman
representing the Oakland area of California. Ryan was in
Jonestown on behalf of concerned family who complained that
relatives who were members of the cult were prevented from
leaving.

After the congressman left the commune, Jones gathered
his flock at the town’s pavilion for yet another “White
Night,” a reaction to the catastrophe the official visit
had become. The day probably was the worst of Jones’ life.
It certainly would be his last.

While my children were cared for and nurtured, Jones
ordered the mothers of his Peoples Temple to kill their
children. The systematic annihilation of more 900 people
took place as my wife and I prepared to spend an evening
out a local casino. My life never would be the same.

I sometimes still get a chill when I think about the
parallels between my life and that of Jim Jones: where we
were born and raised, our spiritual paths and our roles as
leaders.

I was born and raised in the small village of Niantic
near New London in southeastern Connecticut. Jones was born
and raised in the rural town of Lynn near Richmond in the
east central Indiana.

Religion was a strong influence during our childhoods.
I attended a Christian College, Barrington in Rhode Island,
with the intention of becoming a clergyman. Jones became an
ordained minister in the Disciples of Christ religion.
Each of us sought religious truth, particularly when
we were younger. My journey took me from the Baptist
Church to the Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Methodists,
Assemblies of God, back to the Baptists and even some non-
Christian beliefs such as Buddhism and Ba’hai to Deism.
Jones’ journey began in mainstream churches like the Church
of God and Methodists and ended tragically after he formed
his own alternative religion.

We each became leaders. I reached the rank of master
sergeant in the Army, leading young men and women who chose
to serve their country as medics in the US Army. Jones led his own church and his own brand of radical socialistic
communism in which he was the god.

While I was in college, I volunteered in black drop-in
centers in Providence, Rhode Island and Boston’s Roxbury
neighborhood. I now live in Indianapolis where Jones began
his ministry, founding a church that was uniquely, for its
time, multiracial. He was a champion of the poor and
particularly of blacks.

Drugs played a significant role in both our lives and
for about the same reason. I took Ritalin in Vietnam as a
way to increase my alertness and stamina during the many
times we had to work up to 30 consecutive hours during mass
casualty situations. Jim Jones abused “uppers” so he could
muster enough energy to conduct marathon sermons and hour
upon hour verbal tirades against his flock.

Unlike Jones, my abuse of Ritalin lasted less than six
months, and I didn’t consume sedatives to counteract the
effects of the speed and allow me to sleep. Jones’ as
proven by autopsy, took many pills that affected and
changed his mental status and may have caused him some
degree of paranoia. Enough Phenobarbital was found in his
body to kill someone who was not addicted and accustomed to
that amount of the drug in his system.