Ted Falk
Petty Officer 2nd Class
U.S. Navy Reserve - Hospitalman
6th Communication Marine Unit
1971-1981
Petty Officer 2nd Class
U.S. Navy Reserve - Hospitalman
6th Communication Marine Unit
1971-1981
Ted Falk, a Brooklyn boy, was born in September 19th, 1948 in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Ted’s father and his uncles “owned all of the driving schools in Brooklyn” before there was Driver Education. His mother worked at one of the locations in an administrative capacity. He and his younger sister lived with their mother after his parents were divorced. It was a tough period and Ted recalled moving often to find a rent his mother could afford.
Ted was an athlete and a sports fan and growing up in Brooklyn was a great experience. His teams were the New York Yankees, New York Rangers, New York Knicks and the Giants football team. “Sport was my life. It kept me out of trouble”. He recalled being able to get anywhere he wanted using the buses or New York City subway system. He jumped on the subway to Madison Square Garden to see the Rangers play and Yankee Stadium to watch the Bronx Bombers. Ted was at the Stadium on October 1, 1961, the day Roger Maris hit his 61st homerun off Tracy Stallard of the Boston Red Sox. It was an afternoon game as most major league baseball games were at the time. “I played hooky”.
Ted took advantage of the neighborhood parks and played stickball and basketball. He recalled playing against Billy Cunningham who went on to become a professional basketball player with the Philadelphia 76’s. Roller hockey was big at the time and Ted played that sport also. “Roller Hockey leagues were in the Italian sections of Brooklyn. We were the only Jewish team in the league. Jewish mothers didn’t let you play contact sports!” I loved growing up in Brooklyn. There was really no fear”.
During the summers Ted worked at Kutchers Camp Anawana in the Monticello, NY. He was a counselor-in-training, a camp counselor, a group leader and a waiter. He also worked at Camp Graylock and Camp Lokanda. “I was in college, so I went with whoever paid the most.” Ted recalled a good bit of his experience was similar to the movie ‘Dirty Dancing’. The most important thing to come from Ted’s days at sleep away camp was meeting Patty Epstein. The two hit it off. “I was a group leader, and she was a counselor. She had just graduated high school, and I had just graduated from college”. The couple was married in 1972.
Ted played basketball in high school. He caught the eye of the coaches at UMASS Amherst in Amherst, MA and at the end of his junior year he was offered a partial scholarship. Ted attended Samuel Tilden High School and in his senior year the schools in Brooklyn were integrated. Tilden picked up several outstanding black and Latino players and Ted found himself on the bench. “They were just better than me”. Fortunately, he had his partial scholarship in hand, and he graduated in 1966.
Ted headed off to UMASS and played basketball for part of his freshman year. He contracted mono and developed an enlarged spleen. He spent most of the year living in the infirmary. That ended his basketball career. He graduated from UMASS in June 1970 with a degree in Health and Physical Education.
Ted returned to Brooklyn and found a job as substitute teacher in the East New York section of Brooklyn. At the time the Vietnam War was still raging on, and the draft was in full swing. Ted’s draft lottery number was 177. “That’s a day you never forget when you get your lottery number”. At the same time Ted received a call from the track coach and athletic director at UMASS. They found an opening in Springfield MA at a junior high school coaching football and basketball and teaching physical education. They suggested he apply for it. Ted took the job at Forest Hills junior high school and moved to Agawam, MA and lived with a friend from Brooklyn who had moved there earlier that year.
Ted thought there was a fair chance his draft number would be called, and he decided to enlist rather than be drafted. That would allow him to have more control over his time in the military. He joined a Naval Reserve unit in Springfield, MA. “Because of all my sciences courses I tested very high, and I went in to be a Navy Corpsman. Immediately they hooked me up with the Marine Corp. because the Marines don’t have their own Corpsman. Marine Corpsman were getting killed left and right in Vietnam. That’s why there were openings. They go after the Corpsman first”.
Boot camp was at the Naval Air Station in Memphis TN. It lasted only four weeks because there was a great need for Corpsman. Ted recalled, “no sleep. They condensed eight weeks into four”. From there Ted went to Naval Station at Great Lakes for Hospital Corpsman School. This was an intensive 16-week program where “basically they taught you to be an EMT”. One thing he was taught Ted thought as unusual. “You always put the injured Marine between you and the line of fire. Your life is the most important life because without you the rest of them are ‘gonners’. That was shocking to me”. While attending hospital Corpsman School Ted returned to New York on leave to see Patty. He proposed to her at a restaurant in Chinatown by hiding the ring in the shrimp and lobster sauce. She still said yes.
Ted was one of the few college graduates. Many of the men had a hard time keeping up with the course work. Ted was appointed the Educational Petty Officer. “I was basically their tutor”. The training rotated everyone through the various wards in the hospital. “It was a great experience. I learned a lot. I remember giving my first injection. I’m shakin’ and the guy goes, “Doc you know what you’re doing”? It wasn’t like practicing on an orange”.
While he was at Great Lakes Ted also found himself as the player coach for the base basketball team. “I was the only white face in the gym. As soon as you step on the floor you hear them saying, ‘hey, there’s Casper’. That was until I hit the first shot then I would hear, ‘hey Casper can shoot’. Ted said this was just good-natured ribbing and he never found race an issue in the military.” Same mud, same blood.
Ted felt he received a great education. “In college it was more about trying to keep the students engaged and motivated”. In the military it was “here’s the way you’re going to do it and here’s the reason why. I learned so much about the body. One thing I learned was it didn’t matter how much you knew. It was how you interacted with your patient”.
At the end of Corpsman School Ted was assigned to the hospital in Norfolk, VA. Ted wanted to be in New York, closer to his fiancé. He requested a transfer to St Albans, and it was granted. Patty was only 20 minutes away.
Ted was there 5 months working primarily on the Officer Ward. The patients were all Marine Helicopter pilots. “I saw some pretty wicked injuries there…but all they wanted to do was go back to their unit”. Ted talked about the high quality of care and how well trained the doctors and dentists were. Ted’s primary responsibilities were changing dressings, assisting with spinal taps, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, handling amputees, etc. “It was a very good experience. It really takes a lot to kill a Marine”.
Ted recalled taking nine vials of blood from an Admiral “and he cried like a baby”. At the end of the procedure the Admiral said, ‘Petty Officer, you didn’t see anything today, right’. Ted replied, “no sir”. ‘Good don’t forget it’, replied the Admiral. Ted came back to check on him the next night and the Admiral said, ‘I left something on that try. Can you get it for me’? It was a $100 bill. “Someone must have left it there. If you want it, you can take it.” Ted left the money. He was wondering if he was being set up. The next day Ted returned, and the money was still sitting there. The Admiral said sternly, “Take the money that’s an order”. Ted obeyed the order and took the money.
In November of 1971, Ted’s next duty station was Camp Lejeune. “We (Corpsman) did everything the Marines did”. There were live fire exercises and lots of loading on and off Cobra Gunships. The Marines treated the Corpsman with great respect. “I never had to buy a drink”. There was four weeks of field training. “The training was excellent. They were preparing you for the worst…we were taught to improvise” …if necessary.
Ted’s first year of Reserve commitment ended in December of 1971. He and Patty were married on January 2nd, 1972. Ted and Patty returned to Springfield where Forest Hills Junior High School held his job.
“That was the year they integrated the Springfield School System. It was a war zone. It was not a safe place”. Springfield was not accepting of integration and put up a forceful resistance. Ted was also working at the local Boys Club at night. “The boys club at night was fine.” Ted decided it would be better to return to New York. Ted had a connection and was able to get a teaching job at a junior high school in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. “The kids were great, but administration was something else”. He found himself teaching Earth Science rather than health and Physical education.
“I returned to New York and walked into a teachers strike. It was tough to make ends meet with Patty going to Queens College”. The strike lasted only three weeks, and Ted got his back pay, but it was tough to make ends meet. “It was a struggle”.
In 1974 Ted and Patty bought a home In Ronkonkoma, New York on Long Island. Ted recalled paying $42,000 for a new home and having a $25 saving bond as all he had left in the bank. This meant a long commute to Brooklyn to teach. In 1974 The Falk’s daughter Stacey was born. In 1980 their son Devin was born.
In addition to his teaching job Ted was also fulfilling his Reserve commitment at Fort Schuyler in the Bronx. He was assigned to a Marine unit. Ted served in the Naval Reserve but was always assigned to a Marine Unit.
Back in Bushwick Ted convinced the administration to allow him to teach Sex Education. Ted enjoyed the kids but the long drive, increasing traffic and eight years of dealing with the politics of the school administration was enough to make Ted look elsewhere. He interviewed with a school on Long Island and landed a job at a junior high school. He also coached and served as an athletic trainer.
When Ted moved to Long Island he was transferred to a Reserve unit on Long Island. It was a Marine communication unit. After completing his initial six-year commitment he extended for an additional four years. Then the entire Reserve mission changed when President Reagan moved to an all-volunteer military. This increased the importance of Reserve and National Guard units in fighting wars. This meant a greater commitment, more training and a much greater time requirement. Ted had two young children, and he decided it was time to leave the Reserves after his four years concluded.
Ted was always hustling to make money. He had his yard landscaped and struck up a friendship with the owner which led to a 20+ year career in landscape design sales.
Ted went on to have a 36-year career teaching sex education, coaching and working as an athletic trainer. He was also a women’s basketball coach at Farmingdale Community College as well as a high school soccer and basketball referee.
Ted and his wife were divorced after 30 years of marriage but remain the closest of friends. Ted met a woman, and they have been together for 12 years. He now resides in Florida.
“The things they (Marines) teach you, you use every day. Planning, organization, discipline. That's what the military gave to me. The biggest mistake in my was life getting out of the miltary.”
Ted, thank you for your years of service and keeping those Marines healthy. What you learned you, no doubt you surely imparted to your students through the years.
Ted was an athlete and a sports fan and growing up in Brooklyn was a great experience. His teams were the New York Yankees, New York Rangers, New York Knicks and the Giants football team. “Sport was my life. It kept me out of trouble”. He recalled being able to get anywhere he wanted using the buses or New York City subway system. He jumped on the subway to Madison Square Garden to see the Rangers play and Yankee Stadium to watch the Bronx Bombers. Ted was at the Stadium on October 1, 1961, the day Roger Maris hit his 61st homerun off Tracy Stallard of the Boston Red Sox. It was an afternoon game as most major league baseball games were at the time. “I played hooky”.
Ted took advantage of the neighborhood parks and played stickball and basketball. He recalled playing against Billy Cunningham who went on to become a professional basketball player with the Philadelphia 76’s. Roller hockey was big at the time and Ted played that sport also. “Roller Hockey leagues were in the Italian sections of Brooklyn. We were the only Jewish team in the league. Jewish mothers didn’t let you play contact sports!” I loved growing up in Brooklyn. There was really no fear”.
During the summers Ted worked at Kutchers Camp Anawana in the Monticello, NY. He was a counselor-in-training, a camp counselor, a group leader and a waiter. He also worked at Camp Graylock and Camp Lokanda. “I was in college, so I went with whoever paid the most.” Ted recalled a good bit of his experience was similar to the movie ‘Dirty Dancing’. The most important thing to come from Ted’s days at sleep away camp was meeting Patty Epstein. The two hit it off. “I was a group leader, and she was a counselor. She had just graduated high school, and I had just graduated from college”. The couple was married in 1972.
Ted played basketball in high school. He caught the eye of the coaches at UMASS Amherst in Amherst, MA and at the end of his junior year he was offered a partial scholarship. Ted attended Samuel Tilden High School and in his senior year the schools in Brooklyn were integrated. Tilden picked up several outstanding black and Latino players and Ted found himself on the bench. “They were just better than me”. Fortunately, he had his partial scholarship in hand, and he graduated in 1966.
Ted headed off to UMASS and played basketball for part of his freshman year. He contracted mono and developed an enlarged spleen. He spent most of the year living in the infirmary. That ended his basketball career. He graduated from UMASS in June 1970 with a degree in Health and Physical Education.
Ted returned to Brooklyn and found a job as substitute teacher in the East New York section of Brooklyn. At the time the Vietnam War was still raging on, and the draft was in full swing. Ted’s draft lottery number was 177. “That’s a day you never forget when you get your lottery number”. At the same time Ted received a call from the track coach and athletic director at UMASS. They found an opening in Springfield MA at a junior high school coaching football and basketball and teaching physical education. They suggested he apply for it. Ted took the job at Forest Hills junior high school and moved to Agawam, MA and lived with a friend from Brooklyn who had moved there earlier that year.
Ted thought there was a fair chance his draft number would be called, and he decided to enlist rather than be drafted. That would allow him to have more control over his time in the military. He joined a Naval Reserve unit in Springfield, MA. “Because of all my sciences courses I tested very high, and I went in to be a Navy Corpsman. Immediately they hooked me up with the Marine Corp. because the Marines don’t have their own Corpsman. Marine Corpsman were getting killed left and right in Vietnam. That’s why there were openings. They go after the Corpsman first”.
Boot camp was at the Naval Air Station in Memphis TN. It lasted only four weeks because there was a great need for Corpsman. Ted recalled, “no sleep. They condensed eight weeks into four”. From there Ted went to Naval Station at Great Lakes for Hospital Corpsman School. This was an intensive 16-week program where “basically they taught you to be an EMT”. One thing he was taught Ted thought as unusual. “You always put the injured Marine between you and the line of fire. Your life is the most important life because without you the rest of them are ‘gonners’. That was shocking to me”. While attending hospital Corpsman School Ted returned to New York on leave to see Patty. He proposed to her at a restaurant in Chinatown by hiding the ring in the shrimp and lobster sauce. She still said yes.
Ted was one of the few college graduates. Many of the men had a hard time keeping up with the course work. Ted was appointed the Educational Petty Officer. “I was basically their tutor”. The training rotated everyone through the various wards in the hospital. “It was a great experience. I learned a lot. I remember giving my first injection. I’m shakin’ and the guy goes, “Doc you know what you’re doing”? It wasn’t like practicing on an orange”.
While he was at Great Lakes Ted also found himself as the player coach for the base basketball team. “I was the only white face in the gym. As soon as you step on the floor you hear them saying, ‘hey, there’s Casper’. That was until I hit the first shot then I would hear, ‘hey Casper can shoot’. Ted said this was just good-natured ribbing and he never found race an issue in the military.” Same mud, same blood.
Ted felt he received a great education. “In college it was more about trying to keep the students engaged and motivated”. In the military it was “here’s the way you’re going to do it and here’s the reason why. I learned so much about the body. One thing I learned was it didn’t matter how much you knew. It was how you interacted with your patient”.
At the end of Corpsman School Ted was assigned to the hospital in Norfolk, VA. Ted wanted to be in New York, closer to his fiancé. He requested a transfer to St Albans, and it was granted. Patty was only 20 minutes away.
Ted was there 5 months working primarily on the Officer Ward. The patients were all Marine Helicopter pilots. “I saw some pretty wicked injuries there…but all they wanted to do was go back to their unit”. Ted talked about the high quality of care and how well trained the doctors and dentists were. Ted’s primary responsibilities were changing dressings, assisting with spinal taps, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, handling amputees, etc. “It was a very good experience. It really takes a lot to kill a Marine”.
Ted recalled taking nine vials of blood from an Admiral “and he cried like a baby”. At the end of the procedure the Admiral said, ‘Petty Officer, you didn’t see anything today, right’. Ted replied, “no sir”. ‘Good don’t forget it’, replied the Admiral. Ted came back to check on him the next night and the Admiral said, ‘I left something on that try. Can you get it for me’? It was a $100 bill. “Someone must have left it there. If you want it, you can take it.” Ted left the money. He was wondering if he was being set up. The next day Ted returned, and the money was still sitting there. The Admiral said sternly, “Take the money that’s an order”. Ted obeyed the order and took the money.
In November of 1971, Ted’s next duty station was Camp Lejeune. “We (Corpsman) did everything the Marines did”. There were live fire exercises and lots of loading on and off Cobra Gunships. The Marines treated the Corpsman with great respect. “I never had to buy a drink”. There was four weeks of field training. “The training was excellent. They were preparing you for the worst…we were taught to improvise” …if necessary.
Ted’s first year of Reserve commitment ended in December of 1971. He and Patty were married on January 2nd, 1972. Ted and Patty returned to Springfield where Forest Hills Junior High School held his job.
“That was the year they integrated the Springfield School System. It was a war zone. It was not a safe place”. Springfield was not accepting of integration and put up a forceful resistance. Ted was also working at the local Boys Club at night. “The boys club at night was fine.” Ted decided it would be better to return to New York. Ted had a connection and was able to get a teaching job at a junior high school in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. “The kids were great, but administration was something else”. He found himself teaching Earth Science rather than health and Physical education.
“I returned to New York and walked into a teachers strike. It was tough to make ends meet with Patty going to Queens College”. The strike lasted only three weeks, and Ted got his back pay, but it was tough to make ends meet. “It was a struggle”.
In 1974 Ted and Patty bought a home In Ronkonkoma, New York on Long Island. Ted recalled paying $42,000 for a new home and having a $25 saving bond as all he had left in the bank. This meant a long commute to Brooklyn to teach. In 1974 The Falk’s daughter Stacey was born. In 1980 their son Devin was born.
In addition to his teaching job Ted was also fulfilling his Reserve commitment at Fort Schuyler in the Bronx. He was assigned to a Marine unit. Ted served in the Naval Reserve but was always assigned to a Marine Unit.
Back in Bushwick Ted convinced the administration to allow him to teach Sex Education. Ted enjoyed the kids but the long drive, increasing traffic and eight years of dealing with the politics of the school administration was enough to make Ted look elsewhere. He interviewed with a school on Long Island and landed a job at a junior high school. He also coached and served as an athletic trainer.
When Ted moved to Long Island he was transferred to a Reserve unit on Long Island. It was a Marine communication unit. After completing his initial six-year commitment he extended for an additional four years. Then the entire Reserve mission changed when President Reagan moved to an all-volunteer military. This increased the importance of Reserve and National Guard units in fighting wars. This meant a greater commitment, more training and a much greater time requirement. Ted had two young children, and he decided it was time to leave the Reserves after his four years concluded.
Ted was always hustling to make money. He had his yard landscaped and struck up a friendship with the owner which led to a 20+ year career in landscape design sales.
Ted went on to have a 36-year career teaching sex education, coaching and working as an athletic trainer. He was also a women’s basketball coach at Farmingdale Community College as well as a high school soccer and basketball referee.
Ted and his wife were divorced after 30 years of marriage but remain the closest of friends. Ted met a woman, and they have been together for 12 years. He now resides in Florida.
“The things they (Marines) teach you, you use every day. Planning, organization, discipline. That's what the military gave to me. The biggest mistake in my was life getting out of the miltary.”
Ted, thank you for your years of service and keeping those Marines healthy. What you learned you, no doubt you surely imparted to your students through the years.