by Dr. Iain
Corness
The secretary of the Taksin-Pattaya Rotary Club is Gary
Bruton, an American who has rubbed shoulders with a chief of the CIA, was
on the last chopper out of Saigon, but these days has a much less
adventurous life as an independent video producer.
Gary was born in Seattle, Washington. His family worked
for a steelworks and would be considered upper-middle class. Later they
shifted to California, which was thought to be a better environment.
However, Gary was taught early that he had to work for anything he wanted,
so he began very young, working as a paperboy after school. “My father
was very strict,” he said.
He admits he was not a good student, “I though my job
at school was to play.” After finishing secondary education he went to
university college emerging with an Associate Arts degree in architecture,
but never entered the profession. One reason for this was called “Uncle
Sam”, as Gary was drafted. He managed to avoid the line that was
destined to become marines and after basic training was sent to the Combat
Development Command (CDC) where he worked for the army as a graphic
artist/illustrator. Eventually this saw him being sent to Vietnam where he
continued graphic artist work, being involved in the production of
propaganda leaflets that were air-dropped, rather than napalm!
When his mother died he returned to America and was
then discharged from the army. His first job in civvy street was that of a
shoe salesman, but that was certainly not his career. The CDC contacted
him to offer him his old job back, as it had now been made a civilian
position and not one for enlisted men. Better the devil you know, than one
you don’t know, so he took up his graphic artist’s tools and rejoined
CDC.
In turn, this led him back to Vietnam! It really was
history repeating itself, but this time he was working as a civilian for
the Department of Defense (DoD) with a group called Civil Operations and
Rural Development Systems (CORDS) working under a gentleman by the name of
William Colby, who was later to gain some notoriety as the boss of the
CIA!
He stayed in Saigon for six years and had settled there
in the city. He had his 1968 Ford Mustang and a ski boat, spoke Vietnamese
and life was fine, other than the fact there was a war going on, and Gary
was going to have to leave in a hurry. The fall of Saigon came in 1975 and
he left everything, in that last week photographing the destruction of
hundreds of US airplanes and communication towers by the Americans
themselves. He left on a chopper and was dropped on the USS Blue Ridge,
where they then pushed the chopper over the side to make room for more
choppers arriving with people who had also left everything behind. “It
was hard leaving people you worked with. Our official position was that we
were going to a special assignment in the US and we’d be back in two
weeks!” It was more than two decades before Gary would see Vietnam
again.
Back in the US, Gary continued with the DoD and was
assigned as a civilian to the Pentagon where he continued his illustrator
work, but a yearning to return to California ended his Pentagon days and
he eventually ended up working with a University of California research
unit dealing with high altitude photography from satellites.
However, after a couple of years, the bug to move bit
again and he went to Saudi Arabia as a photographer, eventually moving
into this new field, called “Video”. He stayed in the Sandbox for 5
years and salted away what he thought was a fabulous amount of money to
keep him in videotape for the rest of his days. A trip back to the States
soon dispelled that notion. “I had enough money to put down a deposit
and take out a mortgage, that was all!”
A friend was working in Bangkok, and suggested he come
over. Gary had been to Bangkok before (and Pattaya) on R&R weekends
when he was stationed in Saigon, so he arrived in the Kingdom in 1987, and
opened his company Video Technology International, attracting many top
clients, for whom he made all types of video films, training programs and
even company promotional videos.
He stayed in Bangkok till 1996, but by that time the
traffic congestion had made traveling so difficult that he decided it was
time to move on again. He was short-listed for a job in Hong Kong when
Father Brennan at Pattaya Orphanage also asked him to come down to Pattaya
and assist the orphanage, which needed some video promotions to be filmed.
When he didn’t get the Hong Kong job, Father Brennan said, “This is a
sign from God. You should come and work in Pattaya!” A sign from above
or not, Gary decided that he might as well, and so came here to work, even
though Pattaya had changed so much from when he first experienced the
seaside resort city in 1972.
Being independent means that in theory he works when he
feels like it; however, being something of a self admitted workaholic
means that he spends most of his time shooting and editing video, with
much of it being for charity. It is this strong feeling for those less
fortunate than himself that has seen Gary Bruton take on the Rotary work
with the Taksin-Pattaya Club, as well as shooting video for the Pattaya
Mail TV to highlight the work being done by such places as the Blind
School. In his spare time, which he admits is not much, he likes to get
into the water, “I was a keen surfer as a kid, scuba and water skiing,
but now I probably play more golf.”
Gary Bruton has had a varied life, and I get the distinct feeling that
there is another adventure yet!
