That’s Clifton’s Johnny Ace, (also pictured below today), the kid with a mischievous smile in 8th grade at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School, the year before he dropped out and tried to enlist. Ace was his birth name. “No kiddin’. That was my father’s name. He left when I was two.” He does not remember his dad but like the lines in a Johnny Cash song, he has no great love for his namesake. “Ace was a little hard. Try being called an acehole all the time.” He was raised by his mom and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. Thaddeus and Evelyn Motyl on Graham Place in Acquakonack Gardens. He recalled good times growing up in what was then called the Veterans Barracks. Ace went to School 5 on Valley Rd. and ran with the Nobles and the Bolero Boys—for the landmark bowling alley where Fette Ford is today. Some of his old street corner pals included Jimmy Brittan, Rich DiOrio, John Henry, Bobby McDermett, Richie and Mike Brechko. Ultimately, Ace wasn’t cut out for school. He dropped out at 17, and took up a dead end job at a factory. With few prospects to improve his lot in life, Ace made the choice to enlist in the Marines one afternoon in the summer of 1965 while in New York City with some friends. “There was five of us and we all wanted to join the Merchant Marines,” he recalled. “We went down to the New York harbor and they said ‘We’re not hiring anybody,’ One of the guys was like why don’t we join the Marine Corps and so we did.”
Though Ace had filled out paperwork in New York, he was still only 17 at the time, and needed his mom’s approval to go. “I just said I am going,” he recalled. “She had to sign for me to get into the Marines, and I said I am splitting out of here if you don’t.” Ace’s parents eventually signed, and he went off to Parris Island for boot, graduating in December of 1965. The Cliftonite was then assigned to Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines out of Camp Lejeune. Ace would spend the next 11 months getting combat ready. “It was good for me,” he recalled. “I learned to read a map, I learned to call artillery. I learned all that stuff that you would use in the field but that you’d never get if you went to boot and then to Nam. That’s why I was able to pick up rank. I knew the inner workings. Most guys were going through boot and getting shipped out right away. At least I knew what to expect and what I had to do. I believe that saved my ass. That and my grandmother’s (Anna Levendofsky) prayers, of course.” Ace received his orders in the fall of 1966, and spent 23 days in November at sea aboard a transport before arriving in Da Nang, Vietnam. One of the first things that Ace noticed upon landing was the notoriously brutal weather. “The heat was always there,” he said. “The only thing you had for it was the monsoon season, when it would rain for 30 days straight. Sometimes it was a blessing if you’re in a fire fight. Rockets or bullets would
Lauren Murphy 2014 Candidate for Clifton City Council The progress the voice 22 May 2013 • Clifton Merchant
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My husband Eric and I are proud to support Lauren Murphy in her 2014 campaign for Clifton City Council. If you would like to join us in her progressive campaign please contact her at lmurphy711@yahoo.com. paid for by the Oliver Family