Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Sielski: Of war, love and the Super Bowl

HARRISBURG - Just before midnight on Saturday, Jan. 14, 1967, Joe Hirschmann arrived in Los Angeles on his way to Vietnam, rented a motel room for eight dollars a night, and wondered how he would spend his Sunday.

Joe Hirschmann at his home in Harrisburg.
Joe Hirschmann at his home in Harrisburg.Read moreBRADLEY C. BOWER / For The Inquirer

HARRISBURG - Just before midnight on Saturday, Jan. 14, 1967, Joe Hirschmann arrived in Los Angeles on his way to Vietnam, rented a motel room for eight dollars a night, and wondered how he would spend his Sunday.

Rising at 7 a.m. after a fitful sleep, he put on his Marines winter service uniform, having packed away the rest of his clothes before boarding a plane in Harrisburg on Saturday morning. He went to Mass in Inglewood, stuffed his gear into a locker at a Greyhound bus terminal, and called a cab. Someone had mentioned a football game, reminding him that there was indeed a big event taking place in the city that day: the NFL-AFL championship game between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Super Bowl I.

Hirschmann bought a ticket for $12, for a seat four rows above the 35-yard line on the Chiefs' side of the stadium, and a game program for a dollar. The green, wool uniform he wore and the rays of sun shining in his face - the temperature climbed to 72 degrees by kickoff - started him sweating. He sat down and opened the program to its second page, a full-page advertisement for Hertz, the car-rental company.

He and his wife, Trudy, had married on June 20, 1964, just 10 days after he had graduated from La Salle University with a marketing degree. Now, neither of them knew when they might see each other again, or if they would.

He took out a blue ballpoint pen.

Hi! Hon, he wrote. Well, I made it. What I'm going to try to do is write things down as I go along so that I don't forget to tell you . . .

On Sunday, the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers will play in Super Bowl 50. The average ticket price, according to the website SeatGeek, is nearly $5,000. More than 114 million people watched last year's Super Bowl; the figure could be higher this year. The game is not an event in American culture. It is the event.

The official attendance of Super Bowl I, a 35-10 Packers victory highlighted by two touchdown receptions by Green Bay's Max McGee, was 61,946. The halftime acts were the Grambling State and University of Arizona marching bands. Men in the stands wore white, short-sleeved shirts and ties. Compared with today, the game had no ballyhoo at all.

What it did have was a small story about war and love.

Joe and Trudy Hirschmann had met in high school, at a dance. Didn't all couples back then meet at high school dances? He was a popular senior, gregarious, dabbling in baseball and football at Bishop McDevitt High near downtown Harrisburg. (His parents were native Philadelphians who had moved there for work.) She grew up in New Cumberland, Pa., and was a sophomore at McDevitt, a member of the cheerleading squad.

"I was a sucker for girls in uniform," Joe said here Wednesday as Trudy sat next to him at their kitchen table.

They moved to Pittsburgh after getting married. Del Monte Foods had hired Joe as a salesman. The war in Vietnam was escalating. There was a draft, but if a man had a family, the government wouldn't take him.

"We had a lot of fun trying," Joe said, "but there were no results."

One day, Joe got his draft notice. In January 1966, the Marines wanted him at Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina. He and Trudy lived in a 19-foot trailer. His assigned military occupational specialty was as an exchange man; he would acquire supplies and combat gear and distribute the resources to the field units. He thought he might not end up in country. He was wrong.

"The day he left . . . " Trudy said, pausing. "When people say their hearts were broken, mine was."

There is a slight haze around the stadium. People say the smog has really been bad. It is really beautiful country out here, palm trees all around the place . . .

After watching for a few minutes, I'd say nothing beats TV and stop-action and instant replay. K.C. is doing OK so far. The clock here is not working, so I don't know how much time is left. Beautiful catch right in front of me, and another good pass followed . . .

The first quarter just ended. These girls are performing right in front of me. Don't worry. They're too young . . .

That night, Joe called Trudy collect to say hello. The next day, he wrote a bit more in the program, slipped it and his ticket into a padded envelope, and mailed them to her. Then he rode a bus to Camp Pendleton, near San Diego, for a month of training before landing in Da Nang in February 1967, part of the Headquarters Battalion of the 1st Marine Division.

Trudy moved home to live with her parents, to work, to have people nearby who could help her get through the days between hearing from Joe. The two of them wrote letters back and forth and used reel-to-reel recorders to make tapes for each other. That program, though, was special to her.

"It was just a connection," she said. "Obviously, emotions were high at that point, and any communication was welcome."

His tour was 10 months. He was promoted to sergeant. On one trip into the field, the truck in which he and several other Marines were riding hit a land mine. They were lucky. No one was killed. Joe was even luckier. He walked away without a mark. At night on the base, he could hear disquieting booms in the distance. "You'd joke, 'Hope they're outgoing and not incoming,' " he said. "In retrospect, it was a little bit surreal."

Joe left Vietnam on Dec. 18, 1967. He flew to Pittsburgh and met Trudy there so the two of them could drive back to Harrisburg and reestablish their life together. He sold office products for IBM. They opened their own word-processing business. Joe is 73 now. Trudy is 71. They have a daughter, Krista; a son-in-law, Kevin; and three grandchildren. They still keep Joe's ticket to the game and the program in a clear plastic sleeve, to preserve the words that he wrote to her 49 years ago. Of course they do.

Well, here it is, 9:30 Monday morning, and I'm getting ready to leave the motel. Had a good night's sleep, undoubtedly due to talking with you. It was really great to hear from you. I hope I didn't cost you too much money. I'll try to be a better writer than I have been in the past. Write when you can.

All my love,

Joe

msielski@phillynews.com

@MikeSielski