From the independent producer project of KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional.

Unfictional is a program of true stories and personal documentaries and this episode contains some

frank discussion about the violence of war so if you think that would be

upsetting to you you may want to skip this episode. Today on the program, The Story of a Barber.

His name is Vaughn Hood, and he works with his wife at his salon in St. Johnsbury in

Northern Vermont. And he happened to meet the radio

producer Eric Hileman who produces an excellent podcast called Rumble Strip Vermont.

And like one does with the barber they started talking. He learned to cut hair in

Detroit Michigan but soon he was drafted as a 118 pound recruit and sent

into the Vietnam War. He was a sergeant and a company where

hardly anyone would come back alive. He was decorated with honors after his tour, but he also

came back with physical and emotional scars from

the brutality and betrayals he experienced.

But it was at the very worst moments, during one of the darkest times after he came home,

that he somehow found a way to come out of it.

A better barber and a better man.

From KCRW and KCRW.com, this is called an American life.

It's unfictional.

I grew up in a small town in southeastern Michigan and had a population 150 and most

everybody worked in factories. I'm from working people. And I'd overheard my father say that he'd like

one of his sons to become a barber. He grew up during the depression. So he said

barbers didn't make very much money, but he said they got a dime a haircut.

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