Is a lot too much? Is a little not enough? Do I allow my brain to open the safeguards installed long ago? Safeguards to protect the conscience from memories not welcomed. Safeguards designed to filter out pain and suffering - designed to filter out horrific experiences in taking human lives even though warranted and justified. Or, do I just skim over fifty years of a very eventful life and document only those events that are assured to mask all but the beautiful? Of course not.

The end of 1953 was the beginning of a new life. I ran away from a very dysfunctional family determined to make a better life for myself. Dropping out of school was not a choice, it was mandatory. Richard Youngs family helped me for a while by allowing me to stay with them.

On my birthday, February 1954, I joined the Marine Corps, where they taught me I could become intelligent if I was willing to commit myself and devote the time necessary for intense study. I had already discovered that most millionaires who started from scratch were highly educated and intelligent. That was my goal. I wanted to become educated with books as well as life's experiences. I always believed I could attain any goal I desired if I really wanted to extend the necessary effort and go for it with my all. Nothing new about that. We all can.

The Marine Corps taught me the skills of communication and field investigation as well as the skills of a killing machine. I graduated in the top ten of my platoon at boot camp and was promoted to PFC, which caused the Marine Corps to assign me to Marine Corps Test Unit #1. I was very proud to become a member of that elite unit of Marines until I learned we were being sent to Camp Desert Rock, Nevada, to participate in atomic bomb testing.

Participate? What the hell did that mean? It meant we would be the guinea pigs present for testing atomic bomb blasts in the desert about one hundred miles north of Vegas. Little did we know how we would be affected years to come, as members of that unit began dying of cancer at an early age.

The first test was awesome. We were about two miles away and watched the whole thing - the huge mushroom cloud, the loud blast that almost blew out my ear drums, the swirl of wind full of radiation that knocked us over. Wow! Horrendously AWESOME!

The second one, a few days later, was even more awesome and twice as large. This time, we were dug-in about a mile away in trenches. The roar of the blast was horrendous. The bright light was blinding, even with eye protection. The force of the blast toppled steel structures at ground zero and burned-off every piece of vegetation for miles and miles. When we were given the signal "all clear," we all raised up out of our barely-deep-enough trenches and were marched straight through ground zero wearing badges designed to measure how many roentgens of radiation our bodies absorbed …..Oops, it was a lot more than the scientists expected. Their only response was, "Who knew?"

We, as a unit, had no knowledge of what we had just been made a part of. The Marine Corps offered no explanation, we just did as we were told - period.

Then, more testing, testing, testing. The Marine Corps tests the hell out of you until they finally decided that, yes, they would send me to the FBI Academy to train as an Marine Corps undercover operative in the Far East. I was 17, the other cadets were college graduates. It made me try harder and helped in building my confidence and instilling a strong desire to become their equal.

From there, they sent me to Japan, where I studied anything and everything I could. The Marine Corps taught me discipline and gave me the tools necessary to believe in myself - believe I could do anything while being impervious to failure, or fear. I learned how to deal with the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) and at the same time, became brain-washed by the Marine Corps into thinking I was invincible. Fear was not an option.

I was sent to Okinawa to help pave the way for the 3rd Marine Division's move from Japan. It was there that I was introduced to a pocket of terrorists in a small village in the north - the last communist stronghold on the island.

One night, my best friend was killed in his sleep by one of the high-ranking members of that group. I tracked the killer for three days. I found him….

From there I was sent to Atsugi, Japan, to work undercover as a prison inmate secretly investigating the death of another inmate…

The Captain of the brig was a closet gay. He had prisoners brought to his quarters at night and handcuffed them to his bedpost. He had murdered a sailor to keep him from talking... It was an easy case to solve. He was found guilty and sentenced to life.

From that moment on, I was thrust into the world of the notorious Japanese Yakuza. I was investigating the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) all over Japan, making sure no Americans became involved with them. Arresting those that did…

I spent six and a half years in the Marine Corps working with the CID (Criminal Investigation Division), almost all of that time in the Far East. During that time, I studied with the University of Maryland at Tokyo University for a college degree. That is also where I met my lifetime soul mate. She was from Hiroshima, and yes, she survived the atomic bomb… After a year of dating, we were married in a formal Japanese wedding ceremony on my birthday, February 1960. October of 1960, I was sent back to the US to begin officer's candidate school, but I had my eyes set on going to law school and not remaining a Marine. I was excited with the thought of becoming a defense attorney. At my request, I was discharged from the Marine Corps upon arriving in San Francisco by ship from Japan. My wife and I headed for the San Fernando Valley to temporarily live with my mother and see about entering law school.

I needed to make a little money before I started school, so I went in business with Rich Youngs in a gas station across from NBC Studios. Bad idea. It didn't work.

I started law school at the University of San Fernando College of Law and worked at night managing a liquor store for minimum wage. My wife did not speak a word of English when she arrived in the US, but she was learning on her own with books and by watching TV. Her first English phrase was what she learned from a television commercial, "Oh, my sinus!"

Two years in law school and I was about to become a father. We did not have enough money to pay the hospital, so they wouldn't let me take my daughter home until they were paid. Can you imagine???? It didn't take me long to kidnap my own daughter and take her home. One security guard was too scared to stop me, but he had the police come to my home and arrest me. The judge threw it out and made me promise to pay the hospital in thirty days. That incident caused me to drop out of law school and get a good paying job with the thought of returning to school at a later date.

Since the only experience I had was investigating, I went to work for Hollywood Detectives. None of the other investigators working there had any type of formal training, which kind of made me the go-to guy when any real investigating had to be done. Three months of that was enough. I took the State test for private investigators, passed it easily enough and hung out my sign in North Hollywood, "R. E. Frazier Co." Soon, I was making more money than the law firms I was working for. That was the end of all thoughts of going back to law school.

I could relate a thousand tales about the ten years as an investigator with my own agency, but suffice it to say, I made a lot of money and just simply burned out. Good help was hard to find and I was being sued every month for one reason or another. One day, having just gotten out of a three-week stint in the hospital, where I thought I was dying, only to find out the doctor and lab had made an error, I walked into my office and declared I was quitting. I told each employee (eleven investigators, two assistants) they could have every item they used for business, their desk and chair, office equipment, everything. I was walking out - end of business. They could have all my clients. Goodbye. And, I left. I know I could have sold my business for more than a little money, but I just didn't care.

I played the stock market for a while. Made a lot - lost a lot… Searched for missing heirs for awhile, but always felt sorry for the old people I was helping and seldom took a commission… Then I had a brainstorm. I learned that insurance companies were paying huge sums of money for the return of stolen aircraft that was being used for smuggling. All you had to do was go to Mexico, find a stolen aircraft and fly it back to the US…Piece of cake. I needed to learn how to fly a plane, pronto. Thirty days later, I had my private pilots license as well as passed the written for my commercial. One more week of twin engine touch and goes and I was ready - maybe not to the FAA standards, but what the hell. I would fly out of Van Nuys and head for the dry lakes out by Hesperia and around that area to practice take offs and landings in the dirt and sand instead of the nicely paved landing strip at Van Nuys… I felt I was ready.

It didn't take long to find what I was after, a nice twin engine Beachcraft. Problem was it was heavily guarded. I decided night was best…It's not easy trying to sneak a twin engine plane away from four armed guards, but here I was, over Sepulveda Pass talking to the Van Nuys control tower, explaining I had an emergency: My landing gear would not lower, my flaps seem to be stuck, I was coming in hot and I was out of fuel. The guards had done a messy job on the undercarriage of the plane with old Thompson submachine gun bullets.

The rescue team laid foam as fast as they could. I could see them in the distance. I did my best to belly flop right on the numbers, but why should everything go right? I hit the tail end of the foam and skidded right through it, sparks flying all over. I had cracked the door open before I touched down, so while I was skidding, I was unbuckling and trying to get the door open. When the plane stopped, I was out in a flash, making a mad dash for safety. Of course, a small explosion occurred which rendered the plane nothing more than a mass of metal.

Since I returned the plane as contracted, the insurance company had to pay me. It was big money, but not big enough to have me continue this insane new line of work.

The FAA suspended my license for flying an unsafe aircraft. The Feds got me for smuggling a drug related aircraft back into the US, and I had to pay for damage to the airstrip. So, all in all, I ended up with a dollar and a half for my services, and a lesson that I was not as smart as I thought I was.

It was time to move on to another profession. By this time, we had a son as well as a daughter, a home in Sherman Oaks, and was a good neighbor. None knew what I did for a living. I was 39 years old, and for the first time, I questioned myself about what the hell I was doing. All of a sudden, I realized I should feel a little fear. I should become more normal - settle down as they say… I just couldn't seem to find what I wanted to do….until an actor hired me to track his wife. Yeah, that's it. I'll make movies. That sounded like fun, so I made the rounds of producers trying to get any job I could. I soon learned the only job I could do was to become and assistant, as all the other jobs were unionized in one form or another. Trying to get an assistants job was not easy either, as I was up against all the young kids out of film school.

I devised a plan to offer my services for free and soon caught on with a prolific television producer. I did all those things any low level assistant does: wash his car, take his laundry out, buy his cigarette's, get his coffee, and a million other personal things. All I asked in return was five minutes each day for question and answer. I worked seven days a week sometimes and went from one show to another. When I wasn't being a servant to a producer, I was studying post production, or asking each department head just what exactly did they do?… I continued this for six months. Still no pay...I got lucky and was hired by a producer to be his Executive Assistant on a movie of the week at Paramount. He thought I had a lot of experience, and, what the hell, I was free. I had never worked on a movie of the week before, so it was worth the experience to me… It didn't take long to realize this particular producer was very weak. I even had to step in to protect him at times. The movie was only half finished when I decided I had enough. I went to the Executive Producers and told them I was leaving and hoped I had a chance to work with them again in the future.

A month later, I got a call from them asking me to come take over, as they had fired the producer. They thought I had at least ten years in the business and wanted an expert. I took the job, finished the movie, and became their Executive in Charge of Production for their new company at Paramount. They wanted to concentrate on TV, so we created "TAXI." My first paying job in the business rewarded me with an EMMY and a GOLDEN GLOBE! Two more were to follow.

After five years with that company, I became and independent producer, producing long form as well as half hour, action as well as comedy. I have produced all over the world, but never matched the quality of TAXI.

For the past few years, I have been the guy that Disney sends to rescue a project from financial disaster. I do not produce too many from scratch any more, but may do just that with my own script some day…The kids are grown and have their own lives. Both live in Los Angeles….Taeko and I moved to Las Vegas right after the '94 earthquake. The quake devastated our Sherman Oaks home, so we just turned our back and moved on… The money we save from California income tax has paid for our home here in Vegas free and clear. Not a bad idea for all you retired people to think about. Vegas is not just a gambling mecca now, it's a bustling city of almost two million people, and about the same size as the San Fernando Valley. No state income tax, personal or corporate.

Since my retirement, we have given our home in Las Vegas to my brother and have moved to the big island of Hawaii. I am in the middle of writing my damning biography of twenty-five years in the entertainment business. It's going to be a scorcher. Hawaii provides the serenity to just lay back and let it flow.

In conclusion, I am not proud of everything I did in my life, but I have tried to be fair, I try to help those I can and protect those that need protecting, especially in the work place. My life now is completely different from my years as a Marine and an investigator. I was someone else then.

I know I was given something special when I was born. How else to explain all I have been through, all I have suffered, accomplished. It took a while, but I have learned that love and understanding is the main ingredient for humankind to survive.