“For too long, we have lived with the ‘Vietnam Syndrome.’
Much of that syndrome has been created by the North Vietnamese aggressors who
now threaten the peaceful people of Thailand. Over and over they told us for
nearly 10 years that we were the aggressors bent on imperialistic conquests.
They had a plan. It was to win in the field of propaganda here in America what
they could not win on the field of battle in Vietnam. As the years dragged on,
we were told that peace would come if we would simply stop interfering and go
home. It is time we recognized that ours was, in truth, a noble cause. A small country newly free from colonial rule sought
our help in establishing self-rule and the means of self-defense against a
totalitarian neighbor bent on conquest. We
dishonor the memory of 50,000 young Americans who died in that cause when we
give way to feelings of guilt as if we were doing something shameful, and we
have been shabby in our treatment of those who returned. They fought as
well and as bravely as any Americans have ever fought in any war. They deserve
our gratitude, our respect, and our continuing concern. There is a lesson for
all of us in Vietnam. If we are forced to fight, we must have the means and the
determination to prevail or we will not have what it takes to secure the peace.
And while we are at it, let us tell those
who fought in that war that we will never again ask young men to fight and
possibly die in a war our government is afraid to let them win.”
-Ronald Reagan, addressing the VFW Convention, August 18,
1980-
I shamelessly made emphasis with the italics. Please allow me to provide you with an
executive summary of this ignominy:
The goddamn Commie
weasels poisoned the minds of the American people, which caused us to lose
heart and eventually the War. But don’
warry! We will never ever repeat the
mistake of Viet Nam.
Well, AH bleveit; howbout YEW? Yew bleve yore Presidents when they talk at
yew thisaway? Ah doo. I do-I do-I do believe!
I do believe I’ll get the hell on with my monologue.
Kali is the most affectionate of my three cats. Indeed, she is the most demonstrative of any
feline in a long history of cats.
Straddling a thigh with her hinny, legs over a saddle, she clings to my
shirtfront while I administer the scritchiest scritch to head, neck and
backbone.
When I pause to try and type around her, she
ever-so-slightly digs her foreclaws into my skin, to advise me that she hasn’t
had enough scritch yet.
All the while (Since I can’t work with this furry calico
chest-stole attached to my torso), I study my desktop National Geographic photo
for the day. It depicts a small town in
Transylvania; central focus is a housewife hosing off her front pavement,
babushka-wrapped head—a study in attention to chore-at-hand.
She is wearing a lovely green apron, which looks to have
been cut from her parlor drapery—possibly a leftover thatch (Where could I
acquire such a precious?)
She has a strong Slavic face (In ourwah own South, we call
this havin’ good bone stwuckcha). Her
thick dark hair is peeking coquettishly from the head scarf. She is middle-aged and has gone to Winter
Flab.
Naturally, no ardent vampire would use such an awful
term. He would, instead, running his
hands through the Vaseline on his hair to caress her tresses, murmur sweetly in
her tiny ear of her voluptuous woman’s body, while moving to round her
quivering nethers with his oily hands.
She is fiction come to life.
She is Yossarian’s passion.
Heller’s protagonist Yossarian, in Catch 22, brought his
entire considerable ardor to bear on the cleaning woman in the squadron’s
favorite whorehouse. She mopped and cleaned
wearing only a generous pair of lime-green panties.
Spurring all offers from the prostitutes, he would demand
only her. The image of her rolling those
lime-green panties down off her big hips and fat thighs is a treasured literary
moment in yet another great novel dedicated to hypocrisy and farce.
Now begins Part I of a helluva farce of a blonde headed
yeoman’s tale:
As the ninth month in-country rolled on, I was trying very
hard not to think of lime-green panties or any other spur to my horniness. Alas, I failed every damn day. Not thinking of sex when the testosterone is
overflowing is a bit like hearing a suggestion to not think of monkeys.
My need for…monkeys…was misery incarnate.
There were not enough chemicals within my
grasp to anesthetize the monkeys that swung and chattered around my youthful
brain. In desperation, I decided,
finally, to drop that tab of Purple Haze that Delancey had mailed me months
earlier. On my next day off, I went to
my clothes pantry and rummaged for that tiny triangle of sponge holding that
hit of acid.
Shit!
Shit-shit-shit-shit!!! The sponge
was there, but the pill was gone. In and
around the pantry were abnormally high concentrations of rat shit. I hope the stinking vermin got off before
overdosing.
It was in one of these moods of emasculation that Frosty
began his campaign to persuade me to take R and R. I saw later that he would not go unless he
had someone with him—specifically me.
It took him days, weeks to get through to me. It was five days out of here, it was free,
and it was going to be…fun! I remained
stubbornly unconvinced. I had already
launched into a lifetime of denying myself the pleasure and relief of
vacations.
Only with the persistence of my parents, and later my wives
could I be dragged away from whatever excuse I deemed reasonable for my
reticence. I’m still doing it now, with
retirement and all the time available: can’t leave the dogs, the cats, and the
blog. I can’t afford it. Too hot, too
wet, too cold, too seasonal; it just goes on and on.
The corrosive fearful thread within that kept me in this
condition from Da Nang to the present day is a deep-seated conviction that I do
not deserve it. Boy!
If you think chemical addictions and bad habits are a bitch to evict,
take a good look at the lifetime habit of denying oneself pleasure, fun and
affirmation.
Back to Viet Nam and Frosty’s continually jerking my
chain. I finally conceded, not for my
sake, but for the altruistic bullshit that I was doing it for him. Interestingly, I had to bring my parents in
on this. I let them know I would be in
one of the shopping capitols of Asia; what would they like me to get for them?
We mulled over our selections of where to go. Many married guys automatically chose Hawaii
in order to spend time with their wives and family. The other locations were too distant from
mainland America for them to consider: Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, Manila,
Bangkok and Hong Kong.
In the end, we picked Hong Kong. We trotted down to personnel and filled out
our chits for two weeks hence.
Dad sent me $400 to purchase a top-line stereo system. $400
in tax-free-duty-free-postage-free Hong Kong would go far to buying something
with a lot of juice to it.
It’s a mystery to me even now, but at the time, I didn’t
think about touring, wild sex or other debauchery; all I could think about was
getting that system for my Dad. Oh, and
giving my buddy a travelling companion.
Dipshit to the core!
The big day came; we struggled into our Donald Duck whites
and stepped aboard the bus to Freedom Hill.
The road skirted the far side of Da Nang airbase and was an area foreign
to my extensive explorations.
One section of road passed between the airbase and a Class C
village the Marines had named Dogpatch. To
my way of thinking, all gook villages were Dogpatch. This one was harmless enough by day; at
night, many rocket attacks came from there, raining down on the adjacent Marine
camp. The explosions could be heard over
on our far side of the harbor. Most of
the time the rockets didn’t hit a hooch. Sometimes they did…
We rocked along with no time for Dogpatch, gooks or five
days from now. Our heads were already in
Hong Kong. We cleared the Hill and took
a second bus ride down to the waiting Braniff 707. No mickey-mouse hitchhike in some military
transport! We were going in style!
Settling in and clicking seat belts, I looked across the
aisle and saw a Special Forces guy reading a paperback. I didn’t bring any books with me. I couldn’t force-feed a reading just then; so
why was he thus engaged? I looked at his
fruit salad: top of a full three inches of ribbons was a Silver Star. This was not his first tour and this was not
his first R and R. I left him to his
read.
Hong Kong International Airport has its runway jutting out
into the water. Our approach took us
around the surrounding peaks and brought us in with the ass-end of the aircraft
scraping the jutting part; at least that was how it felt.
As we taxied to the terminal, we caught sight of a Pan American
747 on its maiden flight around the globe.
None of us had ever seen anything this huge in a civilian jet. It was very impressive. When this same Jet Clipper was hijacked in
September, the sight of it blowing up on a Cairo airstrip must have been pretty
impressive too.
Back then, hijacking an airliner was easier that stealing a
car.
Nowadays, thanks to the terrorist
pricks that brought hijacking into vogue, grandmas and babies get
strip-searched looking for a C-4 pack wedged up their toots.
Shit.
Last hurdle: Customs.
We were warned that possession in the Crown Colony would be met
with…harsh penalties…harsh. Frosty and I
had reamed our gear and clothing back at Tien Sha, taking serious heed of this
warning. We didn’t want to get collared
with a seed in our skivvies or something.
Luckily, we had no concerns about hidden roaches. We had no roaches in Viet Nam. If we didn’t smoke it down to a
finger-scorching nub, then we just flicked it over the side. More plentiful than cigarettes; cheaper too.
Each disembarked tourist grunt was confronted with his
personal Hong Kong policeman. My Chinese
host scrutinized my military I.D., looked into my face, looked down at the card
again; then leaned across the counter and squinted close to my face.
“You have…marijuana?!” said in a Chinese-inflected
English. My eyes widened as I shook my
head a vigorous negative. “Enjoy youself here, don’t try to buy
drugs!!” Another round of
negative-affirmative head wagging, and I was through Customs.
Frosty and I were taken by motor coach to our hotel on the
Kowloon side, the President Emeritus Blop-Blop-whatever. Before being shown up to our rooms, the ten
or so of us brought to this location were gathered in a semi-circle and
addressed by a large Chinese gentleman I took for the manager:
“We want you to
have a good time here and we are sure you will.
Now, please (small laugh) don’t give your room key to your young lady
and do not let her hold onto your money” said with an inscrutable smile and
slight bob of respect. He didn’t say,
‘Don’t bring your whores in my hotel!’ or any such thing.
Frosty and I went to our rooms, changed into civvies and set
off for drinks and a look about.
There was a Great Adventure afoot; and before it was all
over, this R and R would cost me in more ways than one. I had no idea…how much.
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