Life With Uncle Dave

When I got out of Navy boot camp the beginning of 1968 there were no openings in the school I had been promised, so I was sent off to a ship to wait for a billet to open up.

The ship was in port at that time in the Philippines so they flew me to Clark Air Force Base where I would catch a bus down to the Naval Base at Subic Bay…or at least that was the plan. But the best laid Plains of Mice and Men often go astray. In this case they went “far astray.”

After two weeks leave following basic training in San Diego I reported to Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento, California where I caught a plane that ‘eventually’ dropped me off in Japan. There I caught what looked like a “no frills” charter air line called “Air America,” that was supposed to be going to Clark. Silly me, I believed them. It turned out that “Air America” didn’t publish their entire itinerary for each flight, and this one had a scheduled but unlisted stop in of all places Saigon, South Viet Nam.

Now one of the eccentricities of military transport is that when ever you get off a plane at an intermediate stop you are not guaranteed that you will get back on that same airplane when it departs. In this case I got ‘bumped’ in favor of a guy who was going home on emergency leave because someone in his family was gravely ill. To be totally honest I volunteered to give up my seat once I heard his story, and to me it was all just part of one big adventure.

Please forgive me ‘O Great Deity’ for I knew not what I was doing.

Perhaps you might remember hearing of something called the ‘Tet Offensive’ of 1968.’ It was a major push by the Viet Cong to crush the South Vietnamese and drive out the Americans. Wasn’t completely successful, we didn’t leave until 1975’ but I think it got the ball rolling.

When I got bumped off my ride to Clark I was told I could catch a ride the next morning as it was a daily flight. Well the ‘Tet Offensive’ messed up those plans as the VC attacked the base that night and the ‘Brass’ were not allowing any non-military planes to land or take off until the danger was deemed ‘over.’

My overnight adventure was a day shy of two weeks long and filled not with days of exploring the back streets of Saigon but with nights in a fox hole guarding a concertina wire fence against some very nasty and determined little men with big guns.

The day after I got there I was told I would be expected to be part of the duty section that would be guarding the fence against attack and after trying to convince the Air Force Security Sergeant that I wouldn’t be there long enough to stand a watch, unsuccessfully of course, I explained that I would need a little instruction as I had never set eyes, much less hand on an M-16 rifle (Navy Boot Camp teaches you how to use a WWII vintage M1 Rifle and an 1911 vintage 45 pistol.) so they took me out to their make shift firing range and showed me how to shoot a fully automatic weapon.

They attacked the fence the first night I stood guard and I found out the answer to the big question, “Would I be able to shoot another human being?” Well shoot at actually, it would be another night before I was actually aware I had killed someone. This was a real question in my case as I had been drafted and I joined the Navy very quickly in order to not be in the Army. I said it was because I didn’t want to sleep in the mud and eat cold food but it was also because I did not want to have to kill people. But all it took was one night on the line to convince me that if somebody was shooting at me the appropriate response was to shoot back. The ultimately guilty pleasure is in a fire fight when you aim your weapon at an advancing man, shoot and see him fall, and you feel the rush of knowing that you, not he, will be going home to your family when this is over.

A few nights later we got a new guy into the section. He was 19 or 20 but he seemed younger and he was obviously scared stiff. He appeared to know how to use a rifle but when we were hit his first night all he could do was fire over the edge of his fox hole in the general direction of the enemy. I don’t think he was terribly effective at anything but scaring the circling buzzards (had there been any.)

After we got off watch I suggested to the section leader that he might have a talk with the guy as to what he was there for and he told me sometimes it takes a new guy a couple days to figure it out, so I left it alone. A couple nights later they started lobbing mortar shells at us and things got really interesting. Now we had to do a lot more than keep our heads down to stay alive. I was in the fox hole nearest the new guy that night and I noticed he didn’t have his weapon on full automatic like he had before. That night I looked over at him as a flare lit up the sky and saw him take careful aim at a mortar crew and one by one kill all three of them. He was what we would call a ‘dead shot.’ When he aimed at something he hit it. He had found his muse, and his target. I talked to him in the mess hall after we got off watch and he told me he had been dear hunting since he was 10 with his dad so he knew how to hit a target, but he had been going to church with his mom all his life and he knew killing people was wrong. When the VC had started sending mortars our way he had decided that even his mom would rather him kill than die so he started shooting the deer in black pajamas. I hope he made it back home alright.

In a few more days it was all over…well at least for me it was, and I finally got to my ship and on with my life of three warm meals and a warm place to sleep. I got back to Viet Nam a few times after that but only once did I find myself tested like I had been that first time.

Well that’s all behind me now that I am an old man in the woods of Alabama but the images still come up when I hear stories of the current war and see bits of movies of such things.

Uncle Dave

So this election is effectively over (except for a couple of close races) and now we can figure out where to go from here.

First, the most innocent casualty. That would be Sarah Palin’s daughter. You know, the one who is un-married and pregnant. Before this all got started she was in a mildly embarrassing situation known to her family and friends but not to the world at large. Now she is the poster child for “Abstinence Doesn’t Work!!!” and “Sex Education is Important!!!” Of course she could make a lot of money if she wants’ too. I’m sure “Trojan” would pay a lot to use her in their advertising as a cautionary tale. I just hope they don’t force her to marry that guy just because he got her pregnant.

I am somewhat disappointed in the Californians, I personally think that any two adults, in their right minds should be allowed to marry each other if that is their wish. Doesn’t even seem like the sort of thing that you could legislate against. To do so seems like ‘codified discrimination.’

The long term winner is of course the Republican Party. We got a pretty much “Clean Slate” here and we can rebuild the GOP as it was before these shrill, whiney, bible thumping bastards took it over. The party of ideas, intelligence and hope for the future. Lets face it, anything that happens in the next four to eight years is the fault of the Democrats and can be used for leverage for change in the appropriate (notice I didn’t say ‘right’) direction.

I think we can pretty much bury “set asides & special treatment for minorities.” How can you justify saying a black man needs extra help to succeed when the highest office in the land is held by a self professed, “Self Made Black Man?”

Don’t get me wrong. I am immensely proud of Senator/President Elect Obama and I am most proud of America which saw past his skin color and elected him on his qualifications. I’m also proud of myself for doing my part to help elect him but I do think there were two guys vying for the job, both were qualified but one was more qualified and he got the job not because of his skin color but because of his qualifications. My primary problem with McCain was his age and infirmity. I could not vote for a man who was likely to keel over and crash from a heart attack and leave us in the totally incapable hands of Eskimo Barbie who thinks she can see Russia from Wasilla, Alaska.

I told you I was a Republican.

Uncle Dave
(P.S. I gotta keep my head down for a while, I am apparently the only person in the ‘Park” who voted for Obama.)

The adventures of ‘Eskimo Barbie’ and her loving husband ‘Kodiak Ken’

The ‘Royal Family’ of that far away land called Alaska. (The only state in the union who’s Governors Mansion is a double wide. But it does have a nice deck…and a paved driveway.)

After they lose the Big Election will Ken have to go back to working third shift on that oil drilling rig? Will the oldest daughter have this baby and immediately get pregnant again? Will the rest of the kids get disgusted with the whole thing and go to live with the grand parents?

How bout Barbie’s sister. Will she ever get her ex-husband fired from his job and if she does, who will pay the child support and alimony?

Stay tuned, this is too good to just let it die with the end of the election.

Uncle Dave

So…I was watching the FOX News channel this morning and Eskimo Barbie came on with a rather bold statement. She said that when “they” (meaning she and Lame John) win, the first thing they will do is give the American People a ‘Tax Cut.’ But if they cut taxes (even if it is just for their rich friends) where are they going to get the $10,000,000,000.00/month it takes to fight the hundred year war in Iraq? Where is the money coming from for the next bail-out of ‘Rich Folk’ who make bad choices in the Stock Market? And where will they get the money for the VP’s next shopping trip?

Somebody had to ask!

I do feel better about one aspect of the Republican ticket though. There has been a question as to whether or not Sarah Palin is qualified to be Vice President. Don’t worry, she is! I base this statement on the job performance of the current VP and I am sure that, like him, she is fully capable of hiding in an undisclosed location and as a hunter she should be able to handle the “Shooting of the odd lawyer in the face with a shotgun.” She’s qualified, deal with it!

I also think that Joe Biden was wrong about Obama being tested in his first six months in office. Lets be realistic here, it took almost eight months for them to test ‘baby Bush.’ It was September 11 before ‘They’ (This time ‘They’ is the terrorists) turned the World Trade Center into a pile of rubble and made the ‘Pentagon’ into a ‘Quadrangle.’

Just wanted to set the record straight.

I’m going to go out and sit in my rocking chair on the porch and suck my thumb for a while now.

Uncle Dave

My father told me a lot of things when I was growing up. Much of it was the ravings of a middle aged drunk but some of it was truly wise and worth remembering, maybe even passing on. I’ll spare you the ravings of the “Drunk,” but here are a couple of the worthwhile items.

On fighting: Don’t start fights! Don’t ‘goad’ people into swinging at you and don’t let them ‘goad’ you into it either. But: If some guy hits you hit him back twice. If he hits you again, knock him down. When he stops fighting, you stop.

I took this as a license to take revenge but dad further explained that the goal was not to hurt him but to convince him and any others who might be watching not to hit you any more. At the time I did not understand, but eventually I saw the wisdom in the rule.

Dad was in the military from early 1942 til the end of 1965 when he retired. First he joined the Marines in WWII at the tender age of fifteen (as was not uncommon, he lied about his age) then after a short attempt at being a civilian in ’46 & 47’ He went into the Army in ‘48’ (once he figured out that being a farm hand in Montana was not the life he wanted to lead.) I was born in ‘49’ in an army hospital in Kansas.

In the mid fifties, after we all came back from Okinawa where Dad had been an MP for a couple years and we kids (there were four of us by then) had got to experience some of the world that wasn’t Kansas, Dad got shipped off on a temporary assignment. Twenty something or so years later he told me what it was. Some of you will recall the movies that pop up ever so often of the testing of nuclear weapons done in the Nevada Desert in the fifties. You might recall the pictures of troops ducking down in trenches to escape the hurricane like winds that blew out from the explosions. My dad was one of those troops and he maybe didn’t duck fast enough or far enough. He died of stomach cancer in 1984.

This all leads up to the second pearl of wisdom dad imparted to me. This was about the military and service there-in. Dad said that every day spent in the military takes two or more days off your life. His reasoning was that military life is a lot rougher on the human body (and mind) than civilian life as a rule and will therefore probably shorten it somewhat. Using his rule of thumb he might have made it to 80 instead of dying at 58 had he not chosen a career in the service of our country. He imparted this bit of philosophy to me upon my discharge from the U.S.Navy after roughly 11 years of service. To be honest I don’t think it would have changed my decision about how long to stay in the Navy had he told this to me earlier as I ‘pretty much’ ignored him in the decisions of my life.

Thus is the father-son relationship destined to be?

Memory is a wonderful/treacherous thing. It doesn’t help you make good decisions, but it sure reminds you of it when you don’t.

Of course, everything is relative and to show a little perspective on the thought that Dad died early because of his service, We have to remember that Mom died of what amounted to ‘old age’ when she was 49 years old and her only military experience was that of being an army wife for five years. My brother Ray died at 52 and he spent only two and a half years in the service. Maybe it’s just a ‘family thing.’ We just crash and burn early.

I don’t know, my Mother’s Mother died at 40, my Father’s Father died at 55. Is it heredity or environment?

Maybe I should go think about something else now.

Uncle Dave
(59 and counting)