PRIORITIES

 I remember reading somewhere that, in late 1944 into early 1945, as Nazi Germany was collapsing:

The Allied bombing campaign had crippled Germany’s rail network.

German troops at the front were desperate for transport of fuel, weapons, and reinforcements.

Despite this, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and a central architect of the Holocaust, continued to prioritize deportations—especially in 1944 during the destruction of Hungarian Jewry. Trains continued to deport Jews to concentration and extermination camps as a top priority.

I dunno. Just thought about this the other day on a trip into lower Arkansas, i.e. LA.

Passing by bald areas where farm communities once stood and concrete-pad strewn strips where downtowns once thrived, I thought about us.

Conditions now suggest that those areas may be facing a drought of Biblical proportions, threatening the only industry left to those communities.

Then I saw where our president said we couldn’t afford to address the health of our people anymore because we need the money to make bombs and kill people. Actually, it wasn’t money but debt-capacity, which he equates with money.

Leave saving humanity to the states, he said.

In our state, they want to direct resources to the destruction of public schools and construction of a monumental prison facility.

Is this what y’all voted for? Is this what y’all want?

Really?

VIRTUE

 This morning as Bessie Smith the Rescue Dog and I rambled, we listen to “Cannery Row,” by John Steinbeck. It was perhaps my thirtieth encounter, but she likes fiction, so we reconnected. Came across a phrase I had forgotten: “Misunderstood Virtues.”

Wow. Got me to thinking. As I have said before, I’ll never understand why they say I have a derangement syndrome because I don’t think, for among many reasons, that the grifter that dishonored the military service of John McCain should even be imagined as the president of my beloved country.
Here’s the thing. I don’t honor what Lt. Col. McCain was doing when they shot him down. He was following orders. They were evil orders but that’s what his country asked him to do and he had taken that oath. For the next six years, however, he served with as much dignity and patriotism as one could ask. He was the very picture of a virtuous individual.
It’s the same with Jane Fonda. I don’t respect what she did, but she did it for a defensible reason. I hold no lingering hatred. After all, hers wasn’t the greatest sin associated with that miserable war. Trust me.
Virtues, in my opinion, are complex. That’s why we should read, and why we should think about what we read.
Today we might remember that 161 years ago, the United States Army was within a few days of ending the institution of slavery, with all its sickening manifestations, in our country. There were those among both the victorious and the vanquished who felt they were operating within the most glorious of virtues.

Retribution

Sometimes I wonder if, in some bizarre case of cosmic retribution, America isn't getting what she deserves.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen us allow the tragic effects of the Jim Crow bigotry to exert catastrophe after catastrophe upon the lives of decent Americans.

I’ve seen (been victimized myself) us invade a country that had done us no discernable harm and wage a seemingly never-ending war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. For nothing.

I’ve seen us wage wars for profit that have de-stabilized large segments of the planet.

I’ve seen us make great strides in destroying the planet that succors us. Signs suggest that the next few months threaten a drought that might make water more precious than diamonds.

And now we choose to be ruled by international oligarchs using a mindset similar to what ruled the American South in 1861. They want to take over and rule us our country that once held such promise.

And they are doing a damned good job of it.

Coincidences?

Maybe. Or maybe there is a great spirit in the sky observing and controlling our destinies. If so, I’m guessing she’s pretty put out with us.

1968

 A friend and I had lunch last week and the conversation turned to the year1968 when we served simultaneously, but hundreds of miles apart, during the same war. We were there for the year, I near Da Nang and he south of Saigon.

During May of that year some 2,415 of our brothers died.
2,415: That’s the most of any month during that sad war.
There were that many empty chairs at holiday gatherings next year from only one month’s insanity.
The year 1968 overall was the deadliest year for U.S. forces in Vietnam (16,899 deaths).
That’s just Americans. That’s just deaths. That’s 16,899 men who would never hold a child of theirs in their arms thereafter.
That’s just the year we were there.
We beat the odds, my friend and I. Sort of.
Do me a favor. If you find yourself getting sexually aroused when Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump talk about how hot-damned tough America is, find yourself a quiet spot, sit, take out a mirror, look at yourself, and say, “I am a complete asshole,” at least 2,415 times.
Because, trust me. You are.

RESIST FACISM

 MORNING THOUGHTS

One almost has to admire their cunning. Since Newt Gingrich showed them how, they have convinced enough Americans, including the young, that it is It is acceptable to:

Dishonor the dead,

Dishonor the veteran,

Dishonor the physically challenged,

Dishonor the female,

Dishonor persons of color, and

Disrespect the words of the Galilean on the Mount.

Can we even imagine an America fueled by youth indoctrinated so? It’s taken only 80 years to go from the band of brothers to the band of brigands.

MEMORIES

 

THE QUIET WOMAN

A True Story of the Vietnam Era

By Jimmie von Tungeln

             If the old woman hadn’t come on after the stripper, things might have started a little smoother. After all, who would want to follow a tall, dark Eurasian woman who took off nearly everything she had on in front of a thousand horny service men? And I do mean all she had on, except for a tiny strip of gauze across her bosom and a triangular patch covering her “Forbidden Garden.” Tony Grant would claim the next day, “I swear I could almost see nipples from where I was sitting.” The USO waltzed out some weird acts back in those days, some deliberately designed, it seemed, to drive men crazy. The generals allowed it and then wondered why men were so hard to control out in the jungle.

            Anyway, the stripper was finished. She wasn’t coming back out. It would have been dangerous, too much heat and too much beer. This was an enlisted men’s club in the I-Corp and not a gentleman’s joint in Manhattan. The next act better damned sure be a good one though. Feelings were running high. A half-decent rock and roll band would have been nice, anyone who could do a passable version of the Vietnam Vets’ National Anthem: “We’ve Got To Get Out of This Place.”

            But no. Out walks this tiny woman of indeterminate age, at least fifty. She wore a long sequined black dress that fell from her tiny shoulders almost to the floor. Her hair was short and showed some signs of gray. Cheap-looking earrings hung nearly to her shoulders. Her makeup looked as if it had been applied by a first-week beauty school student. Christ almighty!

Tiny and aged as she was, though, she had spunk. She walked up to the mike like she was at Carnegie Hall and waited for her piano player to get seated. The place was quiet for a moment, from sheer disbelief I suspect.

            Then the rumbling started and you could here someone yelling for the stripper to come back out. I heard a Grunt scream, “Get that old bag out of here.”

            The shouts of disapproval were so loud that only those in the first couple of rows could hear her when she said, “I know I can’t compete with that last act. I only know a few old songs, some Irish and some not. Maybe you’ll enjoy one or two of them.”

            With that, the piano hit a strong, commanding chord, and from that frail tiny body soared a sound so linear and pure that one could imagine it piercing the back wall of the club and flying straight into the jungle and beyond.”

“Over in Killarney
Many years ago,
My Mother sang a song to me
In tones so sweet and low.”

The sounds emerging from that ancient (to us at least, young fools that we were) face were so strange and haunting that those nearest the stage hushed immediately and this allowed the full force of her voice to carry further.

“Just a simple little ditty,
In her good old Irish way,
And l'd give the world if she could sing
That song to me this day.”

A wave of silence undulated across the room as the voice filled it with an assurance formed, no doubt, by many years of knocking about places with forgettable names and long-forgotten faces.

"Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don't you cry!
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, that's an Irish lullaby."

            By this time her voice was challenged only by the soft movement of hands moving cans of beer and heads turning to watch. She finished the song and, in perfect timing, the piano player led her into “My Wild Irish Rose.” A few in the crowd began to move with the music. Some even hummed along with the song. She finished it and looked at the crowd and smiled. It was sort of an impish smile if you can imagine. Then she dropped a shoulder, thrust a bony hip toward us, and pointed a blue-veined foot directly at those in the front row.

“I hate to see, that evening sun go down.”

            The piano player supported her with a sweeping blues chord and she was off. Somehow she didn’t seem as old as she had when she started. The crowd just watched in disbelieving approval. She finished this number and than stopped and looked us over as if to say, “What do you think now, boys?”

Now these weren’t college boys or Irish rovers. Twenty-four hours earlier some of them had been killing Viet Cong, unsuspecting villagers, or water buffaloes, anything that got in their way. But their minds sure weren’t on killing now. The applause started in the front and moved over us like a rolling artillery barrage. The building shook like it might fall at any moment. She just kept singing.

            Who can remember what all she performed that night? It seemed over before it started. Each time she finished a song, the room erupted and hundreds of beer cans pounded on tables. As she came out for her third encore, she thanked us and we knew we would never hear her sing again. Those USO shows moved around quickly and we were only there for “365 and a wake-up.”

            “I’ll leave you with this, for that special one back home,” she said and looked at the floor as if it had some secret message written on it. Raising her head, she looked at each one of us and smiled.

            “I’ll be seeing you,” she sang.

            “In all those old familiar places.”

            You didn’t dare look around at a goddam soul for you knew you were about to start bawling and then they would too. We couldn’t cry, though. Hell, we were supposed to be killers. And tomorrow we might be. Not tonight, though. Tonight we were just a bunch of homesick boys enjoying a moment of peace in a world that seemed to have forgotten about us.

“In that small cafe …that park across the way…”

Life does have its moments. I’ve never forgotten that one.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 A little piece in which I predict the future:

Morning began with a thud as an empty beer bottle hit a Christmas tree in the next room.
“Hon?”
There was no answer.
“Maria, are you okay?”
No one answered and Joe rose. Entering the next room, he saw his wife slumped on the couch, staring at the straggly tree with no presents beneath it, just the beer bottle.
He sat beside her. “What’s the matter,” he said.
“Everything.”
“Everything?” He put an arm around her. “Everything all at once?”
She moved her eyes to his and said, “Why? Why do they have to move here?”
“They are my parents,” Joe said. “They have no place to go. Can’t you understand? What if they were your parents?”
“Mine are both dead,” she said. “Remember the last flu epidemic? Why can’t he get a job?”
“He tried,” Joe said. “It’s hard. No firm wants to hire a man in his late fifties. Particularly with a break in his leg that never healed. He got that at his last job, remember? He’s on the list.”
“What about her?”
“There’s only stenography jobs,” he said. “And they go to the young ones. The ones they call ‘the company ink.’”
“Couldn’t we just give them some money to find a place?”
“You forget,” he said. “Having a child with smallpox doesn’t do much good for savings accounts.”
“Tommy can get a job when he gets out, can’t he? The damned government must let him out eventually.”
“Sshh,” Joe said. He glanced around the room and covered the cell phone in his pocket. Then he spoke toward it. “Now you know the government is trying to help. The news says incomes will rise even higher this year.”
She shook her head. “What did Tommy say when you saw him?”
“Good news,” Joe said. “He is pretty sure his lawyer can get ‘Helping Immigrants’ lowered to ‘Improper Empathy.’ Now doesn’t that make you feel better?”
“And the ones he helped?”
Joe looked around again. This time he was more nervous than before. “Now don’t you worry about them. They are being well cared for. Things are going to get better for us all.” He kissed her forehead. “And… “
“And what?
“Merry Christmas.”