FACISM ALERT

 This latest obscenity targeting Dr. Fauci is straight out of the Karl Rove handbook: The best way to assault a political opponent or someone who doesn’t support the cult, but is a decent person, is to determine their most admirable characteristic. Next, attack it by using paid deplorables. Then, have Fox news and other tawdry sources spend untold assets promoting the character assassination, over and over and over, until it becomes cult dogma and even tempts some decent people to succumb.

It worked on Senator John Kerry, who commanded a Swift boat in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War. Yes, they defamed a sailor’s character for performing a highly dangerous mission on behalf of his country. And the sons of bitches got away with it.

They also condoned the tactic when used against John McCain, a Navy Aviator who suffered imprisonment for six years after the Vietnamese shot down his plane.

So, allow me to borrow a United States Navy expression those shipmates and I would use to say that, if you support demeaning the service a Swift Boat Commander or Naval Aviator for political purposes, you would suck shit scupper.

GEORGE MEADE, THE VIETS AND ME

By Jimmie von Tungeln

Prologue

      It takes a Vietnam veteran to understand the lack of appreciation America has paid the victor of the country's most famous battle. That would be the Battle of Gettysburg, fought on the first three days of July 1863. The general would be Maj. Gen. George Gordon Mead. If you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry, most Americans haven’t. A majority of those who do are ones who never forgave him for his monumental act of temerity. His army won the battle, if an army can ever “win” a battle. And he was to blame for it.

      Who was he to defeat the undefeatable Robert E. Lee? Lee was then the rebellion’s darling, later to become an American favorite, second only to George Washington. How could he have been bested by someone named Meade, days before only an unknown Corps commander in the U.S. Army? Americans don’t easily forgive those who fail to live up to their mythical dogmas. Nor do they embrace those who destroy their most cherished fantasies.

      General Meade paid dearly for his transgressions. A later generation would suffer in kind. The difference? Meade earned his historical displeasure for a victory. Veterans of the police action in Southeast Asia earned theirs for a defeat. In both cases unpopular figures shattered myths. We don’t like that. We don’t allow it. We stop it when we can with whatever means are available.

      Meade paid with historical neglect, ridicule, and outright prevarication. Vietnam veterans, we’ll call them “Viets,” paid with the forfeiture of their valor, of which there was more than the public at large would admit. In both cases, the damage proved irresolute.

      Victims fell under the spell of stubborn myths. The so-called “Lost Cause Myth,” some now call it the “Loser Cause Myth,” not only destroyed reputations, it destroyed the lives of fellow Americans for more than a century. It even clings to its evil purposes in modern times. Malicious, but talented, artists, like D.W. Griffith and Margaret Mitchell, helped shunt generations of African-Americans into ghettos, substandard schools, and labor that barely provided sustenance. Powerful leaders like Woodrow Wilson stood by, sometimes idly and sometimes not. Myths feed on it all: adherence, acceptance, and indifference.

      Viets also fell under the grinding spell of myths. Drug-crazed, spoiled brats in no way deserved the war flags of “The Greatest Generation.” Yes, that’s the one that forced its brothers of color to come home after the war to ghettos, substandard schools, and labor that barely provided sustenance. More recently, the Viets are enjoying some relief from the myth of “They could have won if the leaders had allowed them to,” a laughable tenant were it not so poetically alluring. Myths feed on it all: absolution, neatly packaged explanations, and ignorance.

      All this swirled about in my mind for years. Personally, I knew the Viets suffered from a bad rap. I had been there. After I decided to study the Gettysburg battle, I began to suspect that George G. Meade deserved more respect than Americans had given him. All he did was take a badly demoralized and undersupplied army, filled with political intrigue and, after only two days in command, defeat the immortal Robert E. Lee. The latter, I began to suspect, deserved less respect than America had given him. Myths feed on it all: selective facts, well-crafted falsehoods, and propagation.

      After beginning my study of the battle, intrigue led me to the National Parks service. The service maintains a web site on the battle of Gettysburg. I went there to find out more about this man Meade. If any site should direct my study, this one should.

      At that time, the effort met with failure and surprise. The National Park Website on the Gettysburg Battlefield Park did not mention General George G. Meade whatsoever. Instead, it concentrated on, as might be expected, Robert E. Lee. It also featured prominently a rebel division commander, George E. Pickett. The latter’s division was present for only one day of the battle. Being a fresh unit, it took part, with two other divisions, in the most spectacular failure of the battle. More on that later. Having enjoyed a 100-year publicity campaign by historical revisionists, that rebel general now represents America’s most famous, yet beloved, loser.

      As for the forgotten General Meade, Allen C. Guelzo summoned it well in a 2013 essay republished in 2017:

      “And yet the mention of Meade has always been met with a certain degree of pause—surprise that an officer with such modest credentials could manage to pull off such a mammoth victory as Gettysburg, and then chirping criticism that, having triumphed as he did, Meade failed to do more, failed to stop Lee from escaping back into Virginia and thus end the Civil War right there and then. Although both of those reactions are unfair, they are also accurate. And together, they have come to define George Gordon Meade’s long-term reputation.”[i]

      At the time of this writing, the NPS website on the battlefield treats Meade with more deference, a sign of a growing but grudging acceptance of the man’s remarkable performance. That it has taken a century and a half for such redemption seems regrettable, but is welcome, nonetheless.

      Age has resulted in the most beneficial catalyst for the Viets. At this time, they have become too “long in the tooth” to play ubiquitous crazed psychopaths, lost souls, or deranged superheroes—sometimes a bit of each. Those are roles they filled for years in film, TV, and modern literature. Oh, they stand in on occasion as the most despicable in a clan of despicables, usually southerners or actors attempting to portray southerners. These days they mostly appear as old men with funny caps who wander the streets dreaming of lost love and “lid bags.”

      As Scott Cooper expressed in it a piece for the Modern War Institute at West Point in 2021:

      “In Vietnam the troops lost their noble and heroic image. To others, they were baby killers and suckers. The stereotype of the US soldiers in the war were the goons who perpetrated the atrocities of My Lai, or the blue-collared Boston Southies who didn’t have the connections to get out of the draft. And the result is a generation of combat veterans perceived as products of a single mold, one that gave us James Webb and John Rambo—that of the aggrieved warrior.”[ii]

      All parties, General Meade and the Viets, wander through history with their images drawn to whatever viewpoint correlates highly with an individual viewpoint. Like the nautical Flying Dutchman, their true legacy has never found a safe harbor.

      I can’t provide one. What I can do is recite my path toward understanding how the stories are entwined. No doubt there are other unappreciated individuals or groups who have endured the misfortunes of history’s spotted chronicles. England’s Alan Turing comes to mind as do the men and women of color and same-sex orientation who served our country through its wars to face discrimination and prejudice at home. I can’t speak for them. But I can speak for the Viets with some degree of authority. And I will try to provide some solace to the neglected personage of George Meade. The damage we do to one another doesn’t flow from a single, or even recognizable source.

      Take the Viets, for example. Few people in the 1960s or 1970s would have publicly condemned them. That would have required a reason, an explanation, or even a verifiable fact. In my personal experience the enmity was personal and multifaceted. It included:

-          The band of protesters who met our plane at the San Bernadino, California airport upon our arrival home from the war.

-          The airline representative who told me, with distaste in his demeanor, that the baggage (seabags) of “you people” wasn’t processed with those of normal people but was shuttled to a fenced bin three flights of stars below the main course.

-          The veterans’ associations that didn’t want “losers” as members.

-          The personnel officer on the ship to which I was assigned on my return who bragged, “I always give those Vietnam vets the shittiest assignment we have in order to put them in their place.”

-          The job interviewer who suggested I might omit my military service from my application.

-          The myriad Americans who accepted the stereotype of my brothers and sisters as drug-crazed sociopaths.

-          The book, film, and TV producers, even including some Viets, who clung to the stereotype of misfits who could not function in or after stressful actions.

      In fairness, both General Meade and the Viets generated some of this animosity. I’ll cover that in a later section. For now, may we just say that all had a right to expect better treatment?

CLEANSING

 Seems I’m now the family patriarch. In a dream last night, someone asked me to form a short message of hope for the younger set in these troubled times. In the dream, I said, “What I offer is this: When I was born, one of the wickedest governments ever to sour the earth had turned my ancestral homeland into a cesspool of hate, murder, and carnage. In my lifetime, one lifetime, mind you, Germany transformed itself from a fanatical abscess on the body of humanity to a peaceful and prosperous country worthy of emulation. In our country, we now face primal deterioration. Our America is strong. We can learn from history and cleanse our nest. Let’s do so, and let’s not take an entire lifetime."

WAR

 As I’ve said, been studying the life of Herbert Hoover, a complicated person who was responsible for saving millions of lives around the world during its wars and disasters but bears the historical onus of neglecting his own people in our great crisis. In Kenneth Whyte’s massive biography, I ran across an interesting passage. It states how Hoover felt that WWI would forever change how societies dealt with each other.

“Total war [Hoover] realized engendered total hate.”

That’s an interesting observation. World wars tend to change the paradigm of history. Our politicians today spend the money that could be used to feed the hungry to buy bombs. In an oxymoronic dribble that only fools would cherish, they claim that war brings peace.

Does it? Or does our warlike compulsion resonate more like peeling away layers of an onion representing our society, revealing a more pungent evil with each stripping?

When one considers how so many so-called followers of the Galilean have abandoned his sermon of love and now embrace and worship our dictator’s rages of hate, we weep for Zion. It seems that in the history of Homo sapiens, we have learned much more about how to destroy than how to love.

In short, we have abandoned our better nature, layer by layer.

WARS

 If you hear or see me say something disparaging about our military, please know that I am not referring to the brave women and men who serve in the various uniforms of our armed services. Nor do I intend any criticism of the remaining conscientious officers who have chosen to serve in a noble career and to do it nobly.

If I grouse about the military, I refer to the military-industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower warned us about. These are people, companies, and institutions who must have wars, or rumors of war, to finance their insatiable demand for riches and power. Satisfying it is not an option. It will not be satisfied, cannot be satisfied. Like Monty Python’s famous character, it will feast until riches spout from every orifice and then demand more. And we will feed it while the last child starves, the last veteran dies from wounds acquired while serving it, while the last neighborhood withers from the effects of drugs and wars, while the last institution of learning smolders in ashes, while our planet burns, and while the last family stumbles from a collapsing home into a barren world.

Herbert Hoover

 In August of 1914, the German army invaded Belgium on its way to attack France. Belgium was a prosperous county that traded for most of its foodstuffs. The German army stripped the country of what food and livestock it produced while murdering thousands of innocent civilians, a phenomenon known as “The Rape of Belgium.” The British navy closed the ports through which food arrived. A country of 7.5 million people faced starvation.

When no help came, Herbert Hoover, who was living in Europe, initiated a great effort called the Commission for Relief in Belgium.

Under Hoover’s leadership, the CRB became a logistical powerhouse. It coordinated international donations, chartered ships, and oversaw the distribution of food within Belgium through local committees. At its peak, the organization fed more than 10 million people daily, not only in Belgium but also in parts of northern France. Hoover emphasized efficiency, transparency, and strict neutrality, ensuring that aid reached civilians rather than military forces.

I’m studying the life of this complex man in what I call my “hair shirt hour.” I spend it learning about or reading things I should have done already but didn’t want to.

I’m curious and eager to see how this man could have been so compassionate at one point and so seemingly cruel at another. Wish me luck

RECONCILLIATION

 There was a period from roughly 1877 to the early 1910s that historians call the “reunion era” or sometimes “the Great Reconciliation.” Historians sometimes use “sectional reconciliation” or “the reunion of North and South.”

It carries no title nor official observance, but the effects remain.

Politicians pursued it to end the bitter feelings between the loyal states and the insurrectionist states of our Civil War. A stronger country emerged, so they argued, with this reconciliation.

It featured:

The public acknowledgement of both United States and Confederate state soldiers with joint memorials and reunions.

The naming of federal military bases after soldiers who had waged war against the United States for four long years. One of the most notorious was Fort Bragg, named after an insurrectionist officer generally viewed as a competent administrator but an ineffective field commander. He ordered the killing or maiming of thousands of Americans.

Personally, my family benefited as the government provided identical tombstones for two great-grandfathers, one a U.S. soldier and one a Confederate. They still stand in a lonely cemetery less the fifty feet apart.

The families of close friends didn’t fare as well. The reconciliation put the final nails into the coffin of Reconstruction and enabled the horrible effects of the Jim Crow era.

Last week we celebrated the surrender of the Confederacy. May we all hope for final victory.

RICHES

 Sometimes I worry that a dictator now rules my America. A scary aspect of this is that the dictator has only one goal in mind.

BRIDGES

 After returning from overseas service in the U.S. Navy Security Forces, I served aboard the USS Hunley for the remainder of my service. One day as I lollygagged at the ship's fantail, a shipmate named Bussey ran up to tell me about a new song he had heard. “It ain’t like nothing you’ve ever heard before.”

A short time later, I did hear it and for over half a century, each new hearing reminded me of beloved shipmates. I remained in agreement with Bussey’s original impression.

Things change. I continue to make each day a good one overall, but lately some dark clouds have passed over. I always try to find a ray of light in the darkest of clouds.

I found me one.

As I have watched one family member fade from this earthly presence, I’ve reconnected with others to my great joy. I’ve stayed in daily contact with them to the extent that this song will now, as long as I have presence of mind, to make me think of beloved kinfolks as well as beloved shipmates. I pledge to be a bridge, not an island.

Music can do that sort of thing for us.

Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water (Audio)

THE UNCIVIL WAR

Today marks the symbolic end, 161 years ago, of the Slaveowners’ Revolt that tore our country apart for four long years. It had cost the lives of some 750,000 soldiers on the two sides, roughly two percent of the population. That would equate to six million deaths today. It left cities in ruins and farms in ashes awaiting the return of the armless, the legless, and those suffering from “soldier’s heart” as they called it back then.

Though it officially ended slavery it did not end the vicious cruelty imposed upon those who arrived in our country in chains, a sin still visited upon their descendants.

Now we are engaged in a great, but differently fought, civil war to determine whether the imbedded promises of April 9, 1865 will prevail. How long, we wonder, must the battle for human decency last?

We can hope, but the monetary resources of a great international cabal face us as the murderous artillery faced American soldiers from Missionary Ridge and the cliffs of Omaha Beach. Their power flourishes within from the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Even the purchase of a chicken sandwich or hobby tool bolsters their power. What we need more than ever is the will to prevail against monstrous odds.

We could use a man like Ulysses S. Grant again.

ENABLERS

 There have been evil people throughout history. There are evil people today. From the Nazi era, let us look at the case of Julius Streicher. From the “Holocaust Encyclopedia:”

“Trained as an elementary school teacher, Julius Streicher (1885–1946) was an early member of the Nazi Party. In 1923, he founded the virulently antisemitic and racist newspaper, Der Stürmer. Streicher was a leading organizer of Nazi Germany's first official nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses in April 1933. Although Streicher had lost credibility in party circles by 1940, he continued to edit and distribute his antisemitic propaganda newspaper to hundreds of thousands of Germans.

For his influential role in inciting hatred and violence, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg indicted Streicher on count four, crimes against humanity. Streicher was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged on October 16, 1946.”

Streicher was not a Hitler, nor was he a Himmler or a Reinhard Heydrich. He never ordered the murder of innocents, nor did he belong to a police unit that carried out the orders.

He was what we call today an enabler and a propagandist.

We find his type in the thousands today in America from Franklin Graham to Sean Hannity to Tucker Carlson and the hardcore members of the so-called evangelical movement.

But what about the ones who simply listen and stay silent? Will those who finally clean up our mess force them to parade by the dead bodies like General Eisenhower did the neighbors of Dachau?

WOODEN SHOES

 Lately I have travelled a good bit in my state. I've seen things.

I've seen cities that were not blessed by the vagaries of history drowning in despair. I've seen blessed cities drowning in traffic congestion and their own refuse.

I've seen individuals suffering from debilitating illnesses abandoned by an uncaring government.

I've seen sign of an impending drought of maybe biblical proportions descending into some of the richest farmland on earth. I've seen interstate highways that will become parking lots in five years.

As water may become our most precious commodity within a few years, we are allocating it to large data centers, not to humans.

At our state level, the top priorities are the construction of a monstrous prison to house who knows whom yet and the destruction of the public school system.

At our national level, the top priority is world domination through military invasion. Yes, it has been tried before.

My ancestors had a saying: "Wooden shoes to wooden shoes in three generations."

Over my lifetime, the generations since the promise of post-WWII America have marched by like gray horses moving into a morning midst. It is becoming increasingly painful to watch.

UNDERSTANDING

 My limited study of evolution convinces me that Homo sapiens have a genetic urge to understand. Both religion and science grew from the earliest efforts to control, in the first case and learn in the second. How does this apply to the current state of America?

It doesn’t seem conclusive to me simply to say Donald Trump is crazy mean and getting worse. I’ve scraped my mind and can’t imagine an historic member of the United States House of Representative or Senate who would not speak out against the current shenanigans. Now there are 217 in the first case and 53 in the second. Their silence drowns out the cries of the hungry, sick, and misbegotten. Why?

Our ancients discovered early on that neither sympathetic (imitative) nor contagious magic resolved emergences due to the weather. Later, science helped by uncovering the causes and developing protections.

It makes more sense to understand that our current crisis evolves not from the mind of a madman but the orchestrations of an international cabal of oligarchs who seek a world more from the minds of Orwell and Huxley than those of Locke or Mill. Their operational strategy follows Capone more than Lincoln. They understand very well how to impose silence and guarantee obsequiousness.

Doesn’t that make more sense?

GETHSEMANE

 Last week I travelled through the forgotten part of our state, the Arkansas Delta. I passed through a community named, of all things, Gethsemane. Folks there pronounced it “Gessymane,” as in, “He’s from over ‘bout Gessymane.”

Years ago while travelling through I would see homes scattered around and even two grocery stores. One would see neighbors visiting, children playing, and machinery serving family farms. Over the years the stores disappeared, then the homes and people, and then the farm equipment as corporate farming reduced the work force and equipment required to feed the world. Eventually, all that was left was a road sign noting “Gethsemane.” On this trip through, the sign had disappeared.

The Garden of Gethsemane holds deep significance in the Christian religion as the place where Jesus Christ experienced profound emotional and spiritual struggle.

It is important in the Christian religion as it represents anguish, sorrow, resolve, human weakness, but spiritual resolve.

For Christians, Gethsemane serves as a powerful symbol of prayer, obedience, and perseverance in times of trial.

It dawned on me as I travelled that lonely stretch of highway, that my America has lost, sadly, the physical reality of Gessymane and now seems bent on abandoning the spiritual value of Gethsemane.

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.

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.”