[July 4, 1990]
You
stand for principles that bring a lump to my throat.
I have circumnavigated this globe in support of your pure motives.
I trod the sands of San Antonio and San Angelo, Texas,
Drank blood-red “Lady Birds,” and consumed a feast
Of Kansas City-style beef at the Twin Mountains Steak House.
Waited anxiously until a train-carload of Coors arrived and rushed
Out to the liquor store, just over the county line, to
Buy my limit of a single case to share with my compatriots
On the shores of the reservoir created by Nasworthy Dam.
The
wrinkle in time called Karamursel, Turkey.
Where Abbe did my barracks chores for a few Lira a month.
The polyglot uniqueness called Istanbul,
Squatting on seven hills like Rome and San Francisco.
Straddling Asia and Europe where Hannibal strode.
Rode with wild Turks who thought the automobile horn was
A better control device than the brake-pedal, and where
The larger a vehicle was, the more right-of-way it demanded and received,
This, on roads built on top of those designed
By the Roman conquerers and plenty wide for their chariots.
Toured
tiny Bukada with the three daughters of the owner of the only
Feed store on the island, where the only two motor vehicles
Were a garbage truck and a police jeep.
A round of miniature golf that I was not allowed to pay for, while
Listening to tapes of Radio Luxembourg broadcasts of
The latest music from America.
Puzzling
over the concept of a “compound” where the female
Inmates are forced to work off their criminal fines with sex.
Knowing those among your peers that were dedicated “Pound Hounds.”
Dodging the Military Police and Shore Patrol when trapped
With my “lady” in the Blue Pavion after curfew and pretending,
Successfully, to be a native when the Gendarmes arrived.
Turkey,
such an exhilarating country, where all the young ladies
Were well-educated and spoke excellent English.
Where every vessel, even the smallest dinghy, proudly flew the Turkish flag,
And even the Soviets did not mess with their fierce fighters.
Where nothing, including armpits or legs was clean-shaven,
With the intriguing exception of the lady's Mons Veneris.
Where
to the men, not sporting a mustache,
was tantamount to having been neutered like a eunuch!
Where novel customs had a solid basis in fact, such as:
Why never to offer a Turk your left-hand; and to absolutely
Abstain from waving open-handed like an American, thus
Finally understanding the British Queen and why she has
That, “palm inward,” wave of hers; and not ever allowing the
Soles of your shoes or feet to be viewed by anyone.
Trading
packs of Salem cigarettes for sexual favors and
Bartering for all manner of goods at the incredible Covered Bazaar.
Racing, in a hastily flagged-down taxi, to the
Istanbul Hilton, perched alongside beautiful Taxim
Square.
An eagerly sought after piece of Americana,
With extremely rare “toilet paper,” albeit, crepe!
Sharing a dolmush for a few Karush to glimpse the grandeur
Of the Aya Sophia or the Blue
Mosque with its world famous six minarets and
Decorated with all of nature's marvelous shades of blue.
I sipped the solitude of Shemya,
Alaska, on the tip of the Aleutians,
Closer to Soviet Petropovlosk on Kamchatka, than to Adak, Alaska.
There, I could walk around the entire island in less than
Three hours. Where I was told, and naively believed,
“There is a girl behind every tree!”
What I had sadly to learn, was that tundra
Saw-grass was the largest plant that was not moss or a lichen.
Attempting
to watch outdated sit-coms and
Cartoons on a closed-circuit T.V. channel, I mean,
“Felix the Cat” and “Crusader Rabbit” in 1962?
The football-field sized FPS-17 array usually picked
just
That time to probe, over-the-horizon, for incoming test warheads from
Clandestine launch points deep in the interior of Soviet Russia,
Overriding both the audio and video of the television with syncopated beats.
The
backward deep-southernness of Biloxi, Mississippi,
Where attempts at fostering reality, equality or justice would
Agitate the red-necked Neanderthals.
Where it was colder and hotter than anyplace
I had ever been, and the mosquitoes were so large that
I swear they had serial numbers stenciled on their sides.
Isolated
Misawa on Honshu, in the steppes of Northern Japan.
Viewing the bridal plumage of cherry trees and singing
Folk-songs with the drunken revelers at Hirosaki Castle.
Driving on the wrong side of the road and experiencing
Not one, but two earthquakes greater than 8.0 in intensity!!
Visiting lovely Lake Towada in each of its four
seasonal garbs.
Battling
a major conflagration and watching in anguish as
My favorite bars in AP ALLEY, along with 30-percent
Of the downtown area, go up in smoke, while freezing
With the temperature inversion and snow storm
Created by the intense heat vortex.
A
week in Sapporo where the broad boulevard parks
Were showcases of monumental ice sculptures.
The screaming winds of remote Wakkanai
On the Northern tip of Hokkaido,
Where you can almost throw a rock and hit Russian soil,
just across the La Perouse Straits.
On
the “hill,” overlooking Osan Air Base in Korea.
A strange land, where sex was the country's only commodity.
Going on early morning “roll-calls,” and attempting,
Not always successfully, to maintain your balance,
While majorly intoxicated, on the
Narrow dikes of the rice paddies, redolent
With the acrid foulness of human feces
Delivered from the Oxen-pulled “honey wagons.”
In
backwater Guam where sleepy Agana was “excitement,”
And frenetic Japanese tourists sought sex and titillation in
Such hordes as to require me to lodge in a tiny motel outside of town.
A
“three-peat” in Saigon, at bustling Tan San Nhut Air Base,
With choppers from the in-country R&R and 3rd Field Hospital
Whomping day and night, and 100,000 candle-power flares
Illuminating the darkness. With aluminum-shiny “Patches,”
Spraying the wee morning hours with kerosene blended poisons,
Accompanied by the heart-stopping blast of her twin propellers,
Less than 200-feet above my sweat-sogged bed.
Buying
watered down “Saigon Tea” for slim-waisted girls in their
Alluring “A-Dais” and sipping lukewarm “Bam Me Ba,”
Reeking of formaldehyde, being rarely lucky enough
To purchase a warm “Budwai,” for a mere $2 in Piasters.
The
“Cowboys” trying to lure me into a dimly-lit alleyway,
With the promise to double my MPC in exchange for
The local currency. Those eye-watering rides
Seated in the open front of a motorcycle-powered suicide cab.
The squat, ugly little blue and yellow Peugeot cabs,
The miniature four-person Lambretta buses, that usually
Had at least eight natives crowded in with you.
The
imploring imprecations from cadaverous pedi-cab
Drivers that then strained to take me on my bar-hopping rounds.
An adventure off to the PX in bustling Chinese Cholon,
Where I was sure I was to become a casualty of the ever-present VC.
Watching
the singular lines of steel death streak groundward
From “Shadow” and “Spooky,” in the hours after sundown and
Feeling the low-frequency rumble of “B-52 ArcLight”
Strikes more than twenty miles away in the steamy jungle.
The resultant flashes reflected upon the bottoms of
monsoon-swollen clots of dark and foreboding clouds.
The unforgettable shriek of incoming 122mm rockets usually to the
Accompaniment of the tardy “early warning” air-raid sirens.
Being
declared “persona non gratia,” in Manila because
Of visa irregularities and being deported
On the next military flight from Clark Field in the Philippines.
In
Bangkok, sightseeing to the Golden Buddha and
To the strangely ornate temple grounds with its sculptured hedges,
My nose assaulted by the stink of primitive humanity
In the canals, as we dash about in over-powered canoes.
Shopping for bargain-priced gold, opals, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and
sapphires.
Redistributing my wages in bars where teenage “hostesses,”
Adorned with numbered tags, competed to entice me while
Seated behind glass-framed enclosures on wooden bleachers.
Back
in Manila, now with a valid passport,
Striding purposefully in my Class-A uniform through
The angry “student” mobs storming the American Embassy,
Within one-block of my hotel accommodations.
But after so long in Viet Nam,
There was no way that this foment could disrupt my visit.
Aboard
a bus with no sides en route to Pangsanhan Falls, and the unforgettable
Overpowering foulness of someone eating a “10,000 year-old egg.”
Then arriving with my Chinese-Philippina hostess, and
Being hauled by a wizened grandfather and his young grandson,
Using brute force, upstream to the falls in a log dugout.
The heart-pounding exhilaration of shooting the rapids on the trip back.
Flying
into wonderful CCK, Taiwan with no one manning the control tower.
Where nightclubs featured long-legged ladies, garbed in
Skin-tight sheaths, split all the way up to their hips,
Singing lilting Chinese folk-songs, strangely reminiscent of French.
Where it was my good fortune to be able to
Negotiate in Japanese with Mama-san for an amiable companion.
Listening
in on the tactical FREQs as brothers played deadly tag with AAA and
SAMs on interdiction missions along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Sweltering in Utapau, Thailand, whilst the lumbering,
heavily laden B-52s
Spewed volumes of black exhaust smoke as they
Trundled down the runway, bristling with ordinance.
In places I could hardly spell like Nakhon Phanom
With a “downtown” shared across a bridge by bordering Laos,
Where my celebrating was subdued by “non-specific urethritis.”
The
cool evenings of the Central Highlands in Pleiku
with its ubiquitous, cloying, red clay.
Where I also first experienced the eye-watering noxious,
Greasy black smoke of kerosene-fed feces incinerators.
Spectating at ping-pong while the swing-shift sighted-in
And cleared their weapons. The hollow cough of mortars, the staccato stutter of
M-60 machine-guns, and the buurrp of M-16s, all punctuated by
The nearby cannonade of outbound artillery rounds.
Catching
“hops,” as an armed-courier on the ramshackle
In-country “Airline” transport network run by the Army and Air Force.
On TDYs to Nha Trang, Dalat, Phu Cat, Vung Tau, Da Nang,
Long Binh, Bien Hoa, Cam Rahn Bay, Can Tho, others, now forgotten.
But not memorable Phu Bai on Mr. Fall's, “Street Without Joy.”
The rabbit-warren mazes of linked trailers, forming the
Operations and ADMIN complex of our electronic intelligence-gathering forces.
Centuries
later, back in an angry and hostile America,
My rusted and time-worn armor put away,
I am confronted by those ignorant of my motives and
Contemptuous of my sacrifices. Those that would desecrate
Your magnificence by igniting you in protest,
Playing to the toadies of the voracious and malleable media.
Salty
tears blur my vision, a crimson-rage gnaws at my heart,
Then I hear your Regal voice whispering to me:
“Be at ease my stalwart. Unknowingly, these Philistines
Proffer me reverence, and deliver me from this
Shocking disgrace with full honors as they
Retire me by fire and bring surcease to my travails.”
I
sit in mute, stunned surprise, affirming in my inner soul
That the flag's spirit has indeed uttered the truth.
Written by Dale E. Malone, Have
you hugged a veteran today?
The Great & Wonderful Kahuna wants to know!
Last
modified: April 26, 2009
