NOVEMBER 11 VETERANS DAY USA
When my wife Beth and I went on our first date in '90 we went to Manhattan Beach Ca. for breakfast and a stroll on the beach. We wandered into one of my old favorite watering holes the Lighthouse Cafe. The place was completely empty it being about 10 in the morning. Promptly however, Ron Kovic rolled in the front door in his beat wheelchair for a morning beer . We had never met but I but instantly recognized him. I identified myself and my unit in Vietnam. "B 2/12 , 1st Cav August '66 to Sept '67". Kovic shook my hand solidly, looked me square in the eye, and said simply. "Welcome home brother". In the 22 years since I had been home no one had ever said anything like that to me. A simple gesture that meant more to me than I was prepared for. I promised myself from that day on that whenever I met any Veteran from any war that I would pass that sentiment on to them. I don't think I have missed an opportunity yet. I met a vet of the Algerian War once in a grimy outskirt of Paris. This guy had been living in a one room for years, no job, no hope, no way to function. His eyes were completely vacant of joy. He was a real victim of the horror of war. What do they call it now? Post traumatic syndrome? Whatever. Anyway, we sat down in his beat up little room and he began to tell me his story about Algeria. I must have listened for an hour to the tale he told. When he stopped, out of words, I held out my hand and told him quietly. "Bienvenue a nous pays mon frere". We sat in complete silence for a bit when he got out a bottle of 5 Franc (cheap), wine and two jelly glasses. We drank that bottle in total silence and the next day my friend who had introduced us told me that my new friend had saved the money for weeks for that bottle and a hooker.
Now I offer that to the young Vets I meet, and ask that they continue to pass it along.
It's been nearly 40 years now since I rotated out. All of us brothers in war share a common understanding that we all wish in our deepest private places that no one should ever know what we know about what humans are capable of doing to each other. "Welcome home brother" speaks volumes to us.
- skypilot jtI had been taken captive and when escorted into my prison room, grabbed a beer off a table for succor and as I went through the door, one of the guards grabbed it out of my hand. I thought I was done for but as luck would have it, they put me to work in the hospital and I saw a bottle of rum on a table, left there by one of the surgeons. I craftily poured half of it into a glass beaker and snuck it into my cell. Before I could drink any of it I saw another prisoner rooting around in my stuff and he tipped over the beaker. I rushed over and bgan mopping up the rum figgering I could squeeze it into the beaker, save enough for a drink. It wasn't much but it was better than nodding.
-- Capn Skyp
The night my Daddy lost his stripes in North Africa had a lot to do with keef.
After the invasion of Morocco in August of '42, the GIs soon realized that most of the booze in North Africa was poison so they jumped on the next best thing: KEEF!
One night Daddy was Sargent of the Guard and the guys on guard duty under him got so high they opened up their Thompsons on a herd of innocent burros. Well the Arab who owned them showed up the next morning having a coniption fit so my Daddy lost his stripes.
Thought you'd enjoy the story. There's more where that came from. My Daddy was in 16 campaigns in WWII and he kinda had the same attitude you and I have today so there are lots of tales of RAGE AGIN THE MACHINE!-- Skypilot Robert Reg
My Mom and I were getting a few things at Safeway when out of the produce department comes a guy with a gun running away from a bunch of cops. The cops chased the guy to the front of the store knocking over a big wine display on the way.
All of a sudden there's 20 cops with guns drawn, several with high powered shotguns. The cops were shouting for everybody to get down. They also shouted at the gunman to stop or they'd blow his head off (in those exact words). The guy had a semi automatic pistol with a full magazine. I know because I saw the cop empty the magazine on the floor. Once they got the cuffs on the guy they closed the store and everybody in the store had to give a statement to police before they could leave. The guy ran right past my Mom knocking her over. She wasn't hurt. She managed to stick a couple bottles of pinot noir in her handbag. She gave them to me when we got home.
Apparently this Bozo was wanted in connection to a murder and the cops were on his trail and was hiding in the back of the store somewhere when the cops moved in to get him.
-- Skypilot Bozo Bus 54
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2003
VETERANS DAY, U.S.A.
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My dad and I were quail hunting and had paused to rest the dog and our legs, sitting on a small sandy bluff in healthy sage near a stand of old cottonwoods along the Owen's River about 250 miles up HWY 395 NE of LA , mid October in the Owen's Valley. Spectacular scenery. To the west, the vaulted majesty of the mighty Sierra Nevada and to the east the more rounded, but equally high, Inyo/White mountains, the home of the most ancient of ancient trees, the Bristle Cone Pine. (The writer Mary Austin wrote a famous book about this valley, The Land Of Little Rain.) As was our custom for years when hunting, I tended to ask questions about his Marine Corps experiences. Said I, "Dad, I've got a Marine Corps question for you that I've never asked before". With a snorted half laugh and a glance my way, he said, "I would find that highly unlikely". Of course, I'd asked this question many times before, but given our ages, me early 30's and him early 60's, it was finally time for his answer. "Did you ever put anyone in for a medal?" ....long silence.... "No", he sighed....I'd hit sort of a jackpot for me, and a sore spot for him.
On June. 15, 1944 my dad landed in the assault on Saipan in the Mariana Islands in the central Pacific. It was the beginning of the end for the Japanese dream. He was company executive officer of K company, a rifle company, 3rd Battalion 6th Regiment,2nd Marine Division. The morning of the second day the company commander was laced across the thighs by a burst from a Japanese light machine gun, called a Nambu, (Dad told me many times while relating these stories, "Jackie, that sound, that extremely high rate of fire, whether it was close or away, I tell you, that sound would just pucker the ol' bunghole") and dad commanded the company for about two weeks, until he, in turn, was wounded and evacuated.
So this is his war story that, in it's essence, has always made me think of Ken Kesey. As he began he shared two things, first, "this is trite, but true, the guys that deserve the medals, chances are that no one saw the event" then "you know, one determined man can change the course of the whole battle".(That's the part that's always made me think of Kesey) "We were halfway up Mt. Tapotchau (the volcano that is the island of Saipan) and we were setting up for the night, a real bad deal. They knew just where we were and immediately desultory artillery fire started and kept up throughout the night. About an hour before dawn the rhythm of the shelling changed and it was the precursor to an attack. In my mind I could see the Japanaese troops moving up into position under the barrage.What came next was a classic, almost perfectly executed small unit attack against an entrenched position.As the artillery lifted, mortars and heavy caliber automatic weapons seamlessly kicked in, then grenades and small arms, I could tell that they were right in to the line. After a fierce fire fight, a real weird thing happened, they broke it off. Hard to figure. Well it was dawn by now and I checked the perimeter, and there was the answer, a corporal with a Thompson had broken the whole thing up. Fanned out in front of him were all the officers and non coms, they'd come right down a ravine straight into his position" "How did you know that?" I asked.
"All the officers had swords and inexplicably they led the attack. You know, for all their discipline and determination they continually made the same mistakes. They had an inability to adjust their plan, to think on their feet as the situation would change." "So that's that picture of you with the sword, it was from that fight?" "Yeah, the sword never made it back to the ship. I sent someone out and collected them. My plan was to bribe a pathway for the one sword,promising each person along the supply chain one of them if they'd save the one for me. That's how she goes, I guess" Well Capn, that's my birthday card to the Marines and Ken Kesey, and the corporal who never got his medal, and maybe, most of all, to those brave Japanese soldiers who died, never to sit around a campfire and tell their war stories to sons and daughters.
-- Skypilot 39, Jack Whipple
