Your post inspired me.
I saw the draftees lined up in the Kansas City Train Station on their way to boot camp in the summer of '65. On the same trip, I traveled with marshals on the Santa Fe Chief who had prisoners with them on their way to Leavenworth.
I have a lot of recollections of Rort Fucker, uh, I mean Ft. Rucker. I worked on adjoining property to the base in the summers of '65, '66, '67 & '68. In the summer of '69 I was employed by Special Services as a GS-4 recreational aide. I swept the parking lot for General Westmoreland but I also got to strap myself into his crimson leather bucket seat by the side door in the rear of his personal Huey.
At the fairs, we always displayed helicopters and sold tall boy Falstaffs for about a quarter. These drunk fools would get inside these copters, start having flashbacks and all of sudden we'd have "incoming."
It Wuz A Post Traumatic Stess Syndrome Hoot!In the summer of '71, I worked as a mover for Loftin's Atlas Van Lines and I moved many GIs off the base, a lot of them enlisted men with English, German, Korean and Japanese wives. During the move all of the other GI wives from the wife's nationality would show up to help.
The only drag was that kim shee shit the Koreans eat. That stuff stinks!
Anywayzzzzzzzzzzz...
I wanted to tell you a little about my Daddy's story because I know every raw nerve WWII put on him. He told me. You're writing about war. You ought to have the right to use any war story you want to use in order to enhance LOST A BIRD/GAINED A BIRD.
VIETNAM STORY DVD  I'm reading a story from my Vietnam novel. It's called Lost A Bird Gained A Bird. In front of a tremendously appreciative audience. Phil Dietz does a warmup story, If Shakespeare Played Golf. There's some photos of when I was in dah Nam, as it's called. This is the newest latest bestest off the Video editing and DVD authoring computer setup. My rice bowl thanks you. DVD: $10 for skypilotclub members.
*****$12 non-clubbers
foreign orders add $2 Add a patch for $3 more | DIG THE SOUND VERSION  Yes, it is the same story as on the "Lost A Bird Gained A Bird" DVD, but this is a CD, sound only, so you can carry it with you, play it in your walkman, play it in your car, play it in your kitchen, your den, living room, bedroom, bathroom, wherever you have a CD player. This way you don't have to sit and watch the picture which is essentially merely the Kapn rappin', but to be on the safe side you should have both the CD and the DVD, cover all the bases.
$5 for club members.
$7 for non clubbers.
foreign orders add $2.
Add a patch for $3 more |
image courtesy of http://skypilotclub.com
IT'S FICTION!!!!
My Daddy, along with the rest of his Dothan gang, was drafted by Mrs. Helen Kennedy on Valentine's Day of 1942. Nobody in my Daddy's gang volunteered because all their daddies had volunteered in WWI & had lived to regret it.
He did basic I think at Camp Gordon, GA & studied a business course in Colorado Springs for the Army Air Corps. He took a night train from there to Miami. On the way to Miami, he was told that he'd be shot if he deserted the train & two cats with Thompson subs stood between every car to pop anybody who jumped. The civil defense in the area of the killing would bury the deserter and his parents would be given a bunch of bull.
When the train got to Midland City north of Dothan, Daddy made it to the engine and asked the engineer to radio Dixie and say "Will Young needs to come to Dixie." Daddy had worked that out with the family as a code so they could come down to the tracks for a last look before he shipped out for Africa. The engineer refused. Boy, that man regretted that for the rest of his life.
That poor man was the
only person my Daddy ever held a grudge against.
Daddy never forgave him and always hurt him every way he could & always delighted in that man's misery.
Anywayzzzzzzzzzz... he was in the invasion of North Africa and it wasn't any fun. He got two V-mails on the same day telling him that his 18 yr. old brother had died of Hodgkin's Disease & that his favorite uncle had died. He told me he contemplated suicide on the beach that night but after tasting the barrel he declined. Later on, he contemplated suicide again when he walked into his commanding officer's office and said, "I want to volunteer to fly all the time, sir!"
"Why's that, Earl?"
"I want you to kill me just like you kill everybody else!"
"No, Earl, we need you."
Daddy never had to fly again.
After 16 campaigns, my Daddy celebrated V-E Day in Northern Italy.
He saw the secret rooms of Pompeii & witnessed the last great eruption of Vesuvius.
(ed. note:"Son,there's nothing new under the sun." ~ Earl)He photographed Mussolini & his girlfriend's bodies but my Mother destroyed the pictures 'cause she didn't want us to see it.
Anywayzzzzzzzz...It's V-E Day and Daddy's partying his ass off & his commanding officer pulls him over and says, "Hey Earl, save your strength because you're gonna need it when we ship out for the Pacific."
Daddy said, "If you don't send me home right now, I'm gonna fuck up everything I touch & you'll never know I did it."
Daddy had to agree to give up all his prizes of war which included a two and half ton Mercedes Benz Truck with the words "The Rebel" and a Confederate Flag painted on both sides.
He and two friends of his choice were given passage on a Norwegian freighter.
When he got to New Jersey, he was supposed to be debriefed but on the first morning he went to breakfast, he didn't like the way the POWs slopped his food on his plate. He looked around and asked all the draftees in line if they were treated with that kind of disrespect all the time and they all said, "All the time." so Daddy jumped over the lunch counter and inserted his GI cup in the offending POW's mouth. This produced a frenzy among the draftees and they decided to do the same thing. It was an incident my Daddy always regretted starting but the good thing about it was that he caused so much trouble his first morning back in the states that they gave him an honorable discharge and sent him back home to Dothan.
Babbs, you should consider taking the liberty to arrange a trip to Tuscaloosa.
Ya'll can all stay and Lee's lake house.
Somebody might have to make a pallet on the floor but they'll love it!
You can pay for it by lecturing at Bama, Stillman & Bevill State here in Tuscaloosa & speaking to the schools around Ozark, Daleville, Dothan, Hartford, Slocomb & Geneva when we go to the Army Aviation Museum in Rort Fucker
http://www.armyavnmuseum.org/& to the University of West Florida and the schools around Pensacola & Foley when we go to the Naval Aviation Museum.
http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/You oughta pick up some good stories there.
Then we can scout out your old stomping grounds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Kool-Aid_Acid_Test#Film_adaptationFox Takes 'Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'
28 October 2008 5:32 PM, PDT | From Comicmix.com | See recent Comicmix news
At long last, the 1968 written The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test from Tom Wolfe is heading to film. Fox Searchlight has picked up the rights for the novel, with director Gus Van Sant and writer Dustin Lance Black attached to the project. Richard Gladstein and his Film Colony banner will produce.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a drug-addled new journalism epic in the vein of Hunter S. Thompson. The novel follows the hallucinogenic exploits of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest novelist Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, proponents of psychedelic drugs, as they drive across the country. Their vehicle of choice is a DayGlo painted school bus named "Furthur." Some prominent figures featured in the novel include The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan and Timothy Leary. Sadly, the Kool-Aid man does not play a prominent role.
Gus Van Sant and Dustin Lance Black recently
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Josh Wigler
