The End There are as many lessons and stories that came out of Vietnam as there are soldiers who went there. It remains a signature moment for my life. Until 9/11, America declined to send troops all over the world for insignificant political reasons. Now that lesson seems to have been forgotten. But I learned […]
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Shattered For the Romans, death required crossing the River Styx. It is as good a metaphor as any. I can say that dying isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It is just one more river to cross. I had worried for the entire year I was in Vietnam about dying. Then I went and
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I Wanna Take You Higher The plane kept dropping into the darkness. I strained to see some sign of San Francisco. Runway lights, the bridge, any sign that we were landing safely instead of plunging into the Bay. Nothing but black. I looked around the cabin. Everyone was awake and trying to see out of
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All Along the Watchtower I stood at the urinal, penis in one hand, specimen cup in the other. It was hot, but I was hotter from the embarrassment. The PFC who literally had a ringside seat to my dilemma finally spoke up. “Can’t go?” “I need to,” I answered. I really did. I had downed
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Crimson and Clover As I watched the pink soap bubbles floating on the dirt, grass, and clover, I couldn’t get over how pretty they were. “Shit,” I said, staring at the ever widening pink puddle. TJ, Captain Brown’s driver and whose jeep we were scrubbing, nodded. “Nobody back home will believe this,” he said. TJ
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Love the One You’re With It was hard getting to know the Vietnamese on a personal level. Language was certainly a problem, but culture and economics made things far more difficult. These people had been at war for centuries. They had been invaded by the Thais, the Chinese, the French, and the Japanese. Sure, Ho
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