Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
I don’t know a lot more about my health this afternoon than I knew when I awakened this morning, but I know a good deal more about other interesting matters than I once did. Went through the television interview with some people somewhere else asking about various health issues. This evidently resulted in checkmarks going to a file telling them what testing to do afterward in the lab.
Judging from the tests the interviewers weren’t discounting a hyperfunctioning thyroid, though they were closed-mouth about any opinions they formed during the interview. They did hint at the possibility I might want to take it easy and not do anything particular until I’ve seen the doctor on the 20th of December.
But hanging around that waiting area was worth the price of admission. Discovered what a huge percentage of the circa 1965-1975 US Army, AF, Navy and Marine Corps who end up getting health treatment from the VA have discovered they were point-men infantrymen, snipers, and other non-company clerk in Danang, personnel or supply clerk, cooks, or motorpool monkeys in Siagon [folks comprising 90+ percent of the Vietnam jobs of the time].
Which is to say, when you’re an old bastard and find your life hasn’t been sufficiently interesting, you can sit in the waiting room at the VA and blow smoke up the asses of a lot of other old guys. And if you do, some others will crawl out of the wood work to provide an atmosphere of reciprocity and mutual ex post facto revisions of history. I’ve got a feeling the non-vet practice promiscuously using phrases such as, ‘fought for our freedoms,’ or ‘fought in Vietnam’ brings the incentive. If you were in Vietnam and never heard a shot fired in anger along with almost everyone else in Vietnam, how do you reconcile it with someone accusing you of ‘fighting for our freedoms?’ Or, ‘fought in Vietnam’?
Lordee what a needy bunch of sons of bitches we Americans are in our dotage.
Old Jules’
So Far From Heaven 
All those guys in Saigon, Long Binh and Danang fighting for (y)our freedoms sure made my life easier when they overran all the elephant grass and triple canopied jungle out in the bush with their battle worn desks,this gave me much more time to kill gooks and rescue shot down Navy pilots instead of wasting it swinging a machete. I’m forever in their debt and I also am grateful to all the supply sergeants who made sure I got to eat gourmet limas and ham K-Rats steadily instead of those nasty old steaks they were forced to dine on, and to add insult to injury they actually had to wash them down with cold beer in their air conditioned hooches. Oh the horror….. God bless ’em all.
I’m glad they at least weren’t fitting you for a body bag and having you pre-filling out toe tags today, I think we can tentatively and hesitantly take that as a good sign bro.
Hi Rich: Everyone’s got to be somewhere doing something. Maybe remembering what it was and when is the challenge. Jack
Happy there is you, enjoy your perspective immensely.