Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places – Johnny Lee 1980
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by.
We’ve got all these wars and troops all over the place but what the hell do we ever gain by it? Sheeze. Vietnamese farm fed fish in the grocery stores? Korean made television sets? Afghanistan heroin? Was it worth it? The only worthwhile thing we ever got from Vietnam and Korea were Vietnamese and Korean women who married GIs and improved the US breeding stock. We’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places.
Fact is, with all these recently discovered shale oil deposits recently discovered making us the most oil-rich real estate on the planet, it’s time we corrected an error made in 1848 by our sainted ancestors. When they snagged that little chunk of real estate from Mexico and brought the army home they had no idea about shale oil deposits. They left Mexico with way the hell more land than they needed.
Those Mexicans hadn’t learned their lesson yet about selfishly hoarding so much land they didn’t need and had no rightful claim to. Right here on our doorstep, land they cheated us out of by not telling us about oil shale and what might be under all that land we allowed them to keep. And who knows what other stuff they’ve got under there they aren’t telling us about? Stuff we might need later.
Those troops in Afghanistan aren’t getting us a damned thing except planeloads of heroin. The trouble with that war is that it’s not visionary. It’s too far from home and eventually everything the US gains there will have gone into the veins of a bunch of addicts, aside from a few Swiss bank accounts of politicians and military gurus.
We US citizens are sick of being cheated by Mexico and Mexicans sneaking in here stealing our grunt labor jobs nobody wants, sneaking around having valuable mineral resources they didn’t tell us about last time US troops had to go down there and kick ass.
This time we need to do it right. This time we need to take the whole damned place so’s we don’t have to do it again. Move the US Border Patrol down to Yucatan where it can do some good keeping Guatemala where it belongs.
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read. Not all of this is humor.
Must have been November, 1962, election day in Massachusetts though we didn’t know it. Three young GIs in uniform, Tony Bozza, Julio Ditata and I were off work. We lived in a brownstone house converted to apartments on Beacon Street, so we wandered over to an ice-cream joint on Boylston Street across from Boston Plaza.
As we finished off our ice cream we saw police cordoning off Boylston Street, people drifting in behind them. Something was happening so we rushed out for a front-line position. Asked one of the cops what was going on.
King/President Kennedy was in town. Came to vote for his brother for the Senate. Maybe State Senate. I can’t recall for certain. JFK was going to stay at the Plaza Hotel across the street. “Salute when he drives by!” He scowled at our uniforms. [In those days the military was appropriately recognized as shit. Nobody saying, “OOOOO thank you for your service”.]
Eventually along came the limo, JFK sitting up on the back the way you’ve seen his picture in Dallas a year later. He was patting his cheeks red with the cold. Barbie, Jackie, whatever, was sitting down closest us gazing vacantly at the admirers lining the street, bored. No further than from here to the door from us.
After the motorcade passed and circled over to the Plaza Hotel across the Plaza the cluster of admirers thinned and another incident happened I’ll tell you about another time. But we GIs all looked at one another shaking our heads.
Julio: Man I’d like to screw her!
Tony: Fat chance of that! She wouldn’t screw anyone with less than a million dollars.
Me: Felt good looking at her, though. Pretty woman.
A year later I was in Korea when Kennedy went to Dallas and LBJ arranged to have him offed. The Stars and Stripes newspaper was full of pictures of LBJ, Barbie-Jackie, Kennedy in the back of that limo. I thought a lot about that day in Boston.
LBJ stayed out of the backs of open limousines, but more importantly, nobody would have wanted to screw Lady Byrd Johnson.
Fact is, the historical precedent has worked fairly well. If a King dies, his Queen takes over things until other kinfolk can fight it out and settle things. And if Barbie-Jackie Kennedy had been vice president and taken over the White House things would have been a lot more better for the US.
LBJ would never have been VP never been prez because nobody would have wanted to risk having Lady Byrd for prez. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident and the Vietnam War would have never happened.
Hell, when Ma Ferguson took over as Governor of Texas after her husband died she pardoned half the people serving time in Texas penal institutions. Hell of a lot better Guv than her hubby.
And one of the US Prezes, maybe Taft, became incapacitated in office, his wife took over his duties for the remainder of his term. Didn’t feel obliged to get us into a single damned war.
I’m sitting here trying to think of some Vice President we wouldn’t have been better off replacing with the wife of the croaked prez. Elleanor Roosevelt surely wouldn’t have been a bad’un compared to Harry Truman. And hell, Mary Todd Lincoln was conducting seances in the White House. That would certainly have been better than Johnston, who got himself impeached.
I haven’t looked at the others, but I’m betting the same would be true, their wives better than their legal VP replacements.
But nowadays they’d need to be good looking, as well as rich girlygirls graduated from Vassar. Barbie’s good compared to Ken, but if Barbie and Ken go to the White House again we’ll need to know how she looks in a bikini.
I was talking to an old guy in town the other day about how lucky the US is to have good, strong allies in this dangerous world.
Him: Not many countries have been that lucky. A lot of them hardly have any allies at all.
Me: Good point. Korea’s a good example. If we didn’t have Korea for an ally there’s no telling what would have happened to Japan. North Korea always threatening to nuke Japan, and all.
Him: That’s right. We have to keep a lot of troops over there to keep the North Koreans from invading our ally, South Korea, and nuking Japan. Old Dugout Doug MacArthur had it right when he said, “Korea’s a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan.”
Me: Yeah. Costs a lot, but it’s worth it to protect a good ally. Too bad Japan and Korea don’t have more friends and allies, though. They’re rich as hell and if some other country could help protect them we could bring some of our troops home.
Him: No way we can do that though. We’d no sooner pull our troops out than someone would be going after Japan.
Me: Well, I suppose it might not be so tempting before too long. A nuke from North Korea won’t add much to what’s already there the way things are going. And invading a country wouldn’t be much fun if the invading troops have to wear radiation suits to keep from being poisoned by radiation.
Him: They are good allies though. Korea and Japan, both. I’d hate to see us have to get by without having them for allies. They’ve done a lot for us. Korea and Japan both.
Me: I’m glad too. It’s a scary world out there. Without good allies like Korea and Japan things would be a lot scarier. But we’re lucky we don’t have more. I don’t think we could afford it.
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.
Most of you will probably agree the Japanese are the most intelligent, advanced, scientifically advanced, politically and economically savvy people on the planet. It’s the reason most of you are driving Japanese automobiles.
Think about it: Japan invaded and raped East Asia for a decade, was bludgeoned to death by a costly sea war followed by two atomic bombs before they’d surrender. And within half-decade the US was at war defending Japan. “Korea,” Doug MacArthur declared, “is a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan!”
Obviously the Japanese were one hell of a lot smarter than those governing the US. The bombed-out Japanese industries were rebuilt by US taxpayers, providing them with decades newer steel mills and manufacturing capabilities than those on US soil. Ultimately the result was decline in US production and the slippery slope decline of US economic stability.
Think about it: Today the Japanese have a better space program than NASA:
Japanese Space Program
JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (former Nasda) is Japan’s version of Nasa.
Hayabusa was launched 9 May 2003. The probe sent to gather samples from asteroid 25143 Itokawa. After numerous glitches, the probe returned to Earth. Scientists have not yet opened the sample container.
In 2006, JAXA launched Akari, an infrared astronomy satellite. Its mission is to survey the entire sky in infrared. On 6 August 2007 it has surveyed 94 percent.
Selene was launched September 14, 2007. Selene was the largest lunar mission since NASA’s Apollo, Selene orbited the moon for 20 months. It provided data used to improve topological and gravity maps.
Oicets – This experimental satellite was designed to demonstrate optical communications between distant satellites. Launched in 2005, it was retired in 2009.
H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) first flew to the International Space Station on 10 September 2009.
In 2010 IKAROS probe was the world’s first spacecraft to use solar sailing as the main propulsion
The best engineers in the world are Japanese. Agreed? The most competent scientists in the world are Japanese. Agreed? The most savvy politicians and economists in the world are Japanese. Agreed?
If any scientists and engineers anywhere can be trusted to be right about important matters involving human science, engineering and environmental issues, the place to look for affirmation should be Japan. Agreed?
Japanese science and engineers designed and produced the three nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima power plants.
Are the most competent, advanced scientists and engineers in the world concerned about manmade climate change? Are they concerned about contaminating the North Pacific with radioactive cooling water? Obviously they are not.
After the disaster, then until now, have the most advanced, competent scientists in the world bothered to do anything to contain the cascade of environmental problems supposedly associated with nuclear fuel rods exposed to the atmosphere and sea water? They have not.
Japanese scientists and engineers knew everything they could know about the tectonic environment of Japan. They designed those plants and built them with all that in mind, took the worst possible scenarios into account. Obviously.
So how is it the populations of nations with less competent scientists and engineers, the people who drive Japanese automobiles, come to believe anything their own scientists postulate concerning other matters involving advanced science?
The most advanced, most intelligent, the most savvy scientists and engineers on the planet proved themselves capable of ignoring the obvious, of assuring Japan their nuclear power plants were safely constructed.
How can anyone bring himself to believe what any scientist, any engineer, any politician says about manmade climate changes? Particularly any scientist or engineer who isn’t Japanese.
NCOs dressing down fresh arrivals who didn’t clean their rifles or had Frito Lay in their gas-mask bags always began, “When Joe Chink comes across that line [fill in the blank]. Joe Chink. The imaginary Chinamen poised across the DMZ sharpening their bayonets. We were there to scare them into not coming South, and whup if they did. 50,000 of us.
They’re still over there waiting, those GIs, 25,000 of them, but nowadays I doubt they’re being threatened with Joe Chink. Joe Chink makes the parts for all their weapons, ammunition, their boots, every item of their equipment. Joe Chink loans money to their overlords to pay for it and pay their salaries.
And back in the God, Country and My Baby heaven Joe Chink’s athletic shoes carry America’s finest boys and jerseys up and down pastures carrying Joe Chink’s footballs for the edification of cheering spectators wearing Joe Chink’s clothing, head-t0-foot.
Back then most of us who had any knowledge of the Republic of Korea military didn’t have much doubt the ROK Army [South Korean] could whip the pants off the US Army if they wanted to, and have plenty left over to take care of Joe Chink if he came across the DMZ.
But nowadays it’s probably North Koreans the US Army’s scaring into not doing anything ugly to all those factories in South Korea making the rest of what US consumers need but can’t get from Joe Chink. Factories, and the ROK Army which could almost certainly still whip the pants off those 25,000 GIs still over there.
“Thank you for your service,” romantic patriots are fond of saying.
Even for people who lived it, the past squirms around and tries to avoid close examination of how things looked going in, compared to how things appeared later.
It’s not easy for the mind to put itself into a time when Vietnam wasn’t a name anyone would recognize. But in 1962 when all the enlisted men in my unit in Massachusetts were required to attend counter-insurgency training the first session required an explanation: “Vietnam is Indochina. Next to Laos.”
Everyone had vivid recollections of a ‘brink of war’ incident in Laos a short while earlier. And Everyone remembered the daily news reports from a few years earlier of the French getting themselves soundly booted out of French Indochina.
Counter-insurgency training turned out to be the pointee-heads in the US Army feeling around for soldiers interested in one of two particular types of duty. ‘Special Forces’ units were being organized, mainly for people who’d already gone through Airborne and Ranger training. Some were already serving in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. “Sneaky Petes” they were dubbed.
The other type was the Military Advisory Group. MAG. Regular troops stationed in remote areas with Republic of Vietnam units to provide advice, which we Americans were already good at giving a lot of without following it ourselves.
We went through the training, but nobody from my unit volunteered for either of those duties. But within a couple of months three of us who’d attended the training were levied for overseas, to Military Advisory Groups in Vietnam. May, or June, 1963, we’d arrive there.
In those early days a soldier, even an enlisted one, had a number of options regarding assignments, despite the initial levies, if he played his cards right. Sitting down with a friendly Sargeant-Major early in the game and asking advice was the first step.
Vietnam and MAG duty was considered a ‘hardship’ tour, as was Korea, and at that time, Alaska. It wasn’t combat duty. It was just one of the particularly lousy places a troop could be sent in the service of Queen Jacqueline Kennedy.
“It’s a tough call.” Sargeant-Major Griggs had served all over the Pacific during WWII and afterward. “Korea’s colder than hell in the winter. It’s the reason we call it ‘Frozen Chosen’.” He held up his hand showing me the finger he’d had shot off while he watched the Chinese coming across the Yalu River during the Korean War.
“But unless you want to take a chance on getting Malaria, you might be better off in Korea. All that crap down in the South Pacific is a mosquito hell. If you’d like me to I can call the Sargeant-Major of the Army in the Pentagon and see if we can get you a tour in Korea instead of Indochina.”
So, after kicking it around a while, I asked him to make his call and find me an assignment in Korea. May, 1963, I found myself on the USNS Sultan with around 2000 other GIs headed for Frozen Chosen.
We had a wild old time on the Sultan. The cruise was a long one because every few hours they’d shut down the engines and lower some kind of sensor to the ocean bottom as part of an ongoing undersea research project. The sea was generally calm, almost glass most of the way, porpoise and flying fish cutting the surface, sometimes banging themselves against the side of the ship.
Below-decks fortunes by enlisted-man standards were lost and won in 24/7 poker, gin, and rummy games. So long as there was no fighting nobody cared what went on down there.
We reached Pearl Harbor and everyone got shore leave for a few hours, preceded by dire warnings about HASP. Hawaii Armed Services Police. “Don’t mess with them. Do what they say or you’ll end up in the stockade or back here on a stretcher.” But 2000 GIs with cabin-fever were too many even for the HASP to keep in line. “Be back on board by midnight. Anyone who isn’t checked in here at midnight is going to wave us goodbye from the stockade.”
Hotel Street briefly had all the usual suspects of merchant mariners, US Navy, and enough wild-assed drunk youngsters off the Sultan to satisfy the most discerning needs of the community. At 11:30 I was standing in line at a tattoo parlor waiting to get a tattoo on a dare. The guy in front of me was getting a cherry tattoo with the words, “Here’s mine! Where’s yours?”
As the artist finished up someone shouted, “We’ve got to get back to the ship. We’ll be lucky if we make it!”
Luckyluckyluckylucky. Back on board as everyone began sobering up the head was full of GIs trying to wash off tattoos. One guy had “In Memory of My Mother” with a rose vine wrapping itself around a tombstone on his bicep. “She ain’t even dead. What the hell did I do that for?”
More endless days at sea, a brief stop in Japan for half-dozen of us toughees to get the socks whipped off us outside a bar by three Australian Merchant Mariners, and on to Inchon.
13 months later the trip home on the USNS Breckinridge was a different matter entirely. The sea was rough, pervasive odor of vomit on all decks. Discipline severe, pecker checks every few days to ferret out the multitude of VD cases. I’ve sometimes thought those troop-ship pecker-checkers might have found the sorriest job a human being could have. Imagine hitting the floor in the morning knowing you’re about to have to watch 2000 of those things milked down before breakfast.
And everyone suddenly knew exactly where Vietnam was. Rumor had it anyone who was going stateside reassignment would be going there in a few months.
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
I’m sharing it with you because there’s almost no likelihood you’ll believe it. This lunatic asylum I call my life has so many unexpected twists and turns I won’t even try to guess where it’s going. I’d suggest you try to find some laughs here. You won’t find wisdom. Good luck.
So Far From Heaven 
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