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It was an April morning when Tommy spoke with Roberta. Her husband had been killed in Iraq in October of the previous year. He wanted to find out why the Sergeant didn’t have plaque at the Fernley Veterans Cemetery near the couples home.

“The veteran’s administration is refusing to allow the Wiccan symbol to be placed on his plaque,” Roberta said.

Tommy was appalled by this news and immediately set about investigating the refusal. In his way of thinking and being a military veteran himself, the U.S. Constitution should have protected the rights of Roberta’s husband who had died for his country. It appeared it hadn’t worked in the case of his family

Tommy wanted to know why. Not only did he interview Roberta but he spoke with several people who had been fighting the same injustice for nearly ten-years. “What do you mean “nearly ten-years?” Tommy asked the Sergeant’s widow.

“The Department of Veteran Affairs has refused the Wiccan Symbol of faith for nearly ten-years because they claim that there isn’t a centralized church to represent the religion,” Roberta replied.

Tommy was on the telephone to former commanding officer Colonel Jim Gibbons, who retired after Desert Storm and ran for the U.S. Congress and won. He was now a candidate for Nevada’s Governorship.

“How can a soldier die for his country and then be refused the symbol of his religious preference,” Tommy asked Gibbons.

“I don’t have any idea, but I’m gonna find out right away,” the Congressman told Tommy.

Meanwhile, Tommy worked for three days researching and writing the news story. He also realized that even though he would “break” the story, it would only appear in the Sparks Tribune.

“There’s got to be a way to make a bigger splash with this story,” he said to himself as he continued to write the article.

The following morning Tommy called a his friend in Las Vegas, whom he’d met while covering another news story. Tommy explained to him how he felt it was more important to get the story out to all the media outlets, rather than allowing it to run in a small town paper and go nowhere.

“Here’s how we’ll do it,” he told Tommy. “You collect and write the information. I’ll use my name on the byline here and give you credit at the bottom and you do the same up there. We’ll run the story on the same day.”

The two conspirators agreed that their article would run on a Friday, however because someone didn’t like the size of Tommy’s article, they chopped it into three parts. The story didn’t run on Friday as planned, coming out on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday.

Tommy realized that he was in a bad position. It would look as if he had plagiarized the story and that he could find himself fired from his job.

He had Monday’s off, but that didn’t prevent Angela from calling him on his cell-phone and instructing him to meet with her at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, the day the third installment was published.

When he arrived at the office, Angela was already there. He went directly to publisher office where he knew she’d be since he was out of town most of the time.

“This is crap,” she said. “You took this story almost line for line from this article.”

Angela held up a copy she had printed from the internet. It was written slightly different from Tommy’s but contained most of the material and quotes from his various sources. Then she added, “I have half a mind to fire you for this.”

Tommy sat there quietly. He didn’t say anything because he was certain that she would not listen or hear what he was saying. Tommy figured that Angela had her mind made up already and that there was no sense in attempting to explain what happened.

“Care to tell me how this happened?” she demanded.

Slowly Tommy laid out the details about how he had called his friend and together they planned to get the news story out in a bigger way than the Tribune could. Angela surprised Tommy by quietly listening.

“We had planned to run it on the same day, but it got split into three installments and was a day behind,” Tommy said. “That screwed everything up.”

“What you two did is wrong,” Angela said after Tommy finished talking. “This looks exactly like plagiarism on your part.”

She also said that once an article is published in a paper, that article was property of that newspaper. Angela told Tommy that she would discuss the matter with publisher and together they’d decide what to do about it.

Tommy worked for the next day and a half with what he felt was a gray cloud hanging over his head. He had succeeded in helping Roberta get her story out about her dead husband’s denial of a religious symbol, but now he believed that he would be getting fired for having done it the way he did.

“Look,” he said once the publisher arrived in the office later that week, “All I wanted to do was get it up onto the newswire. That’s something we don’t have the pleasure of doing around here like they do in Las Vegas.”

The publisher politely listened and then replied, “I’m just going to call it a mistake that you’ve learned from. Don’t do it again though.”

Tommy said, “Thanks, I won’t make that mistake again.”

As I was watching a TV piece about the English language, I realized that being lazy is not an excuse to act ignorant . That’s because this ‘educational’, show attempted to point out that Ebonics and other forms of slang-uage are just another form of the English language.

By the time the hour was up, I concluded that the English language is in deep shit.  A little voice inside my head asked, “Does ‘Latin is a dead language,’ ring a bell?”

The producers had a plethora of finely educated men and women who work in the field of language to present the point the Ebonics is the molding of two forms of speech ; These educated people also said that the fact that Ebonics is being spoken is a case-study of how our current English language has evolved from the old English of yester-year.

It was in the 70 ‘ s that I first heard what is called ‘Ebonics,’ however back then it was known as ‘Jive.’ The best example I can think of was during the movie “Airplane,” where the two then Black men talking ‘jive.’

It was humorous send up meant to be a spoof of an inner­ city language that only the two men should have known. It was made even funnier by the fact that an older White woman joined in their conversation.

And to really send the ‘gag’ into hysterics, the woman was played by Barbara Billingsly, the mother from ‘Leave it to Beaver. ‘

About five years before the movie premiered I recall my father coming home and saying that many of the ‘Blacks’ at the airbase were all pissed off because a new directive had been issued stating that ‘jive’ was no longer to be spoken while on duty. That is when I became interested in this language and asked my friend John about it.

He is Black and about 5 or 6 years older than me. He said that he never learned to speak it and that he thought it was the ‘dumbest’ thing he had ever heard of.

John ‘s take on speaking ‘jive’ was that, “It’s just the lazy way out of learning the harder rules of English.”

Years later I ended up working with two women who spoke Ebonics to each other at work. One was a dispatcher and the other worked as a telephone reservationist.

They would sometimes ‘forget’ to speak proper English, leaving the rest of the company and customers confused. The company eventually established a rule that said everyone had to use the ‘Universal language of English.’

Now, I am hearing a new kind of language among my many Latino friends call Spanglish. It is a curious mixture of Mexican and English, with words tossed together like a three-bean salad .

I understand very little Mexican or Spanish and I speak nothing of either; however I do know that there is real verb confusion between English, Mexican and Spanish languages. This has led some of my friend to ‘learning to speak both languages poorly,’ as my friend Hector points out.

“I go home and speak to my parents and grandparents in their ‘native ‘ tongue,” Hector explains. “Then I find myself being corrected because I have learned to confuse the verb which naturally occurs before the noun.”

In essence, Hector says he has changed the Mexican/Spanish language to fit the rules of English. He also realizes that he is hurting his english speaking skills by molding the two languages together.

This is what I believe has happened too many of our Black youth and in some cases middle-aged population. They grew up learning to ‘jive’ and nobody took the time to correct it.

Now finely educated men and women are attempting legitimize these ‘poor language’ habits.

The next time you see a ‘famous athlete’ at a press conference, listen and see if he or she is speaking in a clear and defined way. Honestly, there are times these interviews are to painful for me to listen too because of the inability of the speaker to form proper sentence structure.

What is more amazing is the fact that some of my Asian friends, one from mainland China, a couple from Japan and another who escaped North Korea are far more literate in the formation of a sentence spoken in English than most U.S. citizens. It leaves me to wonder if there is an ‘Asian’ form of slang-uage that is not being noticed.

If there is, it has not become mainstreamed like Ebonics or Spanglish.

The only reference I could to a possible trend within the Asian community ·belonged to that of the gang life-style.

There is also the effect that misspeaking one’s own preferred language created the unwanted affect of ignorance. I can’t speak Portuguese even though half my family comes from the Azores on my mother’ s side, so I don ‘t even bother trying. It would make me look pathetic.

However having hung out around ranches and cowpokes, I have also been the point of ridicule, because I will not submit to the slang-uage and misuse of English. It’s not because I prefer to ‘sound’ smarter than everyone around me or than I really am…it’s because I don ‘t want to pick up any permanent ‘bad habits. ‘

Here is an example: the slang word for, ‘you all,’ is ‘y’all.’

Though fun to say and easier than saying ‘everyone,’ I think everybody should be able to recognize that ‘you all. in and of itself is simply bad grammar.

It started in the early fall of the previous year, the television ads for the mini-series, “Roots,” written by Alex Haley. As the TV event neared, my dad announced that he wanted to get a color TV.

Excited, we kids couldn’t have agreed more with the idea of a color TV set. We had an old black and white console set that had been new long before moving to the coast.

It’s label was so worn out that we couldn’t even figure out its brand name.

Within a couple of days, our parents drove the 60 miles south to Arcata and bought an MGA color television set. It was a pricey-purchase, something my folks could hardly afford, but they did it anyway.

It made us kids feel like the richest people in the neighborhood. We didn’t know other families already had color TVs in their homes—-maybe ever more than one in some cases.

The six of us sat in front of our new color TV and watched the historically based mini-series from start to finish. I think it was the first and perhaps the last time we all agreed on what to watch as a family.

Mom reminded me about the events that caused her and dad to purchase the color TV a few months before she passed away. She thought wanting to watch one TV show wasn’t worth the price of that new color television set.

Looking back, it wasn’t about the television set or the mini-series. It was about a slightly twisted sense of humor and some purposeful wordplay: Dad wanted to see “Roots,” on a “colored TV.”

The small arms fire was the first warning the fire-base was going to be hit. Doc looked at his watch, “Cripes, zero-thirty dark still.” He tried to blink the sleep out of his eyes. He had only been down for a couple hours.

The infirmary phone rang and he picked it up. It was the Major, “Expect incoming casualties.” His thick Australian accent was ripe with frustration.

Moments later the flap to the bunker flipped open and in came the stretchers carriers. They lifted the wounded man off of the olive drab canvas and gently placed him on the olive drab operating table. Then they fold up the stretcher, un-slung their rifles and headed back outside

The man lay there. His chest covered with blood. The sticky fluid oozed from a gaping hole in his left chest wall. The field trauma bandage was saturated and his fatigues appeared darker than natural. Black as sin and no brighter than Doc’s mood.

The young NCO cussed to himself as he took a quick check of the man’s pulse. The end had come for this soldier man and Doc could do little more than hold his lifeless wrist.

The flap popped open again. It was another body for the Doc, which was Doc’s nickname. This one cried and struggled against the hole in his belly. The bullet had entered just under his navel. Doc went to work.

Two and a half hours later the dawn started to come. Doc had worked on the fifth casualty for that morning. Four young men would live; one was on his way to Graves Registration. That’s when the mortars started coming in. The small arms fire became artillery. The enemy was cutting up the ground they held.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Dust filled the air while the earth heaved under Doc’s foot. All four young men lay dead under the pile of rubble he had called the infirmary. Doc was thrown out the door, and through the flaps. When he could stand he found himself looking at the morning light filtering through the distant jungle.

His body had landed with a violent thud some twenty paces from the doorway. The breath was knocked out of him as he scrambled to get back to his post. That’s when the Doc found the four soldiers he had worked so hard on were now dead.

Just then another mortar slammed into the infirmary. Again, Doc was blown clear of harm. He crawled to the nearest hole and curled into a ball, hoping to catch his dust-filled breath.

Over the constant pop, pop, pop and the explosions, he could hear the Major issuing orders. Doc stood up to see him walking between fighting holes urging his troops to fight. The ground around him erupted in constant spits of dust as the enemy attempted to zero in on his person. As he yelled for his men to fight, he would raise his standard issued pistol and fire off a round. Then he’d move again.

“Doc, get out of that hole,” someone said. Without hesitation Doc rolled over the berm. Just as suddenly a mortar thundered into the place where he had just been standing. The impact was so close that it lifted him from the ground. Doc saw the blue of the sky and the green of the jungle and the red of the dirt as he spun through the air. He managed to land on my back and was able to keep a rolling momentum until he got to his feet.

The young sergeant dashed off across the open compound. Puffs of dust jumped up in front and behind him. He zigged and then zagged and dove headlong into another hole.

Three others were in the hole before him. One was critically wounded. Part of his jaw had been shot off. Doc placed more field bandages on him, picked up his rifle and started firing into the enemy positions along the tree line.

Doc could see the enemy as they massed below his unit’s hilltop defensive position. He could tell his unit was out numbered now and the enemy had the superior firepower at the moment.

Doc’s mind was a whirl of thought. He had no plans to be taken prisoner so he ejected one shell and put it in his fatigue pocket just in case. Then the ground began to shake. It was the big push. The enemy was coming at them head on.

The Major continued to urge his soldiers to fight.

From somewhere in the distance Doc could hear a steady hum and an adjoining thump-thump sound. He recognized the sound better than most. He just couldn’t tell where they were coming from.

Suddenly several helicopters appeared on the horizon behind the nearly overwhelmed unit. They cheered as the enemy retreated back into the jungle. Doc was the only man left standing and able to fight in his hole. He had not noticed this until the helicopters arrived.

“Hey, where’s your right boot, Doc?” one of the guys in Doc’s fighting hole asked him.

He looked down only then to realize it was gone. He looked back across the compound from where he had run. There were the smoking remains of the boot. It was fully laced up and sitting up right. He never got the chance to answer the question.

The jungle erupted in front of them and Doc looked to see the helicopters throwing everything they had at the enemy. They may have retreated but they were not going to get away completely. Fireballs of orange, yellow and red lit the morning sky. Black thick clouds of napalm and smoke rolled over the remains of the now charred jungle.

Doc climbed out of the fighting hole he was in and walked over to his lone boot. He sat down next to it and unlaced it, pulled it on and thought back to the death he had witnessed. Then his mind thought of the one miracle that he had heard; the voice that calmly told him to get out of the fighting hole before the mortar shell blew it up.

That day, Doc decided that angels appear anywhere, even on firebases.

Looking at points of time and history and how they fit together to form patterns or cycles within the human context has been something I have been interested in since childhood. It appears that what we believe are random events often are not when studying patterns.

Within some cycles, there are smaller ones, and long cycles inside larger cycles. An example is a biblical generation of 13 years or a 20-year cycle, which is easier to study and find repeating patterns within.

It is the longer or larger time cycle that is the most interesting. These cycles include the sweeping 516 years that hold the Maunder Minimum (MM) and how it led to Mary Shelley writing one of the first and best-known horror novels, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, in 1818.

Seeing how Shelley used her environment to build a story is how I have used what I learned in my world literature classes, and I do not believe Mr. Coyne would approve if he knew. Furthermore, much of this fuels my insomnia or at least entertains me when sleep proves elusive.

The MM also held a cycle within its cycle, the coldest part of the “Little Ice Age” occurring between 1500 and 1850 in the Northern Hemisphere, when the Thames River in England froze over during winter, Viking settlers abandoned Greenland, and Norway farmers demanded that the Danish king recompense them for lands occupied by advancing glaciers.

The bottom of the previous 516-year cycle came around 1663. The latest 516-cycle ended in 2007.

Five-sixteen divided by three is 172 years, a cycle of depression and drought. Add to this that every 172.4 years, Uranus conjuncts with Neptune, and the last three times it happened, there has been a crisis fourteen years after the date.

We re-entered the cycle in 2021 and will not exit until 2193.

The same 172.4 years make up the drought clock, which predicts the worldwide phenomena that have repeated over time and history. Each time there’s a temperature peak, a major civilization also peaks and then goes into contraction.

It has happened over and over again throughout recorded history. International wars always occur as the climate grows warmer and there is a societal abundance, while civil wars happen on the downswing in difficult financial times.

At the bottom of these cycles and as the climate turns warmer, the population becomes laxer, allowing the government to gain the upper hand and erode civil liberties. As reedoms evaporate, dictatorships become more prevalent, centralized, and autocratic.

After the turn, pure democracies rapidly move towards socialism, with Republics at a slower pace and International wars morphing into civil wars. At the same time, trade wars develop, countries become more nationalistic, borders soften, inflation increases, credit freezes, and Real estate markets top out.

At the top of these 516-year cycles, weak leaders abound. Populist leaders get elected, and power grabs often end in assassinations and impeachments at the executive level.

Examples include the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., Ramses III in 1156 B.C., and the beheading of English and Scottish kings and queens at the top of the 500-year cycle about the year A.D. 1500, with James I in 1437, Henry VI in 1471, Lady Jane Grey in 1537, Mary I in 1567, and Charles I in 1649.

We are on the cusp of a major revolution that will uncover most of the lies that have allowed the Elite to become rich and powerful during these cycles.

For the last few months I have found myself in an awful pit due to the fact that I took local politician and Sparks attorney to the wood shed for his having called me a ‘puppet.’ He was referring to the fact that I had written a number of articles about his opponent former Sparks mayor and now Judge Jim Spoo.

I stated that Doug Nicholson had nothing to offer the public as a candidate because he had turned to name calling to justify his poorly run campaign. And what ultimately got me fired was not my political point of view, but rather the fact that I posted an entire letter sent to the Sparks Tribune ‘s editor from Nicholson, which had been forwarded to me.

Unfortunately for Nicholson,he did not return my phone calls prior to press time. (I even held stories over for two and three days.) Therefore he was very rarely quoted. (Not that he would have ever had anything relevant to say about the contest between himself and Judge Spoo.)

A number of people have called into question my ethics as they relate to journalism. I was even accused of name calling myself when I called Senator Harry Reid, “Pinky.”

That is his nickname from childhood and anyone worth their oats in Nevada political news gathering should know that!

As for me, I am transparent in my belief system and will not be moved from it. I am conservative and damned proud of it!

Instead my ‘blog’ about Nicholson was forwarded to the newspapers’ editor. This incited her to take action after I had pressed her for months to read my weblog, which she would never do.

Not one of my reports was ever considered ‘bias,’ by the newspapers’ editor. Had they been, she would have corrected the problem long before it reached the press floor.

I believe in her integrity that much!

She and the publisher let me go simply because they felt I had breached their trust in posting that letter from Nicholson. Besides, who says a journalist cannot have an opinion or write a commentary?

That is B.S. as it happens all the time on the network news.

What is really disappointing is the fact that the blogging community didn’t get the whole-story. They were led astray and left to believe that I was fired for my support of Governor Jim Gibbons or Congressman Dean Heller.

Too bad these other so-called journalists didn’t have the courage of their convictions to stand up and say what or who they REALLY believe in.

Fortuna resident Donald Chism passed away October 15th, 2006. A life-long resident of Humboldt County, he was born December 1st, 1922.

He retired from Louisiana Pacific after many years of service. Donald loved spending time with his family, his animals and gardening.

He is survived by his children and their spouses, Dennis and Eileen Chism, Betty and Lester Phelps, Rita Chism, David Chism and Chris Chism. Donald was preceded in death by his wife, Evelyn and son, Bill.

During one assignment, Tommy had arranged an opportunity to sit down and interview with General Norman Schwarzkopf. He was the United States Army general who served as Commander of U.S Forces during the Gulf War.

The event was the Safari Club International’s gathering the at the Reno/Sparks Convention Center. Tommy had asked Congressman Jim Gibbons’ office if it could be arranged for the Sparks Tribune to have an hour’s time with the retired hero of desert war.

Much to Tommy and Angela’s surprise the general said yes to the hour and forwarded the newspaper with a single press pass for the stage. She immediately decided that Tommy would be using the pass to speak to the retired army officer.

The night of the evening was one that was filled with excitement.

Tommy was wearing a dark gray suit with a bright red tie. He did not often dress in a suit but he felt that meeting the man that most of the United States felt was personally responsible for the nearly 100-hour victory in the Saudi desert in the early nineties was worth it.

Tommy stood nervously by the magnetic gate where he was instructed. There he would be escorted through to meet the general only after the security guards and secret service agents had verified he was Tommy George and was not carrying a weapon.

“Identification please?” a security guard with three yellow stripes on both of his upper shoulders asked.

Tommy handed him his driver’s license.

“Thank you, sir” he said as he handed the license bank. “May I have your press pass please?”

Tommy pulled the cord and pass from around his neck and handed it to the man.

“Thank you, sir,” he said. Then he added, “Unfortunately your press pass has been revoked.”

“Wha…!” Tommy nearly yelled.

The much larger man had his hand up in the halt position before Tommy could finish. “You work for the Sparks Tribune, correct?” the sergeant asked.

Tommy nodded that he did.

“You have a photographer named Debra that works for you?” the sergeant asked.

“Yes,” answered Tommy.

“She tried to get in without a pass and the Secret Service caught her,” he said. He continued, “She should consider herself lucky that they just threw her out and didn’t lock her up. I’m sorry you’re getting punished for it. But that’s how the Secret Service works.”

Tommy sighed heavily. Then he realized that there were to security guards waiting just behind him to escort him out of the area. He turned and went with them without a word.

By the time Tommy returned to work on Tuesday the convention was old news. The Reno Gazette-Journal had scooped the Sparks newspaper and Angela was in no mood to hear excuses.

“I want to know what happened and I want to know now!” she yelled.

Debra laid the blame at the feet of Tommy. She claimed that he had told her that it was alright for her to try and get photographs of General Schwarzkopf.

“He said that I should go ahead and try and get some pictures of the general if I wanted too,” Debra said.

“Yeah, I said that because you wouldn’t leave me alone after Angela said I would be going by myself,” Tommy said. “You can never leave well enough alone, always gotta be making yourself a part of the action even when you’re not needed,” he added.

“Obviously this isn’t getting us anywhere,” Angela said, “Tommy, what happened?”

“I wasn’t allowed to interview the general because Debra tried to get passed the Secret Service. They took away my press pass,” he answered.

“Is that what happened, Debra?” asked Angela.

“I did get too close to the barricades and was escorted from the property,” she said, “but I don’t know if that’s why he lost his press pass.”

“Here call this number Angela; it’s to the Secret Service. They’re the one who confiscated my press pass,” Tommy offered.

Angela disappeared into the publisher’s office for a few minutes. When she came back she looked at Lena and asked, “Debra, what do you think they said?”

Debra looked down and to her left indicating she knew that the service had backed Tommy’s side of the events. “I don’t know,” she replied.

Angela answered her own question for Debra. “They are just as Tommy said. You blew it for us. You had no real business being down there.”

Angela turned and walked out of the newsroom. The back door could be heard opening and closing. She wasn’t seen at work the remainder of the day.

It was hot and muggy even before the sun had risen over the greenness of the jungle canopy. The sounds of the base mingled awkwardly with the natural sounds that grew and rapidly died away in the tropical forest that surrounded them

The sentries on the perimeter were on edge. Twice during the night the outposts had alerted them to the possibility of enemy troop movements. The guards in the outpost were overly sensitive to anything unusual as two had been taken from their assigned post and tortured to death.

Fear permeated the atmosphere.

Doc was up at his usual time. He needed to be ready for the everyday business: first sick call then aid to the local inhabitants.

“Coffee’s on,” Doc said to the Captain as he stepped inside the infirmary.

The Captain glanced at the small stove in the corner and then back at Doc. “Thanks,” he said. Then he added, “Best be ready, something’s up.”

Doc stopped and turned around to face the Captain. “What’s up?” he asked.

“I can’t put my finger on it,” the Captain replied back as he made his way to the coffee pot that was on the stove.

After pouring a tin full of coffee and taking a sip, “We haven’t heard from Garfield, yet,” the Captain said.

“What time was their check in?” Doc shot back.

“Couple of hours ago,” the Captain replied, “I’m planning to send out a sweep at first daylight.

Doc knew immediately that he would need to set up the infirmary so it could be used as a make shift hospital and morgue. He sighed heavily as he set himself to work.

Within the first hour of the sun peeking over the horizon, the first casualty was in the morgue. Soon a second body arrived. Both had suffered the same torturous death. Skin that was peeled away and broken bones. It was savage and a form of emotional hell that worked on every man’s soul.

No one wanted to admit to himself or to his comrade that he was frightened of the prospect that he might be captured or taken and murdered slowly and painfully. The torture death of their comrades was having its effect.

But daily, soldiers left the safety of the compound, in numbers of five or greater, set on tracking down and engaging this invisible enemy. Their only link to the outside world was a radio, carried on the back of one of these men.

And daily, a soldier would not return only to be found later at some remote location, dead. To answer this growing concern it was decided that pushing the jungle back would solve the problem. For weeks the engineers ran their heavy equipment up against the tropical forests. They slashed and they burned, until the jungle was more than one thousand yards clear from the base perimeter.

For weeks the work continued and torturing deaths stopped. The Captain was transferred to another base and a lieutenant arrived as his replacement. He was fresh from officer training and felt he was up for the task.

“He’s sending units out again,” came the grumbling from a soldier standing in line for sick call. Doc noticed that the line had grown longer in the last few days. This was the effect that the enemy wanted and it was working.

Doc walked across the compound towards the Commanding Officers’ tent. The new lieutenant met him. “Sir, can I speak with you?” Doc asked.

The lieutenant looked him up and down, and then requested more than asked, “Do you remember how to salute?” Doc just stood there and looked at the young officer.

“Well?” the officer inquired again.

“Yes, sir,” Doc responded, “But I’m not going to salute you because it’ll get us killed.”

The officer narrowed his eyes and glared directly into Doc’s eyes. The stare was penetrating, yet Doc didn’t blink. Then the lieutenant pushed passed the fire base medic and rapidly walked into his tent. Doc turned and followed him inside.

Once inside Doc came to attention and raised his right hand to this eyeglass rim and saluted. The lieutenant stepped behind his desk and returned the salute.

“If you think that gets you off the hook,” the young officer said, “You best think again.”

“Sir, you haven’t been in country long enough to know that the enemy looks for us to salute,” Doc started, “It gives them a target to shoot at.” Then he added, “Sometimes they can hit their targets, some times they can’t.” He paused, and then asked, “Do you want to take that chance, sir?”

Doc remained standing at attention. He could tell that the officer was still angry as his jaw was jutting out and his eyes were nothing more than narrow slits. Then the lieutenant growled, “Dismissed.”

“Sir, I still need to speak with you,” Doc responded.

“I don’t care! Get out of my office, now!” the officer snapped. Doc saluted, turned on his heels and left the tent.

Later that day a communications runner entered the infirmary. “Heads up, Doc, just got word that a teams coming in blown all to hell.”

“Thanks,” was all that Doc said as he went to work setting up the tent.

The next three weeks brought more of the same. A unit would go out and while walking through a cleared trail, they would trip an explosive trap. “It’s always the new guys, sir,” Doc said to the lieutenant. “They don’t have the training.”

“Oh, so now you know all about training, do you?” the lieutenant countered.

Doc shook his head, “No, sir, that’s not what I’m saying.” He paused then added, “There’s learning what the manual says and then there’s experience.”

“That’s what they’re getting, aren’t they?” the officer came back.

“Yeah, but they need to be told what to look for and to expect before you send them out for a walk in the woods, sir,” the Doc offered. The young officer dismissed him.

Two days later a unit came into a firefight with the enemy. There were seven enemy soldiers captured. Four had been killed in the battle and left for the jungle to reclaim their remains.

The seven-captured enemies were taken for interrogation. It was soon discovered that these seven enemies were the invisible enemy that had taken so many troops and murdered them. There was sense of relief throughout the firebase.

Operations continued as usual and morale picked-up and sick call decreased. Yet Doc had an uneasy feeling. He knew things were still not right. The matter of so many soldiers being killed by anti-personnel mines still haunted him. Doc had seen eleven servicemen arrive and eight of those had returned home in body bags. Doc discovered that he was starting to feel demoralized now.

“You need to make it personalized for the C. O.,” was the suggestion of another non-commissioned officer. Doc thought it over and decided that this was the best course of action. It took one more death for Doc to conclude the best direction needed to make his point.

“Hey, Gunny, you got a dummy grenade?” Doc asked.

The sergeant looked at him and answered, “Yeah, but what does a medic need with a grenade?”

“Got a little demonstration planned for today,” replied Doc as he walked out with the grenade tucked in his pocket.

After chow, Doc watched as the lieutenant crossed the compound to his tent. Next he reached into his pocket and pulled out the dummy grenade. Then he walked across the compound to the Commanding Officers’ tent.

Doc pulled open the tent flap and said, “Hey, Lieutenant, sir.”

The young officer looked up at him and said, “What?”

He was sitting behind his desk doing paperwork. He looked down at the papers in his ands.

“I want to show you the difference between book learning’ and experience,” the Doc continued.

“What the hell are you talking about,” the Lieutenant said impatiently.

Doc stepped inside the dimly lit tent and yanked the pin from the grenade. The Lieutenant was still looking down when the grenade bounced off the desk and struck him in the chest, finally falling into his lap.

The Lieutenant screamed as loud as he could as he rolled back from his desk. He pitched himself from his chair. The grenade bounced to the floor next to his head. He rolled away from it and up against the interior wall of his tent office.

He tried to crawl towards the doorway of the tent where Doc was still standing. He looked up at Doc. Then he stood up.

“You’ve wet yourself, sir,” Doc said as he pointed to the Lieutenants’ pants. The officer was shaking as he looked at his wet uniform.

You son of a bitch!” he screeched.

“No, sir! That’s you,” Doc said back to him. Then he added, “I’m certain that you were taught what the manual says to do in case you encounter a grenade attack, doesn’t it, sir?”

“Yeah, but that’s different,” the officer shouted.

“That’s the point,” Doc coolie stated. Then he added, “They’re all different!”

Then Doc left the officer standing in his tent. He walked across the compound with the dummy grenade and pin in his hand.

The following week, training was implemented to supplement the incoming troop’s education about the type of warfare they would encounter. And the Lieutenant requested and received a transfer to a state-side job.

1997

When our cat goes outdoors
Then manages to catch a bird,
It’ll play with that so called food
And such a ruckus can be heard.

My wife would be pretty upset
With her purrin’ little cat,
If she thought for a minute
Her kitten acted such as that.

I trailed some feathers once
Into a giant azalea bush.
I could hear that stupid cat
With this bird a-breakin’ hush.

So I grabbed my handy golf club,
The one I use to put across the lawn.
That’s when paranoia started settin’ in
And I spied my neighbor Ron.

On his face was this disgusted look,
As I gave thar bush another poke.
And as the cat let go of that bird,
Ron hollered out, “Jus’ take the stroke!”