Thanks, Lyndon

So I sat there for the longest time trying to figure out what was wrong with my foot.  Since I was in an aisle seat, and the plane had landed, I was fast becoming a roadblock of sorts to the fellow inhabitants of my row, but I was, at least for the moment, more concerned with my foot than I was with their inconvenience.  It was numb.  No, more than numb, it wasn't there.  I couldn't feel it anymore.   My knee was there, but since I couldn't actually see beyond my knee I wasn't sure if my foot was there anymore.  We had been on this stinking airplane for approximately 21 hours straight since we left Travis Air Force Base in California, and somewhere around the International Date Line we not only had traveled back, or forward, in time, I had also lost a foot somewhere.  "Hey asshole, how 'bout gettin' out of the way."  That came from my seat mate to my immediate right, a rather large swarthy dipshit from Merced, California who had not only fallen asleep with his head on my shoulder several times, he had drooled while doing it.  I mumbled something about my foot being asleep so he kindly kicked it.  My foot, I mean.  It woke up.

Several hours before, we had plummeted through the dark of night headed toward Tokyo International Airport, and we were apparently low on fuel because the pilots in their infinite wisdom decided it would be cheaper to fly directly through a monstrous thunder storm than to go around.  I have never been afraid of flying ever since that night, because that night the Flying Gods had their chance to do away with me, and chose not to.  It was September of 1966, and I would live another day, at least.  I would tell you the details of the wings flapping up and down like an actual bird, and the engine pods swinging back and forth, but I'd have to double-up on my medication again.  We'll just let it go for now.

But now we had just landed at Tan Son Nhut airport, in the heart of Saigon, South Viet Nam, a freaking war zone. I stumbled forward down the aisle with the drooling dipshit bumping my backside like he was in a hurry to get out and kill something, but they hadn't opened the door yet.  Something was wrong with it, apparently, and two of the stewardess's (stewardi?) were teaming up trying to get the handle to swing down. I figured the storm we went through in Tokyo had twisted the plane so much that we were trapped, and they'd have to cut us out like sardines in a can.  Now, the air in that plane was not good.  It smelled like Hank Kucera's South Eugene High School gymnasium right after football workouts.  We needed air, and we needed it fast.  Drooling Dipshit pushed past me and yelled "get outta the way!" and grabbed the handle and almost ripped it off the door frame.  The door opened.  We suddenly regretted that action.

If you ask anyone who's ever been to Viet Nam what it was like to be there, the first thing they'll try to describe is the smell.  But I'm going to begin with the heat.  The door flew open and it all hit us right in our faces.  When I had left home in good ol' Eugene, Oregon it was cold and rainy, so I decided to wear my Air Force blues, a full uniform consisting of wool and other natural warming fibers.  When the door opened, a wave of kerosene scented heat made our eyes squint like we were staring directly into the sun.  Then we were walking down the ramp, walking and coughing, walking and squinting.  It must have been near 90 degrees.  It took me a few minutes to realize it was also actually raining.  Raining!  In the twenty or so minutes it took to get to the terminal, my rumpled Air Force blues got soaking wet, and heavy.  And hot.  I sat on a bench in the terminal to collect what was left of my thoughts and heard my first thump of an explosion.  Then another.  And another.  They were a ways away, but it was an otherwise alarming sound, and as I looked around, I could see the people in charge didn't seem concerned at all about them.  Steam began rising from my uniform.  It would be two more hours, including a harrowing 18 mile trip by military bus northward up a narrow, very busy road, until we reached Bien Hoa AB, my home for the next 12 months. And that was the first day.

I've include the above in this report because (1) it's part of what I've been doing lately - writing my memoirs, such as they might be; and (2) to tell you of the following.  I'm now receiving a monthly check of over $400 for being exposed to Agent Orange while I was in Viet Nam, and developing Diabetes Type-II afterwards.  Seems there's some sort of connection.  I had odd feelings about accepting this money, because, well, hell, lots of people have diabetes type-II who were never anywhere near Viet Nam.  But then I thought of Lyndon Baines Johnson.  He was the President of the United States when I was drafted, "Greetings," (okay, I avoided the draft by joining the Air Force), and he was the one who sent me to Viet Nam, somewhere I definitely did not want to go, under any circumstances.  Now, if Lyndon was alive now, I'm sure he'd feel guilty about all the shit he did to us, the young people he ripped away from their homes to go fight a war that was probably illegal, and definitely immoral.  But we did it, and he did it, and I look at this monthly check like it's a check directly from ol' Lyndon himself.

So thanks Lyndon.  I appreciate it.  It'll help pay the bar tab when the nightmares come, and I can see the steam rise off my uniform again.  And I'll raise a glass in toast to you, you who had no sons to send off to the fight, and I'll remember those of us who never came home, and maybe I'll sleep tonight.  But then again . . .

JP