Signs of Life
by JackDallas
10/12/2009, 7:58 AM #
I often wake up very early, sometimes around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and can’t go back to sleep. This morning I descended the stairs and headed for the kitchen to get a glass of milk, check on the dogs and just look around.
In the foyer my foot hits an object and sends it scooting across the floor and, in the dark and quiet house, a familiar tune disturbs the silence, as red and green lights start flashing. The tune was Popeye The Sailor Man, not the words but the tink tink of electronic cords that emanated from the little plastic toy.
A few days ago it was raining and my shoes were muddy when I came home. I took them off in the mud room, next to the kitchen, and left them there to dry so I could go back later and knock the mud off. When I returned, one shoe was missing. Annoyed but not mad, I searched the house and found the shoe in the toy box, laces untied and pulled out except for the two bottom holes where I tie them in a knot.
Last night I left the TV remote control on the side of my chair while I went to the bathroom. When I came back the clicker was gone. An extensive search found the thing under my chair with the batteries missing. An even more extensive search discovered the batteries in the arm rest pocket of my chair.
He knows how to open the cabinet doors just enough to reach in and unhook the mechanism that is supposed to prevent his entry. Pots and pans are always on the kitchen floor and often are found in other parts of the house.
I was not too surprised to see a small handprint, in jelly, on the window by the patio. Chairs are now being used to ascend to the tops of tables and are being dragged over to counters to facilitate the experience of discovering things once out of reach. The gate, that was intended to keep him from climbing the stairs to the marvelous mysteries of that nether region, now merely slow him down for a moment. He often shows up in my upstairs office, unannounced and looking for trouble.
He must have a bite or a sip of anything I eat or drink. He insists on sitting in my recliner with me. He never stays long but comes and goes as he pleases. He wears a shirt with a message on it that says, Blame it on the dog.
He is fifteen months old now. Two years ago he did not exist. I could not imagine him. I was not thinking of him; I was not hoping for him. I did not long for him or even want him; but to live without him now is not an option. The beat of his heart sustains mine and his smile makes me want to live forever.
Jack Dallas
Showing posts with label jackdallas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jackdallas. Show all posts
12 October 2009
23 April 2009
19 February 2009
A Little Altercation at a West Texas Honky Tonk
A Little Altercation at a West Texas Honky Tonk
by JackDallas
02/19/2009, 4:44 PM #
I never really knew my dad until he came back from the war. It was late in ’45 when he came home and I was still only three years old. His sisters and his mother often spoke of what a gentle soul he always was. My mother never knew that person, for the man who returned from the Pacific war was anything but gentle.
He had a hair trigger temper that often flared up for no apparent reason. Our lives were filled with turmoil, mostly because of his drinking but just as often by his erratic behavior. He had been wounded at Guadalcanal and spent some time in the hospital before going back on duty. I always believed that he was just plain nuts.
My dad was not a wife beater. He never beat my mother, but he was verbally abusive and shoved her around on occasion. Once when I was about fifteen, they were arguing and he grabbed her arm and was hurting her. I jumped up and grabbed his arm and punched him in the face. It did not affect him in the least and he hit me back, not in the face but right on top of my head. I went down and my mother went nuts. There was much yelling but he really felt bad about it and he told me so. It was the first time I ever stood up to him and it seemed to calm him down for a good while.
I never liked my dad, and I’m not sure if I ever loved him or not. When I left for the Navy, I told him if he didn’t start treating my mother right I was going to come back and kick his ass. He knew that the aging process would eventually bring about that possibility (I might have had to wait until he was 88, which would have occurred this month but I would have gotten it done) and I’m not sure if that was why he changed or not but, nevertheless, my mother’s letters told me that he was being a much better husband and had cut down on his drinking.
He died in a car wreck before I got back home.
There are few positive things I remember about my dad, but on occasion he did things that impressed me and made me proud of him. One such event took place in a West Texas Honky Tonk when I was about seven or eight years old.
My dad worked in the oil field, in those days first as a roughneck, then a driller, and finally he was promoted to tool-pusher, and we moved around quite a bit. One trip took us to some anonymous location in the vast Llano Estacado (that is cool talk for Permian Basin) and to a small café and bar. It was not uncommon in Texas for restaurants and bars to be in the same location. The restaurant seating was usually separate from the bar and dance floor.
We stopped for lunch and sat down at a table near the door, and ordered our food. My dad got up to go to the bathroom. No sooner had he left than a couple of drunks from the bar side came over to our table. Now, my mother was about twenty-seven or so, at the time, and was a good looking woman. One of the drunks asked her to dance. She said no, that she was with her husband and her son.
Now for someone who was not drunk, that might have been sufficient to make the men leave, but these two men were drunk, and I suspect of poor manners even when sober. My mother began to get nervous and asked them again to leave; they would not.
Inevitably, my dad came out of the bathroom and walked back to the table and found the two men standing there. “What do you want?” He asked the one standing closest to my mother’s chair.
“I asked this lady to dance,” the drunk said.
“And what did she tell you?” My dad replied.
“Well she said no….but.” WHAM…my dad hit him and he hit the floor. His friend made a move for my dad and he hit that man and he went down too, and stayed down. The first drunk was back on his feet and he and my dad started trading punches, and the drunk was not enjoying it.
My dad knocked him through the screen door that led outside to the café parking lot. The man crawled under a car, and my dad was kicking at him under the car. The drunk bit into my dad’s leg and wouldn’t let go so my dad dragged him out from under the car with his teeth still clamped on to his leg, and was pounding him when the cops arrived and broke it up.
I never left my seat at the table, heeding my mother’s admonition to stay put, before she went outside to help my dad should he need it. As it turned out, he did not. The cops arrested the two drunks but let my dad go because of your little boy, they told him. This was an unusual move for Texas cops who, in those days, usually either arrested or beat up anyone involved in an altercation, no matter what.
We finished our lunch and then got back on the road.
Jack
by JackDallas
02/19/2009, 4:44 PM #
I never really knew my dad until he came back from the war. It was late in ’45 when he came home and I was still only three years old. His sisters and his mother often spoke of what a gentle soul he always was. My mother never knew that person, for the man who returned from the Pacific war was anything but gentle.
He had a hair trigger temper that often flared up for no apparent reason. Our lives were filled with turmoil, mostly because of his drinking but just as often by his erratic behavior. He had been wounded at Guadalcanal and spent some time in the hospital before going back on duty. I always believed that he was just plain nuts.
My dad was not a wife beater. He never beat my mother, but he was verbally abusive and shoved her around on occasion. Once when I was about fifteen, they were arguing and he grabbed her arm and was hurting her. I jumped up and grabbed his arm and punched him in the face. It did not affect him in the least and he hit me back, not in the face but right on top of my head. I went down and my mother went nuts. There was much yelling but he really felt bad about it and he told me so. It was the first time I ever stood up to him and it seemed to calm him down for a good while.
I never liked my dad, and I’m not sure if I ever loved him or not. When I left for the Navy, I told him if he didn’t start treating my mother right I was going to come back and kick his ass. He knew that the aging process would eventually bring about that possibility (I might have had to wait until he was 88, which would have occurred this month but I would have gotten it done) and I’m not sure if that was why he changed or not but, nevertheless, my mother’s letters told me that he was being a much better husband and had cut down on his drinking.
He died in a car wreck before I got back home.
There are few positive things I remember about my dad, but on occasion he did things that impressed me and made me proud of him. One such event took place in a West Texas Honky Tonk when I was about seven or eight years old.
My dad worked in the oil field, in those days first as a roughneck, then a driller, and finally he was promoted to tool-pusher, and we moved around quite a bit. One trip took us to some anonymous location in the vast Llano Estacado (that is cool talk for Permian Basin) and to a small café and bar. It was not uncommon in Texas for restaurants and bars to be in the same location. The restaurant seating was usually separate from the bar and dance floor.
We stopped for lunch and sat down at a table near the door, and ordered our food. My dad got up to go to the bathroom. No sooner had he left than a couple of drunks from the bar side came over to our table. Now, my mother was about twenty-seven or so, at the time, and was a good looking woman. One of the drunks asked her to dance. She said no, that she was with her husband and her son.
Now for someone who was not drunk, that might have been sufficient to make the men leave, but these two men were drunk, and I suspect of poor manners even when sober. My mother began to get nervous and asked them again to leave; they would not.
Inevitably, my dad came out of the bathroom and walked back to the table and found the two men standing there. “What do you want?” He asked the one standing closest to my mother’s chair.
“I asked this lady to dance,” the drunk said.
“And what did she tell you?” My dad replied.
“Well she said no….but.” WHAM…my dad hit him and he hit the floor. His friend made a move for my dad and he hit that man and he went down too, and stayed down. The first drunk was back on his feet and he and my dad started trading punches, and the drunk was not enjoying it.
My dad knocked him through the screen door that led outside to the café parking lot. The man crawled under a car, and my dad was kicking at him under the car. The drunk bit into my dad’s leg and wouldn’t let go so my dad dragged him out from under the car with his teeth still clamped on to his leg, and was pounding him when the cops arrived and broke it up.
I never left my seat at the table, heeding my mother’s admonition to stay put, before she went outside to help my dad should he need it. As it turned out, he did not. The cops arrested the two drunks but let my dad go because of your little boy, they told him. This was an unusual move for Texas cops who, in those days, usually either arrested or beat up anyone involved in an altercation, no matter what.
We finished our lunch and then got back on the road.
Jack
03 April 2008
20 September 2007
21 April 2005
A short comment on spitting.
Subject: A short comment on spitting.
From: MichaelRyerson
Date: Apr 21 2005 3:45PM
Happened to catch this morning's interview on The Today Show (with MattLaurer&KatieCouric) with Michael A. Smith, who is in the news for having stood in a bookstore line for 90 minutes so that he could spit a mouthful of tobacco juice in Jane Fonda's face. He was unrepentent, saying when he returned from Vietnam through LAX in Los Angeles, he was confronted with a 'line of anti-war protestors who proceeded to spit on me'. His grievance with Ms. Fonda is, of course, for her ill-conceived trip/photo-op to North Vietnam at the height of the war. One photograph shows her sitting, laughing, on an anti-aircraft gun, surrounded by her amused and delighted hosts. It was, and remains, a hurtful image to most vets. It seems the sleek Ms. Fonda, who has led a materially privileged life, suffers from a remarkable paucity of taste and decorum but has now, with a book to hawk, come to her senses and recognises that grainy photograph and the trip it frames, to have been a monumental lapse of judgement (although, I must say, one is hard pressed to find sufficient evidence that she's displayed good judgement frequently enough to make this occasion a 'lapse'). In any event, she's now sorry and can't we all be friends and just read a good book ('like, for instance, this one I'm holding') or maybe aerobicize together. But I really don't have a problem with Jane and, frankly, I didn't have a problem with her back when she took her trip to North Vietnam. I didn't much care one way or the other. She's always seemed kinda transparent to me, she still does. But Mr. Smith is another kettle of fish. I don't know if he's really a Vietnam veteran or not. He's 54 which puts him at the youngish margin for having served in the Nam but it's possible. This morning, he was wearing a sweatshirt with an embroidered Eagle,Globe&Anchor and the word 'Marines' under it. So I guess he's saying he was in the Marine Corps. I don't know, maybe. But this makes it even more difficult for him to have been in the Nam because in 1972-73 (he'd have been 18) there were few Marines left in South Vietnam but like I say it's possible. And I hope so because in the next few days, people are going to be digging into his background. It will be simple enough to find his service records and then we'll all know if he went to Vietnam and in which branch he served. My problem with Mr. Smith is his story about the lines of anti-war protestors he found waiting for him at LAX and that they 'spit' on him. I came back from overseas through Los Angeles and no one spit on me, there were no lines of antiwar protestors and if truth be told, no one seemed to notice me at all even though I was wearing a dress uniform with appropriate rank insignia and ribbons. No one even glanced at me. Further I'll say this, if anyone had spit on me (or at me) there'd have been an old fashioned melee, someone would have needed stitches and I'd have spent some time in the brig. I don't know where that part of Mr. Smith's story is. Did he just 'take it' passively? In all my friends who are veterans, we've heard this spitting story over and over again and none of us had a similar experience, not one. And if returning Vietnam vets had been faced with this kind of treatment at the airport, I'd have gone down to the airport to be with them and I wouldn't have gone alone. But no such incidents were reported in the Los Angeles Times, no local news anchor mentioned it, Los Angeles Police and airport security make no mention of it in their histories of the period. In fact, no such story appears in the New York Times either. It was a bad time for the country.
Even after all these years, its still painful to think about. But if we're going to think about it and talk about it, let's keep it real. Mr. Smith says he was acting on behalf of all Vietnam veterans upon whom Ms. Fonda spit all those years ago. Well, he's not doing it on my behalf, I'll be responsible for my own dance card, thank you very much. I think Jane Fonda and her opinion about Vietnam are and were nearly irrelevant. I can't imagine standing in a line for an hour and a half to be close to her for any reason. I think Mr. Smith needs to get over it and move on.
http://fray.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=14450054
Subject: the spitting urban legend
From: Fracas
Date: Apr 21 2005 3:55PM
Sociologist Jerry Lembcke who wrote The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam thinks that it didn't. When a NYT columnist repeated the story in 2000, Lembcke challenged it:
I faxed a letter to the Times letters' editor saying that, "in research for my book….I found no evidence that such incidents ever took place. It would have been impossible for protesters with rotten vegetables to get close to a wounded soldier returning from Vietnam." I pointed out that, "stories of spat-upon veterans are apocryphal. They discredit the Americans who opposed the war and help construct an alibi for why we lost, namely, that we were betrayed on the home front by disloyal fifth columnists." My letter was never printed.
Subject: I got a kick out of Sean Hannity last night..
From: Jack_Dallas
Date: Apr 21 2005 4:26PM
He kept showing pictures of Fonda sitting on the AA Battery and called it a "Tank".
I hate the bitch, but I wouldn't stand in line for an hour and a half to see someone I like, much less someone I detest, just to tell her off. We do need to move on.
Our side lost, Fonda's, Kerry's and Ramsey Clark's side won. Let's get over it.
Jack
Subject: RE: A short comment on spitting.
From: zinya
Date: Apr 21 2005 4:32PM
hi rye,
thanks much for this posting. And for any of us who have followed and 'absorbed' your past postings about your vietnam years, i know and appreciate (well, as much as a contemporary who angsted from these shores, not those could) what it represents to you to relive those experiences and their fractured counter-interpretations then and still now...
Part of my response to your post is already in my reply above to Fracas' post.
What i decided to add here is that i had first-hand experience with something related which i can attest is NOT 'urban myth': In 1976, i volunteered in the US Senate campaign of Tom Hayden, already then married to Jane Fonda, an ultimately losing campaign. But one afternoon after work during the primary campaign, i was standing on the street in Westwood handing our campaign brochures, and out of the blue a relatively petite clearly upper-middle-class, well-dressed woman spit at ME as she looked at our signs for Hayden, seethed out the words "Jane Fonda" and her spittle landed at my feet. It was stunning.
Such was the venom then .. and i dare say the chances of more than just this one woman turning their hatred for Jane Fonda into their own spittings on whoever they came to view by association as the 'internal enemy' (us liberals!! eek!!) made me wonder to what extent the stories of servicemen being spit on were, instead, projections as 'cover stories' over conduct which instead was going in the opposite direction, toward -- not from -- the "left." Maybe my experience was a fairly isolated experience, i don't know, and it only happened once, most stunningly because of the appearance of 'decorum' from which it spewed ...
again, rye, a heartfelt appreciation for the thoughtful sincerity of your post ... good to see ya.
Subject: RE: I've no idea whether or not anyone
From: Ele_
Date: Apr 21 2005 4:56PM
sput on veterans upon their return from Vietnam. Yet, even if someone did this is no excuse for a man to spit on an old lady - and that's what Ms. Fonda is, regardless of her facelifts - thirty years later. I hope she will press charges and the brute will get something other than probation.
Having said that, I shall breathlessly wait for this top poster's article condemning delinquents who have thrown pies at Ms. Coulter
Subject: I heartily condemn anyone who would waste
From: MichaelRyerson
Date: Apr 21 2005 6:19PM
a pie on Ms. Coulter. There, take a breath.
Subject: RE: A short comment on spitting.
From: GeminiToo
Date: Apr 21 2005 5:48PM
I don't remember hearing about protesters spitting on vets until many years after the fact (in the eighties, I think). I knew a number of vets who returned and none of them reported being spat on. I also do not remember any contemporaneous reports of spitting, and I'm sure given the passions back then such incidents would have been reported had they occurred.
Subject: Well,
From: HawkEye
Date: Apr 21 2005 7:58PM
The Department of Veterans Affairs can't seem to find independent corroboration (or any Police Reports) for Vietnam Veterans getting "Spit On" upon returning to the United States of America.
There are Vietnam Veterans who "claim" (in more ways than one, as they file a claim for it) they were Spit On though... and say that they can no longer sleep well at ngiht thinking about it, or work, so they would like to be Service Connected for the injury suffered.... which they believe falls under PTSD. It does seem to have messed up Michael Smith, I wonder if he is getting Tax Payer Funds for the "Event"?
You know, a guy just off the plane from Vietnam getting spit on would most likely cause a little trouble... and there would have been a Report.... and strangely enough it is Republicans (or those who openly support Republicans) who most often report getting "Spit On" you would think they would have fought back a little bit.
HawkEye
From: MichaelRyerson
Date: Apr 21 2005 3:45PM
Happened to catch this morning's interview on The Today Show (with MattLaurer&KatieCouric) with Michael A. Smith, who is in the news for having stood in a bookstore line for 90 minutes so that he could spit a mouthful of tobacco juice in Jane Fonda's face. He was unrepentent, saying when he returned from Vietnam through LAX in Los Angeles, he was confronted with a 'line of anti-war protestors who proceeded to spit on me'. His grievance with Ms. Fonda is, of course, for her ill-conceived trip/photo-op to North Vietnam at the height of the war. One photograph shows her sitting, laughing, on an anti-aircraft gun, surrounded by her amused and delighted hosts. It was, and remains, a hurtful image to most vets. It seems the sleek Ms. Fonda, who has led a materially privileged life, suffers from a remarkable paucity of taste and decorum but has now, with a book to hawk, come to her senses and recognises that grainy photograph and the trip it frames, to have been a monumental lapse of judgement (although, I must say, one is hard pressed to find sufficient evidence that she's displayed good judgement frequently enough to make this occasion a 'lapse'). In any event, she's now sorry and can't we all be friends and just read a good book ('like, for instance, this one I'm holding') or maybe aerobicize together. But I really don't have a problem with Jane and, frankly, I didn't have a problem with her back when she took her trip to North Vietnam. I didn't much care one way or the other. She's always seemed kinda transparent to me, she still does. But Mr. Smith is another kettle of fish. I don't know if he's really a Vietnam veteran or not. He's 54 which puts him at the youngish margin for having served in the Nam but it's possible. This morning, he was wearing a sweatshirt with an embroidered Eagle,Globe&Anchor and the word 'Marines' under it. So I guess he's saying he was in the Marine Corps. I don't know, maybe. But this makes it even more difficult for him to have been in the Nam because in 1972-73 (he'd have been 18) there were few Marines left in South Vietnam but like I say it's possible. And I hope so because in the next few days, people are going to be digging into his background. It will be simple enough to find his service records and then we'll all know if he went to Vietnam and in which branch he served. My problem with Mr. Smith is his story about the lines of anti-war protestors he found waiting for him at LAX and that they 'spit' on him. I came back from overseas through Los Angeles and no one spit on me, there were no lines of antiwar protestors and if truth be told, no one seemed to notice me at all even though I was wearing a dress uniform with appropriate rank insignia and ribbons. No one even glanced at me. Further I'll say this, if anyone had spit on me (or at me) there'd have been an old fashioned melee, someone would have needed stitches and I'd have spent some time in the brig. I don't know where that part of Mr. Smith's story is. Did he just 'take it' passively? In all my friends who are veterans, we've heard this spitting story over and over again and none of us had a similar experience, not one. And if returning Vietnam vets had been faced with this kind of treatment at the airport, I'd have gone down to the airport to be with them and I wouldn't have gone alone. But no such incidents were reported in the Los Angeles Times, no local news anchor mentioned it, Los Angeles Police and airport security make no mention of it in their histories of the period. In fact, no such story appears in the New York Times either. It was a bad time for the country.
Even after all these years, its still painful to think about. But if we're going to think about it and talk about it, let's keep it real. Mr. Smith says he was acting on behalf of all Vietnam veterans upon whom Ms. Fonda spit all those years ago. Well, he's not doing it on my behalf, I'll be responsible for my own dance card, thank you very much. I think Jane Fonda and her opinion about Vietnam are and were nearly irrelevant. I can't imagine standing in a line for an hour and a half to be close to her for any reason. I think Mr. Smith needs to get over it and move on.
http://fray.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=14450054
Subject: the spitting urban legend
From: Fracas
Date: Apr 21 2005 3:55PM
Sociologist Jerry Lembcke who wrote The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam thinks that it didn't. When a NYT columnist repeated the story in 2000, Lembcke challenged it:
I faxed a letter to the Times letters' editor saying that, "in research for my book….I found no evidence that such incidents ever took place. It would have been impossible for protesters with rotten vegetables to get close to a wounded soldier returning from Vietnam." I pointed out that, "stories of spat-upon veterans are apocryphal. They discredit the Americans who opposed the war and help construct an alibi for why we lost, namely, that we were betrayed on the home front by disloyal fifth columnists." My letter was never printed.
Subject: I got a kick out of Sean Hannity last night..
From: Jack_Dallas
Date: Apr 21 2005 4:26PM
He kept showing pictures of Fonda sitting on the AA Battery and called it a "Tank".
I hate the bitch, but I wouldn't stand in line for an hour and a half to see someone I like, much less someone I detest, just to tell her off. We do need to move on.
Our side lost, Fonda's, Kerry's and Ramsey Clark's side won. Let's get over it.
Jack
Subject: RE: A short comment on spitting.
From: zinya
Date: Apr 21 2005 4:32PM
hi rye,
thanks much for this posting. And for any of us who have followed and 'absorbed' your past postings about your vietnam years, i know and appreciate (well, as much as a contemporary who angsted from these shores, not those could) what it represents to you to relive those experiences and their fractured counter-interpretations then and still now...
Part of my response to your post is already in my reply above to Fracas' post.
What i decided to add here is that i had first-hand experience with something related which i can attest is NOT 'urban myth': In 1976, i volunteered in the US Senate campaign of Tom Hayden, already then married to Jane Fonda, an ultimately losing campaign. But one afternoon after work during the primary campaign, i was standing on the street in Westwood handing our campaign brochures, and out of the blue a relatively petite clearly upper-middle-class, well-dressed woman spit at ME as she looked at our signs for Hayden, seethed out the words "Jane Fonda" and her spittle landed at my feet. It was stunning.
Such was the venom then .. and i dare say the chances of more than just this one woman turning their hatred for Jane Fonda into their own spittings on whoever they came to view by association as the 'internal enemy' (us liberals!! eek!!) made me wonder to what extent the stories of servicemen being spit on were, instead, projections as 'cover stories' over conduct which instead was going in the opposite direction, toward -- not from -- the "left." Maybe my experience was a fairly isolated experience, i don't know, and it only happened once, most stunningly because of the appearance of 'decorum' from which it spewed ...
again, rye, a heartfelt appreciation for the thoughtful sincerity of your post ... good to see ya.
Subject: RE: I've no idea whether or not anyone
From: Ele_
Date: Apr 21 2005 4:56PM
sput on veterans upon their return from Vietnam. Yet, even if someone did this is no excuse for a man to spit on an old lady - and that's what Ms. Fonda is, regardless of her facelifts - thirty years later. I hope she will press charges and the brute will get something other than probation.
Having said that, I shall breathlessly wait for this top poster's article condemning delinquents who have thrown pies at Ms. Coulter
Subject: I heartily condemn anyone who would waste
From: MichaelRyerson
Date: Apr 21 2005 6:19PM
a pie on Ms. Coulter. There, take a breath.
Subject: RE: A short comment on spitting.
From: GeminiToo
Date: Apr 21 2005 5:48PM
I don't remember hearing about protesters spitting on vets until many years after the fact (in the eighties, I think). I knew a number of vets who returned and none of them reported being spat on. I also do not remember any contemporaneous reports of spitting, and I'm sure given the passions back then such incidents would have been reported had they occurred.
Subject: Well,
From: HawkEye
Date: Apr 21 2005 7:58PM
The Department of Veterans Affairs can't seem to find independent corroboration (or any Police Reports) for Vietnam Veterans getting "Spit On" upon returning to the United States of America.
There are Vietnam Veterans who "claim" (in more ways than one, as they file a claim for it) they were Spit On though... and say that they can no longer sleep well at ngiht thinking about it, or work, so they would like to be Service Connected for the injury suffered.... which they believe falls under PTSD. It does seem to have messed up Michael Smith, I wonder if he is getting Tax Payer Funds for the "Event"?
You know, a guy just off the plane from Vietnam getting spit on would most likely cause a little trouble... and there would have been a Report.... and strangely enough it is Republicans (or those who openly support Republicans) who most often report getting "Spit On" you would think they would have fought back a little bit.
HawkEye
30 May 2003
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
