Arthur Ruger
I do not believe in kindergarten politics and am now trying to speak out (even though my voice might shake) against the long-time silliness of the party I used to agree with.
I’m an old veteran with no hair, high blood pressure and military memories going back to the early 1970’s when Jane Fonda was a swear word and my cousin somehow got into the National Guard and I didn’t.
Had I waited another six months before enlisting, the new draft lottery which placed my birthday at the 350+ level would have meant that I, like Mr. Dick Cheney, could have pursued my “other priorities.”
Somewhere downstairs I’ve got an old hard-cardboard Schlitz beer-box with enough military records in it to prove I went and to prove I did. There’s a bunch of ribbons there that I didn’t toss over any walls in protest but are in a glass jar where sometime I’ll go down and look at them. There’s an air-medal (and maybe a cluster) that are still in their containers. There’s little sterling silver wings that my commander told me I could wear even when not on flying status after completing ten combat missions. They’re all down there and prove that I went and I did. When I was studying Russian at Syracuse University,
Woodstock happened less than 100 miles away. I wasn’t about to drive over and see that. I was too mad at Jane Fonda – mad about her movie Barbarella which had offended my youthful moral view of the world. And I was incensed by her Hanoi affair. Funny how time changes perspectives. My yuppie kids are outraged that in 1969 I willfully refused to go to Woodstock. I agree with them.
What was I thinking?
Was my patriotism so shallow that rain, mud, outlandish music, naked women and pot smoke could rock my foundation as a true American?
I’m embarrassed about what I thought was important when I was 22 and what I did and didn’t do about it. Yet, here I am today, a Senior-citizen repository of all my experience which is the only source of wisdom I have to offer my kids and grand kids. I sure as heck am not going to teach my kids that military veterans are long on judgment and condemnation and short on wisdom.
No, I’m not retired from the military. I got out after 6 years and later served 2 more in the reserve. 30 years later, I’m still aware of a sense of difference between the civilian and military world where you have got to trust somebody before you follow them.
In 1968 I was so mad at LBJ, I voted for Nixon so I guess that made me a Republican.
In 72 I thought McGovern was a peacenik and I was a war-nik so I gave RMN another vote.
In 76 I was genuinely offended at Nixon – and Ford for pardoning him – so I voted for Carter.
In 1980 when Reagan asked “Are you better off now….” he got my vote.
In 1984 he looked tougher than Mondale so I voted for RR again.
By 1988 though, I didn’t trust Bush the First so I went into my vote-for-the-outsider mode and voted for Dukakis.
1992 and I’m mad at Bush Sr. who seemed to think looking like Patton would fix the economy and voted for Bill with the following little sentence in sotto voce:
“Ok you SOB, you’d better not blow it.”
By 1996 I began to suspect I might be more of a liberal than a conservative and just couldn’t bring myself to vote for Dole.
So there I am, trying to vote the man instead of the party, flip-flopping and waffling with the best of them.
By 2000 I realized that my veteran’s instincts were alive and well and I saw only form without substance in Dubya. Besides, an old NBA fan like me thought Bill Bradley was the smartest guy for president and I was disappointed that he didn’t get nominated.
I voted for Gore, the veteran who really served and served well, unlike Howdy Doodie.
So let’s get real out there! Let’s live in the real world where the label isn’t as important as the belief that leads to active participation. I admit to being more philosophically aligned with Goldwater’s conservatism than the Democratic party unable to take a stand when a stand is needed.
However, common sense must rule and being so offended at Mr. Obama that you voted for the other guy more out of spite than wisdom is not a prideful attribute and I sure as hell wouldn’t be proud of voting for the other guy for such a silly reason.
If you think there is more international wisdom and military craftsmanship from a gang that truly cannot talk or shoot straight, has not shot straight and literally did not serve
– has not been there nor done that –
then by all means betray what you think you stand for.
Speak out and reveal your belief that splashing around in shallow water is better than learning to swim and navigate in something deeper where there’s much more substance to everything.
Go ahead and pretend that partisan political fools are statesmanlike graduates of the Fox TV Academy (chicken hawk heaven) and pay attention when a pretend patriot asks you to believe he’s really been there and done that … ain’t been anywhere and ain’t done nothin where he wasn’t.
Fox News is a place where political power theories look like they came out of a perusal of Cliff Notes and where – like in RISK – military troops are nothing more than little colored blocks of wood that are casually swept off the board with each roll of the dice.
That’s the alternative to using your own common sense.
If you’re a Veteran act like it!
Don’t leave the stage to the Howdy Doodie cast!
I served in the U.S. Air Force and the majority of that time I was on flight status with PCS assignments to Yokota Air Base near Tokyo, Kadena Air Base in Okinawa and Offutt AFB near Omigosh, Nebraska.
I have never during or after had a detailed dream such as that which woke me up this morning and which I will narrate here. By way of explanation I’m not sure what triggered the dream but suspect it might have something to do with encountering a new Facebook Group made up of USAF classmates at Syracuse University way way way back in 1969.
Or my recent affiliation with my lodge which includes retired Air Force guys may have also triggered the dream since there’s a sense of camaraderie in the dream not unlike that in the lodge or, for that matter, that which dominated our lives back in the 70’s where we served on active duty as members of air crews.
Whatever …
On this early morn, I’m in the after-dream thrall of some kind of Post Traumatic Dream Syndrome … I was astonished at the subject and the dream and can only say that it must come from brushing up against something newly experienced in my life with ties to the past.
But here goes …
I find myself in an upper floor of what must be some kind of barracks (I dream of multi-roomed-maze-like buildings quite a bit it seems.)
I’m not wearing a flight suit and am carrying my duffel bag. This “barracks” is full of enlisted types in an assortment of dress and activity.
duffel bag
Nobody seems surprised that I am there and as I descend some sort of declining stairs I collide with another guy who drops his duffel and it falls open. A large pair of low-cut basketball shoes – size 15 or larger – tied together with a string tumble out and wind up hanging around my neck for the rest of the dream.
When I get to the ground floor, I am advised that we are doing a mission today and I am missing the briefing.
I rush back up the winding stairs to the highest room which is full of officers (looks like over a hundred of them sitting in rows of chairs and not in flight suits but wearing their khakis.)
Below is an image of enlisted men wearing the “khakis” them there officers in my dream were wearing.
They are talking what seems like the standard SAC preflight talk I used to hear at Kadena and Offutt.
Suddenly they all arise and then kneel in formation facing the door through which I just entered and commence an evangelical Christian pre-flight warrior’s prayer (must have learned to do that at the AF Academy, eh?).
Realizing I’m at the “wrong” briefing, I struggle downstairs still wearing the gym shoes around my neck and looking for the enlisted flight briefing.
I get there just as it is ending and only about half are in flight suits and many of them dressed with individual style like characters in M.A.S.H.
Realizing that I’m not wearing a flight suit, I head back upstairs, where I left my duffel bag to get my flight suit on, telling one or two guys that I haven’t flown since 1972 and in my dream there is nothing unusual enough to bother anybody I tell that to. (Besides, truth is my last flight was 1974 out of Offutt).
Offutt flight line in the old days
On the way upstairs to “find” my flight suit I realize I have not checked in, have only the clothes I’m wearing, am hungry as hell and need to go somewhere to use an ATM to get cash to live on since I’m told the flight is 215 hours long and we are TDY’ing “over there.” Reminiscent of those damn 27-hour flights between Offutt and Mildenhall (my last flight in 1974.)
I start wandering around the lobby or the yard right outside the “barracks/flight meeting building” trying to figure out where my flight suit is and where the damn ATM might be.
For those unfamiliar with what I was looking for in my 1970’s dream:
Thinking I have a few hours before takeoff, I ask someone how soon before we launch …
he says “about 25 minutes.”
I woke up with start.
It sort of felt like Omaha winter weather and my Eilson experience is limited to two overnight stops for repairs. But I remember a feeling of snow in my dream.
Eilson AFB
The dream seemed vivid, lengthy and somewhat detailed but felt like how it might be imagined if I had never been involved with those flights and constructed a vivid fairy-tale based on someone else’s account.
I thought about checking myself into the VA hospital this morning for prolonged therapy …
but then the coffee was brewed …
the old laptop finished loading …
and I realized I could download my insecurities to an empathetic group of old doofuses like myself right from the warmth of my desk.
There you go …
read it and weep.
And what the hell was with the damn gym shoes hanging around my neck?
The Saga of Crooked Donald 