Just remembering !

[Horsefly]

A friend in high school’s father was a survivor of the Baatan Death March. Sorry about spelling. It screwed his head up so much that if he sat down to any gigantic buffet he would freak out if there wasn’t any rice on table. They look so forward to the days they got just a dab of rice they would freak out if it didn’t come. He would eat everything on table as long as there was a little bowl of rice next to his plate. Even being 17 or 18 years old I could understand what he was going through. He was a math teacher at Denton Highschool that had a glitch he couldn’t get over. I didn’t know where to post this but think it’s important to tell how the POW’s were affected 30 years later. 

[Dr.Hess]

I was just reflecting earlier today.  People suck.  When you die and they give you the big book of life, with all the answers, there on page 1 it says:  "People Suck."  On page 2 it says:  "People are assholes."  The people who did it to him, there's the explanation.

I once sailed with an AB (Able Bodied sailor) that was a Merrill's Marauder.  He didn't talk much about it, but I got a feeling he took it out on the Japanese.

[AzRednek]

Starting about 1979 I worked next to a former WW2 Marine Island hopper 3-4 hours daily. He had problems with anger control. On one occasion he literally went nuts seeing an oriental looking guy, a Ma Bell worker. In the parking lot there was a manhole leading to underground phone wires. My coworker was certain the worker was planting a bomb or bugging phones. He managed to call 911, don’t know what he reported but police and fire responded. I heard but never saw his anger going out of control seeing anybody that even looked remotely oriental. I don’t know whom or how he was persuaded to turn to the Phx VA Hospital for help. 

im sure you likely heard the horror stories at the Phoenix VA Hospital before Trump cleaned it up. I don’t know what VA was giving him but it made him stupid, clumsy but as happy as a 10 year old in a candy store. Wisely a USPS mgr sent him home on paid leave and contacted VA. VA simply would not respond. The MD on the Phx USPS staff I was told also got the run around from VA. The postal Dr advised him to stop the meds and gave him a week of paid admin leave. The USPS Dr a 30 year Air Force retiree specialty was Orthopedics and he referred to him to outside local Drs. As my coworker’s union rep I got involved after worker’s comp, VA, USPS and his federal health insurance all passed the buck and wouldn’t pay the bills. Unofficially I was told by a male VA RN, Phx VA wasn’t seriously taking the so called PTSD of WW2 or Korean War vets. He claimed VA assumed time was the cure. He also claimed non MD shrinks were writing Rx’s without consulting a real Dr being filled at the hospital pharmacy.
 

[spec4 e4]

When I was a kid, I tried to wake up my dad from a nap, he had me on the ground.  He caught himself before anything happen but I realized that he was not right because of Vietnam.  

 

Rob

[FC]

Wow! That's all I can say!

Like I've told before, my mom told me, when I was a little boy, to stay away from the nice man next door, on the lake. She said he got shell shock in Italy. A 6 y/o boy doesn't know what that means.

[AzRednek]

In the 50 and early 60’s there was a WW1 Vet in my neighborhood that had brain and lung damage from poison gas. Mom warned me to avoid him. My first encounter when I was about 10 he scared me. I couldn’t understand what he was saying as his voice was very rough nd I ran away from him. Turned out he was harmless. He walked alleys with a potato sack collecting pop bottles. He also carried a garden hoe and would chop down weeds for cigarettes. Mom used to buy tobacco bags and papers to give him after he chopped down weeds in our yard. He would walk a block or two then sit down and chain smoke. According to his grandson the excessive smoking helped kill the burning and pain in his lungs. I didn’t see it but was told he once beat an immigrant farm worker up pretty bad with his garden hoe that tried stealing his bag full of bottles.

Sometime when I have more time. I could write a book about a Korean War pilot. He was shot down, captured then spent months subjected to Communist brain washing. On my way now for my first COVID vaccination.. 

[FC]

I'd like to read about that.

[AzRednek]

It was a shame about the pilot, guess it was the brain washing that changed him into a moron. He didn’t have a steady job but wondered around Scottsdale and Tempe in the late 60’s looking to do odd jobs from all the small businesses. He often worked for the restaurant next door to the auto parts store I worked at.

He was a die hard Commie and often went into rants about Capitalist plots. My first encounter with him while he was just hanging out at the parts counter. A phone call from a salesman I think was selling mufflers, exhaust pipes and a machine hat bends pipe. My coworker got pissed off over the high pressure salesman and told him to hang on and speak to the owner. He handed the phone to the pilot and he went nuts accusing the salesman of being a Capitalist pig, wasting natural resources for automobiles then went into a big spiel about the terrible USA’s transportation system. People need better bus service, street cars and should not be using natural resources to make pipes and should be using the metal to build bicycles for workers. I began laughing my ass off after my coworker told me he was serious. After the pilot slammed the phone down real hard. He looked at me with fire in his eyes asking what’s so funny do you own a car with a powerful engine. My coworker got him to calm down by  completing him on his knowledge. 
 

A few weeks later the owner of the restaurant next door showed us a 2 page letter the pilot wrote on the old three ring binder note book paper. With very neat handwriting, perfect English and punctuation he chastised the owner about his selection of certain brands. He apparently had a hard on for Arm and Hammer baking soda company making some chemical I don’t recall the name of being used to make explosives. Then a paragraph or two about the cruelty of the USA bombing civilians in WW2 and North Vietnam. He also ranted about Morten salt, Schilling pepper and spices chemically poisoning workers and school children. He quoted something from the Bible about salt and Morten being sinners. To help prove his point he did a price comparison of the name brands to lower cost and where to buy them emphasizing the smaller companies treated their workers better. He apparently visited different stores doing his research. The Italian restaurant also had items imported from Italy he should stop supporting. He listed numerous grievances workers had against the Italian govt. 

 

The restaurant over a health code violation had to tear down an old building after moving the dishwashing operation into it. The buildings were not connected and the health dept said clean dishes could not be exposed to outside air when moved from the old building into the restaurant. The restaurant hired the pilot to tear it down and after it was torn down the city demanded the cement slab be removed. With a rented compressor and Jack hammer the pilot loved operating it. He spent two days busting the cement up into small pieces until the restaurant made him stop and returned the rental tools. The next morning the pilot with a sludge hammer and cold chisel continued breaking up the cement. He continued even after the restaurant told him they would no longer pay him. If I remover right the outfit that hauled the cement away put a 20lb limit on the cement chunks but he broke it all up into very small pieces.
 

Nobody knew what the pilot did with his money. He received a monthly 100% disability check from VA plus the few bucks he made doing odd jobs. He rented a small space in a storage garage to sleep in and about once a week he paid an old motel a few bucks to use their shower. His clothes were always dirty often seeing him wearing the same dirty sweatshirt for a few weeks. I was told he was giving 2-3 hundred a month to St Mary’s Food Bank for almost a year but objected to certain brands of donated food. He started buying food from a Safeway and a couple mom and pops having them deliver it to the food bank. He was active with the Socialist Workers Party, often participated in their anti Vietnam War demonstrations at ASU and help circulate nominating petitions getting Socialist Workers on ballots. I was guilty a few times signing them to appease the guy.

 

if the pilot wasn’t ranting about politics he could hold an intelligent conversation. I picked him up a few times hitch hiking. I was told he reached the rank of Major and according to the restaurant owner he had a college degree from either it was University of Michigan or maybe it was Minnesota. He joined the Air Force out of college as he was about to be drafted. The last time I saw him after I left the Scottsdale parts store about 71 or 72. He was walking down Scottsdale Rd with two tool belts around his waist. I’ll never forget how silly he looked with a long pipe wrench hanging off his butt. Years later I heard he died in the Phoenix VA Hospital but never heard for sure what killed him. Somebody told me they heard it was a car/bicycle accident. He was bad about slowing up traffic with his bike by claiming an entire lane to himself by riding right in the middle. He often yelled at and flipped off car drivers if they honked. The pilot also changed his name, not sure he did it legally. I can’t remember it, it was a single syllable Chinese name.

[Horsefly]

Lady up the road doesn’t have the anger the poor guy had but she has same concerns about public transportation and can rattle off long list of products you should or should not support. She’s hardcore liberal. I noticed that a couple demorats I worked with and her are Teflon and nothing sticks to them. They drive big peecup trucks and Harley and tell me I need to carpool and electric cars will save the earth. 

[Dr.Hess]

In Jr. High, we had a science teacher that was a corpsman in Nam at a MASH unit.  He said that when he just got back, he had a job working at a plant.  There was a very large electric motor on something and every time they started it up, it sounded just like the start of the siren they had for rocket attacks and he would be found cowering underneath something.

[AzRednek]

About 89 my step son set off a couple of Piccolo Petes at a KOA camp ground in Provo Utah. If you’re not familiar with a Piccolo Pete. It like a large 4-5 inch firecracker on a stand. Instead of a bang it sets off an ear piercing whistle. Nearby were several Arabs all dressed in their native dress except one. When the Piccolo Pete sounded off all the Arabs either jumped into their tent trailers or hit the ground. Some of the women screamed with fright. I apologized to the English speaking Arab wearing normal clothes. He accepted my apology but insisted my then wife speak to his women then said something about not whipping my step son to hard. Leave it to my brat step son that became a gang banger in his teens then several years in prison in his early 20’s. Just as we lowered the trailer, all packed up a ready to roll. He set off another Piccolo Pete. I was to embarrassed to stop. driving away ASAP.
 

I might also add on the stay at the KOA I helped Bob Voss former Governor of either North or South Dakota and leader in the NRA. Voss had a huge moor home towing a Mercedes. He got stuck trying to go around a bend in the trail as the Mercedes he was towing jackknifed. We used my floor Jack , lifted the back end of the Mercedes , my family pushed pushed it sideways and he finally got through the narrow path. Voss later came to my tent trailer to say thanks. My 11 years old brat step son embarrassed me as Voss was leaving. He said “hey are you rich” Voss replied “no I’m a poor man” before I could tell the step son to shut up he said to Voss “if your a poor man did you steal that motor home”. I think Voss got a chuckle out of it saying something about saving up his money for a long time to buy it. 

[FC]

Heck of a story about that pilot.

Joe Foss was governor of my birth state of SD.

[karlunity]

Us marines just smoked and drank...as long as the beer or whisky held out number 1, if not, you went out any way,,,,still better than Brooklyn

As an ole wwll marine told me...Life is battle!

karl 

[rdm1962]

My next door neighbor as a kid was an old German woman. We all thought she was just a crab when she told all the kids to stay out of her yard. I didn't understand until I was in high school what the numbers tattooed on her arm ment. She had every reason to be crabby.  Now I wish I could tell her sorry for not being more respectful. 

[Horsefly]

An old German lady at Muenster Texas fired a gun in air one Halloween when some boys were stealing her outhouse so she got the name Shotgun Annie. All kids were scared to death of her. Me and my twin brother mowed her yard and she found out I loved popcorn balls. We got a dollar each for mowing and a lunch sack with 5or 6 popcorn balls. I’d of mowed just for the balls. We loved that old women. We would take her fish and she’d say dis put dim in de zink. 

[karlunity]

Now? the PC would lock her up and send the kid to the head doctor.  The world is mad

[FC]

Yup, the world has found new ways to be nutty.