298. Going to War

Aha. Prepare to be fooled, amazed, and delighted. This is your friend C.W. writing. Why you might ask? Good sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information. What? Oh. My GUT is telling me something. (Editor’s note: Galactic Universal Translator). Make that “good question.”

It’s this way. Big Dope is preoccupied and asked me to take over the reporting duties this week. As he stated on a VisageDocument post last week, he is now the one looking to make a fast dollar. It’s with a new book outlining ways to fail the military draft induction physical.

When he first mentioned it, I had to ask. “What is a draft induction physical? Better yet, what is a draft?”

“You’ve never heard of a draft?”

“Like when your species pulls young college students out of their classes to make them play a child’s game for money?”

“Kinda, but not quite.”

I consulted my GUT. “Like when poor preparation allows a noxious wind to blow through your environment?”

“Kinda, but not quite.”

“Like a poorly thought out first attempt that deserves much additional thought and revision?”

“Kinda,” he said, “but not quite.”

“Oh,” I said. “I know. It’s like what race car drivers do. You line up behind someone else who is actually putting forth the effort from which you benefit while you do nothing at all.”

“Bingo,” he said. I was more confused than ever.

When he explained, I was astounded. “You claim,” I said, “that your country once forced young men to join the military and perhaps go to war against their will? That’s absurd. I don’t believe you.”

“Trust me on this one,” he said.

“So they are going to resume this barbaric practice?”

“If 53 percent of my species has its way.”

“How does one avoid it?”

“Two ways,” he said, “and the first is how I’m going to make money.”

“Articulate.”

“One simply fails the physical exam given just before induction. I’m documenting all the ways we tried it back in the 1960s, but for this new generation.”

“What kind of ways?”

“Oh,” he said, “ways like eating a half-bar of soap before going to the induction center to cause false readings, or ingesting massive amounts of aspirin to elevate you blood pressure, lifting huge weights to induce a hernia.”

“My goodness,” he said. “Did they work?”

“Nope.”

Now I really was bewildered. “They didn’t work, but you are going to write a book documenting them for future use?”

“Yep.”

“I’m confused. How can you convince people that they should buy a book outlining solutions that don’t work?”

Well ... you have to admit, don't you?
It is nice to feel wanted. - C.W.

“You see,” he said, “a population illogical enough to vote for political candidates that promise to take their country into a foreign will fall for anything.”

He had me there. No use arguing the point. “But,” I said, “you mentioned that there were two ways to avoid this draft.”

“Quite so,” he said. “The other will work 100 percent of the time, but for only one percent of the young men and women facing the military draft.”

“And,” I said, “what is this absolutely foolproof method of avoiding military service?”

“Same thing as always,” he said.

“Which is?”

“Tell them your daddy’s name.”

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Dear Earthling Friends:
Big Dope is having trouble with his computer and asked me to run a previously posted effort. He'll post something later. In the meantime, I read where your newest Senator wants to invade another Middle Eastern Country. So, I chose the following and dedicate it to this man who apparently has never read history.

May 2012

It was Memorial Day weekend and I looked forward to a peaceful time at the farm. My wife was off baling hay and I wandered into the back yard to enjoy the shade and a rum and tonic. As I rounded the giant fig tree, I stopped.

There, under a drooping catalpa tree sat C.W. in the form of a Prussian private of the World War I era. He sat tall and straight in a garden chair, his blond hair trembling in the breeze. He held a pointed helmet covered with heavy cloth. He saw me, drew in the late spring smells, and nodded.

“Herr Großer Dope,” he said.

“C.W.,” I said. “What’s up?” I couldn’t wait to hear. “You making a movie?”

“I am your distant cousin Gustav,” he said. “From Bremen.”

“Gustav from Bremen?” I said, playing along.

“I appear briefly on your family tree,” he said. ‘Geb. 1900, Gest. 1918.’ No kinder.”

I had nothing better to do than pretend. “Died young?”

“In my bloom,” he said. “I had the misfortune to be the last soldier in our company killed in the Great War.”

“On the last day?”

“November 11^th, at the 11^th hour,” he said. He turned and looked quietly across the field and into the trees beyond. “Reminds me of the French countryside, before the bombs came down and the trenches went up.”

“Tough break,” I said. “Buying it on the last day.”

“A dubious honor,” he said. “But far from the saddest.”

“Oh?”

“No, there were worse. On the American side. Our armies had ceased warring two days earlier,” he said. “We settled in our bunkers along the Meuse River and thought we were safe. We had no casualties for two days straight.”

“What happened?”

“Your General Pershing didn’t follow the lead of the other commanders. He wished that my country would suffer as much as possible. So he kept attacking until the 11^th hour.”

“After everyone else had stopped?”

“Charge after charge,” he said. “We had translators on loudspeakers yelling to them to stop. That the war was over.” He shook his head. “But they kept coming. The Americans suffered 3,500 casualties the last day.”

“Sad,” I said.

“Some were Schwarzen, from the Black 92^nd Division,” he said. “We thought perhaps your side deemed them dispensable. But then a white soldier from the 313^th Infantry, I learned later his name was Henry N. Gunther, came through the fog firing at us.”

“What did you do?”

“We had no choice,” he said. “He was the last on your side.”

“And on yours?”

“They sent me out to retrieve the body of a dead comrade,” he said. “A lone sniper from the American trenches took his revenge as the clock struck 11:00.”

I didn’t say anything, just imagined the scene.

“Know how many American generals died on that last day?” he asked.

“No, how many?”

“None,” he said. “Know how many colonels?” Without waiting, he answered, “None. Lieutenant Colonels?”

“None?” I guessed.

“Same for majors,” he said, his voice rising.

We sat in silence for a moment as he subdued his anger.

“I suppose …,” he said. “I suppose it was worth it.” He stopped and composed himself again. “After all, our sacrifice did, as they say, ‘end all wars.’”

I turned. “Are you making some sort of joke?” I said.

He moved toward me. I looked into his eyes and, as I did, they grew larger and became two black orbs, large and empty. Then I saw movement. My eyes remained transfixed as scenes moved across like gray horses passing through the mist.

I saw a hospital room in Manila filled with Japanese soldiers laughing and playing baseball, using infants as bats.

I saw a field of frozen soldiers at Stalingrad, their arms bent at grotesque angles and with questioning looks on their faces.

I saw Marines dead on the beach at Tarawa, a picture withheld from publication for fear it would spoil the public’s appetite for war.

I saw a line of skeletal faces peering through a fence at Dachau.

I saw a line of soldiers being calmly machine-gunned in the wasteland around the Chosin Reservoir.

I saw a group off teenagers hugging the jungle floor in terror as mortar rounds fell into them in a lonely piece of Hell near DaNang.

I saw a mob of young Iranian boys, holding plastic “keys to heaven” and screaming “Allah is great,” as they charged through a minefield to clear it for their soldiers.

I saw the murdered inhabitants of an entire village in Bosnia piled like cordwood, awaiting burial.

I saw a father running for cover, carrying a young son who was soiling himself from fear as the bombs began dropping on Baghdad.

I saw an Afghan bride and her groom explode into a bloody mess, spraying their ghastly remains among their guests, as a drone-bomb exploded in their midst.

These went away and the eyes became blank again. He turned back toward the green fields of home.

“Please don’t tell me,” he said. “That my species is the one making the jokes.”

 

Something you parents have to look
forward to for your children
 if the warmongers have their way. - C.W.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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