Questions Journalists Ask Me

Session One
Where and when were you born? I was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York on 7 October 1944. I lived at 310 Devoe Street, next to St Nicolas Church, until I was about eight or nine years of age and when my family upscaled to 8721 90th Street, Woodhaven, Queens. I'm particularly uppish about being born in Brooklyn because from there blossomed many world-famous individuals including: Barry Manilow, Susan Hayward, S J Perelman, Jackie Robinson, Mel Brooks, Lena Horne, Joseph Heller, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Fisher, Issac Asimov, Barbra Streisand, Walt Whitman, Danny Kaye, Arthur Miller, Woody Allen, Henry Miller, Alan Arkin, Aaron Copland, Beverly Sills, W H Auden, Gene Tierney, Mae West, Eli Wallach, Mickey Rooney, George Gershwin, Floyd Patterson, Robert Merrill, Thomas Paine, Issac B Singer, Lauren Bacall, Harry Houdini, Norman Mailer, W C Fields, John Steinbeck and many others. Larry King of CNN fame is also a Brooklynite, and he interviewed me in 1970 on his WIOD Miami, Florida radio program. A friend, Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, was from Brooklyn, and we met together in Rome, Italy in 2005. What about your studies? I started St Nicolas Grammar School at the age of five. I was very young for the first grade, and being more formative than the others in my class, I always had to catch up socially. This had a tremendous effect on my later life because I'm in the habit of anticipating (prolepsis) more than others with whom I communicate. I attended St Thomas Apostle Grammar School when my family moved to Woodhaven, and where Brian Highland, famous R&R singer known throughout the world for his song, Itsy

Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, was one of my classmates. After grammar school, I went to Cathedral Preparatory school, in Brooklyn, the minor seminary of the Diocese of Brooklyn, and I graduated in 1961. After one year working as a circulation/correspondence assistant with William F Buckley, Jr's National Review, I entered St Bonaventure University (1962-1966) where I received a bachelor of arts degree in Philosophy and a commission to serve two years in the United States' Army's Artillery corps. I completed the Officer Basic Course at the United States' Army's Artillery & Missile School, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1966. Later, I was assigned as an instructor to a missile and rocket training battalion (United States Army Training Center, Fort Sill), and subsequently, 8 May 1967, I received a telegram from Washington designating me to serve in Vietnam. When I arrived in Vietnam, I wondered if there were atom bombs there because my missile and rocket training included nuclear warhead installation and their subsequent launches which we practiced with dummy rounds on the Oklahoman plains. The division Arty commander, Colonel McAllister, immediately squashed my hopes of not being sent to the battlefield as a forward observer (1193). Interestingly enough, while I served in Vietnam, I read seventy-two books! The American Red Cross would send mail bags, stuffed with books, to us in the boonies, and after separating the porn and bibles from the other tomes, I selected novels, plays, histories, political science works, philosophical treatises, and whatever else interested me at the time. 1967-1968, in Vietnam, was truly an educational experience for me! After Vietnam, I took advantage of the GI Bill and studied English and North American literature at the University of Miami, Miami, Florida, 1972-1973, earning enough credits in English to enter the University of Florida's, Gainesville, Florida, 1973-1975, master's program. William R Robinson, literary critic (Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poetry of the Act ) and one of the founding fathers of film studies in the United States ( Seeing Beyond: Movies, Visions, & Values [26 Essays by WRR & Friends] ), was my thesis adviser. (I never finished my master's degree because I fell in love with a Venezuelan ophthalmologist and moved with her to Caracas on 31 December 1976.) I continue to study and, naturally, have found the Internet a boom for my insatiable curiosity. Fino alla barra, si impara! I continue to be fascinated with psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, politics, political philosophy, economics, biography, poetry and many other subjects. What are your regrets?

I regret I did not study philosophy professionally. I am also repentant I could not master the violin. Just to name two! How long did you live in Venezuela? I left the DisUnited States from Miami, Florida on 31 December 1976; and, I departed Caracas on 1 May 1983. How long have you lived in Italy? I have lived in Italy since 1 May 1983. Have you ever returned to the United States? I have never returned to the DUS. I have not seen the DUS since 31 December 1976. Why have you not returned to the United States? I do not want to live with those individuals who sent me to Vietnam. I understand that many Americans were against the Vietnam War, and a lot of them made a great deal of sacrifices fighting against that police action. Yet, for me, there are too many Americans who supported the Vietnam War, and it appears to me that today that mentality has progressed to further implicate the DUS in other military incursions throughout the world thus endangering the very security of the DUS. Would you want to return to the United States? No and Yes. I would like to see how the DUS has changed since I last saw it. Primarily because I would like to confirm some political theories I hold. I have SKY satellite TV service here in Italy, and watching CNN and FOX, for instance, I have the notion that the DUS has worsened since I left it. I can't believe the number of obese people who live there! In general, it appears that the cost of living has skyrocketed, and the health insurance coverage dilemma has put many citizens in a difficult position. What is it like for a New Yorker to live in Venezuela and Italy? First off, I wish to say that I began to learn about the DUS when I left it. If we remain in our own country, we are fixed with one

culture, one way of doing things. Other people, too, who might even hate you because you are from a country they do not approve of, inform you about things you never thought of about your own country. Adjusting is complicated. You must learn the language. New customs. I'm a New Yorker, a city person. City people walk faster than those in the country. On public transport, I carry my wallet in my front pocket. In New York, and Caracas, I used four eyes, two in the front and two in the back. With more people surrounding you, there is the need to be more careful. I now live in a town with about 16,000 people (Calenzano, Italy). Life is more relaxed, slower, safer. If I remember correctly, only one person, in Calenzano, has been murdered since I've been here (21 September 1985). Ironically, a lady from Calenzano, on her honeymoon on Venezuela's Los Roques, was murdered in her hotel roomprobably by mistake. I was almost killed in an airplane crash returning to Caracas from Los Roques. Caracas, when I was there, was very much more violent than New York ever was when I lived there. Had I not had been born in a big city and had not had combat experience in a war, I might not have survived the time (19761983) I lived in Caracas. I have a nose for danger. Still, it is very interesting to be out of your element. You learn about your own country and even more about yourself. Anthropologists say a person has to stay in an unknown environment for four or five years before being able to feel part of that geographical area. What can you tell us about Venezuela? I started writing a book about Caracas, Venezuela, Men Without Honor, Women Without Love, as soon as I arrived in Italy in 1983. It predicted the revolution that would hit hard the birthplace of Simon Bolivar. While I was there, the population of Venezuela was about 13,000,000, and incredibly, 60 percent of the population was under eighteen years of age. There were not enough schools and hospitals for all of the citizens. Children were sent into the streets to beg and steal just to keep their families from starving. Venezuelans were beginning to demand more money for their barrels of petroleum, and with this money, a Bacchanalia of spending and borrowing was set in motion and which later would imprison Venezuela in a tormented economic conundrum. Just as has been done in Europe by the Greeks, Italians, Portuguese and Spanish. Venezuela, as every country, is beautiful. There are many beaches which have been hardly visited by swarms of tourists. Unfortunately, there are no hotel accommodations in these remote areas, so campingbut with a pistolis possible. The Venezuelan

people taught me a great deal about the DisUnited States; I am eternally grateful to them for doing so. Many times it was difficult to hear their violent diatribes against the gringos, but in the final analysis I came to agree with them on numerous of their accounts. When I thought they were erroneous, I let them know and tried to relate to them what I knew to be factual about the DUS. I always try to seek The Truth. What did you do in Venezuela? They have a word in Spanish, palanca, which means that you have important people who can help you. My girlfriend in Venezuela, Lucia, knew many key players in the Accin Democrtica political party, and these people found a job for me at The Daily Journal (Venezuela's English-written newspaper) which was a Central Intelligence Agency front office at the time. When I reported to the DJ's offices my first day, the editor told me I knew very influential people in Venezuela, and he asked me when I wanted to start to work! Because I did not speak Spanish fluently at the time, I had to stay in the newspaper's offices and check the English of the articles the other journalists brought in from the field. Later I was transferred to the Ministerio de Informacin y Turismo and my salary was automatically doubled! At MIT I again rewrote unsatisfactory English, but this time it was the English of Venezuelan ministers and even the president himself, Carlos Andrs Prez. I also did diplomatic work helping to arrange the schedules and transportation of visiting dignitaries to Venezuela. However, when there were OPEC meetings I was prohibited from attending them because I was an American citizen. When CAP lost his re-election bid, all of us lost our jobs and were replaced by the incoming political faction. I went to the British Institute near my home and obtained a teaching job there. The tute's head was an Irish woman who thought I was an important personage because I possessed an MIT ID carnet. She later absconded with the tute's funds and fled to Ireland. She told me she had to write to Cambridge University in England to get permission for an American to teach the First Certificate and the Certificate of Proficiency. After that spell, I started teaching English privately to many of the politicians, and their families, I had come to know while at MIT. What can you tell us about Italy? Italy is on its way to extinction. It does not know how to regenerate its race, and 20 percent of the Italian people are over 65 years of

age. Somewhat different than Venezuela! The Italians are up to their necks in debt, and they just do not possess the discipline to hunker down and lower their unrealistic style of living. Italians are undereducated and communicate little with the outside world. They prefer people to come to Italy and spend money on their tourist industry which is their bread and butter. Venezuela has space to live; Italy is cramped for expanse. There is a constant physical tension among people in ItalyEurope as a whole. Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain (The Gips!) have in common the fact that they borrowed excessively from banks and today all are on the verge of economic collapse. What can you tell us about William F Buckley, Jr? When I graduated from preparatory school (1961) I was sixteen and it was thought, by my family, I was too young to enter the first university I would attend. So, for about a year I worked for National Review as a correspondence/circulation assistant. I did not know WFB, Jr very well, but frequently chit-chattered with him on the elevator, and even went to his estate in Sharon, Connecticut for a Christmas party. WFB was an extraordinary character. Fervently Roman Catholic and diehard in his political beliefs. Those of us in the office would occasionally accompany him to a church on Park Avenue to attend mass. His father, WFB, Sr, left his ten children $10,000,000 each in 1958! He had ammased a fortune in the oil business. NR, in those days, was located at 150 East 35 th Street in Manhattan. We were a close-knit group, and I was thrilled to personally meet many famous right-wing political figures such as Barry Goldwater, John Tower, Charles Edison, William Rickenbacher, James Burnham, Russell Kirk, Frank Meyer, Willmoore Kendall and Ayn Rand who, for a while, was courted by WFB but later dropped by him. I ran, with Angelo, the NR magazine labels on Saturday afternoons in the back offices of NR. I am indebted to WFB because he taught me a lot about writing and its stylistic elegance. He was a perfectionist about his work. He was an industrious individual, spoke Spanish fluently, played the harpsichord, and with all the money he possessed, took advantage of it to enjoy life more than the majority of the people in this world could do. He had a charming smile. One day he asked me to go by taxi to his townhouse in Manhattan and pick up a manuscript he had left on the floor in his bedroom. He was a syndicated columnist and Gertrude, his secretary, had to type up the article later to be read by people all across the DUS. (He wrote on yellow legal pads with red ballpoint pens.) When I entered the bedroom and saw that

article laying there on the floor next to an ashtray with a spent, lipsticked Marlboro cigaret, I knew then that my life would be dedicated to writing. Nevertheless, I do not agree with 99 percent of WFB's political opinions, and I actually think he was a danger for the country he so assiduously tried to alter. What are your thoughts on Sports? Sports have played a very important part in my life. I have played many kinds of sports, but I never was really any good at any of them. I never was even a semi-professional in any of the Sports I participated in. Tennis, volleyball, baseball, softball, bowling New York handball, golf, basketball, touch American football, pistol and rifle shooting, bicycling, ping pong, et alia. We talk about a healthy body and a healthy mind. (Mens sana; corpore sano.) I have always felt my best when my mind and body were in synchronization. These days I do a daily routine of exercises and some light weight lifting to keep in tone. Before going to Vietnam (August 1967-August 1968), I did a lot of bicycle riding and New York handball playing to be fit and in shape. And it was good I did so because in Vietnam I was assigned to the Central Highlands with the Fourth Division (Snowflake Division!), and we climbed a lot of mountains on the Cambodian and Laotian borders. I'm grumpy and agitated when I don't do exercises. I have no car, so I walk a great deal. (The ice of the North and South Poles is scheduled to disappear around 2030, and I don't want to be accused of not having done anything about it.) I'm not a competitive person. Not out to beat my opponent. I enjoy playing for the sake of it. I admire Roger Federer a great deal because he puts playing tennis before winning at this my favorite sport. I really wish Sports could be used as a substitute for war. I ride my bike around the Tuscan countryside near my home, and I clock a lazy 14 kilometers an hour. Not as Lance Armstrong would have done! LA is an interesting case for me. I remember him saying once that after every stage of racing in France, his body would be covered with the spit the French people, along the way of the race, had sprinkled him with! Still not a reason to cheat! (Lance, the end doesn't justify the means! If you think it does, then you will be thinking like that imbecile, Henry The Carpet Bomber Kissinger!) I'm truly disgusted with the doping problem in so many Sports. If there is doping in Sports, it is because it is wanted. Doping would be eliminated quickly if the practice was seriously and adequately criminalized. Going on the court or the field or in the pool or wherever a Sport might be played is like going to war. Drugged or

not, a person risks out there. There must be a level playing ground for all participants in Sports so that unequal advantage cannot be had by the few. In Vietnam I witnessed doping. Every platoon medic had a 500-pill bottle of Librium 10mg, and soldiers, on downtime, would ask the medics for Librium pills to put in their beer! Players must not have the notion that they can get away with using drugs to win. Authorities must not be in cahoots with sponsors. I've watched a lot of Sports in person. I've seen baseball games in Ebbetts Field, Met Stadium and the Polo Grounds in New York. I saw the Miami Dolphins play in the Orange Bowl. I remember being in Yankee Stadium on cold snowy Sunday afternoons to see the Giants' football matches. Another exciting experience for me was watching the Florida Gators play on a crisp autumn Saturday afternoon with the pom pom girls and the huge bands rooting their teams on. Obviously, I prefer watching Sports in person and not on television. What a difference there is! I don't watch baseball on television, but I do like to go to the baseball stadium. I'm a Miami Heat fan. I'm against boxing, Formula One, motorbike racing, kick boxing...any sport that puts the player/contestant in danger of death. Sport should not draw blood or risk the lives of those who take part in it. I have come less to appreciate American football because the defensive and offensive teams (warlike platoons) are becoming more and more brutal. Soccer/football is more elegant, and also so much more less exciting. I like very much when the quarterback throws the ball to a receiver way down the field and connects with him. Throwing a football is still a pleasure for me after these many years. Always remember that all players are risking harm to their bodies when they entertain us. I don't play chess, checkers or cards because I prefer spending my free time reading. I never played rugby and I don't enjoy watching it. I don't know enough about cricket to make a comment on it. You lived in a pup tent for four months on the borders of Laos and Cambodia. How did you defecate? My dear, kind journalist, have you ever had to defecate in an unnatural, for you, setting? Relieving oneself by artificial means in the jungles of Vietnamon the borders of the Kingdom of Cambodia and Laoswas what one should have expected from soldiers serving with an infantry company, they having been often inserted posthaste there, for maybe days or weeks, by helicopters because roads did not exist. We all had been issued an

entrenching tool that served to dig foxholes (angular, not circular), clear out underbrush and dig out a small hole into which we excreted and then tossed in the toilet paper used to wipe ourselves somewhat clean. Sometimes grunts even covered the hollow with the dirt they had just before excavated. In the event we were short on supplies because bad weather prohibited choppers from entering an LZ (landing zone) near our position, we used leaves taken from the trees we went surreptitiously behind for some privacy in the expands of Asian Nature and away from our comrades. Sad, too, was the fact that sundry packs which included an array of things such as toothpaste, cigarettes, and toilet paper, would often have been stolen in BC (base camp) by conniving supply personnel to sell after on the black market. It was not unusual to brush our teeth with salt because no CREST toothpaste had arrived. In BC facilities were somewhat more civilized. Throughout unit areas, there were small outhouses made of wood and fenced in with screening to keep mosquitoes and flies out. There was a planked piece of wood with two holes in it and through which were dropped one's feces. The fecal matter fell into cutdown oil barrels that later would be collected by sanitary staff who eventually poured some combustible into the huge receptacles, set fire to them, and ensured that no disease from them could contaminate the troops. It was said that the Air Force in Vietnam had running toilet water for their personnel, but I never had the opportunity to use those services. FTA! What do you think of music? Music has been very important to me throughout my life. I cannot imagine living without Music. I am lucky in that I enjoy many different types of Music: classical, jazz, popular, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, cumbia, salsa, opera, Frank Sinatra, Gregorian chant, military marches (that don't lead us to wars! Let's marchbut not to war!), R&R...et alia. I think this vast gamma comes from the fact that I was born in New York. There are so many cultural influences in New York, one might go crazy trying to experience all of them. In New York we say what kind of restaurant do you want to go to. Not what restaurant. If I had to take one piece of Music with me to a deserted island, I would bring along Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. I also like Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach..and other greats of the classical periods. Mozart is a bit too structured for me, nevertheless. He is dark chocolate for lonely housewives. I've heard that kids study better when Mozart is playing in their backgrounds. But, Beethoven for me is THE BEST! When I was in

Venezuela and lost my girlfriend, I grieved for so long I thought I would never get over her loss. Then one day a friend, Gerardo Escalona, the PR director of the Mendoza Group at the time, took me for a ride in his car around the rim of the city of Caracas. He inserted a cassette into his cassette player, and he told me to listen to B's Seventh Symphony. That Music helped me a great deal in overcoming my griefjust as it had done so for Gerardo. Gerardo was a friend of Jos Luis Rodriguez, the Elvis Presley of South America, and he tried to get me to teach English to Jos, but unfortunately his busy schedule just could not permit it. No SKYPE then! (Today, I have a student, a professor of mathematics in Siberia, on SKYPE!) Years later, in Italy, Giovanni Trapattoni, famous Italian football coach, talked of a similar occurrence in a TV interview. When he was the coach of Germany's Bayern Mnich, his mother died. A German friend told him to listen to B's Seventh Symphony! I was shocked when I heard this. B brings you down into the dumps where you think you are, and then he helps you soar upwards. B is Romantic. Mozart and Bach are calculators of Music. They are clever. Both geniuses, but not Beethoven! When I enter my home, I automatically put on the classical Music station that is beamed to me from Prato. When my computer is running, I listen to all kinds of Music including classical www.wqxr.org and www.weta.org. I don't like to dance. (I do not play the game; I keep the score!) But I enjoy watching others dance. I'll never forget the Venezuelans dancing at parties I attended! They were spellbinding! (From my book on Venezuela, Men Without Honor, Women Without Love: I caught sight of rhythmical bodies which had loosened their limbs to accomplish sybaritic gyrations on a huge dance floor inlaid with parquetry. It was mesmerizing to see how much in consonance were the bodily movements with this powerfully sensuous Music in compliance with many Latin percussion instruments made of metal, trees and animal skins. The melodious throbs undulated synchronously with both downbeat and upbeat waves. It was integrated Music for it satisfied first the body with passionate poundings upon the dense, bass parts of all the instruments; then, it gave pleasure to the mind with light strokes upon the tingly, high-pitched parts of all the musical instruments. A tonic to both young and old. It was relaxing to gaze upon the oscillating forms. The dancers had an even, gentle motion, sway in their shuffling gaits. Their arms rocked softly in front of their bodies as if they were mimickingin slow motionthe jostling of a pair of maracas. Soothingly gracious. In agreement. Free from affectation and artificiality. The feet of the frolickers slid in short, patient glides; the bodies of the merrymakers revolved ever so

gently on an axis that ran into the deep recesses of the Earth.) When I was in prep school, we sang Gregorian chant from the Liber Usualis. I have a SONY alarm clock with a sleep option (90, 60, 30, 15 minutes) that I use in the evenings when I go to sleep listening to Music. I can recommend Edward W Said's Music at the Limits and Maynard Solomon's biography of B, Beethoven. I'm not a student of Music. I am a listener of Music! Music, in general, has progressed, bit by bit, and today instrumentality is especially favorable. What was it like humping with the grunts in the jungles of Vietnam on the Laotian and Cambodian borders? In the mosquito-infested Central Highlands, adjacent to Cambodia and Laos, a mountain range of green splendor greeted the sightseer in the air and on the ground. The views were often breathtakingly seductive, and the serenity of the area made for a pleasant break from army bases, fire bases, forts, base camps, terminals and compounds. As one trekked through the boonies there was the overpowering feeling that vacation time had come round once again. The pleasantries of the beautiful woodlands instilled in one a distinct presentiment of peacefulness. Butterfliesan enormous range of colors characterizing their diverse speciescrowded pathways hacked away by machete-bearing pointmen. Birds chirped away in treetops and reminded one of agreeable moments had in ones youth during springtime strolls through shaded timberlands with one's loved onehand in hand. There was that matchless sound of bacon and eggstraded, if not robbed, from local Montagnard villagerscrackling on a frying pan over an early-morning fire, the aroma scenting its way through trees and bushes into two-man hootches where rested soldiers recharged by a ten-hour sleep on an army-issue gray air mattress turned over to reach for the first butt of the day and stalled, in a lazy, contented way, the beginning of a days march up the side of a comely mountain. Canteens were filled with fresh, diseased-free water from tributaries which had directed the cool refreshment for miles over rocks and through vegetation effecting Natures own purifying process and ridding one of the need to plunk iodine tablets into canteens and then, to kill the taste, slide in cherry-flavored KOOLAID granules, pre-sweetened, P-L-E-A-S-E!!! from the funneled edges of those small, pre-packed envelopes. Canteen cups were

used to boil hot water for shaving, and steel-potted helmets served as washbasins into which soapy razor blades were dunked to make ready the next scrape to the chin. C-ration cans were heated over small blue pellet heating tabsyells going up in quest of an extra can of peaches, or Who likes ham and lima beans? (no one), Ill trade you for a spiced beef. When breakfast was completed, packssome weighing eighty pounds with mortar rounds, M-60 ammo belts, and prick-9 radio batteries busting a mans back were hoisted to fit a comfortable position, rifles were grabbed, helmets were arranged at their most comfortable tilt, and pistol belts with loaded canteens and ammo pouches were clicked into place. The humping was begun. One looked up to the verdant mountain and was discouraged by its imposing height. The moans and groans once expelled, the men went about their hiking first considering it to be a chore, then looking to what good could come from it. A bamboo pit viper or two wiggled and glided on the roots of a huge tree. Every month or so, a python to catch and wrestle with in patches of grass machete-bearing soldiers on guard to prevent strangulations. Wild water buffalo were avoided altogether, when not shot, because they were too vicious and unpredictable in their behavior. No one appreciated the trouble leeches brought, and in certain areas, especially where the soil was unusually rich and moist and ensconced from adequate air circulation by ravines, heavy underbrush or land depressions, the leeches seemed to cultivate exceedingly well requiring us to douse our boots with mosquito repellent to keep them from crawling up our legs into our crotches. It was gratifying to walk into a friendly village without going in to destroy it and find villagers hard at work building homes or preparing meals for their families. And if the inhabitants were not frightened by our presenceall the better. GIs teased and playacted with the tribe. Gifts might be exchanged. C-rations might be tossed to scrounging kids begging for food. A charredwood smell was diffused throughout the village. Bare-breasted women, nipples chunky and firm, cradled children in their arms possessing them maternally and offering protection to them from the unstableness of an army which offered them food by day but at night might bomb them to bits and pieces. There was no promise of peace and quiet for these people and their country set in political turmoil for decades. The village now became a memory to the soldiers past.

The company pushed on farther to a night position where foxholes might be dug and artillery defensive concentrations were certain to kindle small brush fires and intimidate neighboring villagers. The security of the night perimeter was much like the fetal posture. The unit drew itself into itself and felt safe when it covered its head and body with the security blanket of a circular encampment, with guards watching over it through the night, with radio contact for any emergency, with men well-armed and fortified with a filling dinner, with an air force at their beck and call, with helicopter gunships to whip in and out to sting an attacking enemy. The moon lit the night. Radios blared, portable record players played popular music. Chats abounded within the boundary of the secured area. Chinese communist disc-jockeys beamed romantic soul music, but GIs ignored their political messages happy to hear familiar tunes from back home. Chilled winds blew in the later part of the day and early part of the evening, and it was cosy to squat into ones hootch constructed of two rain ponchos and there position oneself in the center of the blown-up air mattressits rubber aroma floating up to be whiffed at throughout the night. The body was tired, aching. Yet, it was firm, resilient from the suffering it was being put through. It did not take long to fall asleep. One might go to catch Zs earlier than usual hoping that the hootchmate one was assigned to would not enter during an ecstatic masturbation taken under a poncho liner. There were other comforts. A good book; a re-read of the letters from home; the latest issue of Playboy to escape from reality; a good cigar; the knowledge that the M-16 had been cleaned earlier that day; and, dry, clean socks. At night, when the noise of one hundred and twenty men abated, one set off to sleep listening to the sounds of the jungle: its animals, its trees swishing in the wind, its own powerful presence occasionally disturbed by the clock-clocking of a Huey or the explosion of an harassment and interdiction artillery round sounding off in the distance with a tremendous pounding to the ground. Nature, in its beauty and splendor, was too strong even for the United States Army which, while despoiling and B-52-bombing It, could not take away the time which would come to replenish It in all Its green brilliance and vitality. Always a strict creature, Nature was even severer in Vietnam. For all the punishment it had inflicted upon it, it parcelled out its own.

Nature knew it would survive, yet it yielded high malarious temperatures. It slapped down villagers and soldiers with tuberculosis, cholera and typhus. Its billowy, dark cloudsbulging their way through the skiesdropped oceans of rain on roads muddying them, on bodies diseasing them, on fighter bombers grounding them. When the clouds full of rain scattered at the end of their season, the hot sun came to parch throats and cake roads to a powdery dust which blew in the faces of men and clogged the oil-smooth-running machinery of the worlds most powerful army. The Sun to the east, the Sun to the west. It was magnificent in the morning warming the body after a chilled sleep. At dusk, it set behind gorgeous mountains, its flare lighting up the skies in posh hues of red, orange, blue white and purple. Cirrus, cirrostratus, cirrocumulus and altostratus clouds beamed dazzling colors bounced off them by that sinking luminous celestial body around which the Earth and other planets revolve, from which they receive heat and light, which has a mean distance from Earth of 93,000,000 miles, a linear diameter of 864,000 miles, a mass 332,000 times grander than Earth, and a mean density about onefourth that of Earth. I fantasized a champagne breakfast at sunrise in St. Augustine on Floridas east coast, and a seafood platter feast at sunset in Cedar Key on Floridas west coast. The Vietnam experience would not always be with us, but the Sun would be. And what a gracious, friendly Sun! The company is drenched with gallons of monsoon rain when then, and only then, the Sun pops out to steam heat away soaking helmet camouflage covers, waterlogged fatigues, and sloshing wet bootsthose boots Nancy Sinatra keeps reminding us, as if we did not know, were made for none other than walking! The chill leaves the body when the heat rays of the Sun pierce their way through army-issued green santeen duds. The body becomes dry again. Sweat begins to seep through the fine pores and small openings of the bodys protective garments. The Colt Rifle Companys famousbut overratedM-16 is speckled with reddish brown rust particles which will be removed easily with tiny cloth patches sopped with cleaning oil, one each, for external use only. The humping assumes a new, refreshed mood. Stomachs are beginning to growl from the extra duty imposed on the digestive system to keep the body pushing on through draughty rains and

hot Sun. One must now seek shade from the midday Sun under whose torrid warmth lunch will be taken. The rucksack is tossed to the base of a tree, the helmet plunked down on the ground, the rifle put to the side close at hand, the pistol belt is unlatched, the canteen reached for with both hands in a caressing gesture and swigs are had from the olive drab plastic container which holds that precious liquid refreshment more pretentious than a good bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. A pleasant intermission comes to us. Within the inventory of the Universe there is a large stream one-hundred meters from our lunch break position, and our company commander has tenderheartedly given us permission to bathe and wash clothes in the shadiness of the spread of a richly-vegetated idyllic forest scene. The winsomeness of the area is incomparable. Trees and colourful shrubs abound. The current flows coolly and its sparkling, crystalclear waters lower the body temperature and revive the mind to make it as translucent and alive as the colorless, glass-like surface of the charging brook. The spirit of the men becomes brisk. There is horseplay. There is fun. The only grim reminder of the war is the five naked guards who have been placed on duty to protect the splashing, frolicking infantrymen. Soap suds begin to dull the upper boundary of the stream as men scrub at socks and fatigue shirts and their very own bodies. More than a hundred nudes. There is little modesty, shame. The release from the oppressing load of the rucksack has encouraged all of us to forget our slavery and enjoy, as much as we can, this little grab at joy. There is no bitching when the call to regroup is made. The men want to savor this encounter with Nature for at least the rest of the day, and rather than fight or pick at their plight, they permit their disciplined bodies and minds to respond automaticallyinvoluntarilyto the command of that army they disrespect and despise. The rucksack, harnessed to strong backs for the umpteenth time, feels lighter than was once imagined in the frigid waters of the river. The men head out, in single file, in silent resolve. Whatever their thoughts are, they are private, intense. The men intertwine with Nature. They have taken comfort from Natures powerful ability to stand and endure. They look up to the blue and know that those fluffy white cottony nebulas will turn blackish gray by late afternoon and pour down huge droplets of water condensed from vapor in the boundless atmosphere which infiltrates the Vietnamese countryside, the hearts and minds of all men and women and even the United States Army. They look to the ground

and sense the firmness of the Earthits hardened exterior always waiting to take without recoil or echo the hammering of that steelplated-in-the-sole jungle boot, two each, green-canvassed at their sides. Soldiers look to the right, to the left. There are only green trees and lush jungle bushes to catch the eye. The company has reached a level of Platonic Transcendentalism. They have superseded, for a short time, the yoke of their own inhibiting prejudices and the preconceived judgements of others, and in unity, the fellowship of infantry fight specialists have intuited the truth about their fellow man and have felt, while not intellectualising it, the value of virtuous conduct. Chained to their rocks as Prometheus, the grunts have begun to stop warring with their oppressors. They have taken the steps to understand and pity them. They have found hope in the possibility of a better order of Life, and they have sought, through the simplicity of Nature, to seek peace and good will among all men on Earth without recrimination and penalty. Authored by Anthony St. John 5 August MMXIII Calenzano, Italy www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior * * *