THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER

In the verbal rugby at my OCS email group over why we should/should not vote for Barry, his champions have turned to CAPITAL LETTERS to express their indignation that the establishment media is wasting time over Barry's "allegedly" calling Sarah a pig, when it should be discussing "the issues." Good Dems always get exercised when the MSM steps (oh, so, momentarily) outside its habit of criticizing Republicans to criticize one of their nobles. It certainly is one of the few, if not the only times, the sycophantic media has questioned His Holiness.

I side with Treacher on this one. Barry certainly did mean to call Sarah a pig, and his audience certainly picked it up that way. Just as he meant to give Hillary the finger back in the spring when she dared to criticize him in a debate. He folds under pressure. Not a good sign for a wouldbe president. Moreover, after twenty years in the pews of his racist Chicago church, Barry'd probably like to whack Whitey a lot more than he has. But he knows that he can't do that and get elected. So he allows himself to wallow in the safer mud of sexism. As for "the issues," that's the standard Dem dodge, only trotted out when they seem to be in danger of losing. As, indeed, they certainly are. Surprise, surprise.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We all got up a bit late this morning and had to rush to get Mr. B. off to school on time. He made it, but it's not a good sign, considering Mom is flying out of town tomorrow for a week and I have to organize the morning rush by myself. But I have the solution.

It reminds me of my salad days in the 6th Cav, when I was late to the dawn regimental formation twice in a row. "Lt. Stanley, you need  a windup Big Ben," the First Sergeant, a short, stout Jamaican, told me. "Or else start sleeping in the barracks with your platoon." I got the clock. It worked, clanging me out of bed every morning. WestClox apparently no longer makes the old model with two big bells on the top, but Seth Thomas does. I'm going to buy one of those awful things today.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My OCS class email group is largely silent this morning, despite an exhortatory email about the still altogether-mysterious B. Hussein Obama from our one participating African-American. Most of the class are Republicans, and would not be moved by such rhetoric in any case, but no doubt wish to be polite and not rain on our old friend's understandably-enthusiastic parade. In the privacy of the voting booth, however, I have little doubt that most of us will, like the majority of the American voting population, vote against BHO. I only wonder how hard he will be crushed. Significantly, I think, which might be why Mac put out a one-time congratulatory tee-vee ad last night. Pretty classy of McCain, considering BHO has almost no class at all.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OCS classmate Bill Cunningham has finally provided the explanation for this phrase which has puzzled and annoyed me for years. Load and lock, okay. But lock and load? Huh?

I had previously found some good history on it, but it didn't explain how the term applied to modern assault rifles. Bill harkens back to our days on the firing range at Fort Benning, reminding that we were told to lock our magazines into our rifles, "with that careful, upward tap for safety," and only then load a round into the chamber. Lock and load. Simple. Thanks, Bill.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes, it seems like only yesterday.... Then I recall a 2003 reunion trip back to Fort Benning, which I found had changed almost beyond recognition, and I realize that June 3, 1968, graduation day, is long gone.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tom Higdon, an old Army buddy in Newtonia, MO, finally checks in with our email group to say that his family survived the tornadoes that killed twenty-one people in Southwest Missouri and Oklahoma on the night of May 10:

"WE are okay for the most part. Lost a garage, but the house pulled through. Newtonia is a war zone for sure. No injuries, but unbelievable destruction all over....No phone service since last Saturday until today...The tornado destroyed about 15 homes in the other end of town and damaged all others. We were very lucky on this one. We lost about 15 trees and everything not tied down in the yard. Yard and field are a mess." 

As always in these kinds of natural disasters, if you want to help, you should donate to the Red Cross (Missouri address here) or the Salvation Army nearest you. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Dr. King was murdered, forty years ago today, a pall of shock fell over our almost-entirely white class at Infantry Officer's Candidate School at Fort Benning, Ga. His goal of changing hearts and minds certainly had affected all of ours. If anyone was racist enough to be glad--and many of us were Southerners--they hid it well. They knew they would find no approbation. We knew that a giant had passed. We didn't guess there would be only midgets to follow.

MORE: The detail nobody remembers: Dr. King was a Republican. Or that a Republican won passage of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act that banned segregation in stores and other "public accomodations."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

All the MSM's 1968 retrospectives this year were inevitable. That's what the news media does. It fills a hole, or time, when nothing else is available, or interesting enough to the editors, with retrospectives, anniversaries, etc. And 1968 was a truly horrific year. Not just the TET offensive, which was worrisome from my perspective in Infantry OCS, because we knew we were going. Dr. King's murder didn't surprise me, though it was sad. I had worried that it might happen. RFK's murder was a surprise, coming right around the time we graduated in June. Being in the Army made the experience of the year altogether different from the usual stuff the writers will produce in the retrospectives. Few of them serve.

The black riots, for instance. They weren't surprising by then, but you still had to wonder why they occurred after emancipation from segregation, rather than before. Lots of Army units in the States were training to handle the riots, if necessary. In the Sixth Cav, that fall, we trained to do it not with force, but with a menacing show. Only after the show--which included marching in column, changing to a line and then, after an elaborate fixing of bayonets, slowly advancing--were we to go to lobbing tear gas canisters. Stabbing people was not on the menu, or bullets, though our magazines were full. We were regular Army, not the draft-dodger haven that was the National Guard in those days, which would shoot up Kent State two years later.

What I remember most about our training was that it emphasized that we must leave the mob an exit route. This was not Red China, or Mexico City. The idea was to disperse them, not trap and hurt them. Luckily, we never had to do it for real. In that sense, for me, 1968 was a piece of cake.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My old Army bud Chuck Waldron and I like to recall our eight to nine months as platoon leaders in the Sixth Armored Cavalry Regt., 1968-69, before going to Vietnam as light-infantry advisors to SVN militia. Among other things we guarded Nixon's inauguration, though me and my guys got to sit in the warm armory while he and his had to be outside in the cold. I know he'll be interested in this Civil War enthusiast's plan to spend this year tracing the then-new regular Army regiment's activities through their annual returns for 1862. I wonder when the unicorn shoulder patch was authorized? Before, or after, the regiment served here in Austin under Custer in 1865-68 as post-war federal occupiers?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rare reader Joe Bol, an OC-504 classmate, got a triple bypass this week and seems to be recovering nicely in a northern Vermont hospital. Congratulations Joe, and Merry Christmas to you and Eva.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joe Bol, an OCS classmate, rare reader and sometime commenter hereabouts, checked himself into the hospital this morning with his laptop and may be facing an angioplasty on Monday. Good timing, actually, as he will miss the nor'easter expected to plaster his part of Vermont on Sunday with up to twenty inches of snow. Good luck, Joe. We'll be thinking about you.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Old friend and OCS classmate Russell Wheat recently donated a large sum to his favorite charity, the Methodist Children's Home, a Waco orphanage, "in memory of thirty-seven men of 3rd Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry, killed in action in Viet Nam 1968-1969." This was an illustrious outfit of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade--which patrolled around Saigon and Bien Hoa--apparently, in fact, Russ's own platoon. I'm going to call and ask him about it this afternoon. Meanwhile, I will repeat the memorial here. R.I.P.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next year I'll get something new, but for the second year in a row, I think this will do for Veterans Day--the seal/decal of my old OCS class and the various places we served in Vietnam. Also this, which takes me back to the American Revolution, on my mother's side, to Thomas Farrar, a lieutenant colonel in the South Carolina "line" of the Continental Army, and Claudius Pegues, Jr., a captain in the South Carolina militia. I suspect our military service goes back much farther, but I don't know anything about it. And, while we're at it, let's not forget the wannabees, who are sure to be strutting around today in their phony uniforms. No sweat. Let them play, if it makes them feel any better.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

On my second visit to Austin's VA Health Clinic I was impressed by everything: the friendly people, the clean facilities, the new equipment. Got a flu shot from a tech with a no-pain technique. The doc I was assigned to wanted to run me through the normal blood work, but I pointed out I was scheduled for the full deal, including EKG and X-Rays, Dec. 11 in Temple for the Agent Orange Registry. Did he want to duplicate it? Fine with me. He didn't. I especially liked the ambience that everyone's on the same page. I saw why my late father-in-law, a Navy retiree, preferred VA hospitals to private ones. PTSD questions in the med exam surprised me. I think they're more for new veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq than Vietnam after so many years. Nevertheless. Nightmares? Check. Fear of loud noises? Nope. Avoid situations reminding of combat? Nope. Feelings of detachment from others? That one surprised me. I thought it over and said I would have to answer yes. Wondering now what the Temple exam will uncover in December.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Getting a little worried here about an OC-504 buddy who lives in Poway, in north San Diego county, which started evacuating residents this morning as the wildfires worsened, whipped by 100 mph winds. Put out a message for him on the group email list, but haven't heard back yet. He recently retired and has been fixing up his house for sale before moving to South Dakota.

UPDATE: Classmates say our buddy, retired San Diego assistant district attorney Bob Phillips, and his wife are out of town this week. Hope they don't have to come home to destruction and loss. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Actually, it was my second encounter. The first was in 1971, when I used the G.I. Bill to go to graduate school. But that was just by mail. This was the local health clinic, where this morning I began the process of getting on the Agent Orange Registry. I though it was to be a health checkup. Instead, it was a signup, getting a picture i.d. done and being assigned to a doctor. The first checkup with him will be at the end of October.

The clinic was packed. They handle military retirees these days as well as veterans with little or no private health insurance. The Military Order of the Purple Heart was serving coffee. The security guard asked me if I was carrying a weapon or a knife. I said no. There was a long table of service caps and unit pins for sale, mostly Vietnam units, in case you shed your military identity years ago and now you want it back. The clinic is in the highest-crime part of town--where the land is cheapest, I suppose--so it's surrounded by a high fence topped with concertina razor-wire. That's a reminder of how military service is degraded in this country: Once the pols, the news media and Hollywood finish beating you up, you get shabby health care. It's a wonder anyone serves. Better would be the system that Navy veteran Robert Heinlein wrote about in "Starship Troopers," where only veterans were allowed to vote or hold public office. That would really shake up this society.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Veterans Administration recently notified me that I have a medical exam in December for the Agent Orange Registry, at their clinic up the road in Temple. Anyone who served in Vietnam during the American war is eligible for the exam. I applied for VA health care a few months ago, though I have private insurance, because I wanted to cover all the bases, plus get the AO exam, just in case. In case of what? Well, prostate cancer for one. It is one of the most common cancers in men, generally, but is considered service-connected in Vietnam veterans because we have a higher-incidence of it than the general male population. The connection is attributed to exposure to the dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange. A few days after my VA notice, a classmate from OC 504-68 announced on the email list that he'd been diagnosed with it. Then the surprise "I have it, too" emails started coming in. So I'm getting a private physical, a.s.a.p., just in case. Nothing like hearing about the plight of men your age, in your own peer group, to focus on your own health.

UPDATE: I passed. The private doc said my physical inspection and PSA blood test showed prostate cancer was "not an issue," for this year, anyhow.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As inconvenient as it apparently has been for some of my rare but appreciated readers who have not noticeably returned, the TypeKey comment security system has done wonders for my productivity. I no longer have to waste time deleting scores of comment spam which were steadily rising into the hundreds every day. I gave up on trackbacks last year for the same reason, though I wasn't getting any trackbacks, anyhow. But Tom is one rare reader whose vanished comments I especially miss. A fellow OC-504er, who spent his time in Vietnam with the 1st Cav and now commands his local VFW, he was clever enough to track down my sister-in-law's funeral Aug. 6 in Indiana and surprise us by showing up, an hour or so away from his own Ohio River town. Hope you can eventually figure out how to make the registery work, Tom. I'd like to have you back.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 The posts on the email group are starting to dribble in from this year's third reunion in Washington, D.C. Most people left the hotel this morning to fly home, some as far as the West Coast. So the posts won't pick up until this afternoon or even after sundown. "Was interesting," one earlybird and first-timer writes, "to dust off the memory banks and actually recognize faces from 39 years ago. Probably talked more to non-third platoon members yesterday then in all of OCS." Reunions in '03 and '05 were like that, too. Sorry I missed this one. Have to stay healthy and make the one in '09.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm not going to make my OCS class reunion this year. It's in Washington, D.C., which will benefit all the guys who live in the vicinity, but is just too far for me to go for a weekend. I made the first one, in '03 at Fort Benning, and the '05 one in San Antonio, and with luck I'll still be around for the '09 one, hopefully somewhere closer. D.C. has turned out to be so expensive the class has had to ask for contributions above the fees paid by attendees, to help pay for everything. So they came up with a creative idea: offered to name chairs in the hospitality suite for a price. Started off with $100 each for Infantry and Special Forces, then offered the others at $50. I sent a check for an Armor chair, my combat arms branch, although I was infantry in Vietnam. Others have since come in for the wives, the Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman's Badge, Signal Corps, Military Intelligence, and the 25th Infantry Division. It's working.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Soldier, rest, thy warfare o'er, 
Dream of fighting fields no more.
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,   
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A day early, I guess, but I'm in the mood for it. This is a decal made up for my 1968 infantry OCS class by our one computer jockey, with representative places where we served in Vietnam, some more than once. We've had two reunions since 2003, and another one planned for next summer.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Earth is a neat piece of software built out of a mosaic of satellite images of the planet's surface. It gives you the illusion of flying while using zoom lens vision to inspect the trees as well as the forests. So when an OCS classmate sent our class email list a guide to what he said was a Google Earth "tour of the route we walked/marched/ran one weekend early in the cycle" at Fort Benning in the winter of 1967-68, I went along for the ride.

I didn't remember the walk/march/run, of course, and wonder how he did. He also didn't stay in the army but became a civilian after the war, so has a lot of intervening non-army memories. But it's a fairly scenic, memorable route. In the Google Earth program, he dubbed it "the river walk" because it mostly follows the Chattahoochee River in western Georgia--which has waterfalls above Columbus, where Benning is, but below it was getting steamboat traffic from the Gulf of Mexico as early as 1828. I could recreate our event with a generalized memory of the pain of trying to breathe after several miles of pounding asphalt in combat boots. But what a computer ride. It almost made me nauseated just watching it, because of the way the program made the frequent turns at the beginning of the route in a jerky helicopter motion. If one really flew that way all the passengers would have their faces in the paper bags.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)