Finishing a novel and then waiting for the reviews, according to Keith Ridgeway, isn’t fun.
“It’s a little like crawling from a car crash to be greeted by a panel of strangers holding up score cards.”
Ain’t it the truth. So far I’ve been lucky, but with more than a hundred copies taken when the novel was on Amazon’s free promotion list, there’s bound to be some contrary ones out there just waiting to hold up their score cards. Stands to reason.
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Posted in Antique Roses, Library, Scribbles, Viet Nam
Tagged "The Butterfly Rose", Keith Ridgeway, waiting for the reviews
It’s a commonplace among many Vietnam veterans to despise Lyndon Johnson, not only for his escalation of the American war in Viet Nam, but because he allegedly insisted on running the war by himself, to the extent of choosing targets for aerial bombardment of the North.
Lo and behold comes a new book in which it is revealed that Johnson relied on former President Eisenhower for military advice in the running of the war. To the extent that Ike planned a lot of the stuff for which LBJ has gotten the credit/blame. Could the old Supreme Commander Allied Forces Europe have been losing his stuff? Of course it was Johnson’s decision to escalate in the first place.
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Posted in Library, Texana, Viet Nam
Tagged Ike helped LBJ with Vietnam, Roberta Vasquez, The President's Club
These are the men of 60th Company, OC 504-68, of Fort Benning, Georgia, who were killed in Viet Nam.
We graduates of that 1968 class at Infantry Officers Candidate School, commemorate these seven each Memorial Day.
One graduate: 1LT Jacob Lee Kinser, a Huey helicopter pilot.
Two Tactical Officers: CPT Reese Michael Patrick and 1LT Daniel Lynn Neiswender, both infantry commanders.
Four class drop-outs: CPL Sherry Joe Hadley, SP4 Reese Currenti Elia Jr., CPL Robert Chase, and SP4 Jeffrey Sanders Tigner, all infantry riflemen.
The liberal mainsteam media today despises the military and has a hard time concealing the fact, when they bother to do so. They generally mock those who serve as victims, or else get so smarmy about them that it’s obvious a trick is being played. So influenced, only about 1 percent of eligible Americans join.
Nevertheless, despite the sneers of the NYTimes and the old big three networks “after more than a decade of war, remarkable men and women are still stepping forward.”
This meme of Obamaloot bites dog is becoming a trend, at least among conservative and libertarian bloggers. It is funny, I think, though it always reminds me of my little tour in the Southeast Asian War Games in 1969.
American military advisors (as I was to the South Vietnamese light-infantry militia) had to spend at least one day a month (sometimes weekly) having lunch or supper with a hamlet or village chief—who invariably served us dog or cat meat. They would have preferred monkey, and some actually apologized for not having any monkey meat to serve, but dog and cat was the rule.
I knowingly ate dog and cat and probably unknowingly ate rat, since fat rats were ubiquitous in the villages and hamlets (even in the rice paddies) and dogs and cats, even skinny ones, were seldom seen. At least in the countryside southwest of Da Nang, where I was. But no one ever admitted to serving rat and so I can’t be sure.
And, no, dog and cat meat does not taste like chicken.
Via Treacher.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, Scribbles, Viet Nam
Tagged eating dog and cat meat, obama bites dog, South Vietnam 1969
In 1965, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended bombing Hanoi and mining Haiphong Harbor to avoid a protracted ground war in South Viet Nam. President Johnson screamed at them, cursing them and calling them idiots.
“Why had Johnson not only dismissed their recommendations, but also ridiculed them? It must have been that Johnson had lacked something. Maybe it was foresight or boldness. Maybe it was the sophistication and understanding it took to deal with complex international issues. Or, since he was clearly a bully, maybe what he lacked was courage.”
He certainly was a bully. He bullied his own wife, repeatedly, according to his biographers. So the ground war went on and on, literally consuming their country and figuratively consuming ours, not to mention LBJ himself, and it lingers yet as a bad taste all around. No wonder people, even people here in Texas, still hate the sumbitch.
Via The PJ Tatler.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Scribbles, Texana, Viet Nam
Tagged LBJ the bully, Vietnam war
I’ve had Tinnitus, a ringing in the ears, since I came home from the Vietnam War in 1970. Although it can have several medical origins, I’ve always attributed it to months of being in close proximity to the staccato noise of machine guns and automatic rifles.
Last night I was awaked by what sounded like the steady release of compressed air, or maybe steady rain on the roof. It was so loud that I got up and walked around the dark rancho to see if I could find the source. It wasn’t raining so perhaps it was a break in a water pipe or the natural gas line that feeds the water heater and the stove? Apparently not.
I finally realized it was probably my Tinnitus acting up and I went back to sleep. When I awoke the noise was still there, still sounding like sleet through the limbs of trees or a broken gas line. As it probably will be from now on, an escalation in the old problem that is more of a curiosity to me than anything else.
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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles, Viet Nam, Weather/Climate
Tagged hearing damage, tinnitus
Found this scouting out some public domain shots for the cover of my new Vietnam War novel, “The Butterfly Rose,” which will soon be available for the Kindle.
I decided to use another snap but kept this one on the desktop because it’s so unusual. Hardly the stereotype shot of a covey of Hueys in flight, which is usually taken from the front or the side. Neat, tho. This way you see the side doors which slid all the way back when opened and the rear stabilizer.
I also like that the door gunner on the left side of the bird in the foreground has his arm stuck out the open door holding onto the wooden grips of the M-60 machinegun.
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THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 