Quote from stonedinvestor:
Sometimes I wish instead of blabbing on and on about the greatest generation - those that served WW2, I wish history would take a long hard look at those that survived the psychedelic wars. These battles were long and hard too and often terror filled.
Year after year drug after drug another mountain to take. It was endless, pointless, but we fought on. I remember the Giant Cocaine War ONE- man that was the worst. Me sending me darling wife-to-be to a place where I knew they had a gun. Patrolling the street at 4:00 in the morning at one point stooping to the level of buying crack. Luckily that didn't taste right but the Fire years of Cocaine War Two, when the cocaine was smoked... you want to talk about putting in 24 hour days? My fake friend the dealer who I would call to talk sports and then say " why don't I just come by " An eight ball later and the birds are chirping and the heat's not working, and it's not a pretty scene.
It was a battlefield. And every day a battle.
A friend stone dead on the floor at the dealers house... a phone message on the machine... me hiding by the stove listening... that will scare you sober and it did and straight into the Ecstasy War. These ecstasy vets are messed up, cut them some slack. Wow the sex they had! But the crash, the comedown was like being in a little hole. In that hole you bury deep your head and hold away the pain.... & the very innate embarrassment of having never been to war & turned unleashed upon the enemy with no rules. How I yearned for that in a way... How can you not love the military! If you value history and enjoy history as I do then you are in the military section of life's bookstore my friend... Some of the China/ Japan stuff is really wack but for all out psychedelic- like fear, Nam and Korea really stand out. Trench warfare is boring. I did retail clothes- vintage and dealt with a lot of uniforms- Nam had the best ones the rip stop pants are hot as hell on girls, really shapes their ass... not sure why our guys would want them; the camo of course was off the hook then and the shirt cuts were very revolutionary... The packs of roaming soldiers with no clear leader... smoking weed and as they defy the jungle and live in a surreal state... that was a good one...We won't have that again. Korea for the sheer terror of it... it doesn't get enough respect...that war, it's vets... It's the overwhelming ant thing, or being attacked by midgets but when those thousands upon thousands of crazy Chinese charged with their fixed bayonets can you imagine how that felt? My dad did, it was so unfortunate that having survived that it rained so damn hard there that one night he took cover under a Semi truck... I don't know the whole story- was their drinking involved.... how do you sleep through a truck starting up in the middle of the night... and running over you.
This whole thread has made me want to go through my closet and dig out his pins but it's difficult; he came back to the states had a few botched operations at the VA Hospital managed to have me and promptly died when I was one. So to be in a line of work that can have you die for such a weird and unimportant reason as getting out of the rain that was weird. Especially since he joined up on his own... rich kids did that back then in Boston environs and they were the better for it.... but what of the children they left behind? When I hear of another roadside bomb going off in IRAQ I want to scream.... WHAT FOR! We are not accomplishing enough in Iraq period. I want a secret base to attack Iran from sorry! I always did. I always assumed that was the whole idea.. I want all that oil at a fixed cheap price until they run out... I thought that was the idea... now to just have nothing no oil no base no victory no nothing what a huge waste.
Team sports football thru high school & watching MMA can only release so much violence. How much is still trapped in me I wonder ready to get out. Even at 43. Enough of these damn kids getting killed for no reason. I hope the next war is for the elders. I hope those of us who have managed to live through the psychedelic wars can be called upon to serve our nation. On our terms of course... for a really good reason and with the best commanders in the field... and after our own kids are in college and have direction...let us put away our BBQ's & Bongs and swarm an enemy... let us poke their eyes out in a life or death struggle. You can't be more real than that.~stoney
That would go a long way.