Post V1.1-17-09

MILSPEAK MEMO
V1.1-17-09

Milspeak Memo is reconnecting readers and their memories. There’s nothing like reading someone else’s war story to bring back memories of your own. Tom Sheehan, a distinguished poet, author, and Korean War Veteran emailed the following. I’ve posted it because I know that many Marines will fall down crying and kiss the ground when they hear Tom’s true stories. Now I know why my recruiter offered me a keg of rum to enlist in 1977. To me, that keg represented the 8th wonder of the world – Tom Sheehan is its 9th. From Tom:
“My father was a Marine and was often the CQ aboard Old Ironsides when we lived directly across the street from the main gate of the Charlestown Navy Yard. Often he would babysit me in my carriage as my mother went shopping. Later, I can see the Marines coming down the street to our house on Friday nights to play poker,  their arms loaded with ice cream and candy to buy off my mother with goodies for her children. More than once she would find a fifty-dollar bill or some such sum trucked into the diaper of one of us kids. The names still ring in me; John Yancy, Joe Dixon and Joe Ditson, Fats Grabeski, Chesty Puller, Lou Diamond, Lou Carmichael, Jimmy Devereaux who once sent my father a postcard that simply said, ‘Hey, Red, do you remember the night Atlanta got treed?’ I asked him what it meant. All he said  was, ‘Jimmy and I were the only Marines in Atlanta one night. I’ll tell you sometime.’  He never spilled the beans. Not even the night I left for Korea.
The Legation in Nicaragua had a mimeographed newspaper. My father and  another editor would lock themselves in the cook’s tent with a jug and write the paper and create a crossword puzzle. First Marine in with the solution would get a jug. Once they were stormed by the Legation because nobody could solve the puzzle. So they said, ‘Watch this,’ and they couldn’t solve it either.    When they were leaving Nicaragua they had to expend all their ammo, which included hundreds of rounds of mortar shells, 60mm I’d guess. So they dropped, them out of firing tubes, right into Lake Managua. The water was afloat with alligators ready to become pocketbooks, wallets, Boston bags, suit cases, etc. The Marines swapped with natives for finished goods. All the Marines came back with all kinds of alligator goods.   On the way out of Nicaragua the Legation was challenged to a baseball game by the Marine Gunboat Squadron in Guatemala, which also had a good team. (My father had been a great athlete in Boston in his high school days, 14 letters.)  If you got on base you had rewards; beer on first, booze on second, champagne on third. If you scored a run, you had the run of the bar while your team was at bat. He said, once before he passed on, he thought the score was 52-51 at the  bottom of the third inning when the game was cancelled. They had to board ship before dawn. That first day he said he had the DTs for the first time ever, with horned bullfrogs honking at him from the foot of his hammock. I never saw him drink hard liquor, like he had been cured. He introduced me to beer when I was 14 and just in from my first football practice in a hot August of 1943. He said he’d  share a bottle with me only after a hot practice and only during football season,  saying I was only 107 pounds and needed the weight. Years later, him gone blind, we were talking about consumption of alcohol at a family get-together, and I was  the lightest drinker as I only drank beer (and I had five sisters and a brother.) As I  related my story, his chin on his white cane, he was laughing at me. I said, ‘What the hell are you laughing at? You introduced me to beer when I was only 14.’ He said, ‘I tempered you, sonny boy. Did you ever think of that?’” 
Tom Sheehan’s collections of poetry (including many stunning war poems) and short fiction are available at Press 53. Just click on the Press 53 link, scroll to the S’s, and you’ll see Tom.
Some Milspeak Memo readers have been anxiously waiting to read Harry Hooper’s experience about field sanitation in Vietnam. There’s still much talk about “Burning Shitters” among troops today. Harry’s experience with burning shitters is one that you won’t soon forget! As usual, I found Harry by chance.

Memoir

Field Jacket by Patricia Hysell

Friendly Fire by George O’Kelley

Field Sanitation by Harry Hooper Here it is folks, the story you’ve been lusting after. I do have to say that Harry Hooper is one fine looking man and a helluva storyteller.

Poetry

Selected Poetry by Tom Sheehan

Selection from Kieu by Nguyen Du This Vietnamese love poem tells the story of Kieu, a young woman who honors the dead and love. Translated by Huynh Sanh Thong.

Video Selections by Vlad

Image #X1: "Emotional Return To Vietnam"
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXZ0DxhuT5Y&feature=related

Image #X2: "Brothers in Arms - Vietnam Conflict" YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6zLDIjgxkk

Image #X3: "Phim tai lieu My: "Declassified: Viet Cong" p3/5" YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_bl7gMRuDE

Image #X4: "Veteran finds a fallen buddy on Vietnam Wall" link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scwMAgCLdks&feature=related

Image #5:
"CROSSVILLE CHRONICLE (TN): Vietnam veterans welcomed home" YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb6uhrwikrQ

Image #6: "Viet Nam Homecoming" YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jAcz-YoP4E

Image #X7: "Vietnam Vet Running Across America For Jesus" YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORxS4aeXsbA

Image #X8: "Apocalypse Now - The Ride Of The Valkyrie" YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek

Image #X9: "Old Vietcong Propaganda Video" YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhJm-tTij3M

PLUS

“Rockin’ Rock Ape”

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