“All this madness, all this rage, all this flaming death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid, and all without imagination or heart, have chosen that it should occur rather than that any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country’s pride.”
—Bertrand Russell
on World War I
Preface
by Margaret Anna Alice
This Veterans Day, I wish to share a harrowing meditation by a veteran on the experience of being—and having been—a soldier. Few articles have helped me feel so completely what it was like to serve in the Vietnam War; to suffer the agony and futility of war; to return home a reviled pariah; to witness the degradation of one’s fellow veterans; and to endure a half a century of psychological trauma.
While he did not fall on the battlefield, Frank Hooper (a.k.a. Fleabaggs) carried the battlefield within him until his demise on October 3, 2022.
Author, friend, subscriber, and frequent publisher of my work, Robert Gore of Straight Line Logic first posted this essay on May 18, 2017. He republished it last month along with an excerpt from his forthcoming novel, The Gray Radiance, inspired by this essay. Robert describes Frank’s piece
as “the best thing I’ve posted on this site.”The Burning Platform (TBP) also reposted this article as Fleabaggs was a beloved member of that community. I am sharing Frank’s essay along with images from each article with the permission of both Robert and Jim Quinn, TBP founder and also a friend and regular publisher of my essays.
At a time when the world seems to be speedballing toward World War III—even flabbergastingly flirting with the idea of nuclear war—this poignant
video featuring her reading of ’s poem “Future Generations (If There Are Future Generations)” seems an apt accompaniment:
My War
by Frank Hooper (a.k.a. Fleabaggs)
I have started to write this a hundred times in 49 years. I would like to have used Our War but don’t want to presume to speak for all us Nam Vets still alive who were really there for a year or more. Nor can I speak for all the families of Nam Vets and all the millions of Vietnamese whose major crime was living in Vietnam at the time.
I do presume to speak for myself and my dead buddies who told me their stories as we commiserated in a dark corner of a seedy gin mill where we had been banished. I do presume to speak for some of the families I knew and my mother and the civilians who had an impact on me while I was there. I’m going to show you a picture of a few whose story never made it to the US. It’s shocking so stop here if you want to remain comfortably absolved in your sweet fantasy of non-involvement. This is not about “ME,” it’s about us.
Please indulge me while I set the terms of engagement here. I’m not worried about what you think of me or my views. When I say “THEY” you know who “THEY” are so don’t jerk my chain with that kind of stuff. Go back to the Miley video you were watching. When I say “YOU” you know if you are “YOU” or not. If you are not “YOU” but are offended that I might mean you, go to your therapist and ask her how you became such a thin-skinned oversensitive little prick.
This is not a Rambo story either. For the majority of us guys who were there from Jan. 68 onward, shooting and being shot at was the easy part. The hard part was the rest of what war is about. If you were in Khe Son in 68 or something like that, then yes that was hard. And just to qualify that I know what I’m talking about, I’ve been pinned so low by some guy with a 47 that I was scooping a hole with my cheekbone to get my head lower as my hair was being parted. I was also on my feet moving around 22 or 23 hours a day with very little food. When we got 1 or 2 hours to rest we were so wired we couldn’t sleep. We found a spot to lay down and listen to our heart pound and then back on our feet for 3 weeks straight. TWICE.
Combine that with having seen the proof that it was all staged and I cracked up. When I came to I was trying to choke a buddy and I just started bawling uncontrollably. I was never the same again. In hindsight I realize I made a choice to never feel ever again and set out to do just that.
One of my closest buddies from school got drafted and found himself in Bumdeal Vietnam where nothing ever happened. He’s standing in a wet trench in the Monsoon for hours every day waiting for nothing to happen. Then he gets to go back to a smelly sandbag hooch to rest and his buddy is escaping to La La Land with some pot and a squeeze tube of morphine from a kit. 3 months later he’s sharpening his needle on a nail file and cooking smack over a Zippo, wondering how this happened. He’ll be able to quit pretty easy when he gets home he thought. But I just can’t go back out there tonight without it. Just 8 more months. On the flight home he gathered up what little dignity and self-respect he had left, thinking that he was still a hero for sticking it out. A month later that little shred of hope was gone.
He had no idea how he killed that many old women and babies without remembering at least some of the details. So much for the quitting. 2 years later he died with a needle in his arm. I’m not excusing our bad decisions after we saw the farce that it was. I’m saying that was what happened and that we had lots of help getting to that point. We were not going to disgrace our families by deserting or going to Leavenworth and getting a BCD. So we put on our best pair of man pants, sucked it up and muddled through.
We were typical of the other vets I knew who are gone or are so far into the psychiatric machine they will likely never resurface. We all fell off a Norman Rockwell calendar and into a bankers’ war. It never occurred to us that the government would lie to start a war. Why should we? Our parents would think God lied before they would believe the government would lie. Presidents and Congressman lied sometimes, but not the U.S. government.
We all fell off a Norman Rockwell calendar and into a bankers’ war. It never occurred to us that the government would lie to start a war.
We left thinking we were heroes. Our moms gushed with pride at us in our uniforms, the girls went ga ga, we were part of something we could believe in, we marched to John Philip Sousa in boot camp, life was good. Here is something I posted to describe what it was like for me and so many others I knew. Some people online were giving what I thought were moralizing sermons when they commented on the anniversary of the Mar. 16 My Lai massacre and Lt. Calley.
I was there for the 68 TET offensive, the counter offensive and 2 mini Tets. I would never dream of sitting down next to a woman who is 8 months pregnant in the august heat and say “I know how you feel Darlin”. when you’ve been shot at from 50 ft. by someone you can’t see and are required to call in for permission to shoot back. When 2 little boys blow themselves up while trying to blow you up, when you see one of their arms twitching 30 ft. away. When you go without sleep or food while on your feet moving around for 3 weeks twice. When you see Westy dining with Raquel Welch in the light of a patio and you’re heart and guts and balls ache so bad you cry inside. when someone at the airport tries to gently tell you that you have white hippy spit down the back of your Dress Blues. When 45 years later that same liberal hippy wearing birkenstocks extends his faggy hand and says “THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE”. When your family is ashamed of you. When you are treated like a freak at the VA Hospital and you have to see a shrink just to get medical attention. When you no longer have anything to believe in and you fall into booze and drug induced self pity, laying in the gutter with your pants full of crap and you piss yourself just for the warm feeling. When you’re down to 100 pounds with no teeth in a dark parking lot trying to give a blowjob for a drink or a hit. When you cry your heart out wondering what the hell is wrong with you. When you just murdered your dog for protecting your sweet mother over not giving you more drinking money. When she looks at you with hurt and despair and says “how could anything like you come out of my womb. When you’ve turned your back on a desperate woman begging for money with a dead baby because you were brainwashed into thinking she was going to buy weapons with a crummy dollar while never thinking she may have a live baby to feed in an alley somewhere. Then I’ll talk to you about Lt. Cally. You didn’t rob my buddy and the rest of us of what little dignity we had remaining. You ripped it out of our souls violently and left a gaping sucking wound that never healed. It scabbed over a little but we could always feel it. Meanwhile you let the bankers off free. Some of you didn’t mistreat us but you didn’t defend us. How many of you canceled you accounts in protest or sold your stocks or did anything but lower your eyes and say “I don’t want to hear about that”.
Most of that was from my own story but others turned it inwardly. I never had the opportunity to do what Calley did while on duty. But after my crack up I did indeed take the low road off duty with some American civilians because I knew I could, so I don’t claim sainthood. I was young and wanted to repay someone or anyone. I took the evil and the evil took me. It made me its Bitch. It took me places I didn’t want to go and did things I didn’t want to do with people I didn’t want to do it with.
Many more committed 100 forms of suicide. Violence, drugs, booze, etc. Few did what I did. Before any of that happened though I would like to show you some pictures of what we saw frequently after Tet. Refugees coming in by the thousands from burned out villages with nowhere to go except to the next large village until they reached the bigger cities. We had no idea how to cope with what we saw. 3 months of SERE training don’t prepare you for this kind of suffering. An old man and 2 old women in an alley where he is offering sex with them in desperation. The look on their faces. The woman I mentioned with the dead baby. She was too old to sell her body but not old enough to get the pity of an old Mama San. When I got home people told me I was exaggerating or lying. Do you have any idea how bad that knife feels. The 2 kids in the top picture would most likely end up like the one in the bottom. This was done to him purposely. We saw hundreds of these kids who were maybe 9 or 10. How the one in this picture lived this long is a genuine miracle. They had their bones broken and reset in the most horrible positions but always with one hand able to beg for money. Then they were starved to the point where a leg would look like your thumb. After that they were dragged out at daylight and dragged in at dark for the rest of their unfortunate lives. They were wherever there were Americans with money. This was done with our full knowledge and consent. How? All the reporters, politicians, bureaucrats, USO performers and Top Brass saw this and yet it never got reported to my knowledge. The kids who were cute and unscarred were sold to the sex vendors for sex and torture or anything the new owner wanted. If we break down into chaos because of any of the 100 train wrecks coming and you are separated from your kids and you don’t think this will happen to them, you might want to rethink that. Make arrangements for them even if you don’t believe it will happen here. If you had the money you could buy anything in Saigon. I’ll give you just one of many reasons I know what I know. I shacked up with the sister of the vice president’s mistress for 3 months. There was no welfare or self-pity checks over there. Life would chew you up in a New York minute. She had a kid in a convent to pay for in the Philippines. I’m not willing to incriminate myself explaining the money for that or where I got so much info on the real deal. I was young, adventurous, outgoing and curious and people have always wanted to confide in me. I never ask, I let them talk and I don’t violate their inner sanctuary by laughing or putting them down or analyzing them by running it through my sick mind and telling them what they really just said.
Life would chew you up in a New York minute.
Then there were the feral children all over. In spite of my determination not to feel again they always won our hearts over. The affection and care they had for each other in spite of everything was heartwarming. They knew the deal and they weren’t about to be caught by the goon squads. No one that I knew could avoid seeing these kinds of things very long and after 3 months here we all knew how phony it all was. Seeing all these people suffer over it just made it harder for us to cope with. After we got home and endured the abuse heaped on us there was no longer anything to believe in for most of us. The results of that kind of demoralization was felt by our families in ways we will never fully know. I went to visit the parents of some of my buddies before the funeral as was the custom for close friends. It’s impossible to describe the hurt and despair. These were the nice guys, not the selfish wretches like me.
I think it’s timely that I waited this long to write this. We haven’t learned from watching this new group of our youth coming home perhaps even more messed up than we were. We seem hellbent on sending even more “over there” to make the world safe. Our own country is nearing civil war and I read comments online of a kind of eagerness to see it that troubles me. I don’t think that group of people knows what that will be like. Killing a fellow human being is incredibly hard, ugly and messy. It will follow you forever and if you do it because you could instead of because you had to, which many will do. I can only pray that it won’t be one of you reading this. There is a fine line between defense and just meanness because you know you can get away with it.
I’m done now. I wanted to write more but it’s not there. I made a promise to God that I would do whatever I thought he wanted me to do fearlessly for the rest of my life to make up for the evil I did in the old one. I don’t know if I have yet but when I do face him shortly I will be able to say I was no coward in these 35 years of peace he has given this undeserving wretch. I was never presumptuous enough to ask him to let me in heaven, I only asked for freedom from the torment in this life and he granted it. I have never taken a dime of anyone’s crazy money or the meds that go with it. Please don’t insult me with that welcome home stuff or thank you for your service stuff. I don’t play that.
I would like to thank Mr. Robert Gore of Straight Line Logic and gifted wordsmith who will soon be the first NY Times bestselling author residing in Gitmo for helping me with this and getting it posted. Also the people on TBP who encouraged me to do it.
Sincerely,
Crazy uncle Frankie Fleabaggs who lives in the attic.
From The Gray Radiance
by Robert Gore
When Nick tried to pay with piasters, the old man shook his head. “Dollar.”
Nick handed him a dollar, wondering if the locals had to pay with dollars and if he had been overcharged. The man gave him back a quarter. Perhaps he hadn’t been overcharged. He left the quarter on the counter and walked out on the street.
There were beggars everywhere, but one was so different, so grotesquely distorted, that all Nick could do was stare. He was on a board with wheels. It looked like a skateboard, but the board was bigger, maybe three feet by two feet. At first Nick couldn’t make out the geography of the body, a randomly put together stick-figure doll. He was dressed only in a dirty cloth of indistinguishable color around his midsection. You couldn’t say if the beggar was sitting or lying on the board. He rested on his elbows, his arms emaciated twigs that might snap under the load. One hand was folded back at an acute angle to the wrist, an angle so severe a normal hand couldn’t form it without breaking bones. The other hand was outstretched, the language of begging. His entire rib cage was visible. At the knee of one straw-thin leg it looked as if the lower part had been attached backward; the foot pointed in the opposite direction of the knee. His other foot somehow rested on the small of his back, his leg positioned in a way no contortionist could match.
The beggar was anywhere from thirty to fifty-years old. There was something timeless in the dark eyes that watched Nick. Not imploring, no bitterness, no hate. They were a vessel, a summation. Of what? Malevolence that could break a man, or boy, cripple and mutilate, turn his body into a prison, leaving him fit for one occupation: alms. Acceptance of an intolerable fate? Somebody had broken him and put him back together and was profiting from his condition. At the end of the day, what happened to the beggar’s bowl? Where was he wheeled? Who took his money?
Look at me if you will, the beggar’s impassive eyes seemed to say, but this is the way of the world. You are just as misshapen as I.
They stared at each other for a long time. Nick pulled out his wallet, took a dollar and put it in the bowl. Ever so slightly, the beggar nodded. It wasn’t gratitude. Acknowledgment? Maybe. Because he had looked at him, seen him? Probably. Most passersby wouldn’t muster more than a glance before they hurried on.
Rest in Peace, Frank
Closing Note by Margaret Anna Alice
I dedicate the following anti-war anthem War to Frank, now at peace, as well as to all veterans, passed and present.
War
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, uh-huh, uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again, y’all
War, huh, good god
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me
Oh war, I despise
’Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
War means tears to thousands of mothers’ eyes
When their sons go off to fight and lose their lives
I said, war, huh, good god, y’all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again
War, huh, whoa-oh-whoa-oh, Lord
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me
War, it ain’t nothing but a heartbreak
War, friend only to the undertaker
Oh, war, is an enemy to all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest within the younger generation
Induction then destruction, who wants to die?
Oh, war, huh, good god, y’all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it, say it, say it
War, huh, uh-huh, yeah, uh
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me
War, it ain’t nothing but a heartbreaker
War, it got one friend, that’s the undertaker
Oh, war has shattered many a young man’s dreams
Made him disabled, bitter, and mean
Life is much too short and precious to spend fighting wars these days
War can’t give life, it can only take it away
Oh, war, huh, good god, y’all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again
War, huh, whoa-oh-whoa-oh, Lord
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me
War, it ain’t nothing but a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker
Peace, love, and understanding, tell me
Is there no place for them today?
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But lord knows there’s got to be a better way
Oh, war, huh, good god, y'all
What is it good for?
You tell me, (nothing) say it, say it, say it, say it
War, huh, good god, yeah, huh
What is it good for?
Stand up and shout it (nothing)
I also serve up the following clip from the Twilight Zone episode “No Time Like the Past” to the masses who foolishly, ignorantly, and recklessly treat war like a Saturday morning cartoon, never to be touched by it and therefore jingoistically cheering on the ravaging, the gore, the decimation, and the brutality of heinous acts committed by pawns on behalf of profiteering banksters, corporations, politicians, and puppeteers.
HANFORD: You some kind of pacifist, are you, Driscoll?
DRISCOLL: No, I’m some kind of sick idiot who’s seen too many young men die because of too many old men like you who fight their battles at dining room tables.
HANFORD: I take offense at that remark, Mr. Driscoll.
DRISCOLL: And I take offense at armchair warriors who don’t know what a shrapnel wound feels like or what death smells like after three days in the sun or the look in a man’s eyes when he’s minus a leg and his blood is seeping out.
Mr. Hanford, you have a great enthusiasm for planting the flag deep. But you don't have a nodding acquaintance with what it's like to bury men in the same soil.
HANFORD: I’ll not sit here and take talk like that.
DRISCOLL: No, no, you’ll go back to your bank, and it’ll be business as usual until dinnertime when you’ll give us another vacuous speech about a country growing strong by filling its graveyards.
Well, you’re in for some gratifying times, Mr. Hanford. Believe me, there’ll be a lot of graveyards for you to fill in Cuba and in France then all over Europe and all over the Pacific.
You can sit on the sidelines and wave your pennants because, according to your definition, this country’s going to get virile as the devil. From San Juan to Inchon, we’ll show how red our blood is because we’ll spill it.
There are two unfortunate aspects of this. One is, that you won’t have to spill any. And the other is, you won’t live long enough to know I’m right.
It is time to say, “NO MORE!” to armchair warriors; “NO MORE!” to BlackRock and Halliburton; “NO MORE!” to silver-spooning politicos; “NO MORE!” to filling graveyards.
© Margaret Anna Alice, LLC
For 16.4 cents/day (annual) or 19.7 cents/day (monthly), you can help me fight tyranny while enjoying access to premium content like “rolling” interviews, podcasts, Behind the Scenes, and other bonus content:
Purchase 4 or more subscriptions for a group, and you get 10% off!
If you’d like to make a one-time donation, you can buy me a Ko-fi:
NEW WAY to support me! GiftApp lets you buy Amazon gift cards:
Order Your Signed Copies ASAP
Perfect Holiday Gift for Adults & Children, Awake & Asleep Alike!
Want to get a head start on your holiday shopping with a book that all ages can enjoy and learn from?
I offer bulk discounts on signed copies of my fairy tale The Vapor, the Hot Hat, & the Witches’ Potion. Save money, check off your shopping list, and get a unique gift that can help accelerate the Great Awakening!
Order now to ensure I have sufficient time to have the books shipped to me, sign them, and send to you before Christmas.
Want to See What It Looks Like?
For a limited time, paid subscribers can download the beautifully typeset and illustrated e-book of my fairy tale, The Vapor, the Hot Hat, & the Witches’ Potion. It is equivalent to the paperback version (retails $12.99) and much prettier than the Kindle version (retails $5.99). Click here to access the downloadable PDF (the post will be unlocked once you subscribe).
Action Alerts
Public Comments
Save the Cats of San Juan 😿
Gallant feline
has put out an urgent call to save the cats of San Juan, Puerto Rico. You have until November 22, 2022, to submit your comment:
Oppose Bivalent Boosters
has provided a template and instructions for contacting your representatives about opposing the bivalent boosters:
Free Dr. Jackie Stone
Like many doctors of integrity, conscience, and compassion around the world, Dr. Jackie Stone risked her career to save patients’ lives, and now she has been threatened with jail by the government of Zimbabwe. Read Dr. EV Rapiti’s impassioned plea, the World Council for Health’s statement, and
’s call to action:
Petitions
Children’s Health Defense
Demand an End to Mandates, Emergency Powers, & 5G Near Schools
Sign this Children’s Health Defense petition to health agencies and lawmakers demanding an end to the tyrannical, dangerous, and unscientific injection mandates.
Here is their form calling on Congress to rescind the federal emergency powers seized beginning in 2020.
You can also sign their petition rejecting #No5GNearSchools and pressing for 5G safety studies.
Stand for Health Freedom
Save Free Speech from the Fascist Alliance of Government & Big Tech + No More $ for CDC
Sign this Stand for Health Freedom petition to stop the US government from colluding with Big Tech to silence dissidents, censor free speech, and violate our First Amendment rights.
Stand for Health Freedom has another petition you can use to tell your congresspersons to stop funding the compromised, corrupt, and colluding CDC.
Citizens for Free Speech
Say “NO” to the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (S.673)
This Citizens for Free Speech petition allows you to voice your objection to the Big Media cartel S.673 would create by “removing liability under antitrust laws.”
Alliance for Natural Health
Defend EDTA & Natural Thyroid from the FDA
Sign this Alliance for Natural Health petition to protect “compounded EDTA, a crucial medicine used to remove heavy metals from the body” from the FDA. See more details from
here:Take an additional moment to sign Alliance for Natural Health’s other petition to protect compounded natural thyroid from the FDA while you’re at it.
Environmental Working Group
Tell the EPA to Ban the Herbicide Atrazine
Use this form to insist that the EPA ban the endocrine disruptor and carcinogen atrazine.
shares more details here:Switch from Defensive to Offensive Mode
In this post,
shares examples of legislative proposals focused on prohibiting mandates for schoolchildren before they are instituted:
Publications & Graphics to Spread Awareness
Batch 2 of the THiNK TWICE Memes Has Dropped!
Download these mind-opening memes from
and share liberally on social media:World Council for Health Flyers & Graphics
For real-world interactions, you can print up flyers and share graphics from
’s World Council for Health:
Free Speech Statesman Bundles
You can order bundles of the Free Speech Statesman from Citizens for Free Speech to distribute in your community.
Public Records Request
Ever wonder how to make a public records request?
walks you through the process:Latest Calls to Action from James Roguski
continues his vigilant watch on corruption and shares more opportunities for action in these posts:
Gratitude for Shoutouts
#Philanthropath Momentum Continues
There are some people in the world I flat-out love. I mean head-over-heels adore, respect, admire, and trust. That I have the honor of calling them friends, collaborators, and fellow truth warriors is one of the greatest blessings of my life. I daren’t try to name them all as I would be mortified to leave anyone out, but it will come as no surprise to anyone reading this that Queen of Integrity
(my first Profile in Courage), Reigning Heavyweight Champion of Truth (a future Profile in Courage), and little sis are in my karass, and it just so happens that all three of them are helping with my mission to viralize my coinage philanthropath.In this galvanizing piece, Tess writes:
Let’s stop glorifying money and pierce the veil. These billionaire “philanthropaths”, as Margaret Anna Alice calls them, do not want to help us, they want to enslave us.
Pierre used “philanthropaths” in the subtitle of Part 1 of this must-read series:
And Sage has used it in multiple articles (as has her guest blogger and our cherished commenter
):
More Gratitude, More Shoutouts
, whom I also adore, graciously asked:“Hello warrior woman! Love your articles and cartoons! Can I include them in articles? Much love : )”
Of course, she and anyone else is always welcome to share my articles, as she did here:
I also want to thank the following dear friends, readers, and fellow Substackers for their kind shares in these articles:
The White Rose UK: New Book
Publisher of my articles and fellow truth warriors at The White Rose UK have published a new book: Hope Amidst a Tsunami of Evil. While I have not yet had the opportunity to read it, the title is right up my alley as an Apocaloptimist:
IPAK-EDU
See the following post for details on IPAK-EDU curricula, and please use my affiliate code (MAA1IPAK) to register for any courses you decide to take:
If you feel the work I am doing is worthwhile and want to make it possible for me to spend more time writing and researching in my aim to unmask totalitarianism and awaken the sleeping before tyranny triumphs, please consider supporting me, whether it be by subscribing, buying me a Ko-fi, or sharing my posts. I thank you for reading, thinking, sharing, and supporting my work in whichever ways you choose.
Want to make a one-time donation? You can treat me to Ko-fi:
Prefer to donate crypto? You can send Bitcoin using the following code:
bc1ql706rr7vj7c7nzxnqfp9rldw8ddfc20f492jk0
Since crypto transfers are anonymized, I won’t know about your donation. Please drop me an email by responding to any of my newsletters if you’d like to alert me to your generous gift.
Remember, a subscription to Margaret Anna Alice Through the Looking Glass makes for an intellectually adventurous gift down the rabbit-hole!
Note: Purchasing any items using Amazon affiliate links included in my content will further support my efforts to unmask tyranny.
Quoting individuals here and elsewhere throughout my work does not constitute endorsement of the individual, their actions, or their beliefs. I separate the quotations/art/creation from the speaker/artist/creator and appreciate wisdom where I can find it, even if the source is suspect. If their words are instructive and help us understand a concept more deeply, I am not going to throw them on the rubbish heap of Cancel Culture.
As I write in my poem, You Can’t Cancel Me:
I may quote or reference someone you disagree with;
I may quote or reference someone I disagree with.
I am presenting this piece as is and have only made a few infinitesimal punctuation and spacing corrections. I did not format to match my usual Chicago Manual of Style guidelines or insert commas so as to keep the raw, stream-of-consciousness flavor intact.
Devastating. Made me think of my father who drove a bulldozer across Europe in World War 2 and would not get his Canadian uniform out of the trunk to march on this day, or go down to the Legion to reminisce with the boys. Ever. Or my two grandfathers who both served in the World War 1 . One took a shotgun out into the orchard and blew his head off when I was a baby; the other died of a drinking-related illness when I was five. Both left their mental health on Flanders fields.
This is so important. War is a Racket - nothing more. It costs everything to the participants and enriches the few who wage it. Thank you for posting this.