|
Roger Hare
06-29-2002 08:10:44
|
Years ago, I was unlucky enough to go to Vietnam. There were two types of people there. The "Grunts", who were in the trenches doing the real work, and the REMF'S(rear-echelon mother-***'s), who spouted rules from a book. These rules killed Grunts. The REMFS would look at a map and say:"According to this book published in 1932, we should take-over area X".
Sure enough, we'd be ordered to area X, even though we knew from experience it was empty and filled with booby-traps. Tours of 'Nam were only one year for Grunts like me, but let's see you wake up every day thinking you won't wake up tomorrow.
Forget the V.C., we kicked their butts up and down the Mekong, it was the booby-traps that stood the best chance of killing you. Now some REMF is telling you to walk across a rice-paddy because he read it somewhere. Oops, I'm covered in my friends guts to make some officer look good. Eventually we learned "selective ignorance". We told 'em we'd walked through area X, when really we sat in the shade and "shot the bull". Just as much was accomplished. Now we have REMF Dell calling the shots from Saigon. Uh-oh...incoming!
"Dell, why can't I switch the positive and negative cables from my 8Ns battery?" (take cover!!)
BWUMP-"Go to Radio Shack first"
BWUMP-"Ask for an 02 Gonkulator"
BWUMP-"If they've never heard of it, It's not my fault"
BWUMP-"My book says search area X".
Whew! That was close! I may not be as lucky the next time. As we Grunts sit in the shade, shootng the Bull, REMF Dell is telling us things we've already learned the hard way. My Uncle is from Seatle, and his words of wisdom still ring true:"Son, Boeing is the sound a plane makes when it hits the ground". PFC G. Pyle 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry U.S. Army-retired
|
|
|
|
