Inside Private Pyle's Foot Locker

Remember Full Metal Jacket and the jelly doughnut?  Gunnery Sergeant Hartman yells: “They paid for it, you eat it!”  He’d already thrown the unlocked foot locker’s contents on the deck and is chewing out Private (Lawrence) Pyle, a “fat body.”  It used to happen to me all the time, except I never pushed my luck by hiding food.  I never saw an individual get caught like that.  Usually, the Drill Instructors would call a surprise inspection and nab several privates at a time.  All the combination locks would be locked together and we’d have to play “Football” with “Bends and Thrusts Forever” until the whistle blew and the fighting heap would attempt to unlock them.  Dumping the foot lockers of 10-15 recruits may have taken too much time in the cleanup.

What else was in there?  The time frame for Pvt. Pyle was roughly B.C. (Before Camouflage) and so was my time in MCRD in San Diego in 1975.  I remember the other contents well and they bring back a lot of memories - most of which aren’t pleasant.  Marines remember them well too: Em-Nu, a black paint in a nail polish type bottle used to darken brass like chevrons; corn starch and a paint brush for starching covers (hats); boot bands; skivvies; Barbasol shaving cream; clothes pins (we always washed our clothes by hand); Kiwi boot polish, black and neutral (neutral for polishing the deck before final inspection; cover block; and other standard issue things suitable for DI hurling.

Then there were the ill-used items.  Listerine (yellow) served as a mouthwash – sometimes.  The other times, stressed out privates would drink it.  The same would have been the case for brass polish like Brasso except for Dura-Glit, a British polish used for tie clasps and belt buckles.  Suicide was almost impossible because the liquid was absorbed by cotton balls.  We were permitted only Trac-2 razors because suicide became much harder.  (One private actually came close on my Fire Watch.  It was a bloody mess and I had to clean it up.)  I still use my Bassett nail clipper after all these years and I actually use it as it was intended.  Our Drill Instructors would use them as surgical instruments during inspections.  I vividly recall the private’s wart.  “Clop!” and it fell to the floor.  Remember the Mohel scene from Seinfeld? 

Our old olive drab Marine Corps foot lockers - I remember them well.  How many hours did we stand on them awaiting inspection like Private Pyle did when Hartman found his unlocked?  That jelly doughnut cost Pyle plenty even though he managed somehow to graduate from boot camp.  When I was there, our foot lockers also contained ordinary items with unpleasant, novel, and sinister uses that ex-Marines vividly recall and about which the movie-going public knows nothing.

Getting Mexico's Attention

On the federal level there is no solution.  Democrats shed crocodile tears over the border crisis involving women and children.  When they link up with the other 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S. the Left has cemented its demographic coup.  Our President knows when they are legitimized they will vote overwhelmingly Democrat completing the clever strategy and it seems unstoppable. Obama will do nothing because it’s not in his interest to do so; he has only two years to go in office.  The Republican leadership likes the cheap labor because they are businessmen whose class has chased cheap labor before the Industrial Revolution was thought of.  Threatening to cut off foreign aid to the sources of illegal alien hordes won’t work either.

But there is hope on the state level.  So far, there has been a failure to communicate with Mexico, the facilitator of our border deluge.  The governors of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, like President Obama, can also use their pens.  They have the power to issue conditional pardons to criminals in their states on the condition of immigrating to Mexico.  It’s a win-win for all Americans, especially our criminals who want freedom.

The concept is simple; fight fire with fire.  Each border state activates its national guard and establishes tent cities along the Mexican border.  Even if it’s in the desert, they’re no big deal.  I lived in one at 29 Palms, in the Mohave Desert for a month.  There is no need for elaborate or expensive fencing or walls because the desert is the fence and the maneuvers of the National Guard are accounted for and budgeted.   Who wants to go anyplace when the surface temperature in the afternoon is 144 degrees? On the other hand, there is freedom.  When our criminals arrive at the border they do so with the understanding that they will permanently become undocumented immigrants to Mexico (or any other country besides the U.S.).  If they break the terms of the pardon and return to the U.S., extra time will be added to their original sentence.

Before they go, our criminals should be properly outfitted:  two gallons of water, plenty of breakfast burritos and hot sauce, maps (for those who can read), an English-Spanish language book, rendezvous locations so that they can hook up with the gangs (MS-13) or cartels of their choice, the phone number of the local Mexican chapters of the ACLU or Hispanic civil rights groups, and plenty of Colorado pot and confiscated cocaine for trading stock.  If that sounds ridiculous then so is the very real crisis on our border with Mexico.   It’s time for our governors (all of them) to live up to their oaths of office and confront Mexico and the other nations south of us who use us as a dumping ground.

JSM Surpasses 10,000 Views

My Journal of the Silent Majority website now has more than 10,000 views.  My newer Ray N. Cherry Blog is also doing well.  The question of whether or not to create them was never in doubt because the chance of the little guy in America being heard without the Internet is almost non-existent.  That’s what the book is about – one person’s observation as to want has happened to the United States.  Michael Savage, the late night talk radio host, says what we have now is Armageddon.  I’d lost him for years after moving away from the Kansas City area.  He reappeared on Mountain Talk out the Mountain Home, Arkansas, one of the handful of stations around here that do not power down so much that people in the boon docks get no reception. 

It’s comforting to know there are others who believe America has hit the bottom with gay marriage, legalized pot, and a laundry list of leftist successes a mile long.  He sprinkles his show with short music from the Baby Boom past and his brand of irresistible sarcasm.  What he and I know is that our generation recalls another America that is not dead - yet.Savage, who has a PhD and is seven years older than me, has a book coming out in the fall which anticipates civil war in the United States.  I was surprised to hear someone on national radio say something like that.  He would be surprised to learn that someone on my level has put the reasons in writing and agrees ordinary citizens have reached the end of their rope.  There’s a lot in common with what he says nightly and JSM; I’d send him a copy if he’d ask.  I’m surprised the networks haven’t fired him because he dares to criticize them.

People are sick of hearing about Iraq.  (We don’t want to hear Dick (Darth Vader) Chaney’s comments on anything.)  Let the terrorists kill off one another.  The illegal aliens are flooding our borders like they’ve been doing for decades and no one does anything about it.  Surprise!  See my prediction come true in my “Quacking of the Lame Duck”blog post.The Republicans and FOX News blames President Obama for everything and threatens him with impeachment.  We know it will never happen – all this talk and more cry baby madness.  They impeached Bill Clinton and look what happened – nothing, the Senate convicts and look which family has its eyes on coming back to the White House.  Read my Journal of the Silent Majority and learn why a Third Party bid would be impossible.  I saw somewhere that Mt. Vesuvius smoked or 19 years before it blew.  America is long overdue.

Between the shrieks of the new Angel Davis on MSNBC calling for reparations for Blacks, I heard one of their many socialist commentators say events are going well for the Left and the end of their struggle is coming to an end because the Silent Majority is dying off.  They are right in both senses.  While pillaging and desecrating the inner sanctums of our institutions they have broken the mechanisms which held back the sand and have sealed their own fate.  

Unexpected JFK Magazine Trove

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  I ran into my treasure the other day as I was rummaging through the library’s surplus book room.  It’s not my first time; I’ve been doing it for decades searching for the good stuff of American history.  It’s like antique hunting – very addicting.  I noticed the library has upped its price on most donated books and magazines to 25 cents and in some cases even to $1.  Apparently the library doesn’t value historical research material.  I believe the JFK assassination warrants mandatory course study in every college.

There was a time when I could research the reference areas of the libraries in Kansas City with no problem.  (Mid-Continent North in Independence, Mo., across from the Truman Presidential Library was my favorite.)  Anyone had free access to comb the bound magazines of their choice. You can’t do that anymore because people started stealing them.  You have to ask the librarian what copies you want to see and he’ll bring them to you – a ridiculous situation.  How do I know which ones if I’ve never seen them?  I miss the joy of accidental discovery in public libraries.

All too often I’ve found stacks of National Geographic Magazines whose only function in their used condition is as ship ballast or waiting room reading material.  (People like the pictures especially if you’re in a dentist’s office.  There, people are too terrified to read.) This find really surprised me because the stack of JFK magazines was for sale, so I bought it for the hefty price of $2.50.  By now you know I’m a Kennedy conspiracy believer:

·         Life, July 25, 1960 “The Demonstration for Jack Kennedy”

·         Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 26, 1963 “How Jackie Kennedy Decorated …”

·         Look, December 31, 1963 with “In Memory of John F. Kennedy” patch

·         Look, Jan. 28, 1964 “Valliant is the Word for Jacqueline”

·         Life, Oct. 2, 1964, “The Warren Report” with 8 Zapruder frames

·         Life, July 16, 1965 “A Thousand Days”  “Start of A Series”

·         Life, Nov. 5, 1965 “A Thousand days” Part 4, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

·         Look, Feb. 7, 1967 “The Day JFK Died”

·         Look, Feb. 21, 1967 “Flight from Dallas”

·         Life, Nov. 24, 1967 “Last Seconds of the Motorcade”

From time to time I’ll be commenting on these contemporary primary sources.  As I casually glanced at some of the magazines, I noticed pictures I’ve never seen in popular JFK assassination material.  Some clever disinformation techniques were just beginning to be implemented after the Warren Commission Report and I’ll point them out.  I was also surprised how militant the Civil Rights Platform was in 1960 at Democratic National Convention.  (We are led to believe Kennedy’s position was one of conservative reluctance.)  Documents that contain insights about America’s most notorious coup d’état are worthy of preservation and study.  On the other hand, Warren Commission supporters probably would sell them for 25 cents a copy.

1960 Ford Falcon

This is a story of inflation and not necessarily of someone’s first car.  Remember those guys in high school who knew the details of every car that was ever made.  They could quote them all and what happened to them?  Perhaps they went on to be mechanics; at least, they would have made more money than me.  That’s the point.  After college I had $425 to my name going into the labor market with no job.  I asked my mom if I could have a car and she said, “Fine, go out and buy one” and that was that. 

After getting a job at Menorah Medical Center in Kansas City in 1971, I remember walking up to 39th and Main and catching the bus to 39th and Troost for the commute to Menorah.  It gets tiring after a while, but it had to be done to save for the car.  Eventually, I followed up on car leads that I found the Kansas City Star.  The first took me to a junk yard where the old man said “It runs good.” despite the fact that the engine was gushing oil like an Oklahoma oil rig.  My next lead was from Johnson County, Kansas where the rich folks live.  A father was upgrading his son’s car and selling his old 1960 white Ford Falcon for $325.  It wasn’t much to look at and the girls would laugh, but it would do the job.

In four years I had learned a lot about ownership especially how costs go up.  Now cars cost as much as houses used to.  That’s why I’ve learned to be cautious, fix what needs to be fixed, buy them new from now on, and drive them into the ground at around 186,000 miles.  I’ve included a record of my Falcon expenses because it shows how much things have changed.  For example, I used to get gas at 23 cents a gallon during the “gas wars” at the Hudson station at 38th & Main. Monthly insurance was $25.20. 

My Falcon met its demise came when I was in USMC boot camp in San Diego.  Mom wrote me that the local thieves were ripping it off in the drive way for parts.  I gave her Power of Attorney and that was that.  I still have fond memories of that old 1960 Ford Falcon.It was simple, mechanically sound, and easily maintained.  Of the four vehicles I’ve owned, three out of four have been Fords.

My Final Day in Scandinavia

In traveling to Malmo, I couldn’t help noticing the massive boulders and poor land which drove millions of Swedes out of their country.  Without the sun, it’s really bleak and cold.  Today tourists don’t have to take the ferry to Denmark because huge bridges have been built.  When I crossed over from Malmo and landed, I noticed a lady who was frantically telling the porters on the train that her suitcases were missing.  Everyone saw her; she was wearing all sorts of jewels.  I struck up a conversation with her.  In my travels I’ve met kids who were running away from their parents.  In Zurich I met a kid whose parents had sent junior away.  They were running away from him.  In Innsbruck I met an older fellow from South Africa who was running away from his wife, but the lady with the big diamonds was a first for me.  She was running away from her husband.

I arrived back in Copenhagen for the flight back to the United States at night when the prostitutes were all over the place.  It’s a major port with destroyers and huge cargo ships cluttering the background of the tourist snapshots of the Little Mermaid.   At my hotel I went to the lobby and sat for some time and had a nice international conversation with an Egyptian, an Iranian student, and a rich Kuwaiti who acted as our interpreter.  Since we were all of the same age group, the conversation inevitably got around to women.  He said that all the whores in Copenhagen were Finnish.  In fact, he said, many of the Danish population are Finns who have fled their country.  The Iranian fumed about the Shah of Iran and how they wanted to overthrow him and did in 1979.  I countered with how much the Shah had improved Iran.  I’ve learned to never underestimate the value of first hand opinions.  The Egyptian was pretty much reserved.

 

The Citadel is close to the harbor where the Little Mermaid is and I took a photo of the Gefion Fountain which is a major tourist site.  If I haven’t mentioned it, downtown Copenhagen is pedestrian only which helps to keep the streets clean and safe so that the tourists can spend their money.  At night nearly all the vices you can imagine come out in neon.  There are posters in store fronts during the day that are XXX disgusting.  Of course, as I’ve mentioned before Homoland franchises are everywhere.  Dagmar’s Hot Pants Inc.was alive and kicking.

My three week vacation to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden was not one made in the typical tourist mode.  I spent a little more money and had a better time; no more youth hostels and grapes and crackers for supper.  Scandinavia has good accessible food; I could always find it and I could eat when I wanted to.  The cities are clean and so are the bathrooms.  The Scandinavians are a cut above most Europeans.  I found them to be calm, un-pretenscious, well mannered, pragmatic, and disciplined (very little crime and I didn’t notice any graffiti).  Borrowing from Will Rogers; I never met a Scandinavian I didn’t like.

“Say. Are you black?”

In 1992 Camp Lejeune, North Carolina was crammed with desert tan vehicles which had just come back to the U.S. from Operation Desert Storm, the first invasion of Iraq.  Outside our Seabee Camp Cobra it seemed every pine tree had something under it.  Our unit was there for annual training for duty called TACON-92.  I’d transferred from the Marine Corps Reserve Support Center (MCSRC) in Overland Park, Kansas where cutbacks had terminated my billet.  It was my first summer camp with the Bees.

When you transfer between services, you end up taking pot luck.  First, I lost a rank.  Next, I ended up in Supply doing heavy lifting, but I’m not complaining because the move saved my career.  Without the help of Navy forklifts my job would have been impossible because Seabee construction boxes are heavy.  So there in a sand pit with the trucks is where you found me.  I marveled at the huge pine cones the size of footballs scattered about the area.

Of course, Camp Lejeune is big and we had many visitors. I remember clusters Jeep Cherokees, Marine Corps and Navy observers, umpires, and gaggles of officers who you’d never see normally.  Women had just been integrated in the Bees and were in our ranks as well as being among the officers who stopped by on business.  Curious civilians were there too.

All this activity and variety of people did not escape me because I have a natural inclination towards observation.  Call it a peculiarity.  When I was with MCRSC part of my duties was to call mobilization stations in the West.  Once, I talked to an officer whose last name was Kesselring.  I couldn’t help asking, “Say.  Are you related to Albert Kesselring, the German commander of the Afrika Korps?”  She was his niece.  Another time at formation and roll call with the Bees, someone called out “Petty Office Earhart”.  Afterwards, I couldn’t help asking, “Say.  Are you related to Amelia Earhart?”  He was a cousin.

There was this tall black stranger who approached our sand pit to watch the beginnings of our encampment.  He was there suddenly like the mountain man above the gorge in Deliverance.  He was probably 6 ft. 6” at least, but his features were different.  He looked black to me, but was he?  There was something odd about him.  I had to ask, “Say. Are you black?”  In a matter of fact way he replied that he was Sioux and a grandson of (the) Red Cloud.  I don’t remember his first name, but his last name was Bear and he was a retired Marine living on the base.  If you want to know what he looked like, he looked like the Red Cloud in the U.S. postage stamp.  You never know until you ask.