-The sixth suicide in protest by a Buddhist Monk on the streets of Saigon, Vietnam in less than a month. June, 1963

Tuesday - 1992 or 1996
Kailua-Kona Veterans Center
Subject: Endless Debriefing

Natasha breezed barefooted and entirely too perky into the interrogation office, ( A debriefing room, like ITT, except after the session is over your not taken out back and shot...) it's adobe white washed windows and it’s single pane of glass overlooking the garden was beginning to resemble a prison cell. I went to ‘Jail’ every Tuesday at 11:00 a.m.


"How are you do today Ron?" This time I chose not to respond. The question was asinine if not inane. Besides without the obvious presence of a fully stocked ‘wet bar’ the question was impossible to answer. She continued, "Tell me about Vietnam." I bit, "That's all we ever have talked about. More Vietnam huh. Guess I missed something. Was I sleeping?" "Tell me where you were," She demanded. "When?" I asked. "There!" She barked, pointing to a little map of Vietnam. I ignored her attempt to direct my response to the map she was pointing to. "I've been here waiting on you,” I shot back. God! I was confused.

"No! Tell me more about where you were in Vietnam!" She explained. Her face was a portrait of impatience on the verge of anger. "I already have!" Setting the tone for today’s federally mismanaged joust.

“Don't get on your soapbox again!” She snapped. Better be careful with her. Looks like a bad hair day, which is to say that if consistent and unwavering repetition can be employed as empirical evidence then it follows that every Tuesday around Eleven is a bad hair day.


A facial expression of total surprise preceded with advanced warning is not an easy thing to achieve. I gave it a shot. “Oooh! I get it Nat. You want to hear the gory stuff about ‘them’. Not ‘us’. You want to hear all the gooey stuff we did to those so-called ‘stink'n slopes’, ‘gooks’, the ‘Asian Menace’!” I replied with complete disdain.

“Ooops! Nat your middle finger is extended again perhaps you should see a neurologist!” I smirked. God I loved baiting this woman. She sat there getting more angry by the moment. It was like watching water come to a boil.

“I give! Chieu Hoi! (I surrender) What would you like to hear today? I know! How's about ‘Buddhist Flambé’?" She bit...


“What's that?” She asked. I mentally added a new facial expression to her list of facial expressions.


“Well, ya' see the Buddhists are essentially peace loving little guys, and they don't particularly like anyone fighting and killing each other, at least not on their turf. So in protest to show their disproval they, from time to time, pick a nice public spot; douse themselves with gasoline and strike a match. Poof! Monk Ka-bab!”

“How do you prefer your 'Cao-Dai' Natasha? ‘Rare’, ‘Medium’, or ‘Well Done’?” I yawned, taking on the bored voice of waiter in a fast food steak house. (You have to find your entertainment these days wherever you can. For me it was the Vet Center and the VA.)

“Your impossible Ron! Why do you even bother coming here?” And all this time I thought I was if nothing else...’Possible’, guess I was wrong. Ignoring her I continued, “You have your choice of ‘Baked Potato’ or ‘fries’, ‘Soup’ or ‘Salad’. Would you care to scan the wine list? I suggest a ‘fruity’ little German white wine. A fragrant bouquet, slightly sweet...like me.”

“Piss off!” She said aloud. She was just two decibels below a scream. “Hey! It was your fucking idea sunshine!” I grinned defensively. “What is ‘Cao-Dai’?” She asked.

“It is a Buddhist Sect, their symbol is sort of a reversed ‘Swastika’ except it doesn't have the same symbolic, or historical Nazi reference.” I responded, using my ‘Professor of SocioReligious History’ face. She gave me her best ‘I don't believe a fucking word your saying look.’ “Check it out if you don't believe me Nat.”

“Think of the similarity; imagine the reversed design of the ‘Swastika’ as a symbolic synonym of sorts...well that's not quite the right word either. I got it! Maybe a reversed mirror image...hey that's pretty good huh? The original is ‘Evil; it’s mirrored image is ‘goodness and Truth’ Or you can think of it as a symbolic antonym. Damn! I'm good!”


“Your arrogant Ron!” “No way Nat! Your just feeling inferior today!” “Screw you! Let's move along our time is running out.” She scolded. “Time wouldn't be running out if we hadn't invented the damn concept!” I mumbled. She Ignored my retort and repeated herself, “Your arrogant!” “Is that a fact! History? Anyone? Yes, you over there. Yeah you little girl,” I pointed to her. “Ron!” She admonished.

“Sorry Nat! You appear to be the only student who didn’t call in sick today.” “Ron it’s almost time for lunch. I’m hungary!” “Your insatiable Nat!” “Buddha was inaugurated by himself in India in the 6th century, B.C., not only that but he swore himself in and gave his own oath to himself. I swear to Buddha!“ I added. “Who cares!” She snapped, “Your not going to shut up are you?” Ding! You have to remember that when confronted with experienced ITT personnel your only defense is a good offense.


“Buddha tells us that the world is a transient reflex of deity, our souls a vital spark and with divine contemplation; we are able to force ourselves into the wrong jigsaw puzzle piece by divine essence. I don’t know what that means Nat but it tells me that if your spark plugs need changing do it; and if your piece of the puzzle won’t fit...you can always use force. I prefer a hammer. The only time I ever had a transient reflex was the last time I flew on ‘Aloha Airlines’ it scared the shit outta me!” “Your nuts Ron!” Without looking up as she rummaged through a beach bag for her lunch.

“Buddha comes in 4 flavors.” I held the statement like a prolonged musical note waiting for her to look at me. She found her tupperware midday meal and slammed it on the table and glared. Close enough!

“Well, make that 8 flavors,” I said watching the parade of confusion and anger march back and forth across her face. “I don’t suppose you can rant and rave the rest of this story in ‘Sign’ can you,” She asked without any hint of sarcasm. “I used to be able to ‘Sign’ but now all I remember is ‘Y’, it’s the same as the Hawaiian ‘Shaka-Na’, and of course I’m still working on the Vulcan hand signal for ‘Live long and prosper’. I noticed you only ‘Sign’ with your middle finger extended. Why is that Nat?”

She popped the lid on her lunch and shoved my ‘Progress Notes’ aside. It would appear she had gone to lunch and I had not. “Buddha says the 8 flavors of life come in a buffet of choices. ‘Pain exists’, ‘The cause of pain is ‘Birth Sin’...which means your sins are cumulative including previous lives. That’s why cats have such rotten luck.”


“Are you done yet Ron? I don’t believe cats are bad luck,” She stated with fearless abandon. “Well I dunno Nat. Next time your cat is preening; watch it lick it’s ass then come directly to you and give you a big kitty smooch. There’s a raging case of ‘Salmonella’ looking for a home. I had a cat once. His name was ‘Bacilli’.”


“That’s disgusting Ron!” Duly admonished and noted. “Well I guess that’s why I never called him ‘Pussy’,” Offering up my best salacious shit eating grin. “Pain is only ended by Nirvana,” Returning to the subject. Nat looked at her watch, “That’s good, my watch says it’s about ten minutes to Nirvana!”


“Buddha tells us we need the ‘Right Faith’, ‘Right Judgment’, ‘Right Language’, ‘Right Purpose’, ‘Right Practice’, ‘Right Obedience’, ‘Right Memory’, and ‘Right Meditation’. I’m lucky if I have the ‘Right Change’ for the soda machine. “You have the ‘Right to remain silent’, She barked without looking up, “Like I said Ron, your arrogant!”

She had fixed her gaze on mine; it was dueling eyeballs. “You know Nat. I remember my Senior Chief at NAS Memphis constantly telling me I was arrogant and ‘lazy’, castigating me for always looking for the '’easy way’ to do something. I told him I was indeed, if not in fact, far from being lazy. I told him that his comments were without merit; that I prefer him to think of me as a ‘systems analyst’.”

“I don't believe your story about the reversed ‘Swastika’ Ron!” “Oh yeah? Show me a ‘skin head’ that wears bright day glow orange, isn't a Nazi, and offers up a reversed ‘Swastika’ as the symbol of an order that is devoted to life and love. Hint: You can't include the ‘C.I.A.’ They are the bad guys, despite the fact that most of them have little or no hair. At least some or most have a ‘flattop’, old style ‘Butch’ haircuts; a style in vogue these days reserved in these modern times for women who like to wear comfortable shoes, no make-up and stomp their way through life.”

“We aren't discussing ‘Bull Dykes’ here today Mr. Ferrell!” “Who said anything about ‘Bull Dykes’? I dunno what a ‘Bull Dyke’ is. Wait! I got it! An angry steer from Holland? No? How about a “Male Berm’? No? Okay, I give.”

As she scrawled copious rapid fire so called ‘Progress Notes’ I hummed ‘I could wile a way the hours convers’in with the flowers if I only had a brain...


“Tell me about MAD-CAP Ron!” Damn! She was fast; shifted gears without a sound. She just hit fourth gear while running the engine rpm up to the mark and shifted without using a clutch. Now that's slip’n it in!


“We've discussed that remember? Last jail tim..e...uh..I mean, last Tuesday, or was that just ten minutes ago?” I reminded her. “Oh! What the hell! In a few more minutes and I’m outta here and going for some beer call.


“It’s ‘MEDCAP’ Nat, not ‘MAD-CAP’. ‘MAD-CAP’ was the General staff officers assigned to The Republic of South Vietnam’s ‘M.A.C.V.’ General Westmoreland was the ‘Mad-Hatter’, McNamara was the ‘Bunny’,” I laughed out loud. “The ‘MEDCAP’, was a ‘psywar’ program to take modern ‘American’ everyday conveniences to the rural hamlets.”


“ You said ‘Psywar’?” Nat repeated. She looked like a [‘?’] Question mark wearing a dress. “Yeah Nat, ‘psywar’. It means ‘Psychological Warfare’. Not unlike what was taking place in the small adobe room. It used to be called ‘brainwashing’. Now it's ‘psywar'’, besides bureaucrats have tons of soap but no brains to wash so that point is moot. Anyhow you have to understand that the bureaucratic mind does not like to use a complete word or complete sentence. Hell! They won't utter a word without a script writer. They like to condense words. Probably to make themselves look more important by confusing the public and of course the more they condense the less they say, which means the less trouble they get into when opening their big mouths. Neat huh?”

“Nat? I asked, with a tone of insecurity, where were we?” “The ‘MEDCAP’,” She responded, bringing me up to speed and getting it right at the same time. What a gal!


“Oh! Yeah! ‘MEDCAP’! That’s right Nat! K-Mart in downtown Phu Son! We brought them soap thinking they must need it since they don't use soap and we do; or drugs. They have no drugs to speak of. Where is ‘Long’s’ Pharmacy when ya’ need’em? The more remote villagers rely on the pharmacy that is the Jungle around them.”


“Huh?” Her face was busy rewriting a new expression of confusion across her face. A directory of Veterans Center totally blank facial expressions §11.1 see catalog.


“What Nat? You think every drug comes magically from a major pharmaceutical manufacturer; synthesized for your medical convenience? Jeez! Remember the ‘Betel Nut’ and it’s narcotic effects? Think of it as Tylenol with Codeine from the folks at Wrigley's. Point is, we ran into full blown cases of Hansen’s Disease going untreated, and of course the military in Vietnam was not prepared for that surprising medical contingency’ at least not at our squad level.” I was talking to a white adobe textured wall.


“Leprosy Nat! Remember?” I pantomimed a ‘knock-knock’ on the side of my head. “Molokai? Father Damien? The Kalaupapa peninsula? Belgium? Any bells ringing yet sweet thang?”


“I could easily grow to dislike you very much Ron!” Volley followed by return. “Take a number babe!”


“You mentioned the ‘Ho Chi Minh Trail’ and Laos. Can you show that to me on the map?” My God! That was quick! Dropped the rpm’s again and slid into first without a sound! Andy eat your heart out! She'll burn you down at Indy.


I studied her silly little ‘National Geographic’ foldout map on the wall and the famous route was not marked for her. So I sort of faked a pencil line along where I thought the route was, or used to be. I wonder if it’s still there rebuilt; maybe even paved like Interstate 25 South through Colorado skirting the ‘Rockies’


“You were in Laos?” She asked surprised. I mimed her expression of ‘wonderment’ and added flippantly, “You betcha! Well at least if I wasn’t I could see if from where I was. I was also in Strawberry Point, Iowa once too! I’m a travel’n ‘Son-of-a-Bitch’!” I waited for her response wearing my ‘full-house’ poker hand face. She didn't bite. What goes around, for me, seems to never come back. It just leaves. Story of my life.

Tedium took over while I was distracted by less exciting events so I relented, “A couple of times for night ambushes; but officially like President Nixon said in 1972, ‘We do not have U.S. Military forces in Laos’. Well I can’t speak for him or the others but we did spend a lot of time sitting around the ‘Ho-Chi-Minh’ off ramps waiting for traffic to trample by. I don't have any idea what it’s like these days.”

“Vientiane the capital of the ‘Kingdom of Laos’ is not exactly a destination resort! Of course what the ‘C.I.A.’ did in Laos by way of their blacking out ‘C.I.A.’ activities during the war there is kind've like what ‘White-Out’ did for typing errors!”

She was pointedly ignoring my glib repartee and speed shifting through her mental ‘Progress Notes’ like a pro. Make a mental note to not drink and drive, but by all means drink and interrogate, or interrogate and drink. What the hell! Do all three!

I suddenly felt like only giving her my Name, Rank and Serial Number! “What's the strangest thing you ever saw?” She asked. As soon as this session was over I was going to find out what she drove. My gut instinct told me it was a Cobra.


“You mean here in the Vet Center or in Vietnam?” I dodged another airborne pencil. “I dunno Nat. I guess it depends on what you define as strange. You mean ‘strange-strange’ or do you mean surrealistic:
what?”


“Whatever!” ‘Woo-whoo’! Touchy! “I once met an acrophobic crew chief on a UH-34d.” One, two, three, four... “Well you please be serious just one fucking time!” The one and only microwave oven with a ‘P.M.S.’ setting. ‘Honey! Your fucking dinner is done you lazy worthless bastard!’


“During a ‘MEDCAP’ we chopped in regular American made white porcelain toilets. The ‘Seabee's’ had pre-rigged wood towers using discarded aircraft ‘drop’ tanks to hold the water and created a sort of communal ‘out house’ with flush toilets. Two months later on a return to the village the water tower was gone; the latrine was dismantled and the wood used elsewhere in the hamlet and the toilets had been filled in at the base like pottery. They were being used as cooking pots. Bet you never think of Crock pots the same again huh Nat?”


“Put a roast on the old toilet over a low flame in the morning before leaving for the office. Spend the day talking to goof balls like me and come home to a fine, tasty, tender toilet roast! Noth’in says lov’in like something from the oven. Oh! fuck! Now you have me thinking of my first ex-wife!”

“Your a Crock!” She snorted. “Me? A Crock? I handed it back to her. “You mean Crock as in a large vessel filled with vast amounts of knowledge?” I baited her. “No! I mean a Crock full of S**T.” She quipped, using the ‘S’ word like someone uses the ‘S’ word without using the ‘S’ word. She apparently was not ready to surrender one consonant or buy a vowel.

“That's weird!” She conceded, shaking her head. “Why would they do that after all that work and after you showed them the sanitary benefits? I don't understand.” She was wearing her ‘Lost in Space face’.

“The Vietnamese have been crapping and pissing along side their water buffalo in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia for centuries. It is a natural fertilizer. It helps the rice, which feeds them. Flushing such a valuable commodity down the tubes did not make sense to them,” I continued. Mentally noting that the ‘crap quotient’ in Kona Veterans Center could feed most of China for the next century.

“Can't argue with a couple of millennia of success can ya’ Nat?”

“You mean a few billion Chinese can't be wrong.” Flash traffic! Federal employee guilty of comprehension. More to follow.

“Bingo! Your catching up Nat! What's the score so far? This beats the shit out of ‘Scrabble’ any day of the week lady!” “How where the rural people towards you? I mean were they glad to receive your medical efforts?” She inquired. Okay belay last Flash traffic notice regarding Federal personnel. This one apparently believes the Vietnamese are cosmopolitan?

“It depends on what you mean by ‘glad’ or ‘friendly’. Since you brought it up regarding that matter there are several levels of ‘glad’ and ‘friendly’.”


“Is there some reason why I can’t ever get a straight answer from you Ron?” She asked. Of course I ignored her.

“Sometimes the ‘friendlies’ were friendly and sometimes they were unfriendly, depending on how unfriendly the ‘VC’ were the day before we arrived or the day after we left any given hamlet. We were always friendly, unless we were pissed then we were unfriendly and burned the ‘villes’ to the ground with Trioxyene heat tabs or ‘recon by fire’. I had a friend once!”


“Okay!” She said tiredly, “Let's move on.” “I don't think so babe.” I said with the same inflection of fatigue. I reached over the table and took a pencil from her hand and drew four vertical pencil marks on the wall then crossed them out with a diagonal slash. It surprised her.


I said, “Times up for today! Got to go!” As I left her office I stopped and turned and warned her, “Next Tuesday! Don't be late! Oh! And the marks on the wall; you win this one! Just don't let it go to your head. The game is just beginning. Aloha Nui Loa!"

-END-


‘Fylfot - A mystic sign or emblem known also as the ‘Swastika’
and GAMMADION and in HERALDRY as the ‘Cross Cramponnee’,
used (especially in Byzantine architecture and among North American
indians) as an ornament of religious import. It has been found
at Hissarlik, on ancient Etruscan tombs, CELTIC monuments,
Buddhist inscriptions, Greek coins, etc.
It has been thought to have represented the power of the ‘SUN’
and of the Four Winds, of Lightning, and so on. It is used
nowadays in jewelry as an emblem of luck and was adopted
as the Nazi badge. The name ‘Fylfot’ was adopted in
antiquaries from MS. of the 15th century and is possibly
‘Fill - Foot’, signifying a device to fill the foot of a stained
glass window.

- Source -
‘Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable’
Harper & Row Publishers, N.Y., 1981
ISBN-0-06-014903-5
p. 460, illus. p. 291 - # 21