'A MAN WITHOUT RELIGION IS LIKE A
FISH WITHOUT A BICYCLE!'
By
Ron 'Doc' Ferrell (FMF)
Republic of Vietnam 5/66 - 7/67
1st Batt./5th Mar. & H&S III M.A.F.
(Chu-Lai T.A.O.R.)
© 1998
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A carload of Corpsmen from NAS Naval Hospital Pensacola, Florida found me and suggested we go to New Orleans for a pick-me-up. They were drunker than I was. Naturally I was appointed navigator. I pointed East. Several hours later we hit the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia. We stopped at a small dive and had several beers to clear our minds. Then we voted on West. Two days later we found New Orleans by accident. It was in the middle of the highway. We nearly hit it. I don't remember much of the visit. There was a huge festival taking over the city. I was starving. All drink and no food. I double parked in front of a convenience store and dashed in and bought a loaf of bread, a package of sliced bologna and a black magic marker. I was pissed. There was no parking for fifty miles in any direction. I was not going to walk ten miles to a bar. Hell! I could barely make ten feet. I ate the bread and went down the line of parked cars scribbling ‘Illegal Parking Violation’ notices, using the magic marker to write the ‘meat’ ticket violations on the baloney; putting a lunch meat notice under each vehicle's windshield wiper. I don't remember much of New Orleans or the trip back to the base. When I was overcome with a sense of sobriety I walked into the Senior Chief's office and asked if there was anyway I could get out of my duty station. I felt certain that given another bottle of rum much less another trip to New Orleans, I wouldn't see age nineteen. The Chief handed me a clipboard and said sign this. Most accommodating Navy Chief Petty Officer I ever met. He also was an accomplished ‘bull-shit’ artist. He explained it was a volunteer sheet for ‘FMF’ (Fleet Marine Force) duty with the Marines. The Marines? I puzzled. He explained that the Navy provided the Marine Corps with medical personnel and equipment. Learn something new everyday. He explained I would go to ‘FMF’ school at Camp LeJeune. I had no idea were that was, but it had to be better than Florida. He further explained that after the schooling was over I would be sent to Vietnam.
I had no idea where Vietnam was. He explained that it was a small 'Police Action' in Southeast Asia. At the time I could not connect Police Actions to Marines. Cops are cops and Marines are .... well, Marines. In late May of 1966 I landed in Vietnam without a radio. I lost contact with “Rock 'n' Roll”. It made no difference. The sound of music was trapped in an acoustic 'whiteout' called artillery. After a lengthy fire fight all you heard was ringing between your ears. Add Bing Crosby to that and you could hum 'White Christmas'. After my first full on fire fight my colonic Huastra disappeared like the terminus of an escalator and the fear of God shot through me like shit through a goose. I wasn't religious. I suddenly wished I was. At that point I was not going to add to my list of flaws the label: 'hypocrite'. There are many flavors of religion. It's like 'Baskin & Robbins' were you get a choice of 31 flavors. The military buys up all the flavors blends them together and you get 31 religions in the personae of a military chaplain. He can prop you up and soothe your mortal soul in a New York minute, and change religions faster than most people can change facial expressions to deal with the next soul in need. A man of God dressed strangely enough, as I was, with the exception of a long purple ribbon around his neck approached me. He was an officer. I came to attention. He said, "Relax son, I'm not here as an officer. I'm here to comfort you spiritually." He held someone's Bible, for all I know it was a Mitchner novel with a fake cover jacket. The convoy was gearing up to head South into Quang Ngai Province. He reached for my hand and placed it on his Bible and bowed his head and said, "Let us pray."
I jerked my hand back like by virtue of sheer reflex. The Holy Man looked at me in disbelief. "Don't you want to pray for your immortal soul young man?",he asked. I said, "Save it for someone who needs the crutch Sir." His face reddened in clerical anger. "Sir, I explained, I'm not religious. I have never been to church. Why start now?" He reached for my hand again and turned it palm side up. I think he was looking for a '666' (the number of the beast cast from Heaven's gate by the archangel Michael) brand on my palm. He placed a hand full of beads in my hand and closed my fingers over them. "keep this with you my son," he commanded. I stared at the little string of beads and flipped them on the lap of my jeep driver. I looked at the Holy Man and said, "Pray for him, I think he needs it more than I do," pointing to the steel plate and sandbags the driver had jammed under his seat. The head vehicles in the convoy were beginning to move. I could hear the reve of the diesel engines and see the black smoke from the stacks as they moved out. The Holy man quickly retrieved the beads and shared a bond with the driver as they quickly exchanged whispered hopes of survival here or in the hereafter. The column, one vehicle after another, began to move. The Holy Man needed to deal with me, then move quickly back down the column to administer his rites to the other souls waiting patiently in line for their blessing; an ecumenical send off to celebrate their trip to Hell. The ‘Holy-Man-Super-Deluxe-Blend-Of-31-Flavors-Of-Religion’ came around to my side of the jeep and asked me again if I wanted to pray for my salvation. Again, I looked at him without expression and said, "Save it Padre for those who need the crutch to justify their existence, or death.” He told me it was never to late to let God into my heart. Gene Kruppa was performing a full drum solo inside my cardiac muscle. I couldn’t hear God if he screamed over a loud speaker.
Two trucks ahead of us began to move. The Holy Man was waiting; apparently to the last second. He was, if nothing else, devoted to his cause. I looked at him and said as the driver put our jeep in gear, "A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle!" "What is the meaning of that remark," he asked. "It's self-explanatory, like an axiom," I replied We slowly began moving forward and he walked with us. I said, "Does a fish require a bicycle?" He said, "Don't be absurd, you know fish don't need bicycles!" I said, "Exactly, and man, by the same token, doesn't need Religion!" He increased his pace to keep up with us, but the column shot forward and we left him behind. I watched him slowly turn and walk back toward the end of the column on his quest to save souls. ‘Hell’ is not the flip side of God’s salvation or religion. It is man made. ‘Heaven’ is death. ‘Hell’ is the third planet orbiting a relatively small star in a massive galaxy, in a larger universe. Perhaps all the other entities in the universe who sin go to ‘hell’; a place called 'Terra' the planet Earth; the home of the only species that has devoted it’s history to destroying themselves. 'Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, cuz’ I'm the meanest motherf**ker in the valley' -END-
Copyright 1975 - 2001 By - Ron ‘Doc’ Ferrell |