A Veteran's Day Reverie: Bullets, bullets everywhere...and not a drop to drink.

Where were you when.....?

In the thirties we had Poppy Days in the whole United States, including the Bronx, with American Legion WWI Veterans standing on street corners selling poppies celebrating Decoration Day and Armistice Day.

Armistice Day was was really special.11:00 AM on the 11th day of November commemorated the signing of the World War I Armistice.

The whole of the United States came to a dead fucking halt at exactly at 11:00am. Grade schools, high schools, people at work, Mommies screaming at kids, everything came to a dead stop. Cars stopped moving, clerks quit selling, teachers quit talking. It seemed as though the whole world quit breathing for 2 minutes.

Decoration Day was originally a commemoration day for the Civil War dead of both sides. It morphed into Memorial Day which commemorates all US war dead. (Naturally, it was switched to a Monday to give everyone a three day weekend.)

Armistice Day morphed into Veterans Day to celebrate veterans of all US wars. The greatest beneficiaries of both holidays are the retailers, resort owners and asshole politicians who use both days as excuses to run off at the mouth. Except they do have great old war movies on TV.

'Those were the days my friend.We thought they'd never end.'...Fiddler On The Roof..

The Brits still celebrate their Remembrance Day with Poppies Galore. Men and women both wear them.

Standing on the Coke line while in the hospital on Saipan: The Japanese soldiers left in the hills hadn't read the Marine Corp's press releases and didn't know that the U.S. had 'taken' the island. Almost every afternoon came wham, bam, slam! Out of the fucking hills flew the bullets.We learned that the term 'gun fire' was for the movies and 'bullets' were for the real war world.

The guys in line scattered like whores in a whore house being raided by the police.We went for the ditches.Why we thought that diving into open ditches was safer than just standing in line just beats the shit out of me.We just felt like we had to move.

The most bothersome thing about those flying bullets was that when you have been hit once you know that you're not omnipotent and sometimes it's you in the line of fire and not just the other poor son of a bitch. You had always believed getting hit was for someone else.

But the most annoying result of the bullets from the hills was losing my place in the Coke line. Me and my gimpy leg were slow to stagger back and I always ended up at the end of the fucking line.

Officers didn't know from standing on line for a coke or a God damn O'Henry bar.We played poker for slices of the O'Henry bars. Shooting craps in the latrine of the hospital for real money was for post WWII Korea and on the deck of the hospital ship.

Bernie Feshbach & Buddy Goldfarb - Tinian 1945

But then, what the hell were you going to do to kill time in a hospital for the ambulatory, on a fucking island in the middle of nowhere, that you had never heard of. Swimming never seemed to be an option though we did go swimming when on Okinawa after the war ended. Saipan is now a resort destination for the Chinese. Who'da thought?

And why Coke and not Pepsi or O'Henry and not Baby Ruth? We were sure that some assholes behind desks in the states were getting paid off. Turns out we were mostly right.Graft for government contracts during WWII was very real.

My Pop, during the war, volunteered to manufacture, at no profit, the sheepskin vests used by the Air Force and some asshole government contract officer wanted a payoff. Patriot for a price.

'Drop your c...s and grab your socks.' was the sergeant's screaming wake up call in the States. On Okinawa, Saipan, Tinian, etc., sleeping was edgy and playing with yourself was not so important.

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