Optimism, The Army's Greatest Lesson!!!

Google says (and Google knows all) that 16,000,000 served in WWII. 

And Google also says that as of D Day, 2014 there were only 1,000,000 of us left and surely much less by now this April of 2015. 

Being one of 1,000,000 doesn't sound very special. But one of 1,000,000 sounds so much better than being one of 16,000,000 so I'll take it, gladly.

The services are great optimism training grounds, especially during war time and in combat. All but the Section 8 candidates were sure of the inevitability of their getting home, sooner or later, safe and sound. And their girlfriends having waited patiently for them. But the ultimate in optimism was the hurry for discharged vets, schmucks like me, to get out of the service and get married.

Schmuck is the Yiddish word for penis which we all know is a really stupid appendage.When a man gets old the schmuck doubles down on stupid and it becomes a fucking dripping faucet. (This is Noah talking about the flood.)

Guys became Section 8 candidates when they started over worrying about their own welfare.Section 8 was for those with mental problems. Anyone looking healthy, going on sick call too often was suspicioned of bucking for a medical discharge including a Section 8. Check the film Patton where Patton slaps the frightened, distraught soldier.

I was accused of bucking for a Section 8 or a medical discharge by a fucking starched up newbie doctor, who just arrived in Saipan from the States. God was he self-important and pompous with shiny new lieutenant bars and freshly pressed uniform. 

As opposed to the officers who had endured Okinawa, Saipan and more. Those guys had, as we all had, learned lessons in mortality.

I couldn't walk up the fucking hill to the mess hall and complained, almost daily about it. It took a pediatrician to read the X-rays and determine that the impact of the bullet had destroyed the inside of my knee.Certainly wasn't cause for discharge. I was happy to get back to my outfit. 

A Section 8 discharge was an appetizing vehicle for the worrier/pessimist. He not only got out of the service but then received a lifetime of disability pay. You never thought consciously about being an optimist when in the service. It came with the territory.

How else could you do a fucking 20 mile forced march in the Sacramento Valley, during July in100 plus degree heat without being an optimist? And get to your barracks which were originally a Japanese detention center with low slung, tar paper roofs? Out of the sun, into a sauna. But optimistically still breathing while trying to cool off in your underwear.

Optimism is endemic in the service. Even when grousing about some impossible to understand directive that showed up. And since your life was totally controlled with the exception of going to the latrine what was there to worry about?

Optimism is the most notable, enduring lesson the Army taught me. Think 'down' and be 'down'... 

~

Okinawa and 70 Years Later

April 25, 2015 marks my 91 1/2 years birthday. At my age, recognizing six months at a time seems right.

There is nothing but gratitude in my heart for my two ex-wives. Neither one followed their strong inclination to kill me.They both had a litany of what was and still is, wrong with me besides my just being alive. And neither was shy in ripping my ass open. Just my being in their presence and talking made everything really bad for them.

But like the classic dumb Jew that I am, I kept trying to please the 'unpleasable'. The most surprised person at still being fucking alive at 91 1/2 is me.

April 12, 2015 is really a big fucking anniversary for me. It is 70 years to the day, on Okinawa, that a bullet made its way, in a hurry, through my left leg. A little higher and that little devil would have gone through my scrotum and would have destroyed my dreams of sexual glory.

Instead it just, thank God, left me with limp. I had hoped that the limp would make me look distinguished. No chance.Use a lift in my shoe.

Not that my first wife considered me to be the last of the Latin or Jewish lovers. She never was an admirer of my love making skills.But then she wasn't even close to hot. Hookers on the other hand never complained. $100-$200 up front, made me King Kong for 30 minutes, more or less. Mostly less.

The real fighting on Okinawa began about a week after the initial landings.The landings began on a beautiful, Easter Sunday, April 1.The cannon fire noise from the battleships was ferocious. Being young and not too fucking smart, I was fearless.

When the rains came, Okinawa turned into an enormous mud hole. Mud, ass high.

My first experience with gunfire taught me nothing.When you're 21 you know, for sure, that if anyone was going to get hit or killed it was going to be the other guy. That time it was Sgt. Hobbs who came from a bifurcated town, Texarkana, part in Texas, part in Arkansas, who caught a deadly bullet.

We were unloading a Landing Craft when the Japanese Zero's came swooping in.We scattered to underneath the trailers swearing at the fucking airplanes.One fatal casualty, lots of damaged egos.

70 years later, at 91 1/2, life for me ain't easy but it's better than the alternative.Optimism, trying to live like I'm 40, are keys to living long and liking it. Keeps me charging.

~

Jewish, Irish, Italian Guilt

Jews and Irish make ideal marriage partners because they both lead guilt driven lives.

The Irish are guilty forever because they left their mother's womb. The Jews are guilty because they showed up. Italian Catholic men have their share of guilt except when it comes to cheating on their wives. That's part of the culture.

But the Italians know that a stiff schlong has no conscience and have no problems with that notion. But then you don't have be Italian to live in that style, except for the goody two shoes guys or guys with erectile dysfunction. But Viagra doesn't overcome guilt.

One of the saving graces of being in the Army is that I never felt guilty. Stupid often but guilty, never. Someone else was making the good and bad decisions.

The Princess made up for my guilt free Army time lapse. The Princess drove guilt into me like I was the nail and she was the hammer. She remembered, until the day she died, every asshole thing I ever did and I did many.

The good stuff was totally forgotten, surely not mentioned. The Princess was the ultimate co-alcoholic and booze was a momentary relieving virtue for me but then guilt took over.

Being a traveling schmatta salesman did have its strong points. I was in charge of my life driving that dress laden car,but guilt helped my drive to excel.

There I was, traveling with my typewriter banging out thank you notes every night in my motel room, to the buyers who would look at my line of dresses and sorry I missed you notes to those who weren't in. To the the rude assholes who effectively told me to fuck off went a conciliatory note as well.

Those last notes were tough to write.

If I got blasted instead of writing those notes, guilt stepped in and I did double penance the following night. I hated writing those fucking notes but hated the prospect of failing even more.

Yeah guilt is a great driver. Guilty if going a day without a sale. Guilty if getting in the bag instead of writing notes. Guilty of having 'going to hell' thoughts by looking at a great looking gal and wishing I could bang her.

No cuddling.

Being around the oil and gas business, being a car salesman, being a stock salesman or a private equity entrepreneur were a constant challenge to telling the truth and avoiding guilt.

One time that guilt never came into play was when I sold a previously foundered horse who had become a stumbler, at an auction in Iowa. It was my turn to fuck the Iowa farmers who had fucked this ignorant Bronx Jew for four miserable years.

~

Nothing Happens Til Something Is Sold

'Wouldja take?' ...

Selling cars was like getting a PhD in human nature but without the pain of paying $60,000 a year to some overpriced college and taking on student debt to make it happen.

Selling dresses on the road, being a schmatta salesman was worth a Masters degree. Manufacturing and selling fur coats was where I earned my Bachelor degree in selling and human nature.

Where I also learned that 'paranoia improves peripheral vision'.

Peddling new and used cars was where I relearned a basic life lesson that nothing happens until something is sold. Steel mills don't run, dresses are not manufactured unless they can be and are sold. It's all bullshit until the hammer comes down on a sale.

The nicest guy in the world, as soon as he steps into a new car showroom or onto a used car lot, becomes the biggest prick that ever lived. The car salesman is his mortal enemy who is trying to fuck him, while the salesman looks at the prospective buyer as just another born again asshole that he, the salesman, has to fucking seduce.

Dredging up prospects, in addition to walk-ins to the showroom, was not for wimps or sissies. I learned early on that a prospect walking into the showroom had to ask for me or he became the 'up man's' mullet.

Women never shopped for a car alone. They always came in with some asshole who was on an ego trip trying to show the gal how clever a negotiator he was and earn a trip to the sack or something, whatever that something was.

To generate prospects plus the walk-ins, there were two more basic ways to go.You could put 'wouldja takes' on the windshields of a gazillion cars. The cards said, 'Would you take 'X' dollars for your car?...Call me or come by the showroom!, etc.

To ensure that when a mullet I generated would come in and ask for me; my `wouldja take' cards had my picture (wearing a bow tie) on the cards. The guy, not knowing my name from Adam's fucking odd ox, would ask for the guy with the horn rimmed glasses, wearing a bow tie.

Cold calls on the telephone, the second prospect generator, were a must for me. In those days you could get lists, by towns, of people who owned what cars. So, 5 days a week I made 20 phone calls, every morning to housewives asking if they would like a good trade in value for their car. Had a lot of phone calls ending with a slam in my ear and a few positive responses.

By then I knew, for sure, that I was in a percentage business. I had to to get a lot of turn downs to get to a winner. I figured out that every time some asshole slammed the phone in my ear, I made $2.50 (at least $20 in today's dollars). After five to ten cold calls you've heard every smart ass answer you'll ever hear.

BTW a mullet is an easy to catch fish.

Relatives and walk-ins were also an important part of generating a sale. But fortunately for my relatives none lived close by. There was nothing delicate about the negotiations, with the walk-ins or others.

High-balls or low-balls were the real theme. A high-ball was used to be sure the mullet came back. I never used a high-ball, where the salesman gives the prospect an unattainable potential trade-in value for his car thereby ensuring that the prospect would come back.

My approach was not misleading, just getting the facts.

A  prospect who had already stopped at other dealerships would come by with a car worth, we'll say.$1,600. After walking around the car, kicking the tires and taking it for a spin, I would say that if I spoke like a Dutch uncle to the sales manager he would probably go to $1,100.

The prospect would literally scream, '$1,100? Are you crazy? I've been offered $1,800!'

Everyone knows that in shopping for a car, even a preacher will lie $200. I then knew that the best number the prospect got was $1,600 and told him that the sales manager would probably go to $1,700.

So he got $100 more than he was previously offered and $100 less than it was worth. Both the prospect and sales manager were in Hog Heaven. And me as well.

Being a furrier and then a traveling 'schmatta peddler' are almost too unreal to believe. For the next time.

~

The Weight Loss Mantra

'Nah, I don't think I'll ever meet a woman that I dislike enough to marry.'...

Me and others with distended bodies and money to burn went to the Canyon Ranch outside of Tuscon. We were all in search of the magic bullet that would take our terrible looking bodies and change them into bodies of wonder. Six packs for all men, women, dogs and dreamers.

It was the mid-nineties with the place loaded with fat, rich, Jewish broads from Chicago and Omaha. All trying to look better and find a fucking masochist to marry them. They were rich because their rich ex-husbands found attractive, young, beautiful, women and paid off the fatsos on the way out.

The excitement of letting their little heads run their big heads with a Trophy Wife were the drivers of their divorces from their breeding machines who become fat and unattractive knocking out their kids. Also, the guys were often suffering from Erectile Dysfunction and they thought that a young beautiful gal with big boobs would be a cure and snap their schlongs to attention. Remaking their dripping  faucets into a sex toy again was the goal. Didn't/doesn't work. 

Canyon Ranch had a table, called the Captain's Table, for people without partners. Everyone at that table became, overnight, Best Friends Forever. One evening at dinner a Princess asked me if I would ever marry again. I told her, 'Nah, I don't think that I will ever meet a woman that I dislike enough to marry.'

Being a glutton for punishment I later tried the Canyon Ranch in Massachusetts. It was loaded with rich Upper East Side Jews and WASPS and the 'wanna get married' theme wasn't as apparent. It was really a motivating kind of place. More young people to lighten up the atmosphere as well. It was there that I learned from a trainer of the real, weight loss, exercise mantra that works.

Canyon Ranch, MA

'Push yourself away from the fucking table.' was the mantra.

Great exercise for your arms, pecs etc. and automatically restricts calories. I lost  45 pounds using that method as the centerpiece of my weight loss regimen. Sadly, I still look like shit but the Canyon Ranch in Massachusetts really  produced weight loss results for me.

The Canyon Ranch folks were keyed into what they could do for you. The Army was keyed into what you could do for the Army. Or so I thought, until I realized a few years ago that the Army did a fucking ton for me, gimpy leg and all.

Yeah, roses are red and violets are blue and it ain't all bad, having a bullet travel through you. 91 and still hustling.

~

'Risk Everything, Regret Nothing'

"What sort of things do you remember best?" Alice ventured to ask the Queen..."Oh, things that happened the week after next." the Queen replied.

Serendipity Uber Alles. Or, 'Unless you look for the unexpected you'll never find it.' (A poster in a 5th grade room: site of a Sunday evening AA meeting, which I attended).

Getting out of the service was indeed living a serendipitous life. The days of shooting craps in a latrine, on our knees, in Korea were long gone. The Army no longer made plans for me. Life was all on me; sink or swim and I did both.

When we got out of the service (No one 'left the service. Got out were the operative words.) our lives took on a rocket-like aura. All the vets of WWII had one mantra, 'make up for lost time'. That included getting married ASAP and making breeding machines out of our wives. We created the so called Baby Boomers. The Ruptured Duck in our lapels made us feel very special and fucking omnipotent.

We thought that we had seen the worst that life could throw at us. A gunshot wound was annoying. Luckily for me that the God damn bullet went through my leg not my scrotum, which would have been really bad news. One of life's great lessons relearned by me on Okinawa was that as bad as things seemed, things could have been worse. My great Pop initially taught it to me. There is always an alternative, he would tell me. My Pop was the eternal optimist, until he wasn't.

Yeah, I was free to make my own mistakes. Take fucking adventures of my choice. 'Sameness' was a dirty word. Anything to get away from what I thought at the time was the drabness of Army life. In retrospect, much of my time in the Army was anything but drab. I managed to offset a lot of boredom with keeping my life and mouth in motion.

I was damn lucky not to have been court marshaled more than once. Not having a filter between my brain and my mouth was not, is not, a formula for making friends or success in the Army or anywhere.

Post Army decision making for me, and other vets, was easy. We were all fucking tough, smart and survivors. The word 'uncertain' was not in our dictionary. How else could a Bronx Jew, like me, end up slopping fucking hogs on a farm in Iowa?

Or being a 'schmatta salesman' traveling the Mid West? Or deciding to raise a fund to drill oil in Israel, knowing full well that Moses should have turned left, not right?

Curiously, the Army is where I learned to be right or wrong but never in doubt. Six 'careers' in my first 14 years of marriage speaks to that principle. My motor mouth earned the lifelong resentment of me by the Princess.

We, who were in WWII, were lucky. We didn't know from PTSD. 'Shell shocked' a carryover from WWI was the operative phrase. Also, Section Eight if you had turned goofy. Lots of guys bucked for a Section Eight discharge to get back to the states.

But with perfect Army logic, the doctor told Orr, in turning him down for a Section Eight, that 'If you think that you are crazy you must be sane, how else would you know that you are crazy'...Perfect Catch 22...

Capitalizing the A in Army is a natural for me. The Army, for me, was not a lower case experience. You were always thinking the impossible, whenever you happened to be thinking.

 ~

Malaria in Manhattan

Malaria in Manhattan?

You gotta be fucking kidding me!! The next thing I know, you'll be telling me that I can get a dose of gonorrhea jackin' off.

Every Friday, while at Fort Devens, I would take the NY Central to New York for a weekend of doing things with my girlfriend Bonnie (Bronx Jews didn't know from fiancées). And in those days having a girlfriend didn't mean that you were banging her.

Theatre, college basketball double headers at the Garden, capped off by hockey Sunday night at the Garden as well. It was remarkable to me, in those days ,that the Garden had hard floor for basketball on Saturday and ice for hockey matches on Sunday. Kind of magic.

The Wannabe Princess was living with my sister, her husband and their kid Jesse. The budding Princess (I brought her to full bloom.) was working at Alexander's on the corner of Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse. Since sex was out I stayed with my folks.

One weekend we moved things around and went to the theatre on a Sunday night to see Finian's Rainbow which I didn't particularly like. (It became a classic. So much for my taste.)

WWII Ruptured Duck Pin

My girlfriend, Bonnie, was really smart and beautiful (a man thinks with his eyes, a woman with her ears). Life was wonderful. Hair was not growing on the palm of my right hand and I was not going blind. And I was on the verge of swapping my Sergeant stripes for a Ruptured Duck lapel pin.

After the show we went for a late supper at Rumplemyers,(later Mickey Mantle's) which marked the last time that I had a glass of milk. A few minutes after a fateful glass of milk I went to the head. I was nauseous (knew that I wasn't pregnant) yet I started puking my guts out.

After I finished the vomiting exercise at Rumplemyer's, the Princess got us a cab and we went to my folk's place on 72nd Street where I collapsed in bed.

I had chills, shaking like a leaf in the wind, while simultaneously perspiring like a stuck hog bleeds. My Mom, who was scared to death, piled blankets on me. My Pop watched with morbid fascination.

We had an old fashioned family doctor, Dr. Harry Epstein, and my Mom called him. He showed up at around 2:00 in the morning. He gave me something and I quit shaking.

Can you even imagine having a family physician today much less having one who will come to see you at 2:00 AM? 911 is almost the only hope or for me or an ER room at a veterans health care facility, if you have someone to take you there.

The next morning Dr. Epstein came by to check on me, proclaiming that malaria had paid me a visit. Having been shot in Okinawa, getting pleurisy in Korea and malaria in Manhattan I felt snake bit because now I was AWOL with something too bizarre for anybody, including me, to believe.

Dr. Epstein gave me a note to give the CO at Fort Devens, attesting to my having a dose of malaria without, to my memory, getting a fucking bug bite. The hospital crew at Fort Devens ran some tests on me and confirmed Dr. Epstein's diagnosis. Perhaps the bug bit me on a one-day stopover in Palau on the way to Okinawa. Never have had a return episode.

Yeah, 'Malaria In Manhattan'. Great title for a pop tune.

~