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Nam Vets by Bob Scheyer
When the Lord was creating Vietnam veterans, he was into His 6th day of
overtime when an angel appeared. "You're certainly doing a lot of fiddling
around on this one."
And God said, "Have you seen the specs on this order? A Nam vet has
to be able to run 5 miles through the bush with a full pack on, endure with
barely any sleep for days, enter tunnels his higher ups wouldn't consider
doing, and keep his weapons clean and operable. He has to be able to sit
in his hole all night during an attack, hold his buddies as they die, walk
point in unfamiliar territory known to be VC infested, and somehow keep
his senses alert for danger. He has to be in top physical condition, existing
on c-rats and very little rest. And he has to have 6 pairs of hands."
The angel shook his head slowly and said, "6 pair of hands .... no
way."
"It's not the hands that are causing me problems
... it's the 3 pair of eyes a Nam vet has to have."
"That's
on the standard model?" asked the angel.
The Lord nodded. "One pair that sees through elephant grass, another
pair here in the side of his head for his buddies, another pair here in
front that can look reassuringly at his bleeding, fellow soldier and say,
'You'll make it...' when he knows he won't."
"Lord, rest,
and work on this tomorrow."
"I can't," said the
Lord. "I already have a model that can carry a wounded soldier 1,000
yards during a firefight, calm the fears of the latest FNG, and feed a family
of 4 on a grunt's paycheck."
The angel walked around the model and said, "Can it think?"
"You bet," said the Lord. "It can quote much of the
UCMJ, recite all his general orders, and engage in a search and destroy
mission in less time than it takes for his fellow Americans back home to
discuss the morality of the War, and still keep his sense of humor. This
Nam vet also has a phenomenal personal control. He can deal with ambushes
from hell, comfort a fallen soldier's family, and then read in his hometown
paper how Nam vets are baby killers, psychos, addicts, killers of innocent
civilians."
The Lord gazed into the future and said, "He will also endure being
villified and spit on when he returns home; rejected and crucified by the
very ones he fought for."
Finally, the angel slowly ran his finger across the vet's cheek, and said,
"There's a leak... I told you that you were trying to put too much
into this model."
"That's not a leak," said the
Lord. "That's a tear."
"What's the tear for?"
asked the angel.
"It's for bottled up emotions, for holding
fallen soldiers as they die, for commitment to that funny piece of cloth
called the American flag, for the terror of living with PTSD for decades
after the war, alone with it's demons, with no one to care or help."
"You're a genius," said the angel, casting a gaze at the
tear.
The Lord looked very sombre, as if seeing down eternity's distant shores...
"I didn't put it there," He said.
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