What Has Happened to The America I Fought For

To all the people of the good old USA. What has happened to America, What has happened to the politicians, what has happened to the morality of the churches, have they forgot to read their Bibles. We are sitting back and letting the America we knew just a few decades ago slip from our kids' future. They will be in a few short decades wearing a towel around their heads. They will be bowing to a false savior. A lot of so-called christians put on their Sunday best and go to the churches and tell each other how damn good they are, yet will not stand up for the one that gives us everything. The politicians will not step in and stop the ACLU from stopping people that want to pray from doing so. They take Abdul's side. Stop whatever is going on so he can bend down and smell the guys ass in front of him in the name of some religon. They let the liberals teach kindergarteners that it is ok to have two Bob's or two Betty's {no offense with the names} as parents and hug and kiss in front of them, do the same things a real mom and dad do. All in the name of equality and not offending anyone. Well folks it is not right, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. So wake up before it is to late. If you go to church let it be known that America as we know it is worth more than a tax exemption. I get so tired seeing on TV this gay rights Bu-lS--t. And what about the black panthers. If a white person got out in the middle of the street and said go kill some N's kill some N's babies it would be hate speach as it should. Why is it not the same on the other hand. Why is this idiot not being prosecuted, because of the grease head Al Sharpton, or the blackmailing Jesse Jackson or the fruitcake Louis Farakan,also a towelhead. Wakeup America it is almost to late. We must start protecting our own way of life or live as the others will make us.

OUR WELCOME HOME

After a year of surviving in the jungles of Viet Nam, living with the rats the size of possums, leaches sticking on you and the constant use of malaria pills and salt pills to survive trying to keep from being one more sent home in a body bag and becoming another target for "charlie", I was getting ready to go back to the world. I got all my stuff ready to DEROS, done all the out-processing, de-brefings, got all paperwork and my new orders for home. I just had one final most important thing to do, I had to go say good-by to Bitch. One of the hardest things I have ever done. I finally got through it and started the long journey home. First to Hue then a C-130 to Cam Rahn Bay for three days, then the freedom bird for the world. We had a pretty good flight home and finally landed in Seattle-Tacoma Washington. I dont know how the pilot landed the plane with all the cheering and yelling. We got off the pland and on a bus for Ft Lewis for our in-processing so we could get home. What a rude awakening on the bus ride to the Ft. Some hippies were lined up just outside the fence and we thought they were welcoming us home, but we had a rude awakening, they started yelling baby killers, spitting toward the bus, giving us the middle finger. Our spirits just sort of dropped. We went on into the Ft for our processing and a big steak, our first in a year. Then for our lecture from one of the in-processing personnel. Troops for your own safety and the Military's, we are advising you to not wear your Military Uniform in public as you are now back in a different world than you left. What the hell did this mean, we just spent a year, some more, living everday facing death and destruction and now we are not welcome back in the country we had just fought for. Some of us thought he was just blowing it out of what it really was. So some of us wore our uniforms, we were proud, it didn't take long for reality to hit us like an incomming mortar. We weren't welcome home. And it wasn't just the hippies. The American public rejected us as some kinda monsters. The people didnt really know how to treat us MONSTERS. So most didn't even try. It took years for the American public to finally start accepting us as anything but damaged. But the truth is we were all damaged by the War and our WELCOME HOME. It took years for some of us to sober up and become good citizens. Never again do I wish our government to send our troops in combat and then turn their back on them when they return. Some of us are scared for life. Some have already died not ever feeling WELCOME HOME. Some are so messed up even today they cannot bring themselves to ask for help. It has been 40 years for me and I still have very vivid memories. For those that have never been there in any kind of combat it is very scary but it is also something that gets the adrenlien pumping so high you just do things you never thought you could do or would do. You will never get that kind of feeling anywhere else but on the battlefield, or while under an attack. To all those Viet Nam Veterans that read this I say from my inner soul. WELCOME HOME AND MAY GOD BLESS

The Old Bell City Pool Hall

My first visit to the Old pool hall was in 1949 where I ate my first hamburger that I remember. Dad and mom had bought an old hill farm just out of Bell City and we were moving to it from Commerce Mo. I was with dad and we stopped for a burger. Little did I know that this would be a big part of my life, for later as I was gorwing up I would go to the pool hall every chance I got, I learned to shoot pool and snooker and got to be fairly good at it. Harl Tropf owned it for the first few years I went there. He added a garage on the side of it for his new Mercury car. I thought this car was really neat. His son Leamond and wife Millie later took over. But before doing so he turned the garage part of the building into a tee-town, dance hall for the kids where I learned to do the jitter-bug. I can still remember hitting the floor to the sound of Rockin Robin. I was about 12-13 years old at this time. The back room was the pool hall where there was 2 regular pool tables and one snooker table. We had some great times in this old building. As a young juvinile with many others we were all looking for ways to kill time and get into meaness. There was a couple old fellows thatlived just outside of town in an old house with a tin roof on it. Now these tow brothers were Jake and George Fisher. Sometimes at night in the summer after the pool hall closed and nothing was happening some of us guys would go up over the hill to Jake and Georges house they lived on a road that had lots of gravel on it with good sized rocks. Around 10 or 11 oclock after they went to bed we would rock their house. When the first big rock hit that tin all hell would bread loose. Out would come one of the brothers with a shotgun yelling I'll kill you bastards. Lucky for us no one ever got hurt but as I look back I sure dont blame them. Now George had an old team and wagon that he came to town in. We would see him comming and get ready for some fun. Now George had to cross the rail road tracks to get to the grocery store of post office. When he got on top of the tracks one of us in the pool hall would yell wooooa and te old mules would stop right on the railroad. George would start cussing and raising hell. We would finally keep quiet and he would come on int town where he tied up his mules. He would pull up to his parking spot and get down from the wagon at this time someone from our gang would yell getup and the old mules would start to walking off and George would start cussing and yelling for the mules to stop. We would wait for him to start to get back up into the wagon and someone would yell getup, this just made him madder but as young bucks we didn't care we were just having fun. Now Jake his brother had a small store on the wrong side of town, but this is another story. Hope you enjoy

The Water Jug

It was the summer of 1956 and my dad had rented some ground from Slim Limbaugh down on section 14 south of Bell City. Now this old ground was gumbo. For those that don't know what gumbo is, it is black clay like ground that when it gets wet sticks to anything. Well it was a very hot time of summer and we were chopping cotton as most people in our area and economic world had to do to survive. One day we were at least a 1/4 mile from the old pitcher pump and the water jug was empty. Well dad had my little brother Pete takgallon jug to the pump to get us a cool drink of water. Now the ground was flat and we could see Pete all the way to the pump and back. It was so hot the grasshoppers were riding double to conserve energy. Well Pete gets to the pump and pumps it off as directed by dad, this makes the water get cool. He fills the jug and starts back to where we were chopping. Now he is only 10 years old and a gallon of water gets pretty heavy walking in plowed ground and 100 degree heat. He gets tired and deceides to roll the jug. Not having the big mouth gallon jug lid on real tight a little water seeps out from around the lid. The further he rolls the jug the more gumbo sticks to it. Finally when he gets the jug back to where we were chopping he was a muddy mess and the jug was as big as he was. This got us a much needed break from the heat as we all got to go to the pump where a big shade tree and an old red barn were. We stayed until we got cooled off and rested. As we rested a dark cloud began to form over the hill about where the Kitty litter plant is located now. We went back to chopping after our break and the cloud got darker and darker. Now dad had this old woman hired to help us, and she weighed about 225 and stood about 4'5". Someone looked over at the cloud and yelled it looks like a tornado was hanging down. Everyone threw down their cotton hoes and started to run for the barn. We all made it pretty quick "save one" this old woman was trying get to the barn as fast as her short legs would allow her. Some of the older ones was yelling that the storm was about on her and she fell down. I still remember her trying to get up. Damnedest sight I think I have ever seen. She finally made it to the barn but never came back to cotton patch with us. I dont think she ever picked a hoe after that.