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An Old Codger Remembers the War

© Dane Mitchell Donato

Pull up a seat there, young feller. So you wants to know about what I did during the war, eh? Funny you should ask me. I sort of suspected today’s youth – that’s you, boy – just didn’t give a flying hoot about what we old timers did way back then. So there’s still hope.

Well, you comfy? Want a shot of this here whisky from my trusty ol’ brown bag? No? Well, let me see, it’s been many and many a year since the war. Did we win, you say? Why, sure as little apples we won! Them commies didn’t have a chance against us! That is for sure.

How did we do it, though? Mmm .. you might not believe it, young whippersnapper, but it was through diplomacy, sound strategies, rooting out communists hiding in Hollywood and Middle America, drop drills so our youngsters were as ready as we were, military intervention (that’s what I did, boy), and most important of all, we jess outspent ‘em!

I know, that’s a mite confusin’, even to me, an old and grizzled veteran who saw the whites of their beady little Pinko eyes. Pay attention, and I’ll answer all your questions.

This hand? How did I loose it? Well, by golly, them pigs in the Bay of Pigs had sharp teeth! O still can’t eat pork to this day. And the left leg? I got a Purple Heart for that one. I lost old lefty fighting highly trained Cuban militiamen out in Grenada there, way back in the 80s. Seems they were going to take over a medical school or something. They didn’t tell us troopers much, so you better just look it up in a history book. How I lost it was kind o’ embarrassing – after checking out the rum supply in that there student dorm, I tripped on that there manicured lawn of the medical school and gangrene set in. The tropics, you know.

What about my right eye? How did I loose that? Well, I shouldn’t tell you, but radiation is a pesky little devil. I was there in Nevada when they were testing those big old beautiful atom bombs back in the 1950s. That was before the doggone treaties put the tests underground, you know. But we did get leave in happening Las Vegas and everything. So it was worth it.

The other leg? That was Viet Nam that did that. Was I a grunt? No, I was in the rear section. Nope, can’t say what I did. Classified, you know. I stepped on a beer can – some disgusting communist brand, I reckon - and gangrene set in. Pesky tropics, you know.

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