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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: deep inside my concious
Posts: 515
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The Confused
The Confused
I seem to always find myself amidst a dark slumber, sitting motionless in utter quietude, brows rested gently upon the curvature of my face, eyes, two placid pools whetting emptiness as in the distance they stare off, and always there is a morose glimmer to encompass my parched lips. It is not a wonder that nobody confronts me in these days of growing old. It isn’t a wonder that my liberated mind hinders its stride as evernation manifests and all else perishes. Time fritters upon my porch as I sit and glare into the past portrayed upon an old, abandoned field, a field not worked and victim to my possession. The fact that I leave my own field empty and feckless is not a lack of devoutness by any means, in fact, my condolences I do devote to the field, as for it cannot take pride in what it has produced as for it has produced nothing at all. Laxity just comes with growing old, and fagged, I suppose, and as such continues it just seems that it is easier to watch the field then to work it. As I grow further from my youth and nearer to those final gasps of life and desperation, as I grow nearer to death, I find that the wearisome humdrum my vapid mind is victim to begins to progress and to be perpetuated. A humdrum never to cease, never to perish, until my raggedy carcass lays weak and wearied upon that snow-white death bed. This humdrum is there to haunt me in the harrowing depths of thought, to kill the glistening light that abets from life’s flame, to bore me into death. This candle with the beating of the humdrum grows dimmer, as affliction is cast upon its flame, and I become captive to it, shackled to this humdrum I speak of, all I wanted was freedom, petty liberty.
The humdrum was stirred by the brutal past, one blasted year! This year, a year comprised of a near three-hundred days so bestial that I beseech, I beg higher powers to let me forget them, a year whose matter, so brutal, upon my soul I would trade my spirit merely for them to vanquish, for them never to occur! So much I would give for the unmannerly and callous imagery of vietnam, the imagery I have imprisoned within my mind, to merely disappear, maybe then I would know of prosperity! As rock and roll, true rock and roll began its intermittence, and America peaked in its blossoming, 1970 found its midst. My turning of the age of 18 came to occurrence that year, and with much accordance I sported the privileges of being a man like a jacket. I found it true that legally I may have been a man, but I remained mentally a boy. Little did I know what the government could do to a man like me, Never did the bane of captivity, enter with thought into mind, nothing of the sort was a prerequisite to my time in war, nothing. Never did I think a nation advocating liberty in itself, was to be a nation advocating slavery.
I can recount much of my last day of freedom in the states. Much occurred that somber day I was ripped from my midst. Amicable winds floated gently upon my face, cigarettes burning while amongst the throngs glowed red within my eyes. The American rectitude of times then prior was rapt in oblivion, minds were liberated, and the youth was free. Oh, how it seemed as if, little did we as a nation know that such unaided freedom was found as we all walked the path of fraudulence, we were all victim to deceit, the youth was not free, only the elderly, the old not fit for war.
I strolled about the Cleveland purlieu, my last stroll home the final summer eve I would come to enjoy. My family and I resided humbly on Lakewood’s pecan street. Just east of the Cobblerfield peach grove, the only token of amity to the tranquil town that mitigated the encumbrance found intermingled into everyone’s existence, with vigor, orange leaves and soft, red spheres dangling helplessly from fragile branches. They were and still are the only beings of color found throughout the entirety of the town. It was customary in a cloying town as such, to adhere to the values established by the grey-façade of the 1950’s, to shackle their subconscious to mere insipidity and to deter all that rises against their dying proprieties.
Upon entering our humble residence, I was beaten down upon with glaring eyes. It was my mother and father peering at me. They were positioned upright with idealistic posture, one peaking boldly at five feet, the other, my father at five feet and 11 inches. Much time withered away before any of us had made a move, before one of our morbid minds were tempted to budge a finger against our clothing. Then suddenly my father spoke, bringing the words he had waited to speak, with a touch of bereaves about in his tone, discontentment swarming his soul, his dear, conservative soul, he said, “ You, Jonathon Swift, have been selected to serve in the United States America Armed Forces.” I gave cease to his words as I wept and simply that. I saw it all. I saw death, ineludible desist upon hours of agony. “Thank you, America,” I thought behind my face as it became inundated with tears, some freedom it was.
Three days subsequent to the discovery of such, I parted with my conservative parents, got on the bus, the plain, bromidic bus to agony, and left, my return was not to be expected, as for it was probable such would not occur. The hum of the bus were like rapturous choirs singing gentle birdsong in my haunted mind, it was the last grip of sanity I clasped to my heart, to comfort me, like a friend to confide in as my freedom was inhibited and shackled, for it was then I was captive, it was then I was a slave. Throughout the long ride to Hell, I only wished that the sodden road would endlessly serpentine. Only such did not happen, much fear began to abet and how it swarmed the constants of my soul, consuming my mind. I was utterly foolish to think I could have eluded such, no matter how much I wept, the tears were merely tears, nothing else, nothing more.
Training occurred in Biloxi. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t pretty, and it may be hard to believe that it wasn’t difficult either. My body had hardened quickly as so did my mind, of my grasping innocence fled, not to leave my eggshell fragile mind cracked, but rather to rid my mind of its eggshell. I may have been equipped for war, but still I wept in the eve’s opacity, later I would find that fear was never to desist.
The consisting 2 months of Boot Camp are not of importance. In the matter of brotherhood, as we had called it in the army, I was able to fight with my enlisted friend Ed Klenland. Ed and I from the midst of our boyhood and beyond were spiritually entwined. We did everything as one, we were one, and each youthful gasp of effervescence we were aroused to move with we did together. Each blast of boyish folly that incited in our minds we shared, we quenched each thirst evenly, we were inseparable. He joined, because he felt my duty was his duty, but the horror he whet was to scar my mind, rising nightmares in each one of my rests, and such was not to be ripped from my rests until death. I have never forgiven him for what he had done, never.
“Y’all wanna fit in’tha bush listen. I mean it. It’s hot, it’s harry. Yall wanna puff your dope don’t talk to me, I aint saving ya when Charlie pushes bombs in your face, and your so high you’re seeing sparkles” the colonel had said.
The colonel was lost in a dinghy, perplexed and anguished as before his eyes were placed the biggest of the American recreants, the most defiant of the rebellious. He adorned his acrimony in a frown upon his face, and such a token of disgust his frown was indeed. He continued, “you are the third platoon, 144th regiment, your’n Vietnam, you’re to fight’n’preserve freedom in the states. This ain’t Berkeley, ain’t Boulder, ain’t Madison you Hippies!” We were all distraught by his words, eyes sullen, lost and rolling steadily around the jungle, wondering solemnly within our minds, asking ourselves why we were here, and for what cause. “Why us?” I thought, “Why must we be confused?”
Three months were comprised of nothing, a waste, as our faces were whelmed in rain, beaten down upon with the ceaseless tears of a ceaseless storm in the worst place in the world, Vietnam. We hadn’t at this point in our duty met action, small skirmishes most certainly. I found it odd, that it is only in the eve I see “Charlie,” never do they strike, never to they take arms against us. They don’t want anything to do with us, we were the evil, not they. When “Charlie” strolls by, the men are utterly ghastly, just figures, blending into the bush, just a figure. A figure that strolls in utter quiescence shielded by the tenebrous of the night that drowns that placid jungle. I sit awaken on duty during such nights, my glimmering eyes look upon the silent wanderer like a bird floating gently upon a placid pool. Color then will flee from my body, my eyes and my expression as I grow with trepidation, a sense of truth and cogency comes with this figure. Then suddenly the figure vanishes, as if into thin air, into the thick of the wood to continue his numerous feats, only to remind me that I was in ‘Nam. It wasn’t battle in itself that scarred our nescient minds, rather it be the detachment from reality, the oscillation from our homes, our families, and our lives. What ended up scarring my soul the most was an event that happened in battle, it brings tears to my eyes just thinking of it.
“ Come on baby, light my, bang, cerchip!” our transistor radio then suddenly disappeared as it disbanded its manufactured particles like dust upon the jungle floor. The song “Light My Fire” by “The Doors” gave cease to its accent as one calamitous bullet struck it plastic contents, it was then Ed and I ran, like two fools, we were two fools. Mortars ripped through the tranquil sky of blue, to incinerate the delicate jungle intricacies beneath they’re path of flight. Our run was not to be abstained from nor was it to die. Gently we continued to abscond, past crops of rice, jungles so dense and hairy our path of sight could not simply penetrate into the near, and so on. It was then it happened. Then in a sudden step, Ed ceased, “move Jon, run.” He said. My eyes careened past his unsullied body and onto his foot, ensconced beneath lay a “Bouncing Betty” a bomb set to explode as soon he set foot off of it. I grew further from him slowly, he whimpered softly, ‘ I love you man, I love you.” Tears in a torrent drowned his face, memories came into remembrance. Then he stepped off, and to air his sodden carcass evaporated into. Still my tears did not avail, they did not wash away the horror of such an incident, never.
I came home the winter of 1971, decorated, honorable and a man. War had ceased, it had pillaged the entirety of a generation, their minds and morals included. We all, every one of us are dust floating upon the forlorn winds that come with age, we are dead, we are the deceased, the lost and the confused. “Why us?” I still ask. “Why?”
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