How I Became A Cold War Hero With A Top Secret Security Clearance

War is the greatest evil Satan has invented to corrupt our hearts and souls.

We should honor our soldiers, but we should never honor war. – Dean Hughes

Later, FBI agents interviewed Grandma
One Veterans' Day, 
I took my dogs to the vet.
Bill came to $547.18.
My monthly pay 
when I joined the USAF was $78.
Oddly enough, 
a pay increase for me at the time.
After I flunked out of college, 
my father nice enough
to drive me topspeed
to the nearest recruiting office.
His other option was killing me.
Thought I had a better chance 
surviving with the Viet Cong.
Wanted to be a Marine. 
Seemed by far the coolest branch 
with the best looking uniforms.
But the jarheads at high noon
were out to lunch.
My father in an angry Packard, 
engine running, glaring. 
Only office open was the Air Force.
Henry Wells, a Spanish-American War vet
saw every recruit off
at the train station in Brewster.
Which took us to Whitehall street.
with colored feet to follow on the floor
and the Group W bench.
And, of course, since I flunked out of college
'cause I am not built to be boxed in classrooms
since about the sixth grade,
I spent the next twenty months in school.
Where I wasn't allowed to flunk out. 
Under penalty of death.


Coulda been a conscientious objector, push cadavers with Bill Rodgers. The smart move? Vancouver B.C.

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