C.O. In Paradise

During the so-called war in Vietnam I was a United States Army medic, but my experience was somewhat different than most medics because I was also a conscientious objector. Having previously served in the Peace Corps, and believing that the war violated my personal view of America, I entered the service classified 1-A-O. I was willing to serve, but I refused to carry a gun.

I trained at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. In basic training they kept the CO’s hidden away on a distant corner of the base, where our chicken-shit conscientious objector ideas could be properly controlled and contained. They didn’t want our seditious anti-war lies corrupting the killer instincts of the patriotic fighting men across the base. These were gung-ho warriors preparing to spill their guts rooting out commie gooks for Tricky Dick and his fellow cutthroats, and apparently they needed protection. So we peace-loving yellow-bellies were condemned to consort with none but our own kind. They saw us as cut from the same swath: timid, inexperienced, idealistic, God-fearing, goody-goody, church-going wimps. We must be kept from our diabolical mission: to seduce innocent patriots into joining us on a traitorous quest for world harmony.

In fact, I was none of those things. I was a long-haired, pot-smoking, agnostic son of a U.S. Marine who had convinced me that when we went to war every American had an obligation to serve his country. Guns were no mystery to me; I’d been shooting them since I was a kid. On the other hand, I was a friend of Zen, a meditating, Che-Guevara-loving vegan who would sooner rot in a jail cell than shoot a man on behalf of the corrupt, imperialist thugs who ran the country in those days.

I’ve often wondered about the non-coms and officers who were assigned to train that motley bunch of anti-warriors. It must have been a regular army man’s idea of hell on earth:

“Sergeant Jackson, you will hammer army discipline into the heads of those candy-ass objectors; you will mold them into fighting machines and prepare them to make war.”

“But Major, them boys are against war. How do you expect me to make killers out of ‘em?”

“I don’t know, Sergeant. I’d like to gutshoot every one of them chicken-liver bastards, but it says here we gotta train ‘em, and orders is orders. So train ‘em, Sergeant. Now move out.”


This is a shot of my brother Jim (left) and his buddy Raz. Old friends from high school, they got together while serving in Vietnam, 1966-1967.

We Don't Need Much

I need something in my mouth, gum, food, cigarette, liquid, water. Something something to satisfy this craving that I do not really have. Cravings for things I do not need. We are so burdened with needs, and we waste so much time yielding to them. Yet they are not really there. We’ve created them from nothing, from emotional trauma, from societal pressures and stimuli, from habits, defeats, longings. I repeat: they are not really there. Yet they rear up from memory and custom, making us want when in fact we need next to nothing. A little food, a few rags to kill the cold, a roof, some heat, medicine when we’re sickly—little more. The other things—love, satisfaction, contentment, freedom, happiness—are separate and harder to come by, and they come to us by a different means. The truth is that once our basic needs are met, there is little need for the material world.

The deals we cut

As usual it was all about fear. Fear of death. Fear of failure. Fear of humiliation and ridicule. The same fears that had plagued him throughout his life were with him now like old enemies: always close enough to give a whisper should he need a reminder of his personal inadequacy. As the days and months turned into years of unremarkable existence, his fears deepened, became burdensome, unbearable at times, until of late he simply wallowed in personal paranoia and self-denigration.

The sacrifices we make, the deals we cut with ourselves, the lies we tell, the innuendo, the backbiting, the little digs we get in on others when they’re not around.

I'm Back

OK, so it's been more than a year since I posted to this blog. I'm older now, and wiser, and the world is a different place. I've almost been killed a few times, my father died, and I've been diagnosed with laryngopharyngeal reflux and pressure uticaria. Time's a wastin'. Why not rev up the old blog?

Here's the MedShed, which I recently built. I hang out in here when I want to stop thinking.

I built the stool 22 years ago. It's a goat milking stool. It has goat feet. I never got a goat, but I knew I'd find a use for it eventually.

A mighty wind took out a large hemlock last year, leaving a fine stump. It was begging to support my meditative endeavors.


MedShed design.