The Short-Timers

I say, "You guys are bitter. Don't you love the American way of life?"

Chili Vendor shakes his head. "No Victor Charlie ever raped my sister. Ho Chi Minh never bombed Pearl Harbor. We're prisoners here. We're prisoners of the war. They've taken away our freedom and they've given it to the gooks, but the gooks don't want it. They'd rather be alive than free."

I grunt. "There it is."

Negative, Captain. Number ten. I'm a corporal. You can send me to the brig, sir--I know that. Lock me up in Portsmouth Naval Prison until I rot, but let me rot as a corporal, sir. You know I do my job. I write that the Nam is an Asian Eldorado populated by a cute, primitive but determined people. War is a noisy breakfast food. War is fun to eat. War can give you better checkups. War cures cancer--permanently. I don't kill. I write. Grunts kill; I only watch. I'm only young Dr. Goebbels. I'm not a sergeant." I add: "Sir."

As is my custom, I salute Animal Mother so that any snipers in the area will assume that he is an officer and shoot him instead of me.