Colonels &

Generals &
One Smart-assed
Retired First
Lieutenant

O
ne should read, cum grano salis, Italian General
Fabio Mini’s foreword and afterthought in Guerra
Senza Limiti: L’Arte della Guerra Asimmetrica fra
Terrorismo e Globalizzazione, the Italian rendition of the
controversial book by the two Chinese futuristic colonels,
Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. And for two decent reasons:
the general asserts that his translation is a translation of a
perhaps bogus translation; and, because the general being
blinkered and unduly subjective in his analysis, frequently
sounding off in a pathetically pious quality of sound in his
disgruntled state of mind, must be held up to scrutiny. I
feel sorry for him.

I only wish he had read, twenty five years ago, my trilogy

about the Vietnam “War,” The Hippie Lieutenant, because
he just might have saved himself oodles of confusion and
would not come off today as a uniformed “Gianni come
lately” expounding options which have been often already
debated in war colleges and international military circles. In
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Italy, things evolve slowly—but not surely. General Mini,
who for decades thrived under the military umbrella of the
United States, is currently content that the “gioco” has
changed but not delighted that the playing field is, for once,
very much more level. And he talks about, freewheeling all
the time, this new state of affairs declaring that he can
function as a wedge between the United States and China
and bring these two extremities together to form a new
interpretation of humanity, id est, a Christian militarism
founded on Machiavellian generalizations! (Credit must be
given to the general on at least one count: he is the first
Italian I know who has admitted that Machiavelli's
corollaries are not really his but were discussed indeed
centuries before in China!)

What can we expect from an individual whose schizoid

tendencies fit well with other Italians who fanatically
declare themselves to be Christian but act contrariwise; or,
when still others in The Boot, professing to be communists,
exploit their workers con gusto? Why not an Italian swivel
chair general who probably has never fired a shot at any
enemy, who has enjoyed the security blanket of the United
States since the end of World War II but who, at present,
gloats over the twenty-first-century quagmires the
Pentagon is stuck in these days, and who seeks a Christian
militaristic movement (Crusade?) to rescue that essence of
Man, his!, he proclaims to be the wisest of all? Absurdity!
And a tad bit grandiose! He speaks as if he is in the Roman
era—he, too, on the road to extinction? When the winds
shift, General Mini will snuggle up again to the bosom of the
Pentagon. Isn't it time for him to sit down and eat a nice
plate of pastasciutta? (We can thank Machiavelli for
teaching the Italians to say “Yes” today and “No” tomorrow.
And that attribute has contributed to putting Italy at the top
of www.transparency.org's List of Most Corrupt Nations in
Western Europe. Ronald P Spogli, Republican-appointed
United States Ambassador to Italy, are you, Sir, proud to
have Italy as an ally? Are you a simpleton?)

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I
have never ever offered sympathy to any general! Most
of them with whom I came in contact would have been
horror-struck at such a thought. The majority of them did
not enjoy my esteem. They did not appreciate me, either!
(When I taught missilery for the United States Army, they
called me The Wayward Missile; and, when I was an artillery
forward observer in Vietnam's Central Highlands, they
labelled me The Loose Canon! And I cannot really believe,
even today, that the United States Army wanted to promote
me to captain—two times!) Two generals I served under,
Westmoreland and Peers, were imbeciles. These lummoxes
would have kowtowed to whatever felonious caper (for
example, complicity in duping the citizens of the United
States into believing that there were nuclear warheads in
the missiles Nikita Khrushchev sent to Cuba...was that
possible?) US senators and congressman hatched up for
them.

Listen to what President Harry S Truman, first to order the

use of atomic weaponry, said about General Douglas
MacArthur and generals, in general: “I didn't fire him
because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was,
but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to
three-quarters of them would be in jail.” Last year, on a bus
travelling home to Calenzano, I met an Italian colonel who
was extremely cordial and inquisitive. I asked him: “Do you
know why generals are so thick-headed?” He queried why.
“Because they are chosen from the colonels!” He roared
with laughter—something General Mini rarely does.

United States' generals are these days substantially more

intelligent and educated, but they chime in too easily with
political forces. Many of them, when in retirement, speak
out when it is too late. These reactions are disappointing
and unfortunate. I loathe the behaviour of John McCain,
John Kerry and Al Gore who have used their Vietnam “War”
experiences to further their political agendas. No one ever
took my picture when I served in the boonies on the border
of Laos and Cambodia where my unit was ordered to stem
the flow of troops and arms into Vietnam from along the Ho
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Chi Minh Trail. When I hear that a British general has been
knighted a “Sir,” I wish I could vomit.

FOUR-STAR GENERAL AND

SO-CALLED VENERABLE

What glory for a warlord fagged out on old days?

--Only nonsensical rows of flushing ribbons.

Only salutes and dues and tokens

can rub out the thorny terror of his yore.

Still more boring chores; still more whores galore.

The rites of rank salve ferocious brain bustles.

At night, in the dim light, our hero bleats,

And his finger flounces Bible leafs.

What anodyne can we divine to quell his pinings?

Hour sessions housed in the halls of dream teams?

No.

Whisky sours to whist away the wildish traits of his ways?

No.
A tryst, with kisses and caresses, to temper his distress?
No.

No...?

...Old soldiers never die; they just fade away...”

Yes.
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 Let him “fade away” through the spectre of his bitterness
and hate.

3 August 1996

I 'm in a good mood today, so I want to tell you a story

about The Hippie Lieutenant that I have already narrated
to only a few intimate friends but now wish to put into
the “public domain” for posterity! I am doing this because I
think my insights, and especially those in The Hippie
Lieutenant, are relevant to the military strategists of our
own era.

When I finished the The Hippie Lieutenant manuscript in

Caracas, Venezuela in the late 1970s, I channelled it by mail
to many publishing companies located all over the world.
No one would publish my trilogy. Later, in the mid-1980s, a
literary agent in Zürich, Switzerland, Paul Fritz, who had
read it, informed me that my revelations about the United
States' intervention in Vietnam would never be printed in
the United States because they were “white hot” (Eldridge
Cleaver stuff!) and The Establishment would be too much
embarrassed by them. So what?

I took the idea for the title of the book from an article I had
written for Playboy and titled The Hippie Lieutenant.
Geoffrey Norman, then Assistant Editor, and now associated
with the right-wing National Review for which I had worked
before going to university, commented (13 March 1970) on
my article: “Finally the decision was not mine alone. I
generally see all the Vietnam stuff first around here. I
always show something as good as your piece to at least
one other editor, in this case Jim Goode, our Articles Editor.
He agreed with my evaluation (not to publish because of
editorial suitability) and told me to write a note of

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explanation to you. I can assure you that Mr. Hefner would
agree with our judgement in this case....” I sent the article
and rejection letter to Larry “The King of Interviewers” King
who, at the time, was hosting a radio program on Miami,
Florida's WIOD situated on the beautiful Key Biscayne. L
“The King” K invited me to participate, and I gladly went.
Again, no luck in finding a publisher.

In Venezuela, I had made the acquaintances of Ramón

Escovar Leon and his father Ramón Escovar Salom,
Venezuelan foreign minister in the Carlos Andrés Pérez
regime and United States' Department of State choice to be
President of Venezuela. RES took my The Hippie Lieutenant
MS with him to Harvard University one summer after having
been invited to pass a sabbatical there studying
international relations. Here, too, he was to be
indoctrinated, and Milton Friedmanitized, in the manners of
being a President of Venezuela committed to spreading the
NeoTheoCon Northamerican political and economic mindset
that was then taking hold in the United States,
unfortunately.

Upon his return, RES handed me back my MS and quipped

this zinger: “Stanley Hoffman (Pol Sci guru at Harvard and
intimate of that idiot Henry “The Carpet Bomber” Kissinger)
read your book and told me you are crazy.” I let out a sigh
of relief. Could I have had a better compliment than that?
No way.

SH inspired me to do something I never would have

imagined I could do—would have the balls to do—and which
was more difficult for me than even the combat assaults I
made from helicopters with infantry soldiers in the hills
north of Pleiku. I was not going to let those bastards keep
me from telling The Truth about Vietnam.

I took The Hippie Lieutenant to the Embassy of the Union of

Soviet Socialist Republics in Caracas and, with a bouquet of
red roses, rang the embassy's bell and sucked it in
hard...exceptionally hard. I was petrified with fear.

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The receptionist referred me to a Novoski journalist,
Alexander Borisov, always treating me amiably and with
respect. AB suggested I write articles for the communist
newspapers in Venezuela, but I refused saying that I wanted
to be published only in Pravda. He laughed and so did I.
Because AB's English was not advanced, I was “transferred”
to Yuri (last name?) who served as the embassy's
commercial attaché and was fluent in English. Yuri told me
he had been a very high executive in the Gazprom
organization. I did not dare ask him why, then, he had been
assigned to Venezuela. He suggested that I meet the vice-
director of the USSR's largest publishing company who was
on tour in Southamerica and wanted to meet with me on his
last leg before returning to Moscow. I accepted hesitatingly.
I was offered vodka during the meeting and I wanted to
pinch myself to see if I was really in that room with those
Soviet officials. Nothing productive came from the meeting
as far as the publication of my literary work was concerned,
but, thereafter, my heartbeat rate lowered.

For three or four months, I called the Soviet embassy

obsessively trying to pry an answer from Yuri who told me
over the telephone that my book was being considered for
publication. How many times had I heard that? One day,
as if a bolt from the sky had hit me, Yuri nixed my request
stipulating himself with these words: “The Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics will not publish your manuscript for fear
it might offend the newly-elected President of the United
States, Ronald Reagan.” I was speechless. And I could not
believe, and still do not to this day, that what Yuri had told
me was true. Nevertheless, I would have given my right
arm to offend that jackass Ronald Reagan.

O ver the years I have come to believe that the

Vietnam veterans who remained as “lifers” in the
United States Armed Forces have conspired to do
their best to “make-up” for the “loss” they suffered in
Southeast Asia, in the Vietnam “War.” Soldiers are born to
fight; United States' soldiers are born to win—at all costs.
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Give them a right-wing carte blanche, and they are off and
running. Including Colin Powell, Uncle Tom's Atom Bomb.
The Hippie Lieutenant proves that they might one day be
considered the biggest assholes (Merriam-Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, p 69) in the history of
warfare. And I am as proud as punch that I wrote it...

Post Scriptum

My dear reader, do you think

I have a problem with Authority
or does Authority
have a problem with me?

Written by Anthony St. John

Calenzano, Italy

9 October 2007

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