Three

Texans
I Was
To
Meet…

The First of
Three Texans
I Was Ever
To Meet

A fter graduation from prep school at the

age of sixteen, my family decided that
for both my mental well-being and
happiness, it would be best for me to work a
year or two before going on to the university.
At the time, I was very much interested in
politics—a subject I had often discussed with
my grandfather who had been born in Alsace-
Lorraine and who was so fervently
conservative he espoused the ideas of the
fanatic Roman Catholic priest, Father
Coughlin, who had ranted and raved against
Franklin D. Roosevelt during F.D.R.’s
presidency. My grandfather and I had talked
frequently about Barry Goldwater and the
young editor of a new conservative
magazine, National Review, William F.
Buckley, Jr.—or as he would have preferred it
—Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. I called N.R. to see if
there was a job offering, and for the only time
in my life, I was taken on not just after the
initial job interview, I was told to come in to
work as soon as possible and begin my
services as a correspondence/circulation
assistant—something that also meant I was
to get the ladies’ lunches, sweep the floor,
and help Angelo, on Saturdays, print our
address-o-graph’s zinced pieces of metal to
the paper labels which would envelope the
latest N.R. edition. I was thrilled beyond
belief.

O ne day, Gertrude, Mr. Buckley’s

private secretary, called me up to the
editorial offices and told me Mr.
Buckley wanted me to go the next day to the
Pierre Hotel, pick up the elderly mother of L.
Brent Bozell, an N.R. editor, and chaperon her
to a rally of the Young Americans for Freedom
which was to come to be in Madison Square
Garden. When we arrived at M.S.G., I
escorted the nimble—yet exactingly polite—
lady from the taxi to the anteroom of the
large sports and entertainment center. She
leaned on my arm, and I walked gingerly with
her caring not to let her trip or fall.

In the M.S.G.’s outer room used as a waiting

room, there was a congregation of some of
The Big Guns of the United States’
conservative movement: Bill Buckley,
Priscilla Buckley, James Burnham (author of
The Managerial Revolution), William A.
Rusher, Senator Barry Goldwater, Charles
Edison (son of Thomas A. Edison), Senator
Strom Thurmond, Bill Rickenbacker (son of
World War I aviation ace, “Eddie”
Rickenbacker), and one short man who stood
all alone out of the way of all the commotion
—just as I, too, had gone off to a side to
remain standing by myself.

Within a flash, that stocky character—whose

hair was flattened back in Clark Gable fashion
—came up to me, with his hand stretched
out, and—very un-New-Yorkishly—said:
“Howdy, I’m John Tower from Texas!”

Was he assassinated?

Written 10 June 2001

By

Anthony St. John

For

An Editor of His,

Katherine Smith

512-320-8700, Ext. 295

* * *

The Second
of
Three Texans
I Was Ever
 To Meet
I
magine it is September, 1966. You have
passed a relaxing summer concentrating
on bicycling a lot and performing vigorous
calisthenics because you—now a university
graduate—know that it is time to begin two
years of active duty in the United States
Army as an artillery second lieutenant, a
redleg. You had been commissioned on the
same day of your graduation after having
studied four years of Military Science, five
hours a week, in the Reserve Officers’
Training Corps. You are going to Fort Sill, the
Home of the Artillery, in Oklahoma. You will
go to school again, immediately, attend the
Officer Basic Course at the United States’
Army Artillery & Missile School, and receive a
diploma for your efforts. You are excited.
Vietnam looms large in your mind. You are
anxious.

F
ort Sill and the city of Lawton which lies
next to it turn out to be hardship tours
themselves—even less interesting than
the downright difficult Vietnam would prove
to be later. The first three months of O.B.C.
take the sting out of the boredom on the base
because there are eight hours of classroom
study each day and, in the evening, two or
three hours of homework. One of the most
popular of songs during this time is Sonny
and Cher’s “The Beat Goes On.”

In our class, there are two students with

whom I will become friendly and pal around
with until we receive our first assignments.
Tom Wilkins from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
and Jim Kindla from Pearsall, Texas. Tom is a
very likeable crew-cut guy, somewhat
reserved, and very intelligent. He comes
from Villanova University, R.O.T.C. Jim is the
life of our little “party”—an individual with a
keen sense of humor and a disposition to be
terribly decent and generous with everyone.
He comes from Texas A&M, R.O.T.C.

In all these years of thinking back on our

friendships, I have more than once regretted
how stupid I am for not having stayed in
touch with them. Tom was from the East
Coast as I was. Jim was from Texas! Tom had
never met a Texan before and I had only
shook the hand of one. Jim had never fallen
upon an Easterner. We were all anxious to
know about each other and the places from
where each of us had hailed from. Jim stood
out larger, like Texas, than any of us
Easterners. He was an amazing character.

The first thing that struck me about him was

his military bearing. No one looked better in
a uniform than Lieutenant James Kindla. The
fact of the matter is Jim looked more like a
general than he did a lieutenant! Even when
we went to shoot pool on weekends in Lawton
—dressed in civilian clothes—Jim’s poise
body-languaged as if it was missing its
uniform. His officer’s cap fit his head
perfectly. He could have been a model for an
Army poster. Jim’s “culture” was to take
military service more seriously than Tom and
I. We would have been satisfied to enhance
our curricula vitae with the details of our
Army stint—to help us get a better job after
our active duty obligation. I do not know if
Jim chose to make the Army his career. He,
too, had had his doubts about Army life when
we chummed around together. However, I
am sure Jim Kindla would have been more
than an excellent officer.

O
ne night Tom and I were returning to
our Bachelor Officers’ Quarters with
Jim—in his car. (I remember it even
seemed strange to me to enter a car with T-
E-X-A-S license plates and not The Empire
State’s!) Because Jim’s car was permitted on
base, it had to be registered, and being so,
red stickers (signifying Jim was an officer)
were stuck to the front and rear bumpers of
his car. At Fort Sill’s main gate, M.P.’s
eyeballed in-coming vehicles, and they were
authorized to stop any of them if they so
desired. And, of course, M.P.’s were required
to salute civilian cars with the red officer
decals. That night when Jim reduced speed
and approached the entrance to the fort, the
on-duty M.P. did not salute us. Jim stopped,
then backed up to reach the M.P. Through his
opened window, Jim suggested—in very
gentlemanly fashion—that the M.P. should
salute officers in the United States Army. The
M.P. immediately snapped to and put one, by-
the-book salute on us. After proceeding
farther down the road, Tom and I told Jim that
he was being too “gung-ho,” and that he
should have let go by the boards that which
was probably a mistake. Jim asked us why we
thought as we did. We believed that it was
best to let these little slips go unobserved
because it was surely unproductive to harp
on them. Jim disagreed energetically
explaining that we are all soldiers and
discipline is part of our training and that
preparation may one day save our lives on
the battlefield where we might be called upon
to react instinctively during a dangerous
situation that would not permit us to think
things out ahead of time as
“philosophically”—he put it—as Tom and I
wished. We gulped on that.

W
hen I arrived to the battlefield in the
Central Highlands in Vietnam, near
the Laotian and Cambodian borders,
I was absolutely shocked to be greeted—my
first day out!—by an infantry private who, flat
out, addressed me so: “What’s your name,
lieutenant? Out here in the field we are on a
first name basis.” My heart sank to the
ground. I thought of Tom and Jim. I knew at
that very instant in time and space I would
never be able to be a “hero” for my country.
My “country” had betrayed me. Even my M-
16 rifle, put on the market in 1967 by the Colt
Rifle Company and used by us for the very
first time in an actual combat situation, was
not dependable. It was a very sensitive
machine in those days, before being
modified, and particularly touchy when dirt
particles entered it. The L.R.R.P.’s refused to
use it during their operations. They called it
“a piece of junk,” and preferred the Russian
Kalashnikov stolen for them from captured
enemy soldiers. I recognized one fact: my
worst enemy wore the same uniform I did!
Had the Vietnam “War” been concocted by
parents and the United States’ government to
displace their nineteen-year-old juvenile
delinquents—very often criminals in Vietnam
—13,000 miles away from home and out of
their hair? (These kids belong in summer
camp, not Army camp!) Am I to believe that
Northamericans think that a Lieutenant
Calley—after having murdered innocent
children, women and elderly Vietnamese—
would return home to win “The Family Man of
the Year Award?” Military discipline was not
S.O.P., the rule of the day, in Vietnam. It was
something it should have not been. There
was something wacky going on. Soldiers’
rifles were not cleaned, grunts walked in
groups in the field disregarding the
“unwritten law” to separate from each other
always by five meters, many faked taking
their malaria pills, they refused to shave, they
contradicted orders, ad infinitum. (Imagine
you are a first lieutenant in “the world’s most
powerful army.” Privates call you “Tony;”
you’re not sure your rifle will function! The
only thing that keeps you happy is the
thought that ecstatic Colt Rifle Company
stockholders, after pledging allegiance to the
flag, will get down on their knees and pray for
your safe return. Why should you complain?
You are crazy if you do!) The absurdity of
Vietnam is even more clearly marked in my
memory by this incredible truth: When I
served on staff as an assistant adjutant, I was
responsible for writing up the narrations for
the Awards and Decorations that were later to
be approved by Division staff personnel. I
noticed that many of my recommendations
had been rejected because I was frequently
downgrading medal endorsements which I
thought had been proposed on a basis of
exaggeration—they simply did not fulfil the
requirements asked for in Army regulations. I
went to my superior officer and he explained
to me that I was to be more generous. He
said: “We have to give the boys something
to go home with.” Years later, when Vietnam
veterans gathered beneath the Washington
Monument to discard their medals, I realized
immediately that they were not disgusted so
much with the Vietnam “War.” No, they were
ashamed of themselves!

Officers behaved even worse than the

enlisted men. I would have liked to believe
they should have known better at that time.
Vietnam served as a place to plan an Army
career. Getting the best efficiency report,
making sure field duty was well-balanced
with staff duty, creating relationships with
contacts in Washington, and even sending
arms and Army equipment back home were
paramount in many officers’ minds. This was
the time when officers were being moulded to
perform as managers. This was the time
when ass-kissing marionettes such as
General Schwarzkopf and General Powell
(Uncle Tom’s Atom Bomb) were being
indoctrinated to fit some imaginary role
useful to the likes of a suspect war criminal
and political imbecile such as Henry Kissinger
—bosom buddy of that Little Fat Witch,
Madeleine Albright. (Will someone please
give me the honor of arresting Henry the
Megalomaniac?) An old sergeant told me we
were doing everything but soldiering. Many
infantry captains did not even know how to
read a map! The Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics could have invaded the United
States through Canada at this time and no
one would have been the wiser, one World
War II veteran told me. Soldiers did not
respect the United States Army’s officer
corps. They laughed—later fragged—at it
behind its back. And from this incredible
mess was to be formed, out of desperation,
the volunteer Army of today—something,
perhaps, even worse for we must not forget
that today’s leaders are many of the rotten
apples taken from the Vietnam era.

J im, too, I sustain, would have been

depressed at what went on in Vietnam.
But, I do not want to remember him as a
soldier, but as a friend. Jim was my friend.
And I take pride in this fact. Above all, Jim
was an honest, dignified individual who
embodied what a human being should be. He
was very proud to be a soldier, but more
content to be a human being. He filled my
mind with that which I thought a person
might be. I will forever be grateful to him for
that. Jim was a Warrior. Few were as astute
as he was at Soldiering. He encountered
many victories in Life, yet he also bore the
scars of his battles. He tried not to speak
disparagingly about his “enemies.” He
wanted very much to be respected, and he
respected in turn. But what I will remember
Jim Kindla also for is something else. Jim
possessed a unique sense of humor. Whether
it was for something ridiculous in life, or the
Army, his eyes were sharp to see what was
ironical or funny in this world. I listened to
Jim a lot and learned much from him. He was
one ripe with ideas and thoughts about many
things. A person from whom you could take
in a great deal—even about becoming a good
soldier.

Tom and Jim were not assigned to Vietnam.

For a while, I thought I would also not be
going because after O.B.C. I was appointed
to teach rocketry (Little John and Honest
John) to troops attached to the United States’
Army Training Center instead of being
ordered to a “cannon-cockers’” unit. Tom and
Jim were not with me in Vietnam, but their
friendships were. And, I am sure of one thing:
Vietnam would have been less of a tragedy
for all of us if they, too, had come to Vietnam
with me to teach 19-year-old “soldiers” the
meaning of respect for others and—more
importantly—respect for themselves. With
my Texan friend Jim we also would have had
somewhat of a good time.

**

Written the First Day of Summer, 2001

By

Anthony St. John

For

An Editor of His,

Katherine Smith

* * *
 The Third of
Three Texans
I Was Ever
To Meet
W
hen I last set eyes on my uncle Bill,
The Pill, in August, 1967—on my way
to Vietnam—he stood tall for me
epitomizing what was then for sure the senior
business executive: unkind, authoritative,
excessively patriotic, self-righteous and
church-going. Of course—as most of his
unimaginative peers were—he was a
detestable Republican and still is today. He
lived in Clarendon Hills, a suburb of Chicago
the city Martin Luther King said (said George
Wallace!) was the most racist urban sprawl in
the United States. The Pill worked for
Woolworth and was always showering his
relatives with Woolworth junk that I am sure
he never paid for, and as previously, I wonder
even today if he gave away those trinkets to
assuage in some way the culpability he
hopefully silently harbored for being such a
miserable anal-hoarding miser and ultra-
mundane member of the human race with
the personality of one of the cactus plants
near his retirement condominium in Phoenix.

Even in his old age, The Old Fart is a yes-man

and, in turn, expects to be yes-manned.
Speciousness is a fundamental principle of
Business. It is not difficult to imagine this
dullard’s political platform: against civil
rights for minority groups; against
integration; against unions; against the draft
(they tell me he swears the United States
Army was crazy for having sent a
wisenheimer like me to Vietnam!); against a
central government in Washington; against
socialism; and, against the remnants of New
Deal liberalism. My uncle, the birdbrain,
wants to be a conservative, an anti-
government libertarian. Just as Barry
“Nuke’em” Goldwater coveted, he too desires
to lobe missiles into the men’s room of the
Kremlin—still! He extols the values of
individual responsibility, individual freedom.
A central government should keep its hands
off the locals. Homes, schools, jobs,
businesses and farms should be left to the
intelligence of the right-wing citizens of the
United States. The Pill is a friend of
federalism. He pines for tax cuts for the rich,
the reduction of domestic spending, the
abolition of regulations, and the elimination
of the corporate income tax. “Get the federal
government out of the economy; you’re on
your own, America!” Just as easy as that.
Can you imagine the ensuing chaos? Bellum
omnium contra omnes. (And they, Harvard
“Masters” of Business Administration, vaunt
that Communism fell apart at the seams!
Capitalism, likewise, does not evidence that it
is in the best of form.) With this mentality,
liberty handsomely expunges equality and we
risk retrogressing to the Cave Man’s way of
behaving when we will have Milton Friedman,
Paul Samuelson and James Burnham books to
read all day during the brouhahas going on all
around us. (Please read Before the Storm:
Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the
American Consensus: Rick Perlstein; Hill &
Wang Publishers, March, 2001. 671 pages.)

For years I heard this gobbledegook from my

grandfather, Wm. F. Buckley, Jr., and his
ingratiating crew at National Review. They all
chimed in to the tunes of absolutism and
authority—the mainstays of their selfishness
and narrow-mindedness. They were
desperate to be unerring, to be applauded for
being so. Very childish of them. Why do
these insecure characters have to assert
themselves so undignifyingly? Why do they
think they have all the answers for all the
citizens of their country? Why must they be
so adamant, so persevering? Why cannot
they relax? Enjoy? Life is so short. Why are
these deviators driven so forcefully to react?
Did not their mothers breastfeed them?
B
ut it is not for his political imbecility
that I could even hate my doltish uncle,
it is for something very much more
important than addlebrained conservatives
trying strenuously to be something they will
never be: It is for cigars! Yes, cigars.
Something very dear to me, but not really so
as far as my uncle is concerned—or was
concerned when I served in Vietnam.

Cigars are great. Many people agree with

me. I am not going to expound here on the
qualities of a good cigar. If you have not
enjoyed cigars I am really sorry for you. In
the United States I was particularly fond of
Antonio y Cleopatra Grenadiers before I had
the chance to buy (legally, Mr. Clinton!) in
Venezuela and Switzerland magnificent
Cubans such as Cohiba and Montecristo. A
big difference, as might be expected. There
are many other great Cuban cigars, and one
very loving memory I have about them is
when I one time walked into a cigar
humidificador in Zurich and almost swooned
away in delight at the enormous collection of
them set out against the walls of the tobacco
room. Nicaraguan cigars are not unpalatable,
and I once belonged to a cigar club in Tampa,
Florida which sent me a box of fifty of them
every two months. Nevertheless, I
recommend that one smoke much less than
even moderately, and you will never see me
puffing away ecstatically on more than two or
three cigars a week.

When I think of Cuban cigars and Cuba I

inevitably think about Ernesto Guevara and
Fidel Castro. I liked Che. Fidel? No. Fidel
Castro was educated by the Jesuits, is a
lawyer, and never smiles. With a curriculum
vitae like that he had only three choices from
which to cast in his lot: become a dictator or
an agent for the Central Stupidity Agency or
work for my featherheaded uncle Bill. Did
Fidel select the least of three evils? Dictator?
But of what? Dictator of Cigars? Dictator of
The Red Menace scaring United States’
citizens out of their wits at the behest of the
United States’ Department of State?
Something funny is going on here. How did
Bill Clinton manage to have a supply of
Cuban cigars during his Presidency? Logic,
my dear Watson, logic! Has not Fidel Castro
always helped the United States’ Department
of State and Department of Offence to have
their merry ways?

In Vietnam I passed along this message to

the relatives: Please send me Antonio y
Cleopatra Grenadiers. They were not only for
me but also for some of my men who
conjointly enjoyed them. The reason I have
not spoken to The Pill, uncle Bill, since 1967 is
this: He said he would not send me (as other
relatives did) cigars because no one mailed
him “goodies” when he was a sergeant in the
Pacific during World War II! That Republican
creep! I mean…. I just wish I could have had
that mental midget under my command! I
would have put him on K.P. for months just for
being what he is: an idiot. What was the big
deal in shipping me a box of cigars?

My dear reader, envision with me for just a

minute or two. You are dug in about two
clicks (kilometres) from the Cambodian
border…you’re sitting at night on your air
mattress cleaning your rifle with a flashlight
while the monsoon rains pounce on your
hootch and you wonder if your soaked boots,
always on, are going to give you jungle rot…
Jackie Kennedy, announces the Stars and
Stripes, is on vacation in Angkor Wat,
Cambodia visiting the ruins of the ancient
city…Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara
has resigned his post…you write a letter to
L.B.J. asking why Jackie is on vacation in front
of you and why Robert quit…“Mr. President,
may I quit, too?”…Dixon Donnelly, Assistant
Secretary of State for Asian Affairs, in a long
letter, puffs: “Lieutenant, pay attention to the
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization”…Dixon, I
read it every night before going to sleep!…
30% of your high explosive artillery rounds
are defective and the enemy is making booby
traps out of them…a grunt, passing by, yelps
into your hootch: “Tony (Lieutenant?), what
the **** are you cleaning your M-16 for? It
probably won’t work anyway!”…you’re
wondering if a bamboo pit viper will sneak
into your tent tonight and bite your ***…
today’s (Monday) anti-malaria pill made you
nauseous for most of the morning… there’s
been no mail or supplies for two days
because the mountaintop you’re on is fogged
in…and your asinine uncle doesn’t want to
send you some Antonio y Cleopatra
Grenadiers! That Republican ***-**-*-*****!
Holy ****! Oh dear reader, I sincerely hope
that your uncle isn’t an ******* Republican as
is my uncle Bill! What big tough guys they
are! They are really Big Mouths! You never
saw the sons of Forbes’s Richest Men in
Vietnam. (Oh, Citizens of the United States of
America! When are you going to wake up?) I
only wanted a cigar…. Did I do something
wrong? Is it anti-American to ask for a
******* cigar?

Perhaps my feelings of being betrayed by my

country are neurotic—psychotic!!! Maybe I
am suffering some new post-traumatic stress
syndrome and need to receive a monthly
Veterans’ Administration disability check!
Does not money solve all the United States’
problems? Come on, we know why The Pill is
the way he is. He just wants to be a hard-
nose, a bully. That is the way he, and others
of his ilk, view life. It is a struggle to grab at
all you can without having pity on anyone
else. Fatuitous Republicans are made that
way. I ask this: Why has not anyone had
compassion for The Pill and his conservative
friends? What have they done to have to be
so hard-hearted with others?

I have a copy of Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.’s Up from

Liberalism dedicated to me by him with this
short, pithy statement: “To Tony, from the
father of your greatest admirer. Wm. F.
Buckley, Jr.“ I met Christopher Buckley at a
Buckley family Christmas party in his
Stamford, Connecticut mansion and never
saw him again in my life. Years later I read
this succinct quote by him in a magazine: “I
wish I could have served in Vietnam.” I am
happy that Christopher did not “do time” in
Vietnam. No United States’ citizen deserved
to serve in that undeclared “war” and
political fraud. The evidence exists that the
Vietnam “War” was in many respects a
criminal undertaking, and I earnestly enjoin
all United States’ citizens to preview these
proofs—if they possess the courage to do so.
A civilized society does not offer up a menu
of hate, imperialism and mass murder to its
sons and daughters and, after, hiding from
the backfire, sneak away under the security
blanket of silence, rabid patriotism and
demagoguery. Christopher Buckley uttered
what he did because he is as nimble-minded
as uncle Bill, The Pill. Who would have
inherited the fortune of Pat and William
Buckley if Christopher, their only child, had
come home from Vietnam in a plastic bag
with 58,168 other human beings all duped by
the United States’ government? Who could
have thought that Christopher’s humdinger of
a grandfather (see W.F.B.—An Appreciation by
His Family and Friends; Edited by Priscilla L.
Buckley and William F. Buckley, Jr., New York
[1959] Privately Printed; or, my “The
Entrancing—But Perilous—William F. Buckley,
Jr.: Intimate Glimpses of a Dogmatic Timocrat
and His Family”) William F. Buckley, Sr., would
have wished to send Christopher to any war
enjoying the company of his Midas’s
blessing? Christopher, wake up! Stop talking
like a dunderhead! Vietnam was not for you,
it was not for me, it was for no one. The only
thing I cherish when I muse upon my past in
Vietnam is the fact that no one went in my
place. I saved someone from a year of
slavery to an ideal both ill-conceived and
malfeasant and, unlike your father,
Christopher, my father did not possess a
stock portfolio which bloated with the sales of
munitions and other military accoutrements—
many of which did not function—necessary to
prolong for more than ten years the profitable
for some Vietnam “War.” (Will all the
“Americans” who got rich or richer off the
Vietnam “War” please raise your hands?)
God bless America? No, God help it for being
so stupid!

T
he ramifications gushing from the
Vietnam “War” debacle and the Fall of
the Wall have remolded, as never
before, the very essentialness of military
science and its methods of conducting
modern warfare. The Vietnam conflict was
not a defeat for the United States—it was
worse than that. The United States trounced
itself in Vietnam because there it had no
rational mission to execute. A justification for
being in Vietnam was not comprehensible.
Therefore, the energy to counterbalance was
frustrated due to this intelligibility and, taking
advantage of this vacuity, the enemy made
mincemeat of a soldiery groping in its own
bewilderment. The matter was further
exacerbated because at no other time in the
history of the world had a Peace Movement
been so vigorous in undermining the
hegemony of a military establishment and
those to whom it was subordinate. Common
sense did not assent to the ten-year
prolongation of the Vietnam “War.” It was a
misadventure distinguished by sheer folly.
(Vietnam veterans are not crazy because
they went to Vietnam; those who sent them
there need to have their heads examined.)
On the other hand, common sense did yield
to the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Why?
Was it not about time to reunite the divided
Germany? Was it not opportune to be, finally,
sagacious? Time heals all wounds except the
chagrins of the Pentagon!

The Vietnam hostility was a deathblow to

Pentagon strategists who, since World War II
and the Korean War, had basked in the sun of
success and the arrogance that often
accompanies it. No one in Washingtonian
war rooms ever even daydreamed that a first
lieutenant in the United States’ Army, “The
Hippie Lieutenant,” would one day write to
the President of the United States asking if he
could relinquish his post! (There was no
court-martial.) Things had got very much out
of hand. In 1973, the Pentagon’s desperate
counterstroke was detonated: an all-
volunteer armed force! Military masterminds
just had to get things back under control—
their control. They were obligated to show
that their way of fomenting war was best for
all of us. These humiliated, medal-bedecked
and ribbon-chested military potentates—with
a vengeance—were going to retake the
command they had so mortifyingly lost to The
Flower Generation. Surgical warfare,
negative body bags, high technology
assaults, and limited time wars became the
order of the day—an extrema ratio that could
not be objected to by a citizenry less and less
tolerant about the ultima ratio and the
tragedies demarcating it. (Ask The Playboy
President, baked Democrat on one side,
Republican on the other, who commanded
when he was President? Clinton, the draft-
dodger, could not even get the Pentagon to
order four or five thousands soldiers to
Ruanda to take the whisky bottles and
machetes out of the hands of delinquents
turned murderers.) What was the Pentagon
hitting back at? Could it be that the human
race was finally on its way to doing
something about bringing down the
commonly accepted practice of free-for-all
carnage? Could it be that the Pentagon had
become an “enemy” in its own country?
Could it be that the Pentagon had to re-
deploy itself, had to adjust to an incredible
anomaly? That the military establishment
was clearly on the defensive? That it was
having an identity crisis? That 14% of the
United States’ Armed Forces became
composed of women, not because generals
and colonels had become feminists, but
because not enough men wanted anymore to
have anything to do with the Pentagon’s
conceptualisation of combat? We were then,
as we are today, on our way to The Robot
Soldier—notwithstanding a world community
wanting always more to make love and not
war!

Listen to the new bureaucratese of the NATO

Review (edited by my dear friend Christopher
Bennett who will send you free [your tax
money!] a subscription to it in English or in
Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German,
Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish,
Portuguese, Spanish or Turkish; FAX: [32-2]
707-1252;
http://www.nato.int/docu/review.htm) the
house organ of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation—that resilient dream-come-true
of the nuttier-than-a-fruitcake Ambassadress
Clare Luce Boothe (a Republican!) and
Secretary of State John Foster “Let’s Play
Dominos” Dulles (still another Republican!):
“military science and doctrine…peacekeepers
and warriors…peaceful resolution of
conflicts…peacekeeping operations…security
thinking…conflict-management strategies…
warlords and conflict entrepreneurs…peace-
support operations…mission creep…
traditional military and humanitarian
thinking…tasks of state-building, reforming
the security sector, strengthening civil
society and promoting social reintegration…
force protection…cross-cutting initiatives…
supreme authority…High Representative…
inter-agency cooperation…post-conflict
peacebuilding…war-fighting soldiers…post-
conflict scenarios…’silver bullet’ clause…
linkage between mandate and resources…
integrated missions…integrated
headquarters…robust force posture…sound
peace-building strategy…troop-contributors…
force-quality issue…multi-functional group of
experts…war-fighting and peacekeeping…a
warrior, a diplomat and a thoughtful foreign-
policy analyst…pit bull diplomacy…three-
dimensional war-fighting…leaders must
always share the deprivations and risks,
political and physical, with their followers…a
broadly based coalition of friends and allies…
soldiers can do peacekeeping as well as war-
fighting…voluntarist nature of modern
conflict…instant history…overwhelming force
is not a doctrine that can be applied to every
type of conflict…the perfect war, with zero
casualties and impeccable moral and legal
justification…the moral and strategic
necessity of NATO’s intervention…rescue and
rehabilitate peoples…coalition of the willing…
multinational military force…ending the
draft…fully professional army…boosting
female representation…promoting gender
equality…old-fashioned close combat…the
role of the modern warrior is more gender
neutral than ever…strategy for gender
equality in diversity-management approach…
gender-differentiated basic physical
standards...female under-representation…”
Ad infinitum. Ad nauseam. See how their
partisan sidekicks in Washington have called
the “philosophical” shots for them? Where is
the casus belli? There is none? Invent one,
then! Yugoslavia?

Karl von Clausewitz will not be the only one

vomiting over this “schizoidism.” First of all, I
wish to ask if these military geniuses know
from which end of the rifle the bullet exits?
Do they sell Girl Scout biscuits, too? Their
gibberish is not the invented phraseology of
besotted Jesuits or crackbrained Harvard
University political science professors. It is
the intellectualisation of high-ranking
“political soldiers” all belonging to the
nineteen-member North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation and all bleeding their hearts out
all over the place to do for us what they
believe is best! I cannot think of anything
more disgusting than the sanctimoniousness
of these factional clubmen drooling upon us
with their capricious war-fighting and
peacekeeping imperatives. Their sickening
desire to have a raison d’etre. Genuflecting
dizzyingly to the left then to the right, these
bipartisan soldiers have become the
bedfellows—not the alter egos—of politicians.
You do not call a British general “general”
anymore. You call him “Sir General!” British
generals pine to be knighted by the Queen!
They yearn to be loved, cuddled! What
better proof is there, then, of the fine fettle of
the Peace Movement if it is not the
bafflement of political soldiers and politicised
military intellectuals foaming at their mouths
with their mendacious, storybook-like
croakings in NATO Review? Here’s looking at
you, Peace Movement! Nulla salus bello:
pacem te poscimus omnes!!! Come on,
Pentagon, let’s bring an end to war! One!
Two!! Three!!! E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y in
Washington and Brussels!!! Hop on The Peace
Train!

I
will bet that you think I have forgot about
that third Texan! Nope. It was The Pill who
suggested that I make a visit to Wichita
Falls, Texas from Fort Sill, Oklahoma to visit
Mr. Marcus some months before I was ordered
(Why did they not ask me?) to Vietnam. Mr.
Marcus was a client of The Pill and he had a
factory on an old Air Force base where he
manufactured leather goods for the
Woolworth multinat. What was interesting
about Mr. Marcus’s work was that he
employed many handicapped individuals to
produce the objects my uncle would buy from
him for Woolworth. Mr. Marcus and his wife
took me to an exclusive restaurant in Wichita
Falls, and I remember that they were a very
kind and generous Jewish couple who desired
zealously to help people—especially those
downtrodden. (I am sure they were not
Republicans.) To this very day, I ponder over
this equivocation: Did The Pill send me down
to meet Mr. Marcus to show off his lieutenant
nephew so that he could get a discount for
Woolworth? Or did The Old Fart verily have it
in mind to do something—finally!—genuinely
bounteous for me? If the latter is so, why did
he not want to send me cigars when I was in
Vietnam? (Because he is a noodle-headed
Republican! Didn’t I tell you so?)

My dear reader! Please…I beg of you. Hit me

with bad words. Insult me. Play my guitar.
Shout at me. Spit at me. But don’t ever call
me a Republican!

***

Written 30 August 2001 in the Blazing Forte

dei Marmi Sun

By

Anthony St. John

For

An Editor of His,

Katherine Smith

512-320-8700, Ext. 295

* * *