Maybe it's time . . .

[flamin lib]

Those of you who follow my postings know I work the night shift at a convenience store/bait-shop in a local marina. Not exactly where I thought I’d be in retirement with two MS degrees and 25 years negotiating multi-million deals with international companies, but shit happens and this time it happened to me. Anyway, I get quite a number of military personnel coming through on short leave to get in a little fishing. It’s hard for me to deal with sometimes but I’ve learned to relate. This story is just one of many.

It’s 2:00 AM and two fellows and their girl friends come in asking for information on local fishing. I go over the fees and licensing and they decide to risk the Texas Parks & Wildlife department and use the closest free access to the lake. About 15 minutes later they’re back and one says, “I’ve crawled around in the dark in Iraq long enough to know there’s probably something in the rocks out there that’ll hurt ya’. Fix us up with whatever it takes to fish here under the lights.” Seems he and his buddy are special ops back from tour number 4 for a few months.

So I said that I didn’t see any combat (I’m sixty, about 10 pounds overweight and grey) but I did serve in Washington, D.C., riot control. Was there for the September 1969 Vietnam Moratorium and the ’70 May Day War Protest. 500,000 protesters in the streets of the nation’s capitol trying to get 500,000 soldiers out of Vietnam. I said maybe it was time we did that again.

He said, “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

I waived all the fees and sent them off to a restricted area where I knew the big catfish were biting.

[question everything]

1. Thank you for that report

I think that this is something many of us realized: just because this is a volunteer army does not mean that they do not realize the stupidity of hanging on there.

[texastoast]

2. it's been time

And we need to march, skip work to protest, and put pictures of the horror on the nightly news. The Iraqi people need to send us home in no uncertain terms so poor America can wake up to the fact of 2,5 billion Muslims vs.300 million Americans.

And can you PM me about where I can find that catfishing hole? ;0).