Yesterday was Easter. That means I was on one of my rare visits to a church. Even spiffed up a bit. A disguise to wear into the valley of death in hopes of warding off evil. As usual it's a reluctancy. Stuffed in a building with a crowd of people singing about things I don't believe in. Don't find true. Makes me feel guilty I'm in the building and not in the open air.
There's an up side. Church moves me inward. I drift off to other locations and times. Kinda like being in the Army. My body in one place, my mind in another.
Seeing as how it was the day it was, my drift begins in the direction of Oakland Army Base, 1969. Guess that's forty-five years ago as the crow flies. Left for Vietnam on Easter sunday. Nothing gets me out of where I am at the moment like that day and the months that followed.
Lacking the ability to hold onto a single train of thought, my airhead moves elsewhere from the Nam. Yesterday my drift was with my Uncle Emil and the tale I recently rough drafted about him. Being in church I got to thinking that maybe he could be my mouthpiece concerning belief. Hate to put the man in that off-putting position but better him than me. Dragging that kind of stuff out in the open riles up my nerves. Makes me think no matter what I say it has no weight. Just guesswork in a world floating on belief and calling it gospel.
Can't say my attitude in church started in Vietnam but it sure had a few nails driven in over there. Since then nails have just kept on coming.
On a similar level and definitely related were the times we stood in formation to honor those who'd been killed in a previous operation. Bayonetted M-16 stabbed into the ground, helmet on top, boots to either side at the base. Much like the man without the body. Then a brief speech by Bravo 6, our CO, that drew on our mission to stop the spread of Communism. The boys had not died in vain. Amen.
Gotta say those memorials tended to piss me off. To me the deaths didn't have much of a point to them. Coupla guys got caught in the meat grinder and would just have soon been alive and home. Don't know how the others felt 'cause there was no way the subject could have been brought up. Life in the big war. Suck it up, keep your mouth shut and head back out to the field.
In short, it's my problem, for better or worse. And not something easily spoken of in polite society.
