One of the nice things about being an Old Fart is you have lots of memories. Sometimes some of the strangest ones pop in your head at unexpected times. Today while filling my gut, I would not really call this eating, with chili from a can, I had one of those unexpected memories that brought a smile to my face. The whole memory will require some background so you can understand it, so please bear with me. The chili will return at the end of the story.
It was June of 1973 and I was one of the last draftees. I was selected to do my part of defending freedom from those "expansionist Reds" by going to Korea. At the ripe old age of 20, I said my goodbyes to my sweetheart and took long plane flights to the Land of the Morning Calm. Upon arrival at the Reception Center in Seoul we had to exchange our money, and were given the lecture about prostitutes, VD, etc. After being shown gruesome pictures of deformed tallywackers, we were told the best defense was to abstain. Since they were sure we would not, we were handed a 3 pack of condoms.
A day or two later I was shipped to my unit. Arriving there late on Friday afternoon, the First Sargent gave us the same lecture, 3 more condoms, and a pass off the post so we could go to the bars in the ville'. I sure was collecting a lot of condoms.
Now you need to know that Korea is a hot & humid place in summer. Hot & humid means there are lots of mosquitoes and many of us slept with mosquito netting over our beds. Again the army was more than willing to provide this to us free.
To make a long story short, after a while a buddy of mine and I were trying to figure out a way to get back home. We were one-third of the way around the wold and how could we cross the ocean? It would be very hard to get a flight since it was obvious we were not locals. Besides we did not have passports we only had military I.D.
Finally, a brain storm hit us! Make a raft out of inflated condoms held together with mosquito netting! But, what would we eat & how could we propel ourselves across the vast ocean? Again the answer was easy. Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) beer and the EM club chili with beans was guaranteed to jet propel us anywhere. Not only that, but we would not have to be afraid of sharks. Nothing will get near you after that combination.
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3 comments:
Very Interesting!!
I am so impressed that you were using your creative brainpower for good instead of evil.
I would have thought you would've spent the majority of your time in the military looking at girlie pictures ;D
Like everything else in my life the girly magizines had an unintended consequences. I was the driver for guard duty one night and someone brought in a pile of Playboy magazines. Now being the nerd that I am, I actually read some of the stuff in it. On the back of the center fold there is “informaiton” about the girl in the centerfold. For example, most say they like puppies and all say they like Disney movies.
Anyhow, here is this girl getting paid $1000's for a photograph and still in college and living her dream and bitching about equal rights and stating that she liked men that open doors, and treat her with respect. Meanwhile, I had been drafted out of school to be called “trainee” or “soldier” or by my last name.
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