Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 2

August 19, email, Dr. Buzzanco, History Department, University of Houston

Thanks for giving me a quarter of an hour. You know, I’ve got a feeling that pretty soon my whole life is going to turn around. I’ve been struggling against a thousand quasi-Nazis to get a word in for the truth, and pretty soon the whole crowd is going to be begging me for an interview. Well, it sucks, don’t it? I guess there’s still hope though; I may still get killed.

May I write a graph for your students, sir?

Boys and girls of Dr. Buzz, Captain May sez that if y’all would pay attention during his history class we wouldn’t have to go through this shit every few decades. Captain May also sez you’re going to be damn lucky if we can put on the brakes before the Quicksand War over there becomes World War III everywhere. If that happens, Uncle Sam won’t give a damn if you’re mama’s only child and you make B’s in college. Your ass will be in the front, and the front may even be your front yard!

There, that makes me feel somewhat relieved, but if they are the ones who have to go, I’m not going to feel nearly as sorry for them as I would Mr. Coleman’s grandson who’s black, 20 and in-and-out with misdemeanors, but doesn’t have a chance to do anything better than hang out and never did. Shit, I wish he had middle class parents and a ticket to college!

I spent the first two weeks of the war on the front porch of the Honors College – the elite of the University of Houston, of which I was an illustrious alumnus, and I begged charity for the dead men. They couldn’t have given a damn less! I have seen them by the half dozen sitting ten feet away, talking with bemusement about my sitting in the sun for hours at a time. I have had them come up to me and suggest that I should go away.

I have had the Christian Right attack me like Baptist berserkers, arguing that we should just take our orders from the burning Bush, even if he is suppressing the Constitution. But do you know, not one of them offered a penny of charity. One day in April I asked one of the devotees of Jesus and Rush Limbaugh who was waxing political in front of me what she thought Jesus would do if he saw a man sitting in the sun asking for charity for widows and children. She became enraged and told me she was not going to be questioned, that she was a loyal member of the First Baptist Church, and that she gave a tenth of her income (net) to God. I told her that I believed that I should do what Jesus would do and tell her that she was being rather like a Pharisee or a Scribe in her argument, and that she was in fact a simple hypocrite. She damn near did a holy roll with that one. Stormed off. Never seen again. Good riddance. I figured it all out right then and there: I never go anywhere near Baptists without my Bible, because you can always run ‘em off with a salvo of Jesus. You see, Dr. Buzz, there I go again, making enemies. If I get hit-and-run over by an SUV, look for one with a Jesus fish on the back.

I’m glad you remembered my little ambush of the lieutenant colonel at the university talk in April. I thought he was dampening the dialogue, to tell you the truth, and that seemed contrary to the spirit of inquiry, so I went ahead and blew his britches away. He didn’t have a thing to answer when I accused the military of switching from public affairs to psychological operations – because he knew I was right. All he could say was “After it’s all over, you’ll understand.” Understand my ass. He was tap dancing because he’s an institutional agent. When you’ve got former MI officers who are plugged into the local news media and come to shut you up at a faculty-led discussion, don’t any of you get suspicious? Anyway, I thought I’d go ahead and soften him up for y’all, but y’all didn’t follow up. I guess it was too early.

Captain May

Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 2