Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 2
Hey Thom and Toby, it’s Captain
May! I’m still alive down here in the
Anyhow, he didn’t assassinate me, as you can tell
from this letter, so I’m reporting the fact that I’ve stormed his headquarters,
pissed on his ramparts and raised my black flag just to fuck with him. I’ve dared him to come out, and he pretended
like the cops and secret service didn’t tell him. He’s chicken as Hector was when Achilles
issued his challenge. The only
difference is that instead of running three laps around
Anyhow, while I was in Crawford spoiling for an intellectual mismatch, I bumped into the peace movement! Finding them was even better than finding you, because they were interested in the truth! They didn’t sleep until they had read my report cover to cover, let me tell you, and when they finished, they were scared and excited at the same time. They asked me to give them a copy, along with a disk I brought along. They made copies of copies of copies to show to other peaceful folks, and made a few dozen disks so that they could start a peace offensive via the Internet (that was my idea, I must admit). They treated me royally, I must say. It was a welcome relief from the indifference I get from the media.
You see, boys, they seem to think I’m some kind of hero for truth or something, risking my neck and all. It’s only those of you who are sworn to tell the truth who are holding back on acknowledging me or, more importantly, the truth of the Battle of Baghdad. Until you join up for my light cavalry, I’m a wanted man, and I’m not wanted alive. That’s why y’all have become the best part of the whole Western. Y’all are the impotent townsfolk of High Noon or High Plains Drifter. Y’all don’t treat me like a hero, or even like the officer and gentleman I am; y’all treat me like a ghost. Well, I’ll wear it as a compliment because I have a cavalry troop of ghosts riding behind me now, somber as shadows, waiting to scream to the public that they have been desecrated. I’ll lead them out of their Hades of obscurity and into the Elysian Fields, though; I’ve promised them that.
I sure am hoping you and the New York Times are about to repent and reform, because I’ve prepared a cowboy poem for the media entity that pisses me off the worst with its hypocrisy. Now both of you know that I’ve consistently spoken words of praise for the Times, as the most expensive dance hall girl and the one with the highest reputation for virtue, so I’m counting on you. I’m still smiling indulgently as I watch y’all sashay around with Bush and all the other wannabe cowboys, because I know you girls have to make a living, and you don’t mind if he treats you a little rough. Why put yourselves through all the humiliation, though? He’s just going to dump you and let the public have at you up when he’s finished.
Can’t ya’ll see a real man
back at the other side of the hotel?
He’s dressed in officers’ blues, captain’s bars and a chest covered with
medals, and I swear to God he has a look in his eye that says he’s in absolute
earnest about anything he writes, says or does.
That’s me, and I represent
Hey, Thom, it’s been more than a month since we talked and you told me that you told me that my surmises were right, but that you had a career to protect, and that the evil people you work for at the Times would torpedo it if you acted like an American. I’ve got to say, I still laugh when I think that you had to say it all in Russian so that your editors wouldn’t overhear you – is that who you meant, Thom? Shit, man, I feel real sorry for you as you cringe, but I’ve got a question: Do you think we’ll become any less McCarthyistic if y’all knuckle under to King George?
And Toby, I was impressed with our first conversation. You corrected me for assuming that you were less than a pillar of intellectual integrity as the head of the Times op-ed department. I apologized with pleasure – don’t you still have the emails? If not, they’re in the manuscript. The last time we talked, though, you must have been under the weather, because you were almost whispering about how the time for the Times wasn’t ripe, but that you would join in the revolution of truth. You said maybe in a week the First Amendment would get up out of the dirt. Well, it’s been two weeks since I sent you the truth, and another week since you said to wait a week, and the First Amendment is still flat on its face.
You know, down in
Y’all tell me the truth now, as real newspaper boys to a real cavalry captain: Were y’all talking a little too big the first time y’all bragged about your nerve and verve? I’ll leave the question open for the Gentle Reader of my book to decide, because I’m sorry to say that I don’t think you’ll give me a straight answer.
Well, I’ll leave you with something better to read than the New York Times has published of late: a real feature piece, a real analysis and a real news story.
The feature is a letter to John Young, yet another journalist who has failed to support the mission of Captain May, commander of Ghost Troop, 3/7 Cavalry, USA. Enjoy it. I know how much journalists love to see the high and mighty fall. As journalists yourselves – and high and mighty ones at that – you should find it an edifying example.
The analysis is in the form of a dialogue, a la Plato or Thucydides. I know that you have brains, and you’ll relish the wit. I’m hoping that you have balls, and you’ll do your job by publishing it in American’s truest, red-white-and-bluest newspaper, or at any rate circulating it to lesser journalists who will risk letting a fart of fair criticism slip out every once in a while. Believe me, it won’t hurt the atmosphere of any media outlet I can name.
The story is the best of the three promises, so I’ve held it for last: I got in touch with you guys July 15, just three days before the Blair administration assassinated Dr. Kelly, who was also one of your pen pals. Did you know that he died at the same time that the prez and Tony were promising you newsboys that they were “going to address the issue.” Sounded like a final solution to me at the time, and it even sounded like some of y’all might have been in on what he meant.
Well, the issue of Dr. Kelly got addressed on the
morning of July 18. I already knew that
my information was more damaging to the Bush League than Kelly’s was to
Blair. I have to say, I spent the day
low-crawling in a blacked out house when I heard CNN floating a story about how
the prez was coming to
Something must have gone wrong for the prez that weekend – do you think it was me? Monday, July 21, the prez was a shaken man. Take a look at him on film that day, trembling and distracted. Damn, I really feel sorry for the guy; I think he had failed to address his half of the issue that he and Blair promised you newsboys he would take care of. Thom, Toby, do you know what? You guys are starting to look like accessories to assassination, along with a long list of lesser crimes, because I’m accusing you here and now of ratting Dr. Kelly out to the Bush League, who ratted him out to the Blair government, which killed him.
I don’t know if treason for lying to the American public is one of your crimes, because it may be that in this country we make the press free so that it can sell itself to the highest bidder. Would you guys be interested in an op-ed recommending that we stop hassling crack whores? After all, they’re just acting like the media, which has spent more time embedded and receptive than a hundred ho’s.
Did any of that stuff above sting? Well, here’s a last stroke, and I’m going to lay on the leather: I’ve set you, the Houston Chronicle and a few other choice media dishes before Congress in the form of a investigation. It’s all locked and loaded, and I’m making side bets on whether Congress will get to you before you get to telling the truth that you’re still covering up. I hope I’ll meet you there when I testify – Should I wear my black belt or my dress blues? If I’m not there, my absence will be all the more eloquent. You see, I’ve told and written everyone that I became a political target for talking to the Times, just like Dr. David Kelly. If I take a bullet through my medals or my mind it will raise the stakes considerably, gentlemen, because I’m using this document to call you two - and your paper - accessories. Nervous? Welcome to my world.
Captain May