Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 3
O.K., since we’re all collegial now, let’s see if I
can’t get you some “facts” (whatever the hell you mean by that) so you can win
the great prize (whatever the hell that is for you). Here’s the piece of evidence I’ve nibbled off
the broadcasts today: At 1730 (Texas
Time), Lou Dobbs broadcast the stats on our dead and wounded from
How about a back page story from a cranky, crazy captain who knows various Bushlings, lives in Texas, where Bush (badly) pretends to hail from, and says that the whole pattern of DoD casualty/mortality numbers is bad bookkeeping for bodies, and that a lot of the “wounded” folks are so severely hurt that they haven’t moved – or breathed – for months? Can you check out the wounded in accident/killed in accident percentage and the wounded in action/killed in action percentage through some of your buddies at Centcom or the Pentagon, or would that be breaking faith with cohorts? I’ll bet you they don’t make sense. The Army is making security classifications and senseless statistics at will, ain’t it? Poor bastards, they ought to be ashamed of themselves, but hell, I’ve committed felonies for my country, too (otherwise I stick to misdemeanors, which are only bad manners, after all), so I won’t throw stones at the military. I’ll save my ammo for the media.
All right, there’s the quick and dirty of my email. The rest is labeled and attached if you feel like reading it.
[Attachment]
I called you a “fox” (wasn’t that my word?) twice on the phone Monday morning, even though you seemed to resent it a bit. I can’t see why. It’s fox work that needs doing now, and I’m a limited lion, so we’re partners. You’re drafted to Ghost Troop.
I’m true to my alliances. Ask Chase Untermeyer how far I’ll take that. He’s up in D.C. this week consorting with the putrefied power elite; he’s one of them, because he screwed up his life by serving as Asst. Sec. Navy for Reagan/Bush 41. Y’all ever met? You should. Give him a call at 713-500-3763 sometime; he’ll call back and the two of you can talk fox talk for hours, evaluating everything, admitting little, deciding nothing. All of which is OK by me, since foxes are for scouting, and not really designed for deeds of daring. In Chase’s case he’s the Ghost Troop Chaplain (volunteered), and ministering is the best sinecure there is, even better than being a high-end reporter.
And hey, just to show that I’m not all rage and rudeness, I could tell that I hurt your feelings by saying that I hadn’t read the Times or you, even though you and a shitload of lesser journalists read me. Well, I resolved that I would at least find out who you were, so I pulled a bit of info off the net. Damn, you’ve got it all but the Pulitzer, Thom – or do you have a Pulitzer? Hope not, I think it fucks with your mind once you get one. Thomas Freedman has three of ‘em – puts it at the bottom of every column so we won’t forget – and he hasn’t been anything more than a mouthpiece for the Alliance of the Killing from the git-go. Now that the war is a bust he’s reaching for relevance. Think he’ll get another Pulitzer this year for being a loyal lapdog? And is a Pulitzer kind of like the Order of Lenin? I know you’ve got way more CCCP savvy than I do, so I’d like to know what you think of the comparison.
Barb Phillips, my darlin’ editor over at the Wall Street Journal, is a fox, too; that’s why I’ve expressly forbidden her to do anything that would compromise my highly sensitive, secret campaign to reveal the truth about the Battle of Baghdad. Yep, I’ve made it so that she would be violating journalistic ethics if she made a journalistic move. Her job is just to watch and not move. I’ll bet everyone wishes they had a deal like that nowadays. Kinda removes the ethical conflict, don’t it? Well, I wish everyone were as sweet as Barb, ‘cause she took me on a subway ride in y’all’s city once, and got me from one side of it to the other, just like Dante going through the underworld – and all of that turned into a good, haunting essay (I’ll attach the file, “Ghost,” – published on 911 of ‘95 – if you’re interested; it’s kinda spooky). Private Kenneth, el Loco de Wacko, is a fox, too, and a damned fine one: I’ve made him a scout for Ghost Troop, detached him to the outer reaches of the underground, where he’s doing special long range reconnaissance patrol and engaging infotargets via the net. So far he’s doing all right, except that he’s somehow gotten my name spread into the orphaned followers of David Koresh, but hell, you deal with folks who make them look like boy scouts, so I won’t brag.
See, Thom, each of us has a fabulous role – but why am I presuming to tell you any of this? Hell, even when I was pissed off at you to the point that I was thinking about coming to you and expressing myself directly, I gave you credit for being my peer in smarts, didn’t I? Well, that was a damned lie, and we both know it. You see, I’m smart enough to know I’m not as smart as a fox like you; I’m as dumb – and direct – as a lion, given my preferences.
Be careful. You told me (in Russian, of course; you’re at your best when we talk in Russian) how you feel worried out in the journalistic jungle, about getting trampled by some elephants (and turncoat jackasses) who are always stomping around in publishers’ offices – Barb feels the same way, believe me, so watch your step (or should I say watch their steps?).
Hey, I’ve gone through my notes and found a CNN remark about David Kelly’s last email – to you guys at the Times, curiously enough: “There are dark actors playing games.”
Wouldn’t it be hell if you and I weren’t caught up in
the games, scout? Let’s wax
Shakespearian and call this play George
XLIII, which is a kind of Richard the III rip-off, but what the hell, the
Bard of the
I’ve been defining my part in style:
I got the “duck and cover” from my octogenarian ex-Wehrmacht WWII captain and my octogenarian Negro Army WWII
sergeant right after Kelly and I got in touch with you folks at the Times. Yep, they sounded-off like a tandem of a
white and a black bloodhound who had just caught the
scent. What scent, Thom? Death, boy, the scent of
death. Know that scent,
Thom? I do, and they do even
better. All that paranoia going on
between them and me in little ol’
Damn, you’d think that
Anyway, all of this makes for a good plot. (All the world’s a stage, and there must be plots, Thom, mustn’t there?)
It got even better the next morning, when Davy Kelly got … er, suicided. Would you believe I low-crawled through my bunker that day, thinking that any moment I’d be shot through or blown up? Yeah, I was wearing the dobok (martial arts uniform) I’d just bought from Master Yu to be cremated in, along with my black belt, worn over my cavalry belt (in honor of the 3/7 Cavalry) and my “brass nuts” necklace, waiting in a blacked out maze with a five-foot oak staff (Japanese jo) that I occasionally use to brain steers.
The plot really thickened when I heard that Bush was
coming to
When I reached the admitting shrink, she didn’t know much about me or my special needs, so I explained:
“Ma’am, I’m an ex-military intelligence / public affairs officer who, as a matter of conscience, has been doing everything in my power to publicize an officially repressed, dreadful secret of the Battle of Baghdad – which you haven’t heard of, I guess?”
She nodded up and down a bit, then a little bit left and right. I supposed she was following, so I went on:
“Yes, ma’am, and I’m convinced that the reason the president of the United States and the prime minister of Great Britain met yesterday was to arrange roughly simultaneous assassinations of Dr. Kelly and Captain May (me) to intimidate information professionals into continuing to support their illegal, imperial grab for Iraq. That’s why they closed their media remarks last night by saying they were “going to address The Issue,” and that’s why Kelly was dead this morning and I’m about to be dead soon.”
Her head seemed pretty wobbly, and I can’t describe its exact motion. She seemed, well, disoriented. Maybe period trouble, Thom. Hell, if I know anything it’s that I don’t know shit about women. Anyhow, she came into focus again and calmly asked “You feeling homicidal?”
“Hell – or heavens – no, ma’am. I’m in a retreat mode right now, and besides, Master Yu says I can’t fight anyone but other black belts.”
“You feeling suicidal?”
“No ma’am, I’d like to stay alive, read Greek, smoke Mary Jane and listen to the Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – maybe all at the same time – so I don’t feel like dying at all just yet – and neither did Dr. Kelly!”
She was holding her head to stabilize it at this point, but was still lucid. “Captain May, the news has been saying all day that Dr. Kelly committed suicide.”
“Yes ma’am, that’s because they’re complicit with the general spirit, if not the specific acts, of the president’s attempt to subvert the foundations of democracy.”
Her head was on the table by now, and I felt like counseling with her to help a bit, but remembered who was who, so I waited until she felt like talking about it.
“What would you like us to do for you, Captain May?”
“Got a nice, safe, strong cell where I could go and be under constant supervision against things like random gas explosions, “gangsta” drive-by strafing, or errant deer rifle shots, and can you start commitment papers to take all control of me away from me so that anyone wants to get me have to go through you, my shrink and my lawyer wife?
At last she smiled. “We have just the place – and do you always wear your black belt?”
“Yes ma’am, I’ve tried dressy casual clothes when I was a renegade journalist, but I find that folks understand where I’m coming from a lot better when I wear my uniform.”
“Must make it hard to make friends,” she said, as we walked down toward the safe room I had requested.
“What’s friend?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
I’ve already told you that in the next six hours I stood down about a dozen hospital goons (night shift going off; day shift coming on) along with three cops, all on the strength of a black belt and a half-black lawyer wife, along with a certain look that folks who deal with me seem to respect when I give it to them. Yep, I’ll get around to the whole story one of theses days, but it requires more leisure to tell. Here’s the teaser: Would you believe that you could be in fear of assassination, in grief for desecrated brothers, calculating the demolition of a half-dozen proximate antagonists, and have a hard-on at the same time? Damn fact, Thom. Got witnesses.
All of which was the point, after all: witnesses. Before I busted my way out of the ward at dawn, I must have generated psycho and police reports that had circled the city: “Crazy man, fears assassination by president trying to cover up war news.” Yep, everyone talks up a crazy man, and I must have been as crazy as anyone they’d seen for a while.
When I had established a new bunker in a new place
and tucked away with my weapons again, I started watching a lot of TV. Man, we’ve got to go over the stuff they were
showing Monday, July 21 (and let’s get Barb in on it, ‘cause
she used to be a TV critic). Bush stayed
over in
I could go on with my side of things, but believe it or not, I’m tired of my part of the play. I know my lines. I just can’t wait for things to get safe enough for you to tell me just how in the hell the Bushlings got hold of y’all’s balls… Your side of things might be as interesting as mine.
I’m doing my part to be a heroic figure in George XLIII, kind of like McDuff, pissed off about what happened to his family (or in my case my Army family). I’m as haunted as Hamlet, as loony as Lear and as outraged as Othello. Are you writing your own role? It’s the chance of a lifetime, so don’t fuck it up, Thom. A good fox can wiggle the right way and get through anything, that’s why I guess I was supposed to cut you loose from the curse and give you a chance to bestow some merit for the muddied muse of journalism. Right now she’s looking kinda low-end, but I think she’ll clean up like a classy $500 call girl.
I’m hoping for the best from you, one of my scouts, beyond control and apparently without aim, but somewhere in the large formation of Ghost Troop, 3/7 Cavalry. If you want to take the hero part, I’ll hand it over in a New York minute. So far, none of y’all have wanted to audition, though. I would have passed on the role, but, as I’ve said, my interest was as personal as Antigone’s. Otherwise I’d have let it be, to tell you the truth. See, a tragic flaw, the mark of a hero, along with the inability to follow the dictates of common sense, and the inability to back down once committed. Now be a good Cassius, not a crummy Iago – it’d be just my fool’s luck to be working out a plot with an informant. Let me think…
Nyet, eto ni mozhet bit, on moy hitri, smeli
tovarisch.
You see, man, Russian aside – instant literature mejhdu nami devushkami. (Sorry for the crummy transliteration.)
Jhelaiyo vam uspeha, tovarisch
pisatel.
Captain May
PS: Frank Michel said you guys were friends when I talked to him after I got back from Bedlam. Is that true, or was he just trying to drop names? I’m betting the latter. You must be a pillar of the institution, tovarisch.
Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 3