GOODBYE, SOUL BROTHER 1 continued

Capt. Shuvee encounters several troopers out and about during the zero dark thirty hours out and about on their own before twilight agenda.  He encounters and progresses through the Fusaichian green without stepping on a single turd dropped by a small stinking yellow FuPeg.  Say, trooper, what’s the difference between a FuPeg and dog shit?  What’s that, trooper?  When dog shit gets old it turns white.  Always stinking, always yellow free-shitting FuPegs.  And there ain’t no dog shit in Fusaichi because there ain’t no dogs.  Something fundamentally wrong about that.  Scuttle butt has it that the FuPegs long ago ate all the dogs into extinction.  Paws, ears, tails, snouts, assholes, even the teeth of the dog of every dog were butchered and stewed and chowed upon and shitted out.  Well, if any one could eat dogs it’s the FuPegs.  They eat any/everything and with enthusiasm.  Aggressively.  The captain remembers something else he’s read by Von Clausewitz:  The majority of people are timid by nature and that is why they constantly exaggerate danger.  He remembers and thinks himself aggressive by nature.  Aggressively and smoothly he progresses through the Fusaichi.  Through her soft peaks and valleys blunt, through her overgrowth of deciduous decadence and coniferous chaos - ain’t even a joyful chaos - lef rye lef he barely misses another FuPeg turd and remembers the words of Archduke Ferdinand:  We have come to Sarajevo on a visit and have had a bomb thrown at us.  Very inhospitable, the captain agrees.  But it’s worse coming to Fusaichi on a deployment and having FuPeg turds shitted all along your walking path.

    Hada lef rye lef.

    Somewhere a male cicada vibrates his tympanic membranes and from somewhere else a female responds:  play music for me and the male responds:  I won’t stop the music.  It is a musical romance.  Hada lef rye lef.  All sorts of creatures here.  Some troopers swear there is a two horn unicorn.  Others that a sabercat prowls the forests.  Gators n bears have also made the list of sightings.  Capt. Shuvee doesn’t know if these claims are true or if just products of troopers becoming boonified but he is sure of that which he doesn’t see:  not a trench scars the earth, not a pillbox fortifies the expanse and not a single blade of green burnt brown.  All of Fusaichi’s natural glory has been preserved as it had been since Creation created by the Creator, not a war wound to be seen.  Fusaichi is many things:  bold and nasty as a jealous woman, old and primitive, humid and heated through but victim of war she is not.  Not a war wound in sight.  

    No big surprise.  They tried, the Americans.

    Say, bomber, how’s about seein’ iffen you can score a precise strike on that there Fusaichian fuck all?

    Hell, consider it done, it’d be harder not to strike precisely on this here fuck all.  I’m bound to score.

    You know, just shits and giggles, just for target practice.  But the powers that be intervened and the Fusaichian fuck all had fuck all to do with the grab of absolute glory over all of fucking Japan.  Yet, after the war glory, here they are stagnating in the stinking boonies that suffered no more harsher an assault than a pilot who dared to pass a glance.

    Not even the War Department could explain Fusaichi’s uselessness.  When the P.O.T.U.S. was asked by the mass media which cities were on the top ten list for devastation he directed them to “Ask my secretary of war” and, that secretary, duly asked, declined to reveal the list but did admit that “that damn Foo say itchy” wasn’t on it.  His bastardized pronunciation will get an American eclipse by a future P.O.T.U.S. who will demand of his military commanders not to turn a battle to be known as Khe Sanh into another “Din bin Foo” - Dien Bien Phu, which will itself be known as Hell in a very small place.

1.13.  Foo say itchy, Hell in a very small and very green place.

1.14.  The War Secretary faced demands for his removal.  “Fire the secretary of war!” people shouted while blocking traffic and thrusting their homemade signs because everyone knows that blocking and thrusting is the best way to get people on your side.  The reason for outrage? - American history.  No one builds bases better than Americans.  And that which we devastate we recuperate.  Well?  wasn’t poor little yellow Fusaichi worth devastating?  And if not, why not?  because she lacked indoor plumbing and any kind of brick and mortar infrastructure?  because she lacked coveted natural resources?  or  because her people are yellow?  “Devastate!  Don’t discriminate!”  The secretary held his ground.  He didn’t care for journalism or protestors, especially those protesting against war, poor dumb bastards believed that an end of war was the same as an end to violence.  They should all be gassed.  He said that America will not devastate that which is not worth the bomb needed to devastate it.  That’s been the American standard since dirt and he refused to lower or raise the standard and refused to deploy a single American lion in olive drab was deployed to Foo say itchy where his lion’s roar would fade like an echo in eternity and his lion hearted military courage would be wasted.  Wasted and pointless as giving black caviar to an elephant and anyway fuck you!  So in Foo say itchy you will not find a trench or a pill box no more than you will find a lion cavern.  

    And then it happened:  Major Dan Treat, then the squadron’s chief executive officer, reported to the squadron’s then top commander, “Sir, we’ve bombed Japan.”  Furrowed brows, a silent moment, a kind of hush that was an awkward moment to remember.  “Is this news, major?”  More furrowing and silence, more awkwardness and remembrance, “Sir, we’ve employed a new and most cruel bomb.”  Silence like a Sunday silence.  “Have the Americans been informed, major?”  Silence broken with vocal stammer, then “Sir . . . we are the Americans.”  The thread of time unraveled with knot after knot, then, “Of course we are, major.  Don’t just stand there.  Snap to it and make sure we’re all informed.”  

    Once informed the squadron was further informed, a few days later, that it was to deploy to Fusaichi.  Pack your shit, troopers.  Wan tup threep fower, lef rye lef hada lef rye lef one forward thrust after another, we’re going to where the natives don’t know there’s been another war to end all wars.  We’ll have to try to inform them with pigeon English and wild gesticulations that, sure as shit, there’s been another and, surer than shit, their side has lost.  A lost victory?  Ain’t the free-shitting tiny yellow FuPegs who are homesick and just plain sick.  Ain’t a single FuPeg can be called a lost soldier lost in the fog of war no more.

    And how about that, huh?  How about accomplishing an island hop of no less than eleven islands in the theatrical Pacific war front only to be stagnated in an endless cycle of gut-rotted shitting and threat of malaria?  Capt. Shuvee wrote home the mosquitoes have accomplished a mission of divide and conquer where one division lifts the mosquito nets to allow the other to swarm in.  Most of the troopers, he wrote, spend most of their time mourning their existence.  Their bug bites welt and weep.  Their bowel movements are burning and wet.  One trooper, he wrote,  was so desperate for action that he stood in the most open spot of this hellish place he could find and when asked what he was doing said he was hoping to draw fire.  I left.  I didn’t want to disturb him while he was working.  

1.15.  He hates to disturb the radiotelegraph operator but he must perform his duties as officer of the day, the second day of November, 1947 which might just be the day when the most wished for dispatch is received:  Pack your shit, troopers, we’re bounding home.  From the war in the Pacific to the remnants of the war on the homefront where we will march past an avenue of flags over a stone street all ticky tacky with the party trinkles of an American patriot, all festooned on each side with galla colors and crowded, talk about a crowded house, with girls swooning for the kiss of a soldier marching lef rye lef hada lef rye lef with battle hardened sex appeal and armored virility and creaseless sovereignty from the life he knew.  With the thousand yard stare of a  forever combat ready war veteran we will lef rye lef in perfect cadence amid the hushed plaint of wind in stricken trees through which shivers the grass in path and lane and grief and time are tideless golden seas . . . shhh hush hush!  He’s home again - in a courtroom whisper.  Every trooper believes that Capt. Shuvee will be leading the parade as he is the most popular officer, most respected troop commander.  His mindframe is mellow, his command rigidly endearing.  He demands compliance, officer that he is, but he does not demand with fierceness.  

    Their arrival at Fusaichi was awkward.  One FuPeg stepped out from behind a tall pine, a surprising plot of the place was reminiscent of their last conquered island, a pine island, pointed at the sky, bowed and smiled, said Konnichiwa and then was immediately harassed by a troop commander who volunteered to be the squadron’s “town mayor” - its civil affairs officer.  Say, trooper, why ain’t we come already equipped with a civvie affairs officer?  Well, trooper, I reckon that’s because we ain’t come to be civil with the civvies.  

    None other than Captain Mike Bodgit, he-of-the-cologne volunteered and the only louder than the stink of the cologne of Captain Bodgit was the volume of his voice.  He spoke English to the smiling bowing FuPeg and Capt. Shuvee said, “He doesn’t understand English” and then Capt. Bodgit increased the volume and Capt. Shuvee said, “He doesn’t understand loud English either.”  Still, Capt. Bodgit spoke louder and gesticulated wilder at the welcoming smiling FuPeg who became known to the squadron as “little Mike” in a highlight of his stature to “ big Mike” Bodigt, neither a handsome Mike, stature be damned.  

    The flag officer, ordered to raise the flag up the flagpole, did so faultless and they named their Fusaichian fort “Marcy” because heaven knows why and heaven ain’t telling.  Some secrets should be shared secrets only with a fellow secret sharer of the secret circle.  Say, trooper, wanna know a secret?  Well, trooper, I’m already in on the secret.  Dirty secret safe the troopers explored their new TDY.  Look here, trooper, what do you reckon I’ve got in my hand?  I reckon that’s fear in a handful of dust and it’s quite a handful.  

    Capt. Shuvee thought it an Eliotonian wasteland and reckons he was sent here with his squadron to waste away.  Troopers, said the then commander, they want boots on the ground of Fusaichi and they’re going to be our boots.  Our boots on the ground of Fusawhere?  Fusaichi, the middleground between nowhere special and nowhere in particular.  We’re going to occupy it.  Occupy Fusawhat?  Fusaichi, just a rattlesnake holler down the dusty road that leads to the end of all things.  We’re going to fortify it.  Fortify Fusawho?  Fusaichi, spared the bombastic times during the war and on which fell zero atomic rain at the end of it.  Their then commander didn’t ask Fusawhy because when you are made a colonel the part of your brain that compels you to question your orders is removed.  

1.16.  Lef rye lef hada lef rye lef.  A sudden incitation of wind incites a dance of leaves.  Something in the air, lots of flair.  Bad storm coming.  Maybe a double storm of horizontal stinging rain and sharp fast wind that flays the flesh.  The captain continues to lef rye lef.  Another FuPeg missed.  By God, they squat and squeeze out with no more shame than God gave a goat.  No goats in Fusaichi.  No dogs, no goats.  Something fundamentally wrong about that.  Wrong, like giving black caviar to an elephant.  No dogs, no goats, good and plenty FuPeg turds.  Yet it seems each shit spot has been carefully chosen like an animal marking its territory and they ain’t free-shitting at all.  To them each and every cavalryman of the squadron is so big, so handsome!  and so shy with his bowel movements.  The Fupegs have not eaten the apple and so they have no shame, no shyness.  

    Wan tup threep fower

    Lef rye lef

    Mornin’, cap’n

    Mornin, trooper

    Hada lef rye lef

    Capt. Shuvee does admire Japan.  Such a cultivated culture.  Polite and subservient to the elderly.  There is some regret on his part, on his conscience for the dropping of the bombs.  You know the ones.  One a fat man, the other a little boy; one of plutonium, the other of uranium; one to devastate Nagasaki, the other to devastate Hiroshima.  Sure, no one denies there was a civvie or two or a few hundred or thousands instantly blasted into a shadow on the sidewalk and there’s no argument against the argument that survivors of the initial blast wave stumbled around - lef rye lef lef hada rye lef rye rye lef - blind, their flesh blasted from their bones, hanging like sheets of torn shirts.  One moment they thought, perhaps, about the beautiful weather or reminisced about their noon time meal and the next they realized I am a zombie blind and stumbling, rye lef rye rye hada lef rye lef lef rye, like stumbling blind proof positive of America, the united states thereof, being a superpower, the global power.  Surrealistic and damned sad but if you’re going to fight a war then fight it, commit to it.  Fish or cut bait, damn it.  No half-ass measures.  Fight it and end it.  Then send a squadron nearly attrited to extinction to stagnate in a part of the enemy that had no part in the war.  

    Capt. Shuvee remembers a letter written by an American officer who surveyed the devastation of one of the nuked Nipvilles, remembers it in his own remembrance and maybe some of it is misremembered but here it is:  A smell of death and corruption pervades the place . . . strong overtones of ammonia . . . what he supposes to be decomposing nitrogenous matter . . . the absolute essence of death in the sense of finality without hope of resurrection . . . like the ancient Sodom and Gomorrah its site has been sown with salt and ichabod is written over its gates.  The captain understands ichabod to mean the glory is departed much obliged to Papa Clem.  If Fusaichi had gates it would be guarded by a nefarious gate dancer kicking farting the Fusaichian stink  and jiving its crazy spook dance and over her gates would be written - in green - Timshel: thou mayest and . . . wait . . . at ease . . . relax and consider:  the smell odor stench aroma humma humma of nitrogenous matter, of death and corruption . . . smells like 

1.17.  Fusaichi.

1.18.  unbombed and unatomically rained upon Foo say itchy.  Victimless yet stinks like a victim.

1.19.   and the angels wept and the poets fell silent