backuponthesea's blog: "onceuponthesea"

Chapter 1

The Big Lie

            “How can we keep people from believing

that we're not just throwing troops down a rat hole?”

Clark Clifford-1968

Vietnam was the Black Hole, the rat hole that tore my generation apart. The question reveals the inhumanity of the ruling class. Who waged war as if there was no blood. No death. The draft was the long arm of the Monster, ever reaching out to draw more bodies into the slaughter.

It was all part of the Big Lie. The Lie that keeps you in the dark. That keeps you mute. That keeps you afraid and apart. Because when men speak together of their fear and sense of injustice their fear turns to anger and angry men fight back. The Monster who lives and breathes control above all cannot abide anger. Without a war, a wrong war that angered millions,they would have just continued to sedate by television and kept slaves to Mammon.

The reality was too ugly to ignore. Could this really be the world? Could the world really be this cruel​? This unfair? Yes. And more. Much more than what can be processed by a mere brain.

There I was just minding my own business. Not hurting anyone except myself. Now they wanted my body for the rat hole. If this was reality I wanted no part of it.

They claimed their reality as the only one. But that was only because theirs could beat up mine. That made me angrier and I was forced to abandon reality for surreality. I get that way because the world is upside down and I still can't tap dance on the ceiling.

Men like me are like trained bears. We will be happy to eat your steaks instead of your head. We'll even wrestle with you and not claw your eyes out. But please, don't poke the bear. You're not going to like what you happens.

I could see the rat hole, asshole. I could see what you were doing to make us not believe it's there. We said FUCK YOU. We said HELL NO I WON'T GO. We burned our Draft Cards. We said they were murderers. We called them on their shit. We gathered by the thousands,faced down by gunners on horseback. We showed up for our physicals up for three days on drink and drugs. Dressed in tu-tus, dressed in capes. Parkas in the summer, shorts in the Winter. Anything to be declared officially crazy and excused from a trip down the rat hole.

I didn't have to pretend. I was crazy already. I was outside of the outsiders. Nothing in the world made sense.

But that fell under Catch 22; If you don't want to go to war you're not crazy.

Nobody was going to tell me I wasn't crazy, especially them.