Keys to the Jeep & A Scorned Mother ((Story Sixteen) ( "Voices out of Saigon"))
Keys to the Jeep
((Story Sixteen) (October, 1970)
(Story told by Morgan, April, 1987))
“Corporal Gill, give me your jeep keys, I need to get to the back area, where the Ammo dump is, Alpha dump is, and fast!” said Staff Sergeant Morgan Carter; then added, so there would be no resistance, “that is a direct order Corporal, from a Staff Sergeant!” (Knowing he out ranked him.)
“I work for a Major, and he wants the jeep cleaned for tonight, and he wants me to get it cleaned at the airstrip,” answered Corporal Gill, “plus I am not sure exactly what a direct order is.”
“First of all, I don’t see the Major, second I don’t need the jeep tonight, third, this is an emergency, if you need to contact him, and then do so, and to educate you, there is no such thing as a direct order, other than, the order is being given to you face to face, and that this order you do not seem to want to follow is coming from an authority, me, and you are a subordinate and let me add one more thing this dialogue, or two…you are really being given a lawful order, because there are no such things as unlawful ones, and you are in a war zone which means if you refuse me, you can be put to death.” said the Staff Sergeant.
“I haven’t a phone as you can see, now how can I do that?” said the corporal, a little stubborn and witty.
“Bad luck for you corporal, my emergency outweighs his car wash, unless you get a lawful order (perhaps a written one) by him not to follow my directions, or my orders, which he can supersede, if he ware reachable, and which you will be accountable for not following a non commission officer’s request.”
The corporal now looked confused; he had never come under such a silly attack, especially when he worked as a Major’s driver.
“But how do I know you are a real staff sergeant, you are in civilian cloths?” said the Corporal, feeling unarmored and frustrated.
“You do not know this, but if you want to go check out my locker, at the 611th Ordnance Company, you will see my strips. Also in there is my id card, read at your leisure.”
“Sergeant, I really need to get to the air strip…!” said the corporal, as if the Sergeant was fooling with him.
The sergeant was taking down his jeep number, and his name, and the time of day, and the corporal was looking at him as he was doing this, and at the bottom of the paper it read, “Corporal Gill’s refused this Staff Sergeant a direct, lawful order… .”
“Where you from Corporal,” asked the sergeant.
“Well, I used to live in Vancouver…” replied the Corporal.
“Canada right?” confirmed the sergeant.
“Corporal Vancouver, give me the keys or take off those stripes.”
“I can’t, I just take orders from a Major,” said the Corporal.
“No, you are now taking orders from me, who out rank you, and the Major is not here to protect you. And to be honest, the jeep looks clean and there are no ballrooms here to be cleaning jeeps for folks who are just going to get them dirty in an hour after they are cleaned anyhow! Listen up, you give me a lift to the Ammo dump, and go to the motor pool and tell them I sent you, and they will wash the jeep for you.”
Fine, the corporal said and drove the Sergeant to Alpha dump, and he walked in to a shack, a few minutes later, the Sergeant came out with a rounded package, something heavy, somewhat heavy in a bag, got back into the jeep, and told him to drive back along the coast of the bay, and onto his unit, and he could drop him off and go get his jeep cleaned.
“What’s in the bag Sergeant, if you do not mind me asking?” asked the corporal.
“No, I don’t mind you asking, but what do you think is in it, I mean what would you think a sergeant who have you bring him to an ammo dump for, take you out of your way to drive him to an ammo dump put something into a bag that looks heavy and round?”
The corporal thought on this for a few minutes, looking at the road, the bag, the bay, the sergeant and back to the road. “You sure have a way with a conversation Sergeant, I mean a simple question needs a simple answer, and you make it out to be an act of congress, as if we got to debate everything out.”
(Ming was sitting in the living room, with Morgan Carter, her husband, he was telling her about his times at the 611, back in 1970. They had eaten lunch, and the afternoon was warm, and it was simply a nice do to nothing, and perhaps out boredom, he was telling her this story, Corporal Gill just popped into his mind you might say. “Well said his wife, what was in the bag?” she asked. “What do you think was in the bag?” He asked his wife. I suppose a shell casing of a bomb.” She replied. “Why that?” asked Morgan. “Because you wouldn’t be allowed to carry a live bomb in a jeep over a rough road on your lap, would you? She answered and asked at the same time.)
Well, we got down along the beach area, and he said, the corporal that is, said, “A bomb, or its shell or its parts, it must be a defect your company commander wants to look at.”
Fine, I thought and then said, “Boy, are you right on corporal,” and he smiled at me like he had just received the Army Commendation Medal, for miraculous service. Next he dropped me off at the 611, and I went into my hutch, and opened up the bag, sat on my bunk bed, and ate my watermelon.
Part Two
A Scorned Mother
Ming asked Morgan, “Did you ever see the corporal again?”
“Funny you ask that,” said Morgan, “No, I never did, but I heard what happened to him, as I look back, I kind of liked him, he was kind of laid back lad, simple, in way trying to make everything seem right.”
“Well, it’s a long story, but I’ll tell you it in a nut shell. We don’t really know people we bump into, for they have a history, and baggage, they often do not share, and we think because of this, we get to know them pretty well, but so often we kid ourselves, I shall tell you what I heard: his mother, she utterly condemned her husband, the three boys’ father, for whatever reasons, after he left, and the three kids were raised by a scorned mother. He remarried, and had three more kids, two boys and one daughter.
“When the old man died all the kids went to the funeral, all six of them, one side loved him the other hated him because of the scorn they heard from their mother all those years. The boys from the scorned mother’s side of the family, never got the side of the father, what took place, he let the hot sun beat on the kids head, just like the mother let the scorn burn out their hearts. The mother used hate to control the kids I’d say, and it was a way to get even with the father, teach him a lesson, have his kids hate him, you know what I mean, if I can’t have you, I’ll turn the kids away from you, thus, her revenge settled into a cold mold.
“And what you plant in kids is what comes out usually, what you harvest I mean, and so a perfect love was for the father on one side, by his new family, and a perfect hate on the other, form the old family.
“Corporal Gills went home to Iowa, with an energetic spirit, and found the two families fighting over vaporous old wounds, the ones the father set by not saying anything all those years, and the one the mother knitted into their fabric, their flesh all those years, and he was no longer around to put out the little fires, that would or could grow into a forest fire.
“Corporal Gills tried to put out the fire between the kids of both families, but it ended up quarrelsome, and one of the boys from the new family of the Gills, Charles Riley Gills, killed one of the boys, Corporal Gills younger brother. Thereafter feelings crept in the little sleepy eyed town in Iowa, and Corporal Gills, killed Charles Riley Gills, by beating him over the head with a pipe, but no one saw it, so he was under suspicion, not yet convicted of the crime. The daughter took a shotgun and killed the other brother of Corporal Gills, and she ended up in jail.
“Well, fine, they seemed to have gotten even (two for one although), but at the local bar, inside the bar, the remaining brother of the new Gills family, met Corporal Gills in there playing pool, awaiting trial, and started a fight, and he killed the boy, they called it manslaughter.
“Well, Corporal Gills got twenty years, and so did Peggy Gills.
“Hate is a form of control I believe, anger that eats at the soul. I suppose Corporal Gills is still serving his twenty-years in prison, and will be getting out in another three. Sometimes hate is a recurring nightmare, it controls you, you got to put it to sleep, you got to forgive the other person, not for their sake, but for yours, so it has no more control over you, so you can be set free, and go forward. You know what I mean about nightmares, because I get them as you already know Ming, old war nightmares, they call nowadays, stress related.
“It is funny now that I think of it Ming, ugliness sometimes shines brighter, and echoes louder than love. And family can be the most burdensome.”
Ming took in a deep breath, she was not expecting that from an American family, she thought it was just poor old families in Saigon, or third world countries that struggled with such emotions, and vengeance feelings, she said,
“I guess we are all connected somehow, to one another being human, and we all get hurt along life’s road, and we get that inclination to hurt back, and we just never take into consideration, the ripples that come out of it all. I wonder if I will have to pay for my sins here or in heaven, or in the waiting place before one goes to heaven.”
(I think what Ming realized, and it took her a life time to fully understand it, was that she was not the only one that came out of a bad satiation, it was all around her, all over the world, she just didn’t see past her’s until this day.)
((Story Sixteen) (October, 1970)
(Story told by Morgan, April, 1987))
“Corporal Gill, give me your jeep keys, I need to get to the back area, where the Ammo dump is, Alpha dump is, and fast!” said Staff Sergeant Morgan Carter; then added, so there would be no resistance, “that is a direct order Corporal, from a Staff Sergeant!” (Knowing he out ranked him.)
“I work for a Major, and he wants the jeep cleaned for tonight, and he wants me to get it cleaned at the airstrip,” answered Corporal Gill, “plus I am not sure exactly what a direct order is.”
“First of all, I don’t see the Major, second I don’t need the jeep tonight, third, this is an emergency, if you need to contact him, and then do so, and to educate you, there is no such thing as a direct order, other than, the order is being given to you face to face, and that this order you do not seem to want to follow is coming from an authority, me, and you are a subordinate and let me add one more thing this dialogue, or two…you are really being given a lawful order, because there are no such things as unlawful ones, and you are in a war zone which means if you refuse me, you can be put to death.” said the Staff Sergeant.
“I haven’t a phone as you can see, now how can I do that?” said the corporal, a little stubborn and witty.
“Bad luck for you corporal, my emergency outweighs his car wash, unless you get a lawful order (perhaps a written one) by him not to follow my directions, or my orders, which he can supersede, if he ware reachable, and which you will be accountable for not following a non commission officer’s request.”
The corporal now looked confused; he had never come under such a silly attack, especially when he worked as a Major’s driver.
“But how do I know you are a real staff sergeant, you are in civilian cloths?” said the Corporal, feeling unarmored and frustrated.
“You do not know this, but if you want to go check out my locker, at the 611th Ordnance Company, you will see my strips. Also in there is my id card, read at your leisure.”
“Sergeant, I really need to get to the air strip…!” said the corporal, as if the Sergeant was fooling with him.
The sergeant was taking down his jeep number, and his name, and the time of day, and the corporal was looking at him as he was doing this, and at the bottom of the paper it read, “Corporal Gill’s refused this Staff Sergeant a direct, lawful order… .”
“Where you from Corporal,” asked the sergeant.
“Well, I used to live in Vancouver…” replied the Corporal.
“Canada right?” confirmed the sergeant.
“Corporal Vancouver, give me the keys or take off those stripes.”
“I can’t, I just take orders from a Major,” said the Corporal.
“No, you are now taking orders from me, who out rank you, and the Major is not here to protect you. And to be honest, the jeep looks clean and there are no ballrooms here to be cleaning jeeps for folks who are just going to get them dirty in an hour after they are cleaned anyhow! Listen up, you give me a lift to the Ammo dump, and go to the motor pool and tell them I sent you, and they will wash the jeep for you.”
Fine, the corporal said and drove the Sergeant to Alpha dump, and he walked in to a shack, a few minutes later, the Sergeant came out with a rounded package, something heavy, somewhat heavy in a bag, got back into the jeep, and told him to drive back along the coast of the bay, and onto his unit, and he could drop him off and go get his jeep cleaned.
“What’s in the bag Sergeant, if you do not mind me asking?” asked the corporal.
“No, I don’t mind you asking, but what do you think is in it, I mean what would you think a sergeant who have you bring him to an ammo dump for, take you out of your way to drive him to an ammo dump put something into a bag that looks heavy and round?”
The corporal thought on this for a few minutes, looking at the road, the bag, the bay, the sergeant and back to the road. “You sure have a way with a conversation Sergeant, I mean a simple question needs a simple answer, and you make it out to be an act of congress, as if we got to debate everything out.”
(Ming was sitting in the living room, with Morgan Carter, her husband, he was telling her about his times at the 611, back in 1970. They had eaten lunch, and the afternoon was warm, and it was simply a nice do to nothing, and perhaps out boredom, he was telling her this story, Corporal Gill just popped into his mind you might say. “Well said his wife, what was in the bag?” she asked. “What do you think was in the bag?” He asked his wife. I suppose a shell casing of a bomb.” She replied. “Why that?” asked Morgan. “Because you wouldn’t be allowed to carry a live bomb in a jeep over a rough road on your lap, would you? She answered and asked at the same time.)
Well, we got down along the beach area, and he said, the corporal that is, said, “A bomb, or its shell or its parts, it must be a defect your company commander wants to look at.”
Fine, I thought and then said, “Boy, are you right on corporal,” and he smiled at me like he had just received the Army Commendation Medal, for miraculous service. Next he dropped me off at the 611, and I went into my hutch, and opened up the bag, sat on my bunk bed, and ate my watermelon.
Part Two
A Scorned Mother
Ming asked Morgan, “Did you ever see the corporal again?”
“Funny you ask that,” said Morgan, “No, I never did, but I heard what happened to him, as I look back, I kind of liked him, he was kind of laid back lad, simple, in way trying to make everything seem right.”
“Well, it’s a long story, but I’ll tell you it in a nut shell. We don’t really know people we bump into, for they have a history, and baggage, they often do not share, and we think because of this, we get to know them pretty well, but so often we kid ourselves, I shall tell you what I heard: his mother, she utterly condemned her husband, the three boys’ father, for whatever reasons, after he left, and the three kids were raised by a scorned mother. He remarried, and had three more kids, two boys and one daughter.
“When the old man died all the kids went to the funeral, all six of them, one side loved him the other hated him because of the scorn they heard from their mother all those years. The boys from the scorned mother’s side of the family, never got the side of the father, what took place, he let the hot sun beat on the kids head, just like the mother let the scorn burn out their hearts. The mother used hate to control the kids I’d say, and it was a way to get even with the father, teach him a lesson, have his kids hate him, you know what I mean, if I can’t have you, I’ll turn the kids away from you, thus, her revenge settled into a cold mold.
“And what you plant in kids is what comes out usually, what you harvest I mean, and so a perfect love was for the father on one side, by his new family, and a perfect hate on the other, form the old family.
“Corporal Gills went home to Iowa, with an energetic spirit, and found the two families fighting over vaporous old wounds, the ones the father set by not saying anything all those years, and the one the mother knitted into their fabric, their flesh all those years, and he was no longer around to put out the little fires, that would or could grow into a forest fire.
“Corporal Gills tried to put out the fire between the kids of both families, but it ended up quarrelsome, and one of the boys from the new family of the Gills, Charles Riley Gills, killed one of the boys, Corporal Gills younger brother. Thereafter feelings crept in the little sleepy eyed town in Iowa, and Corporal Gills, killed Charles Riley Gills, by beating him over the head with a pipe, but no one saw it, so he was under suspicion, not yet convicted of the crime. The daughter took a shotgun and killed the other brother of Corporal Gills, and she ended up in jail.
“Well, fine, they seemed to have gotten even (two for one although), but at the local bar, inside the bar, the remaining brother of the new Gills family, met Corporal Gills in there playing pool, awaiting trial, and started a fight, and he killed the boy, they called it manslaughter.
“Well, Corporal Gills got twenty years, and so did Peggy Gills.
“Hate is a form of control I believe, anger that eats at the soul. I suppose Corporal Gills is still serving his twenty-years in prison, and will be getting out in another three. Sometimes hate is a recurring nightmare, it controls you, you got to put it to sleep, you got to forgive the other person, not for their sake, but for yours, so it has no more control over you, so you can be set free, and go forward. You know what I mean about nightmares, because I get them as you already know Ming, old war nightmares, they call nowadays, stress related.
“It is funny now that I think of it Ming, ugliness sometimes shines brighter, and echoes louder than love. And family can be the most burdensome.”
Ming took in a deep breath, she was not expecting that from an American family, she thought it was just poor old families in Saigon, or third world countries that struggled with such emotions, and vengeance feelings, she said,
“I guess we are all connected somehow, to one another being human, and we all get hurt along life’s road, and we get that inclination to hurt back, and we just never take into consideration, the ripples that come out of it all. I wonder if I will have to pay for my sins here or in heaven, or in the waiting place before one goes to heaven.”
(I think what Ming realized, and it took her a life time to fully understand it, was that she was not the only one that came out of a bad satiation, it was all around her, all over the world, she just didn’t see past her’s until this day.)
posted by Dennis and Rosa Siluk at 10:28 PM
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