Monday, May 8, 2017

Army Freedom Day | 8 May 1972 | 45-Year Anniversary

The best thing about the US Army is when you get back out of it and my expatriation back to the somewhat more real world was on this day in 1972.

I've been an expatriate since I was less than a year old when I was kicked out of Scotland.  In not much more than ten years I was kicked out of Australia.  It took even less time to get kicked out of California and it really didn't make any difference which places kicked me out after those ones.

The best part of getting kicked out was from the Army since that was a real heartbreaker getting out of that insidious hellhole.


The comedy of this lives forever.


There's not the faintest adornment on the uniform beyond the usual carny crap since this was fresh off the boat and I still wasn't even a citizen.


There was a good side since the freaks hung out on the banks of the Rio Grande well outside of El Paso and there was some righteous stonin' taking place out there.  I was riding a ferocious Kawasaki 90 at the time but it got me down to the river and that's were I got some of the finest psilocybin I have ever countered.

Hut...2...3...4

There were twelve to sixteen hours of geometrics but there was no accompanying tension and it was even cool riding the scoot since focus was there but colors were all around it.  Riding around Fort Bliss, trippin' balls, is one unique experience.

Zounds but these were crazy times, my brothers.

Ed:  what's a clean-cut young lad like you doing with all this trippin'?

Clean-cut young lads don't get busted, mate.  For all the drug abuse in my life (i.e. lots), I have never been busted for so much as a loose joint in my pocket.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER:  I DO NOT FUCK WITH NARCOTICS.  THIS IS WHY I AM AN OLD STONER INSTEAD OF A DEAD ONE.

But, wtf, I've only been stonin' for most of my life so what could I possibly know.


And then there was the time three of us dropped acid before we had to pull a KP detail.  One thing I know from that is it's a bad idea to assign trippin' people to the potato machine which was used to peel them.  You will wind up with some extremely small potatoes that way.


Ed:  so mostly the thing you remember about the military was the dope?

Yep, mostly.  I did learn about bullfights in Juarez, tho.  Damned if that wasn't one of the sickest fucking things I ever saw in my life but I wasn't trippin' for that ... fortunately.

I did meet some cool people but we didn't stay close after.

Ed:  what else did you learn in the Army?

I got better at lighting a cigarette when the wind is blowing.  That was important.

I learned my lack of respect for authority was warranted.  That one was definitely important.

But one thing I learned most of all ...

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