SOMNILOQUY

[Stargzer]

Thanks. I read Guadalcanal Diary in elementary school, as well as other works about the Pacific war. The Japanese were brutal in those days, and anyone who doesn't believe that need only read about the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the treatment of the survivors or Wake Island, and any of a number of other wartime atrocities. Even as a child in the 1950s I remember seeing a black-and-white newsreel film about Japanese troops burying Chinese civilians alive, stomping on the ground as arms are waving from below ground. Would that the Arabs and Israelis become as good friends and the US and the Japanese have become.

Alas, he was angered off that they never sent him overseas, maybe because he was a sole surving son of a divorced mother (she used to mail booze to him, but that's another story!). He had dropped out at the end of his junior year in high school to join the Marines before the war started. They kept him stateside as an instructor in aircraft maintenance in that garden spot of the East Coast, Cherry Point, NC.

He was still a proud Marine. He was a jeweller, and he engraved the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor on his shotgun. He won a lot of booze in turkey shoots at the local American Legion, including a decanter of Wild Turkey,which decanter he gave to me the same Christmas I gave him a bottle of Wild Turkey!

[LukeJavan8]

Sometimes booze was the only way to survive, I believe.
I remember those newsreels too, after the fact, but
just as real I think. That war on both theatres was
almost unbelievable in man's inhumanity to man, yet
it continues: Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Congo, Rwanda,
and perhaps now Libya. Would that all could be as
good of friends as we are with Japan today. You said
a real mouthful.

[MTC]

Wars like stubborn weeds keep cropping up around the world, mocking our efforts to create an earthly garden of peace. But still returns the "cock-eyed optimism" ....

[bamaboy56]

Stargazer, my hat, too, (or should I say my maroon beret) is off for your Marine dad. Where would we be without them? My father retired from the Marine Corps about 10 years ago. He was a First Sergeant. I was a paratrooper in the Army. I'm out now but I still miss it. Semper Fi to your dad and mine.

[LukeJavan8]

Salute!
To you and your dad as well.
Well done. And thanks.

[Stargzer]

Sometimes booze was the only way to survive, I believe. ...

No, she used to MAIL it to him which is illegal! He kept telling her to stop before he got in trouble. He got called in one day when they discovered a bottle at the base post office. "You have a girl that mails you booze?" "Well, I have lots of girls back home." "The post office in Washington remembers this one was a blond with a fur stole." He knew right away it was his mother, but said again he had lots of girls. I think she finally stopped after that.

:-Þ

[LukeJavan8]

Funny.
Another of the zillions of war stories out there. There
should be a way to contribute them to an online site
where they are collected and saved for the future.

[misterdoe]

Although somniloquies usually are soliloquies, be careful not to confuse the two.

Aren't all somniloquies soliloquies? Can you have an actual conversation with someone who's asleep?

I remember when I was younger, my younger brother would spout non-sequiturs if you tried to wake him and he didn't want to wake up. If you asked him what he said, he'd frown and angrily babble it again, as if to say "how dare you not understand me!" Sometimes the non sequiturs would grow into somniloquent soliloquies.

[LukeJavan8]

somniloqies and soliloquies remind me of eulogies and this
funny story:


Two men were walking home after a Halloween party and decided to
take a shortcut through the cemetery just for laughs. Right in
the middle of the cemetery, they were startled by a tap-tap-
tapping noise coming from the misty shadows. Trembling with fear,
they found an old man with a hammer and chisel, chipping away at
one of the headstones.

"Holy cow, Mister," one of them said, after catching his breath,
"You scared us half to death! We thought you were a ghost!
What are you doing working here so late at night?"

"Those fools!" the old man grumbled. "They misspelled my name!"

[Perry Lassiter]

Luke, thanks for resurrecting this thread. I hadn't read it before. Leaves me thinking to make time to plod back through the archives!

[misterdoe]

Luke, thanks for resurrecting this thread.

Luke?

[LukeJavan8]

Luke, thanks for resurrecting this thread.

Luke?

Yes??

I could not get the site to respond to the email yesterday,
so could not respond. I'd click it on and it would just
sit, and I'd wait and wait, but no A.Agora would come
thru. Sorry.

[Perry Lassiter]

Whoever! Thanx, i still enjoyed it!