One of the good things about being a geezer is that the Old Gringo has seen a lot of things, been to a lot of places, and had a number of experiences.
During the 1967 - 1968 period, a perfectly useless piece of human debris by the name of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who, some have said, could well have been directly involved in the murder of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was floundering in the mess of the Viet Nam War. He would not allow the generals and admirals to fight in their own way. He would not make the massive deployment that would be necessary to drive the North Vietnamese forces out of the South, and he would not bomb Hanoi or Haiphong into oblivion.
He would also not simply pull out and say "Phooey on the whole thing"....Instead he dribbled in troops in small to medium sized increments....changed strategies and tactics as if to the click - clacking of a metronome. This was a perfect situation for a light infantry enemy that relied principally on hit-and-run guerilla actions and terrorization of local, native populations.
It amazed people in the know that the South Vietnamese forces changed bit by bit during the war, into an almost respectable fighting force and finally began gaining quite a bit of local backing...simply because of their own good performance and the presence of American and South Korean and Australian combat forces in large numbers. I believe the American deployment level in 1969 hit a high of 623,000, all branches. while the allied groups numbered upwards of 90,000.
Americans lost nearly 60,000 dead and 220,000 wounded. The South Vietnamese lost about the same number. During the course of almost 9 years over 3,000,000 people served under arms in the American military in country. There was still a draft at that time, and the Old Gringo was drafted immediately upon completing the requirements for his B.A. degree at Southwest Texas State University. He, (sniff, sniff) did not have the opportunity to attend his own graduation ceremony....which is just as well....because he would have been a lot like Father McKensie.
But none of this, or all of this, is neither here nor there. Except for one thing.....Johnson walked off and left the whole issue behind. He was a shallow, hypocritical, crooked thug. He was a bully, and like most bullys, he could not stand up to a fight. He would only fight if he were absolutely certain of the outcome being in his favour. So, when a third-rate pinko senator from Wisconsin, Eugene McCarthy, filed against him in the Democrat Primary of New Hampshire in early 1968.....and managed to pick up 38% of the vote... thereby embarassing the President profoundly. A couple of days after that primary, Johnson held a talk to the Nation and announced live and in colour that he would not be a candidate for re-election.
THEREFORE:
The Old Gringo is increasingly under the impression that Barack Hussein O'bama, the first Irish President of all 57 of the United States, is going to soon announce that he is going on a permanent vacation......that he will not be a candidate for re-election.
He is harder to read than Lyndon Baines Johnson. O'bama has a foreign father, an absent mother, and was raised in the rarified environment of Hawai'i, by communist grandparents. He attended private exclusive schools that emphasised marxist dialectics and social democracy and minimized any thought of patriotism towards the United States. Because of those things, he does not have the mannerisms or inflections of a normal, natural born America-type Negro or Caucasian or any American mixture of any kind.
O'bama, however, does lie just like Johnson, and, like Johnson has neither soul nor sense of shame.
Speaking of 'neither soul nor sense of shame' , now comes (Sir Edmund)Hillary Rodham. While watching her to-day e x p l a i n i n h e r o w n i n i m i t a b l e w a y, t a k i n g h o u r s and h o u r s t o s a y e v e n t h e s im p le st s en t e n c e s . (yawn, shudder)....about how we are going to whup up on Assad...just like we done whupped up on Quaddafi....and Assad done better look out 'cause we're a' comin' to git 'em, it dawned on me.
It dawned on me that she has been putting her Move-on ducks in a row....and with the next stumble by O'bama....she will strap on the Wonder Woman outfit, play the themes from Wonder Woman, Rocky I - XXXVII, I Am Woman, and her new song titled "I am the Wind Beneath My Wings". She already has the endorsement of the Progressive Extraterrestrial Male Lesbians for Change that Remains the Same for (Sir Edmund)Hillary for Presidenta de Eternidad.
(For innocent OROGs who are normal and sane, reasonably wondering why the Old Gringo refers to the Mighty Queen of the Universe as (Sir Edmund)Hillary Rodham, it is because she responded with a straight face to a 0+ reporter shortly before her coronation that the Rodhams had named her "Hillary" because they were so inspired by the accomplishment of Sir Edmund Hillary and his conquest of Mount Everest that they were moved to name their daughter after him. Of course, that being the case, her parents had the patience of Job, because normally people name their recently born children well before three years has elapsed from the time of the birth of that child.)
[ However....the Old Gringo's mother went to school with a girl in rural Tennessee whose name was Girl Baby. Because of various arguements amongst the Aunties from various sides of the families, Girl Baby was never really named. So, since she had been called Girl Baby so much, she finally began responding to those words as her own name. She was known a Girl Baby into adulthood]
