Vet.

I talked to a long-haired hippy not-altogether there Vietnam vet today. He lives in my apartment complex, and I've said hi to him before, but never initiated conversation. He's locally famous for wearing pajamas wherever he goes, and he walks everywhere. He also almost always has earphones in his ears, attached to an iPod I would presume, and seems to completely be tuning out the world. I've seen him in the office, at the pool, out walking around, in Walgreens (a drug store... what do Brits call a convenience store with a chemist at the back where you can get some groceries, toys, gimmicky things, some tools, fill your prescriptions, and so on? There must be those types of stores there. They're about as large as full grocery stores usually, but as I mentioned the product composition is different. You can usually even get bicycle innertubes, live bait, and motor oil there! And many are now open 24/7, for when you NEED your drugs at 3:30 am).

Anyway this guy is friendly but doesn't listen to anything you say, and says things on his own which are completely off the wall, and he gets a bus route map for Sonoma county every time he visits the apartment office (how many does he need?). But today he looked me (sorta) in the eyes and said, "No one's in command of those guys. You know that right?" I played along and first said, "Hey, where are your headphones?" He didn't seem to understand, so I elaborated, "You earbuds? You're always listening to music. Left them at home today?"

He had an inscrutable look on his face and said very lucently all of a sudden, "I - I have ringing all the time. You know, in my ears. All the time. I listen to music really loud because I need some relief sometime. That's what happens when you go into the army, see? You get a sergeant who is supposed to make all his men wear... those things... earplugs in your ears when you're on the rifle and artillery ranges. Well my sergeant, he, he said he was ordered to give us the option but then he looked us over as we stood in our lines and said, "but I don't believe in these things. Hell, war is loud, you sonsabitches. The way I look at it, you're entitled to wear this 'protection', but the whole idea of protection is for faggots. The way I look at it, anyone in MY command who needs protection for their little ears is a goddamn faggot. And I don't want any faggots in my command. But the Army makes them available for the little girls I guess so they won't complain later. So do whatever you want." I'm somewhat paraphrasing him, who I'm sure was paraphrasing the sergeant after all these years, but the gist of it is clear enough.

So now this poor, disaffected man who can barely hear and has severe tinnitus in both ears for the rest of his life, day and night, lives as best as he can, despite the institutional cruelty built into the system. "No one's in command of those guys," he said. I remembered that and asked him what he meant. He said when Dick Cheney is the Vice President and Bush the most powerful man in the world, and everyone all the way on down the line does what they say, what possible hope is there for fair or humane treatment at the bottom of the ladder? Then he laughed and said some catch-phrase from the Howard Stern show (apparently) and half-skipped across the street to god knows where.