"I almost killed a guy."
9 February 2003
Papa said, "I almost
killed a guy for that, in Korea."
"For what?" I had
asked him if soldiers had a hard time killing women and kids in
Vietnam, like Dr. Laura said, came back mentally scarred, or had
such moral repugnance to killing women and children that they
couldn't do it, even when the pin was pulled, and wound up
dying.
"No, that ain't true,
them sons-a-bitches. I almost killed a guy in Korea for that. We
were in the back of a truck, and he was holding out candy to them
kids, and just when they ran and got close to grabbing ahold of it,
he'd jerk it back, and oh this went on for miles. They useta
laugh at them people, make fun of them because they was poor, even
though they themselves were poor back home. Them boys were
mean.
"He held an apple out
one day and I pulled out my (shotgun/.45?) and I said, 'That apple
better not come back in here.' And he let that kid have that
apple."
I asked how many were
like that mean guy, versus how many were like Papa, and really
cared about people. He said, "I wasnt so nice in them days,
Whip... you know, it's amazing what they've done. That country was
absolutely razed, and they've built up everything from scratch in the
last forty years." My Papa almost
killed a guy in Korea!
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