Established Marvel : a Monk by Abbreviation

130.THE BUTTONED-UP BOOT OF A WARRIOR (nyc, 1970):

Pulling immense hairs from the snout of a lion (or something like that) was how it had been explained to me - this philosophizing about things in the face of adversity and it was always said that detachment was the very real key to everything but how could you tell that to someone who was just gung-ho over everything around them : the seventeen-year-olds I'd see lined up to enlist in the Army knowing full-well they were sooner or later going to end up in Vietnam like some buttoned-up boot of of a warrior hanging on the wall yet they did it elatedly and busily talking to one another about what to expect and where they were going and they left behind also the most ridiculous things : 327cubic inch Chevrolets and brand new Malibus and Thunderbirds and Corvettes and slap-dash Buick Regals with performance packages and all that - they'd buy these crazy cars and end up putting them away in the garage or something for the long years of their service or you'd read in newspaper want-ads often 'must sell - going in service' and all that sort of blather and then the next thing you'd see was a picture in the newspaper of the dead Marine or Army guy killed in Vietnam 'son of Mr. and Mrs. Harlan B. Jenkins of Loganville Springs' and the story would go on with testimonials and remembrances by friends and neighbors and school-pals of the guy but no one ever connected the dots to see the real story of someone DUPED and more stupid than the guy before him : assaulted really by a complete LACK OF REFLECTION and an ignorance of matters which mattered : and that's what did them in one and all - the girlfriend left behind more confused than anything but able at least to move on and the family still reeling for years over what had occured but the overall atmosphere of supporting the troops and backing the war and supporting AMERICA first and foremost no matter what was all in all a pretty disgusting manuever no matter how you loooked at it and it still goes on I guess in the same way and the only things which have changed are the contents and the means of the communication but the communication itself is pretty much the same (after all it IS only human) and the same old shouted-out crap goes on - sentimental clap-trap soft-core pornography twisted sensationalism and out-of-bounds moralizing without any basis or foundation in morality itself or life or even ethics - all else be damned - they still die and they still babble about the death but the ghettos all are the same and the ignorant denizens of streetcorner and tavern still hobble around like the ignorant jerks they are and somewhere SOMEWHERE now at any moment are 160,000 boys and girls learning to kill and maim and even die and then preparing to bring all that twisted and morose carnage back home with them 'bringing it all back home' as would be said and it's all just as disgusting as that and as ever too.