2019-05-27 at 5:09 PM UTC
Today, I'm thinking of my friend, Wayne Culbertson. He got drafted back in the Viet Nam era but, probably because the Army knew that he wasn't really fit to be a soldier, was sent to S. Korea. He was a gentle soul, a mostly chord and slide guitar player that I met and became close friends with through my drummer buddy. They played in a band together all through high school.
When he returned from the service, he was a changed person. I got him a job at the gas station where I was working at the time. I took his shift for him one weekend when a group took a trip to the lake. He told them he didn't feel good and had them drop him off in some town telling them he was going to catch a bus back to St. Louis. Instead, he threw himself in front of a cement truck. While he didn't die, he became a quadriplegic and restricted to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. I remember visiting him at the VA hospital where they had him in a bed made of strapping on both the top and bottom with the bed able to be pivoted to prevent bed sores. A "rotisserie" bed.
He eventually went to work for the government working on computers with the very limited arm movement he had. I remember playing games on his old floppy disc computer. I even lived with him for a while when my first marriage dissolved. I got remarried and had three children within 3 years. I was very involved in my own life and didn't see much of him. He did call me on the phone one evening and I probably was too involved in my own life to hear his message. Looking back, I now see he was calling me to say goodbye. The next day he was found dead, having used his belt to hang himself from his wheelchair. That was a quarter century ago.
Rest in peace from your final resting place on the hillside of Jefferson Barracks Memorial cemetery, my friend. You are still missed.
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this
post didn't die in a fire!
2019-05-27 at 5:55 PM UTC
I don't know and am glad to be so ignorant. My draft number, I believe, was around 125 or so but, luckily, the war ended just before I would have gotten drafted myself.
2019-05-27 at 6:02 PM UTC
Maybe you’d have enjoyed it. War is a mother to some, a step mother to others.
2019-05-27 at 6:04 PM UTC
Dregs
African Astronaut
[that freakishly double-edged allmouth]
or a 13 yr blondish big racked ass babysitter to some
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this
post didn't die in a fire!
2019-05-27 at 10:40 PM UTC
-SpectraL
coward
[the spuriously bluish-lilac bushman]
The corporate mercenaries were paid very well for the risk they took. I don't see why they should receive such undue reverence.
