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Fraggin'

By Bill Shunas

Did you see where they gave Bob Hope a big party on his 80th birthday? The party was given by Ronald Reagan and various other people from the Neanderthal side of the political spectrum. They wanted to honor this great man who promoted war and got rich—a parlay that seems to be quite honorable among the wealthy.

I don't see where this man deserves any honor, but his birthday party did revive an alcohol-deadened memory cell in my brain. It was back in the 'Nam. Bob Hope put on one of those USO shows, and I got a chance to see it.

The show was really a flop. There were thousands of guys sitting there for about four hours. I was under cover, but most of them had come in from the field and had to sit in the sun and bake all the way through this bore.

When the girls and some of the entertainers came on, the GI's would shout and cheer, but over all, the show flopped. I almost—not quite, but almost—felt sorry for Bob hope. This man was up there making jokes, and no one was laughing. I would say that on 2/3's or 3/4's of the jokes he got little or no response. On some of the "jokes" absolutely no one laughed.

I mean—Bob Hope was so out of touch. He would make jokes about the VC, about The World, and about patriotism and winning the war; and no one would laugh. The fellows would just be sitting there, baking in the sun. It was only when he made jokes about the thing we bitched about—the food, lifers, monsoons—then he got a lot of laughs. Gradually he started to stick with these jokes. He'd still throw in a patriotic joke once in awhile and it just wouldn't get over. It was sad.

And you know what? They used to tape these shows and put them on TV back home. About 8 months later I was back in the World and I saw the same show on TV. Instead of being four hours long, it was now one hour. They edited it out all the deadwood and it looked like good entertainment. Oh well. Maybe soon Bob Hope will be as dead as his jokes, and the GI's in El Salvador will be spared.

Speaking of entertainers, the thought occurs to me that there is a particular type of entertainer missing in our society today. Maybe you remember when Kennedy and Nixon and Carter were president: you had comedians going around the country, selling albums and making big bucks by pretending to be the bumbling president.

To the best of my knowledge no one is doing this with Reagan in a big way. I think that there are two reasons for this. First, the best Reagan clown is the one in the White House, and no one can match him. Second, because of the first reason, Reagan is a president that you have to be serious about.

You all know of the many stupid things he says. Sometimes you don't know whether to be afraid because you think the guy believes what he's saying, or because you think the guy absolutely does not know what's going on in the world around him. I mean, here's the guy who renamed the destructive MX missile, "The Peacekeeper." He's the guy who thinks trees cause air pollution. Do you know what he said when he was asked if he was going to visit the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial? "I can't tell until somebody tells me. I never know where I'm going!

Any good entertainer can benefit from a good supporting case, and Reagan's White House Comedy Hour certainly doesn't lack for back-up comedians. There's always Interior Secretary James Watt—you know, the guy who thinks that environmentalists are really pursuing the greater objective of central control of society something akin to the German Nazis.

Watt's latest contribution to the well being of America is trying to ban the Beach Boys from the traditional 4th of July Celebration on the Mall in Washington. He said that the Beach Boys "attract the wrong element. From now on the 4th of July will be for the family and for solid, clean American lives." Maybe he's afraid the Beach Boys will get high on life and start banging people up side the head with their surf boards. One disc jockey said, "First he tried to get rid of the beaches. Now he wants to get rid of the Beach Boys."

Some of Reagan's clowns unfortunately are more serious. Take Frederick Andre, appointed by Reagan to the Interstate Commerce Commission. At a meeting of the ICC he argued that the ICC should stop enforcing anti-kickback laws and regulations. Andre said, "Bribes among principals are probably the clearest instances of the free market at work... They are just discounts...A bribe is a rebate, is it not? It is an attempt to get around the rigidities imposed on the market by a government cartel."

What and idea! Let's stop fooling around with Congress. Instead, let's concentrate our energies on raising money. Then we can bribe VA officials to deal with Agent Orange—unless the chemical companies have gotten to the already.

And some of the clowns are dangerous. Take James Mullins. Chief of the Air Force Logistics Command who told his civilian managers, "We must adopt a wartime a wartime perspective. No longer will we have the luxury of waiting for a crisis to develop." Hell, why even stop there? Let's create a crisis. Send over some of these new "Peacekeepers." And if that doesn't stop them, we can send Bob Hope to tell them some jokes.

GRENADE OF THE MONTH

This month's grenade of the month goes to Harry Walters, new head of the VA. Where does Reagan get theses guys? First Nimmo, now Walters. They make Max Cleland look like Joan of Arc.

Walters gets the grenade for leading the VA charge to delay tresting, treating and compensating Agent Orange victims. Using Reaganspeak in testimony before a House Committee, he said that enacting an Agent Orange Bill would "needlessly alarm millions of veterans and the population as a whole."

Right now, of course, we're not alarmed that many of our brothers have deformed children or liver cancer because they were in Vietnam and exposed to Agent Orange. And the population? No, they aren't alarmed because they don't know about dioxin. They only watch Times Beach Mo on the news every night, or watch EPA technicians carefully dig up soil around an old Agent Orange plant in New Jersey. Even Bob Hope tells better stories than Harry Walters. Walters ought to quit the VA and become a Reagan speechwriter—he's got all the qualifications.

If "one picture is worth 1000 words" then this one must be a White House attempt to save up precious air for the aging President!

We can just imagine how at future Press Conferences, this photo could be passed around in response to questions like; "How do you feel about decent benefits for all veterans?" Then there's one we're very familiar with; "Do you support the testing. Treatment and compensation of Agent Orange victims?" But, perhaps far and away the question that this photo would best answer is the one he's been dodging all along; "What is your attitude in response to veterans and people's demands that there be NO MORE VIETNAMS?"

Bonzo, it's past your bedtime!