Benny Jay: Rewriting Our Lives

In the morning, before my first cup of coffee, I read Big Mike’s fascinating blog bit about Captain Billy, his loony right-wing neighbor, a Vietnam Vet who “gets a dreamy look in his eyes when he recounts his stint.”

It’s a story well told — has me laughing out loud, especially the part where Big Mike’s all soaped up and in the shower.

I go on with my day. Get to that coffee. Read the paper. Make some calls. But the story’s sticks with me — some thing’s not right.

I go back and read it again, concentrating on the key paragraph where Captain Billy recalls using his sidearm to kill a man with one shot: “One of those little gooks was running the brush just outside our perimeter….I had great night vision. Man, when I as young, I could see a ladybug on a tree 20 yards away. This little bastard thought he was putting one over on us. He was just playing with us, trying to see how close he could come….He ducked down behind some foliage and I pulled out my sidearm and pointer right where I thought he’d pop up. Sure enough, up he pops. Bang. Dead.”

As soon as I finish, I realize what’s wrong. I don’t believe the guy. I mean, I believe he told Big Mike that story.  But I don’t think the story he told is true. I don’t think he killed a man with his sidearm. I’m not even sure he was in Vietnam at all.

Keep in mind, I’ve never met Captain Billy. It’s just that none of the people I know who served in combat — be it in World War II, Korea or Vietnam — ever pound their chests about the people they’ve killed. It’s just not something they’re proud of.  In fact, it’s gotten to the point where whenever I hear a man boast about the people he’s killed in war, the more I believe he never served.

But, out of curiosity, I call Milo, who did a couple of years with the Army in Vietnam, to ask  what he thinks of Captain Billy’s tale.

Milo answers with a tale of his own: “I was sitting in a bar on Lincoln Avenue a few years back and at the other end of the bar, this fast-talking guy is telling his drinking buddy about this time he was out with his platoon in Vietnam and a tiger jumped out of the bushes and dragged one of the Marines away.”

And?

“Well, Benny, right there and then I thought to myself that this guy probably never was in Vietnam, or if he was the thing with the tiger never happened.”

Why?

“Think about it.  In a platoon you can have anywhere from thirty to forty guys. And every single one of them is armed with an automatic rifle that fires up to six-hundred rounds a minute. So you got thirty to forty guys with rifles, there’s no way that tiger gets out of there alive. They’ll riddle that fucker with hundreds of bullets in a matter of seconds.  When you think about, why would a tiger fuck with a soldier in the first place — what’s in it for the tiger? He just wants to be left alone. Besides Marines don’t taste good — now if it was a G.I….”

Did you say anything to the guy in the bar — you know, call him out?

“Aw, hell, no — what, I want to start a fight?”

So back to Captain Billy — what do you think about his story?

“Well, he kind of lost me when he talking about shooting a man with a pistol. You have to realize the regular military-issued sidearm is a .45 automatic, one of the most inaccurate weapons ever made. In training, even the best marksmen can only hit a target five times out of ten from twenty yards. Now, for Captain Billy to shoot a crouching Vietnamese in the middle of the night from twenty-to-forty yards away — cause, let’s face it, the Vietnamese are not going to be crouching three-feet away — well, let’s just say it sounds implausible. As a matter of fact, it sounds like an outright lie.”

But why would anyone lie about what they did in the war?

“Benny, why do guys lie about all the pussy they get? Maybe he wanted to be in Vietnam. I think for some guys it’s the old Hemingway thing. Go to war, and prove yourself. You know, Hemingway ruined a lot of writers with that shit. The thing about it is that when my army buddies sit around it’s not the war stories we tell but the funny stuff — remember the time we got fucked-up and went to the whore house? That kind of thing.

“Speaking of which,  did I ever tell you that I’m  a pussy magnet on account of my surgically enhanced twenty-inch dick?”

Ugh, not today you haven’t — but I think I might have read all about it sometime ago….