Photos you’ve taken

1767421283189.jpeg
The crew on the whale watching boat (Victoria, BC) got all excited because they said this was the first time they had seen the Momma and the Baby do a tail flip together. Apparently the babies can't do tail flip dives right away and have to mature into it. From the Fall of 2025.
 
IMG_1654.jpeg

In Guatemala City there is a Zone One bar and restaurant named Europa. You can see a sign for it in the photo above if you look closely. I've been 'frequenting' the place since the late '80s. I knew it as a shady spot on earth back then. Mercenaries. Smugglers. Traffickers. Fugitives. Filibusteros. Nomads. Fellow Travelers.

Nowadays it seems pretty tame. On the wall hangs a photograph. It is of two military guys. I've posted it below. The guy in the gray is Sgt. Barry Sadler. He sang 'The Ballad of the Green Beret.' He was shot dead in Guatemala in the 1980s.

IMG_1655.jpeg
When I was in the Boy Scouts in 1967, our entire Council took a chartered train trip from Goldsboro, NC to Halifax, NC, as the first leg of a three-part "For God and Country" pilgrimage. Among the speakers/entertainers in Halifax was Sgt. Barry Sadler. While he was up on stage, he remarked that there were three other "Barry Sadlers" performing elsewhere in the US that day. But he assured us that he was the "real" Barry Sadler.

What, in retrospect, were a shockingly few years later, I was in basic training in the Army and one of my drill sergeants was former SF. When the topic of Barry Sadler arose, he said he had served with him in Vietnam and, I quote, "Barry Sadler is a punk." I remember thinking, but not saying, "So any sort of fame--other than that achieved in combat--makes one a 'punk?'" As the years have passed, I am in awe that I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut. Sadly, "keeping my mouth shut," is no longer a tool in my personal arsenal.
 
Back
Top