It really pissed me off.

My mother’s brother, youngest of eight siblings, did three tours in Vietnam.

That part didn’t piss me off. I don’t know the circumstances around his decision to enter the military, I don’t even know if he was drafted against his will. But he did his duty to our country and I’ve always respected him for that.

When I was a stoned teenager I enjoyed listening to his stories of sitting in jungle trees, high on acid, watching the tracer bullets.

And all of my life I enjoyed his perspectives and his unique sense of humor.

What pissed me off was in 2002 on a random visit to his VA doctor, when the doctor said to my Uncle David “We’ll I’ll be damned! You’ve got that same tumor the rest of your company got. And it’s as big as a grapefruit.”

Really US Veterans Affairs, REALLY?

If the whole rest of his company got “the same tumor” why weren’t you monitoring him for it? Watching him closely for signs??? Then maybe you could have gotten it when it was the size of a pea, or if that’s too much to ask of modern medicine, the size of a golf ball at least. Not a fucking grapefruit.

My Uncle died on Christmas Eve 2003.

Boy can Uncle Same make corpses

Boy can Uncle Same make orphans

Boy can Uncle Same make Wi-ih-dooooes,,,,

Easy as toast

Bah dah dah daaaaaaaah

~~~~~~~~~ Tuli Kupferberg, Ed Sanders (The Fugs)