Dear God I Hate This Weather

There are residual behaviors from my brief time in SE Asia that still manifest themselves even yet today. Who am I kidding, it has been damn near four decades since I spent just 53 weeks in Viet Nam and still, yes, still I have issues with certain stimuli that trigger all sorts of shit in my brain. Four decades and it sometimes seems like yesterday.

Loud noises still make me want to dive under something. Someone coming up behind me makes me want to attack. Someone grabbing me elicits a blow to the throat. The difference between now and then, is that my Stimulus -Integration-Response times are so slow that rational thought has time to intercept the actions. That is very good for me because as old and out of shape as I am I would hurt myself badly if I did respond like I did oh so many years ago.

Yes, there are flash backs etc. but the term "flash" is a little too fast for how they come these days.

Still, there is one thing that haunts me, bugs me, irritates me, and makes me feel mean and grumpy. That is the weather. Oklahoma is not Southeast Asia. But I'll be damn if there aren't many parallels (red dirt for one (quan loi)). The weather is one of them. There are chunks of the year when it rains here and the humidity is so high for day on day that it begins to resurrect the monsoon in my soul.

This year we have had about two months of intermittent rain. The humidity has been 80+ to 90+% almost every day or so. The plants greened out early and are growing profusely. It has helped end a drought we have had. About that I don't give a shit. My skin can't breath. I can't work outside. Many of my projects have had to be postponed because of moisture. Worse of all the murspuiters (mosquitoes) have come early and in force.

Every time a dang mosquito bites me I am transported back to jungle, green fatigues, and things that try to kill me. Give me three days of this kind of weather and I start to fantasize about crawling around in the tall grass in the back yard and taking out the VC/NVA (a.k.a. neighbors) with my Bowie knife. My dreams turn to ambush patrols and ground attacks through the wire. (Remember it has been doing this for two months) My wife, kids, and cats are now avoiding me full time.

Four decades and the weather still unravels my facade of civilized demeanor.
Can You even begin to imagine what kind of crud our people in Iraq and the Gan will bring back with them. Dear God I pray we take better care of them than we were taken care of.

Wake up America. As Andy G. said, "You can pay me now or you can pay me later." Ante up and give these people what they need to repair themselves now. You will be happy that you did. If we don't....well...there will be compound interest to pay as well.