Last flight to
the gates of heaven
by Mike
Marcellino
Part I The mission
It all became
right clear to me
walkin' the dog
to the beach
and back
to the gates of
heaven
from mission
number three.
i found that
liberty, you see
can only be
if you respect
other people's
rights. Otherwise you got
nothin' but
monopoly and friction.
i'm walking the
dog to the beach,
and back
to the gates of
heaven
from mission
number three -
sometimes under
attack
by dogs runnin'
free 'cause their masters don't put 'em on a leach,
even if they have
one. Now i'd like to let my dog Button
run as free as he
likes, but then, that wouldn't be liberty
and we'd all end
up under attack.
Seems you can
only have pure freedom when nobody's around.
If you want to
live together without fightin' and wars
we have to all
share our liberty.
Button, you see,
is a young white Poodle
smart and
stubborn as can be. He doesn't much
mind any of the
dogs, 'cause he's on a mission with me, you see.
He's a kind of
blood hound without the hound.
Secretly enlisted in the K-9 Corps.
i'm tryin' to
keep him sniffing for
ways to peace, so
our world can still be.
We're walking to
the beach
and back
to the gates of
heaven
from mission
number three
to meet up with
all the critters we see,
maybe make a
friend or two.
We can all have
liberty to a degree,
and together, i
truly believe
we can save their
world from
man-made
destruction,
if we can just be
kind to each other,
from here to
eternity
and back,
'stead of killin'
each other and our planet.
Headed down
through rattlesnake turtle dunes,
things kinda
turned the other cheek.
Suddenly ahead i
see a whole family
complete two boys
and two dogs
on their leaches.
"That's the
man you like,"
said one boy to the
other.
And, low and
behold
the man pulling
his dogs on their leashes
retreated
letting Button
and me
pass through
safely;
they were like
Moses parting the Red Sea.
We're still
walkin' to the beach
and back
to the gates of
heaven
from mission
number three
when i spy a
mighty subtropical
thunderstorm,
a scary black,
silver and grey chain covering the western horizon,
wanting badly to
spawn tornadoes.
At this point,
we're on the point
and i spy a break
in the clouds
maybe a path on
our road to glory.
Eyeing the
growing storm in some increasing disbelieve;
our luck seemed
to have run out -
black-grey
funnels tryin' their best
to take Button
and me off the planet
to Oz.
Then, starting to
think some last thoughts
walkin' the dog
back from the beach
through the
rattlesnake turtle dunes
it dawned on me,
"What a
special dog this is;
he's either
got some of that PTSD,
or he's much
smarter than me."
The Dylan's
lyrics run though my brain -
"Mama,
put my guns in the ground
I can't shoot
them anymore.
That long
black cloud is comin' down
I feel like
I'm knockin' on heaven's door"
Thanks, Bob, for
those lines from "Knockin' On Heaven's Door,"
i really like
that song
from the "Pat
Garrett and Billy the Kid" sound track.
Here's your
credit -
Copyright
©1973 by Ram's Horn Music; renewed 2001 by Ram’s Horn Music
Part II Flashback No. 1
On our final run,
Button
and me
i'm back in the
wars again
thinkin' Audie
Murphy
and To Hell
and Back from World War II
now i'm back to
tryin' to get back
from Firebase
Cleveland.
i had no gun,
hardly ever did
in the Vietnam War
out in the field,
not even a tooth brush
or change for a
dollar,
not a bite of
food, not a C-Ration can
just notebooks,
pens and
thirty-five
millimeter cameras
wrapped in
plastic,
wading through
the rice paddies, sometimes chest deep -
my brothers
watching my back.
Part III Button and me
Trying to keep my
cool
there was only
one thing to do
right now
if Button and me
are gonna make it
through the storm.
Start joggin'
and singin' this
old song -
"Up the
hill,
down the hill,
Airborne,
Airborne,
Army Rangers.
Up the hill,
down the hill,
Airborne,
Airborne,
All the
way."
Over and over. I
probably messed up the lines
but it's been a
long time
before long a
half century.
Then i got to
thinkin' we just might
make it through
the storm. I geared back to fast
walkin'.
Part IV The night i thought i'd died
These threats in
the world
get me flashin'
back
to the night i
thought i'd died
in the sandy
forested
wasteland
on the Cambodian
border
at a firebase
freshly carved out
Automatic weapons
fire
all through the
no moon night
shootin' the shit
with bare chested GI's
filling bags
for some slim
extra protection
against mortar
and rocket attacks.
i'm out there,
right there where we're not supposed to be
me, some Army
engineers,
artillerymen
and a battery
of big guns, one five five millimeters
on tracks that
looked like tanks.
i got dropped off
on the convoy
thanks
to the bird
colonel and his helicopter.
from my ride on
the bird colonel's helicopter.
Letting me out,
barely touching down,
that Alabamian, i
guess as close as you can get
to my commanding
officer, looked at me
without a word,
laughing. i didn't bother to look back.
He wasn't a bad
guy. He just wanted some good photos and
stories
out of me
published so he
could be a general.
We rolled on to
the border
dust almost
blinding.
Then right away
in some no man's land
the bulldozers
scooped up dirt
by the tons
firing hole for
the big traveling guns.
"Boom, boom,
boom,
blast, blast,
blast"
the guns shook
and thundered.
(me shooting
pictures, taking notes, without ear plugs, close enough to feel the warmth of
the steel)
The artillerymen
humpin' all day long
unleashing hell
out into the triple canopy jungles
where they enemy
was supposed to be -
the NVA (the
North Vietnamese Army)
and maybe some VC
(Viet Cong) guerrillas i suppose
on their way to
hit Saigon, and not the bars.
I don't know how
many enemy there were out there somewhere,
hundreds,
maybe as many
four or five thousand;
it wasn't any use
to think about that.
"Who's out
on the perimeter?" i asked the smart-assed lieutenant
who shut me out
of his APC.
(armored personnel
carriers to you folks back home).
"Mercenaries,"
he said without a grin.
i thought,
"Man, what a fix i got myself in."
With dispatch the
lieutenant said,
"Start
diggin' your hole,"
he said as he
went into his APC
probably to start
partying before World War Three.
Our guns were
silent, even Alpha's Angels
the whole troop
had showered, except the reporter,
from canvas bags
filled with cold running water
brought in by
slicks, Huey D Model gunships,
(They didn't
stick around.)
Nothin' like a
cold shower to get some relief from the mind sapping heat.
i had little
time. The sun was going down.
Get the size just
right. i had no time to think
of the
rectangular, grave sized bunker
to be topped with
corrugated steel for a cover.
Be quick.
At least someone
gave me an entrenching tool
or i'd have been buried
alive
before the
fireworks began
on the night a
thought i'd died. That's another story.
Part V Gates of heaven
Then, i got to
thinkin' we,
Button and me,
that is, just might make it
walkin' the dog
to the beach
and back
to the gates of
heaven
from mission
number three.
So my story to
you,
at least the one
from today
does have a happy
ending.
Button and me, we
did make it home.
Back in the day
toward the end
of the ten
thousand day war,
all i know, for
sure that is
58,000 and more,
some of America's
finest
young men and
women
didn't make it
back to the world.
These bands of
brothers
i always remember.
They boarded the
big airplanes
in body bags and
boxes
on their last flight of freedom
to the gates of
heaven.
