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Show Flying - 103 But Armstrong is still grieved. "Still and all, people don't have no call to treat us like dirt all the time," he says. "I remember when they used to have some respect for the uniform. I was stationed in Baltimore during the Korean war, and you couldn't go into a bar in uniform without them civilians fighting to buy your drinks." "The good days'11 come again, sergeant," says Wilberforce soothingly. John Henry, depressed by the desert landscape and the terrible heat, is excited at the prospect of war. A chance to do what he was trained for, to put to use four months of school in hot and humid Georgia. His hands twitch as if already on the teletype keyboard and he dreams of the messages his flying fingers will send. We were happy as hell at the Signal School when the Marines landed in Lebanon. Sitting in the dayroom listening to the latest reports, watching the President on TV. All of Fort Gordon on standby alert. I looked over Jordan and what did I see? The whole Russian army a'comin' after me! Better war than pulling weeds and picking up rocks and emptying butt cans. Better war games than the Fort Hood motorpool. There is dignity and the chance of manhood in the prospect of war, and maneuvers are better than nothing. If I took six and went Airborne I could wear a silver |