Original oil painting by: Grandfather’s wife
Grandfather says he was a soldier once, in the Army during Korean War times.
Grandfather had developed a lot of stamina on his high school track team and, independent cuss that he was (and is), he stood during basic training forced march rest periods. Eventually cadre got annoyed and ordered him to sit down.
Grandfather remembers thinking: I won, you (expletive deleted). But, he was ordered to the front of the column to carry the guide-on, when the graduating class marched before the Commanding Officer’s reviewing stand.
After secondary training as a topographic surveyor, he served on the island of Mindanao in the Philippine Islands.
Grandfather with a civet that had been eating the survey party’s chickens.
The instrument tower is in the background. Grandfather was detailed on this mountain, waiting for semi-permanent fog to clear from a line of sight to a target on another mountain twenty miles away. He was there for five months, before the magic moment arrived.
The civet was taken at midnight with the sidearm on his belt, a .22 rimfire Colt match target pistol, sent to him from the states by Grandmother-to-be.
But, when Grandfather was on survey party traverses through overgrown terrain, the monkey rode on Grandfather’s shoulder. He sensed anything that needed attention — for example, snakes. Mindanao enjoys the residency of all three species of Cobra.
It wasn’t all duty, duty, duty …
***
About the Author: RD Blakeslee is an octogenarian from West Virginia who built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here.
Photos: Courtesy of the Blakeslee Family
Being stationed overseas offers lots of adventure. Thank you for your service, RD!
Last photo: Is that a pet mouse hanging from your shirt collar????
Thank you, Steve!
Hanging from my shirt collar: The monkey, mentioned in the last paragraph, above. Placement of the picture before the paragraph makes it a little confusing …
Woops! “before” should be “after”.
Yes. I see it now! I was focusing on the monkey’s head only and didn’t see the rest of its body. Funny how the eyes play tricks on me.
There’s not much contrast between my shirt and the monkey – not surprising one’s eyes would play tricks.
BTW, just wait until you get old! the whole scene is a trick, sometimes…
Enjoyed this. Thank you. Regarding that second picture. Where/when was it taken? Almost doesn’t seem like same person.
The picture was taken near Davao, Mindanao, Philippine Islands.
Actually, I was the same person I am now *chuckle*, only younger.
The ukulele was an interesting local craft piece. I had learned to play a uke in the barracks while I was in secondary training at Fort Belvoir, VA, and missed it, so bought this one.
It had piano wire strings which were hard on the strumming fingers. I couldn’t play it as much as I had my first, plastic monofilament – stringed uke.
“Being stationed overseas offers lots of adventure.” – Steve
That reminds me of one I had.
I let it be known that I was interested in crocodile hunting and a local Moro (The then-contemporary name for a Muslim) offered his services.
I was taken to a Moro bario (Spanish word for village or town. The Philippines had been under Spanish colonial rule and many nouns in native dialects are adopted from Spanish nomenclature.), where I was given an obligatory potion to drink, loaded aboard a dugout canoe and off we went. Directly, I suffered Major gastrointestinal upset and was returned to the bario where I was undressed and cleaned up. I remember the women appraising my anatomy and suspect the potion was to secure a closer look at the white man.
As I was a callow youth then and all they had to do was ask *chuckle*
But cultural differences often lead to misunderstandings, and worse.
Just look at the carnage between Muslims and Christians throughout the Southern Philippines today.
Thanks for this, RD.
One of my brothers was a sailor (as was my father) and stationed in the Philippines for a couple years during the Vietnam war. He’d send photos often, and many of them included monkeys. He said they were everywhere, and were very sneaky little thieves. He didn’t dare set down anything shiny unless it was in his footlocker.
He probably went hunting, but little sister only got the general audience version of events.
His main entertainment, though, was scuba diving. He brought home an incredible collection of sea shells, even stringing a bunch for a necklace for me. I still have it, along with a similar one my father got for my mother when he was in the Pacific during WWII.
Nice memories.
Nice memories, indeed! Thank you, Gee.
Gee, speaking of bringing things home for family and sneaky little thieves:
Nice things were available in the PX at attractive prices, as well as local craft items. But while coming home, there was a problem protecting the goodies from thieves. We didn’t have footlockers, only duffle bags which were easily gotten into. They couldn’t be carried to the mess hall for meals, so what was one to do?
My solution was to place the valuables at the bottom of the bag under all my clothing etc. with a few items left near the top for the thieves. I remember that a log-log-decitrig sliderule was sacrificed (Len is an engineer – but probably not old enough to remember those).
The valuables got home safely.
Hey, Dad — too funny, only yesterday I was fondly remembering the times when you would play your ukelele and sing for us children.
You were lucky to get out of the Moro “bario” unscathed — I remember when you showed us slides from your service there, you would start pacing and quietly fume about the sheer brutality of the “b——s” there.
(I remember slide rules!)
Hi Dear,
We’.ve had good times together, years ago and lately.
“Have children, if God gives you and your spouse the gift of them. They will be a joy and a trial early but pure joy late in life.” https://lenpenzo.com/blog/id22017-how-i-live-on-less-than-40000-annually-ralph-from-west-virginia.html