there's always someone - Digital Collage 5" x 3.5"

I had my misgivings when assigned to the B-52 flown by Seth, the ganja-smoking rabbinical-student-turned bombadier. Given he and his crew's aversion to the war, we ran only humanitarian sortées. Certainly, the strangest among them was our evacuation of the fallen dictator's gorilla sanctuary. We spent the morning flying in country. Fez, Wally and Mordachai sedated the animals and loaded them into the plane without incident. Directed to not take off until the animals awoke, the crew used the opportunity to pass around a bong fashioned from a brass shell casing. I declined to partake in these activities, not just because I didn't like marijuana, but because as navigator, I didn't want to risk guiding the crew into hostile territory.

Stoned, but steady, Seth got the plane back into the air, but once in flight one of the crew took it into his head to let the apes out of their cages. One might think pandamonium ensued, but the gorillas still feeling the effects of sedation interacted well with the laid-back men. Still, there's always someone who can't well enough leave alone. Kimmelhoff, the gunner coaxed a male into his bubble to and I quote, "Hang out hairy dude." Apes and firearms are never a good combination and such a pairing is a particularly unwelcome idea in a low flying airplane. It was almost inevitable that we were destined to screw up as we did. After strafing a convoy led by top brass on their way to an officers' oasis, we topped it off by landing on the supply tent filled with provisions for the very same officers' planned wild weekend. The unflappable crew and their subdued simian friends spilled out of the rear of the plane onto the camp grounds. An enraged lieutenant demanded a reckoning. Seth replied, "Bummer. But, like listen up. Everything's gonna be okay because the gorillas are here Man." Visions of a court marshall or at least a dishonorable discharge raced through my mind. Perhaps if we had crashed in a more visible spot either event would have come to pass, but out there in the desert away from the eyes of the troops, the officers simply asked if they could check out Seth's weed.