NOTABLE QUOTES OF CATCHER McCALL
Copyright 2012 by C. J. Lanet from excerpt of Author's Scrapbook Series One and manuscript adaptation of Catcher McCall ... Outsider.
Introduction
Catcher McCall ... Outsider is presented as a modern day epic. The first installment was published as Catcher McCall - Regrets and Rescue. Part Two will be released on August 1, 2012 as Catcher McCall - Respect and Betrayal. Part Three due September 15, 2012 entitled Catcher McCall - Lost and Return. Look for Part Four - Catcher McCall vs. Wall Street scheduled for April 1, 2013.
The excerpts entitled "Medal of Honor" and "Presidential Candidate of the United States" are from Catcher McCall - Respect and Betrayal. Part One chronicles the events in Af-fucking-ghanistan, which culminates in inadvertently saving a U.S. Congressman's life that warrants Catcher McCall to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Because of accepting the reluctant prize, the public fascination catapults Catcher McCall to be a candidate for the presidency of the United States. What happened next is truer than fiction. As William Faulkner said, "The best fiction is far more true than any journalism."
Medal of Honor Excerpts: Part One
“No you don’t! I lived with this guy in the worst of time. He was always on guard or polished his image and never cared about anyone. He knew that dying in Af-fucking-ghanistan was a heartbeat away, but would sellout ten battalions to buy easy passage. Saving him was not even a thought. Some ungodly force kept me attached to him.
“You’ll have your name on the Medal of Honor Roll and receive more pension money; a uniform allowance, free air travel, get to meet the president. And the best of it … you can be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.”
“Just think, I can get pissed on in Washington DC more than once. I don’t want it! What I witnessed in Af-fucking-ghanistan. No … no, no! I’m not proud of this country, and wearing that Medal is not for me.”
“Please Catcher. I’ll do anything if you said yes to me.”
“Oh, don’t put it that way, especially now. I can’t even get it up. Would you take a rain-check?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s a silly question, you know what I’m talking about?”
“Okay, we have a deal.”
“Done! Seal it with a kiss and show me the prize.”
She smiled. “You’re a pig, Lieutenant McCall!”
“All the time.”
“You’re not the sweetest pea in the pod.”
“Who said, I’m a pea? Come on Teagarden, its show time."
“Done! Next subject: The Medal. It’s an important honor.”
“When do you think the old pecker be workin’?”
“Two weeks. It’s basically a simple procedure. Can we discuss the Medal for a minute? Like I said, it’s a big honor.”
“Only if you want it. The government doesn’t give a flying fuck about me. All for show, and it cost them nothing.”
“You do get benefits?”
“True, I can get my ass buried in Arlington. I know, you don’t have to tell me. Guys will give their left nut for this. If I saved one of my own, it would be a different story. Allegedly, I saved Baker, a low life congressman who was in Af-fucking-ghanistan to make brownie points and get reelected; now he’s look for it to carry him to the White House. You picture that prick being president? I sure don’t. They said your leaders are a reflection of us. Maybe we deserve him? From where I sit, this country is become irrelevant.”
“Why do you say that? I see a lot of good. Kindness is always present in America.”
“Let’s assume there never was a US of fuckin’ A. Indians would still own their land, maniac consumerism, world competition, the atomic bomb, manipulating world populations to satisfy the demands for a few hundred million people, while the global economies are slaves to what USA leaders dictate, this is the legacy. If the rest of the world consumed what we do, you would need six new Earths just to keep pace. Now, we’re in a desperate race because the rest of the world has figured us out. Seven billion people want what a few hundred million have. Can you imagine that?”
“You make it sound that we are the evil empire?”
I slowly shook my head yes. “Just consider oil, and what we have done to secure it, and destabilized the entire world to insure its availability. After the Second World War the Pentagon recognized that whoever controlled cheap and accessible oil would rule the world. So we planted Israel in the Middle East to subvert the entire region because it was where most of the easily recoverable crude oil existed. The weapon of choice was religion to cause neighboring countries to take sides. So Arabs and Jews fought it out, while the USA played the game of manipulation. The end results – twenty-five or so wars, thousands of confrontations, political assassinations, government coups and a variety of other schemes to make certain that crude oil flowed to us. In the process over a billion people were killed, displaced or missing, for the privilege that Americans can waste energy at the expense of all others. That’s who we are.”
What the hell is going on here? Strangers want to shake my hand, offer words of gratitude, even grab the tab. And it’s not just the chariot and me; soldiers in uniform are plagued by an impulsive courtesy. Maybe it’s a guilty awareness because they’re not in it? Living off base for the first time in seven years is like I just floated down from planet Mars. Nothing feels right. Not withstanding my legs, military personnel are younger, healthier with big biceps and shorter hair. Out here, people are older, more infirm and appear lost in a confused society. Remoteness is so profound as if no one cares that a war is killing and maiming Americans. Predictable media sanitizes war news or doesn’t even report it, while being more concerned about what an athlete does or some broad fuckin’ a married man. Ostensibly, the public doesn’t want to know or refuses to listen that billions of dollars are being poured into a rat hole, while a permanent military caste has less in common with the majority of the people paying the bills. Indeed, the public enjoys the heretical relationship that society and the military embrace, which breeds deceitful conduct, lack of truth, and misplaced dialogue. The result is a fraudulent waste of finite resources pasted together by paper money. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve has unlimited power to print it. As the only superpower, we start unnecessary long-term wars and then wage them like a bunch of amateurish in a whorehouse.
“I just want to be an Army pilot and send all my time in uniform. Af-fucking-ghanistan was a kick in the nuts.
TV sucked. Lately, I was watching more of it. Even with cable you had 500 channels of lost airwaves and characters with nothing to do except vent their problems. As for advice, it always had a hidden agenda to sell something you didn’t need. Our society was so consumer driven, if you didn’t spend money, you were treated with reticule and despised as being Un-American. This country is what you see and hear on the monitor - an orgy of discontents satisfied by buying something new to throw out the used and to repeat the process until they didn’t know what they’re doing. “Just go and buy,” the tiny voice in your head whispered. You know the fuckin’ short of it? I heard it too!
Catcher McCall and The Medal of Honor - made me a folk hero of sorts. Originally the title was to be reversed. With cynical remarks about the war and the country’s preoccupation of global involvement for no other purpose than to waste money, my off-the-cuff anecdotes and quirky delivery had motivated converts, not from the intellectuals, politicians or the MIC, but the little guys, the mom and pops who struggled to make ends meet in a troubling economy and the rest of the wounded sitting on the sidelines looking in. Poking fun at Wall Street gangsters, politicians, government agencies, especially the NSV and DHS, it was like a
script or something in my head. Just talking until the director signaled me to cut.
Not in my wildest imagination did I expect to be instantly propelled into the country’s national consciousness. Granted, the White House bash gave me enough fame to buy a ham sandwich. For sure this was a banquet beyond compare.
Baird made it clear that the Lashkar Gah Incident was classified as such because the event demonstrates callous brutality as its worse. Al-Qaeda combatants totaling 408 were systematical executed after the compound was secured, most of which were without weapons of any kind. The actual Al-Qaeda fighting force was less than 35 armed soldiers with the balance either trainees or new recruits. Nine minutes after the engagement started it was over, but two Abrams tanks continued to discharge significant armaments for the next 27 minutes. In the process nothing stood or left alive, except a small number of coalition forces and the Marines behind the tanks. Friendly fire was blamed for the worst causality rate of its kind in US history.
“So? This means nothing to me. The issue is Na’imah Rabbani. Let me judge the value of the tapes.”
“It’s not that simple, Lieutenant McCall,” said Baird. “I explained the gruesome. The questionable content shows eight Marines urinating on Taliban corpses – an act that violates international law of warfare.”
“That’s not good enough,” I laughed. “We all did that it! Pissing on sandniggers is our main form of removing bodily fluids. In the field, we shit on their faces. There’s no military secret about this?”
“Maybe so, Lieutenant McCall, but times have changed. Release of these tapes puts a further strain on U.S-Afghan relations. The 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines was part of the Lashkar Gah Incident and four of its officers were already depicted on Internet video pissing on dead combatants. The video had a life of its own, being posted, reposted that we were forced to join with Afghans in calling it deplorable and shocking, a breach of military standards and …”
I interrupted. “Yeah, I saw that, good laughed. Four Marines in combat gear standing in a semicircle pissing on the bodies of three men in Afghan rags, one guy’s chest covered in blood. Do I have it right?” Gesturing with my hands, I continued to say, “So what? They did the same to us. I even shot a peckerhead pissin’ on one of my guys. Fuck them!”
“No Lieutenants, the release of the tapes would compromise ties with Karzai’s government and complicate negotiations over a strategic partnership after our 2014 withdrawal.”
I shook my head. “We put that asshole on the throne, now we’re worried about that he thinks? … Get Teagarden!”
“You are not to discuss …”
I interrupted Baird. “You don’t give me orders. I want the tapes!”
Experts - Presidential Candidate of the United States- Part Two.