41

Our host handed out the blasters. "If any

  • Our host handed out the blasters. "If any of you should linger one full week on Earth, the estate will award you $10,000! The shuttles have gone, the gates are closed. Good luck!"

    4
  • My blaster was Necromine Stunner. Great. I'd been trained in the Orbarine Corps on plasma grenades and rocket flechettes. The game was on. I'd have to survive Earth to get the mone

    4
  • Y I had spent on setting a new digital audio broadcasting network, to be fully operative by the end of 2017. It took 2-1/2 years to develop all the signal deflectors. Whew! I said

    4
  • That was hard work but at least I had work. I had to keep reminding myself of that. If I didn't someone else on my crew would. I signaled and turned left when the coast was clear.

    4
  • This took patience: their was a lot of day traffic on the coast, fishing trawlers, tour boats & what have you but eventually there was an afteroon lull but my turn signal was broke

    4
  • By the time I finished fixing my turn signal the afternoon lull was over and the A41 was bumper-to-bumper traffic even across the Bay Bridge. So they couldn't rotate the road for a

    3
  • moment. There's something to be said for grill-mounted rocket launchers, and commuting kept me from home for a solid hour and a half, and when I got home, the kids' "We want toy!"

    5
  • made me turn right around and jump back into my commuter tank and head for the beltway to launch rockets at more Road Rage twerps. Soon the roads were filled with charred remains

    4
  • and forensic scientists concluded that the Road Rage Twerps were composed of Funyuns, Skoal Bandits, and red flannel. Soldiers like me kept their tanks gassed up and nuclear ready.

    4
  • Imagine: All that advanced weaponry and no bathroom. Caught short, I left the tank, found a quiet spot, and squatted. Got a bullet in my ass for my troubles. Why did I re-enlist?

    5

4 Comments

  1. Jimbeau Dec 11 2020 @ 00:36

    An Uncle of mine had a Purple Heart and I asked him how he got it': he said, "Anzio, June, 1944." "Not where or when, although I appreciate you telling me that," I informed him, "Why and how!" "Why, because they give that to everyone who got shot in WWII," he grimaced, "I got shot in the ass, running away from enemy fire, and Im not really sure who shot me, but I got shot in the ass, and it hurt like hell, and they sent me to a hospital to fix my ass because my ass was purple, swollen and hot, and after a few weeks I got feeling better and I returned to join General Patton's command long enough to see May 8th, 1945, when the Nazi's surrendered." "And so they gave you a Purple Heart because you were a soldier on the battlefield..." He cut me off, "I got it because somebody shot me in the ass!" And that was that.

  2. TarotGuy Dec 11 2020 @ 10:51

    Great story, Jimbeau! I have a similar “shot in the ass” story in my family. My great-great grandfather was on the Union side in the Civil War. My grandfather (the soldier’s grandson) used to tell his family all the “war stories” he heard on his grandpappy’s knee. One of the stories was that his grandfather saw action at Gettysburg and was wounded there. When my grandfather wrote to the War Department and got his grandfather’s military records, he got the unembellished story. Turns out my great-great grandfather DID see action at Gettysburg and DID get wounded there—but the wound was in his ass. My mother never let my grandfather forget that and laughed uproariously saying her great grandfather got wounded while running away. What also didn’t make it into my great-great grandfather’s version of the story was that he deserted his regiment and was found and brought back unceremoniously and returned to the front lines. Also, his promotion to corporal (supposedly a “field promotion”) had not made it into the official record, so he was mustered out as a private. I believe he was a decent man who just got caught up in the horrors and confusion of war and reacted to it the best way he knew how. Can't blame the guy for that.

  3. Jimbeau Dec 11 2020 @ 20:38

    I love these stories about real people and real events. I'm sure your great-great grandfather was a great guy, TarotGuy. I would've loved to hear the stories about the Civil War.

  4. Woab Dec 18 2020 @ 11:48

    Those are both great stories, Jim and Tarot. You are writers. I hope you have written them down for posterity. Or posteriority.

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