Summer always served as a “new beginning” for me when I was in the US Army. I got drafted on the Third of June and did my basic training in the hot, dry air of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
I can’t tell you how many push-ups I did during the two-month training session, as the meanest drill sergeant I ever saw brought fire to my poor soul by running me everywhere and cussing me out to force me into fighting shape.
A Viet Cong sniper was trying to kill me. Some motherfucker hiding in the trees, the bushes, the triple-canopy jungle had just shot at my platoon. I thought he was shooting randomly, despite the debris from the ground, grassland and other tiny bits of rock that struck me from a bullet’s ricochets.
No, he was aiming at no one but me! It’s taken me more than forty years to figure that out. 
After serving in the Vietnam War I turned my back on anything having to do with the military, and so I was totally surprised years later when, requesting my medals, I got one that I still don’t believe I earned. Continue reading
I get such a high while exercising that I can’t imagine why I haven’t done this more often in life. Continue reading
Actively seek out someone in your church, synagogue or temple and befriend him so that what happened in Philadelphia last week never happens again.  Continue reading
The damn branch broke my concentration. I had not planned for an overhanging tree limb to block the pathway, walking three-quarters of a mile from my home to the train station, with my head facing my feet the entire time. But I was ordered by an eye doctor to lean my head all the way toward the ground for 50 out of 60 minutes of each hour for seven straight days.  Continue reading
“Warriors have been rewarded for their service or their families have been provided support, since the beginning of organized society. From the veterans of Egypt in the third millennium B.C. through the Crusaders of medieval Europe, to veterans of today, governments have compensated their military personnel or their survivors, for loss of life, wounds, injuries, or length of service in defense of the state. Continue reading
Jobs have a way of defining us. We become “the job,” or rather grow into what we perceive to be the “ideal performer“ of that job. Whether we like it or not. The job. Or ourselves.  Continue reading
Felt disconnected from the World as I knew it yesterday.
So is my astigmatism. Not to mention a cataract in my left eye.
That’s what Life is all about.
Causes and Conditions.
The sooner I realize this,
the easier it will be to
Reach Enlightenment.  Continue reading
Does the Universe conspire to create minor miracles on a given day? Yes. But only if you believe in modern-day miracles.
I experienced several on February 16, 2010, with the last manifesting over a two-day period in the history of miracles for Contoveros. (For the series, see Rooster helps open path to miraculous day)
Why do I feel the VA (Veterans Administration) likes to push my face into the mud every once in a while? Like treating me like a number, not a person, another Vietnam War survivor that someone on some staff gets paid for seeing, stamping and shuffling off after extracting information to satisfy the Great Bureaucracy.
Compensation and Review Board is the name given to a panel of persons with the Veterans’ Administration that recommends whether a disability rating should be approved for a deserving veteran.
I hate to admit this, but I become afraid when I get into harm’s way. I try to avoid it. Try to go with the flow. But when harm settles in my general area, I become as timid as a rabbit jumping back in a hole after seeing his own shadow.
Buddha came in the shape of a dark-haired, dark-skinned attractive yoga-practicing woman, smiling upon me in a dream.
Continue reading“Letting go” is a process I thought I had completely bought into when I “gave up” trying to control things and had surgery done on my eye.
The first Buddha emerged in my dream as a muscular military-type, with short-cropped hair and engaging smile. Asian? No, Hispanic, but with a possible trace of someone from an exotic Asian island.
Meeting this Tuesday morning, Feb. 16, 2010, was an accident. My trip from Conshohocken to Philadelphia took less time than I had scheduled, and I had an extra 20 minutes until a 10 o’clock appointment. It gave me a chance to talk with my official advocate, the DAV (Disabled American Veterans).
The Buddha appeared in a dream. He took on the forms of a soldier, a counselor and then a computer printer. How could such an entity take shape in such different apparitions?
It all started as I entered a building. President Barack Obama’s picture beamed on a wall as I walked through a large room, cordoned off by dozens of partitions, creating offices upon offices of civil servants working for me and thousands of other veterans from the United States.
Not once did I have to step on the brake. And I left my house shortly before 9 am — the tail end of rush-hour traffic — to get to a 10 o’clock appointment.
Oh no! I forgot my ID. Second day in a row I pulled such a stupid stunt. And here I am, braving the snow and cold to drive from Conshohocken, PA, to the Veterans Administration building in Philadelphia.
You may not know how much hell I went through in entering this building a few short months ago. Had to “strip” off my belt, hold up my pants, and lower my dignity to get through the metal detector. (See Terrorists force VA to strip vet of dignity.) And that’s when I had my Veterans’ identification card with a mug shot beaming my most honest smile.
I have never been good at waiting, and when I have something unpleasant to do — like undergo an operation in the hospital — I prefer to get it over with. Quickly. And not have to count the minutes that seem to pass by so excruciatingly slow.
Contoveros 