Real Name: Chico Esquela Address: 23543 Avenue 56, Ducor, CA Biggest Butler Bldg=>TeePee Ducor, CA 93218 Cell: (esc)uch-enes Date of Birth: December 14, 1945 Member Since: July 31, 2007 Last Signed In: July 04, 2008 Profile Views: 2104 Blog Views: 18072 Did Anyone see the Asteroid reported on KCAL9? Obama and Dems Lying About Oil Leases............. "Dr." Mark Martinez -- Some Questions -- Feel Free to Use Surrogate Chica to Answer....... I was just wondering................. Gun Owners -- Pay Attention! If you care at all about Big Money in Politics............ Pat Buchanan on Obama and Race Bugs That Poop Crude Oil! Words of Wisdom Next time You hear Scott Cox or others rail about Oil Co. Tax Breaks..... July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 http://www.sounddogs.com/pr... 
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When I have negative thoughts about black people as a “group” ………..
……….I think of three vignettes from my life (there are more of course but there are three that really stand out for me) and I realize that I never could be a good racist…… or even a bad one…….No matter how some of the posters on here have attempted to characterize me…… Here’s one of those vignettes from my past: Draper
He was an Army Staff Sgt at Phu Hiep, RVN, black as the ace of spades and big as a house. Really….NFL Lineman big. Now I’m not a little guy but he made me feel like Eddie Haskell when I was around him. He could hump an M-60 all day with two bandoliers of 7.62 (which looked like 5.56 on him) and wanna get wasted and party all night at base camp. I never knew his last name – he was just Draper. Black Hearted Draper as he liked to call himself (much to the Captain's chagrin (especially when the new Army directive came down allowing the “brothers” to quit shaving due to “VN bumps” in the tropical clime) …. But I knew different…
We had an old first shirt (Our Top - SFC) named Whack. Yeah, that was his given name, William Whack. Sgt Whack was old school black (a negro in his vernacular) while Draper was “new black”— both proud men but in very different ways. Whack from within (you just knew) and Draper from without (in your face). I liked em both, in just as different a ways.
One night we were all gettin drunk on Jack Daniels (some chose other things of course) and bennies from the chopper pilot’s flight kits. Benzedrine – you could take a few of those and drink Jack all night long. Yak up a storm and take a few more in the morning and hump all day. Draper didn’t do weed like most of his fellow blacks in VN so our group was just sittin around in our tin roofed hooch, drinkin and commiserating about our day. Whack had been on Draper’s ass like an off-the-rack Brook’s Brothers all day after we had been doing a “hooch AO” inspection and that damn dude told Whack he wanted a new hooch maid. Said the one he had was “too damned ugly” (It really was funny at the time – I had to bite my lip). I had warned Draper not to, it wouldn’t go well [I knew Whack], but you didn’t really tell Draper much of anything ..…..
Well past being prologue, Sgt Whack came down on him like a northern highlands monsoon – I heard him do something I never thought I would – use the “N” word. He told Draper he was the kind of “N” that sat around bitchin about people calling him that, then exerted that same exact kind of prejudice against the gooks (especially the women). Some little black toothed Beatle nut chewin mamasan who shined his boots and washed his jungles for pennies a day, and he wanted a better lookin one for when he woke up in the morning. I listened to every word, and I’ve never heard anyone speak more eloquently about race to this day. Old Sergeant Whack coulda been MLK in my book ….. He actually made a whole lotta sense. He tore Draper a new one in a way I never thought the old fashioned Sarge had in him to do. It was a classic Old School “Negro” vs. New School Black Man. But Draper was one a those guys you either like or don’t, and if you are one of the few who do, you accept him for all his foibles. So I gathered myself and turned to the old volcanic Sarge and just told him Draper was only kiddin and if he hit him (I just ‘knew’ he was fixin to) it wouldn’t end well – for either party…… And I liked em both. To my surprise, he actually listened……. Walked away muttering to himself (something about these new young bucks, gonna screw up everything)….…..
Ever knew anybody that you know does things that are rude, crude, and socially unattractive, but you just like them anyway? Mebbe cause deep down inside you know that there is really good in there? But you also know he’s gonna exhibit his exterior persona no matter what anyway, so you either avoid em like the big orange malaria pills (make ya defecate like a duck), or accept – yay - even like them. I chose the latter for some unknown reason.
Like the time this green weenie (Roger) just in from the world with 364 and a wakeup left, started passin around pictures of his Carla Sue from East Undershirt, Alabama in the hooch and I knew where this was headed. I woulda stopped him but it was too late. This kid was so green you coulda planted him, looked like a young Dick Van Dyke or something…… The picture came around to Draper. Draper put down his Jack bottle, looked at that pic, and you coulda heard a pin dropped on a pillow. Real serious, Draper just looked over at FNG Roger and bellowed: “Damn Newbie, she’s ugly (she was) as hell man. She’s worse than Sam my mamasan!”
Roger was devastated! He was so proud of her and he knew that Draper was, love or hate him, an important guy in our unit. And he somehow instinctively knew that he would be a player in his getting back to the world and Carla someday…… We all roared with laughter, then I felt bad and went over to the FNG and told him I hoped he learned a lesson. Keep Carla in your wallet from now on cherry, K?
Well we drank more and more of that Jack that evening and intermittently went outside to set off slap flares so the heads could blankly stare at them, jaws agape while the Rogers ran over the sand to retrieve the little parachutes; and trading weapons we had picked up on convoys. I had a brand spanking new AK (musta been ARVN soldier’s as it looked like it had never been fired and only dropped once – haha!) I had gotten from a ROK Infantry MSgt for a 45 cal “grease gun” ….. I was gonna have some fun with that sucker next time we rolled out. I had been saving up tons of 45 ACP and couldn’t wait! We were really FUBAR and even more oblivious than normal when all of a sudden the laughter was cut like a KaBar through spam with a dink 82mm chicom mortar round hitting the tin roof a the hooch. I fell to the floor stunned…… Before I could even react I felt like a packed four suiter whose owner just heard reveille and was late for Flying Tiger back to the world. I was wearin one a the heavy flack vests that I had zipped up all the way for some reason and I felt one two by four sized hand grab me around the oversized collar and one on the backside of my fatigue britches, and ten quick steps and chucked like a smallish sack a spuds over the side of some sand bags just outside the hooch! Then this huge mass of humanity flying over those sand bags landing smack next to me. The next two of those 30 mortar rounds that night came right down on top of that tin roof and blew downward right where we had been just a few moments prior. They walked those rounds on down the compound and while it seemed like forever, it was over about as soon as it had begun.
I looked over at this huge black mass of humanity next to me and all I could see were eyeballs and teeth. All I could think of to say (before we ran to our posts) was something lame like: “Thanks Draper….”
He just looked down at me, laughed, then slapped me upside the back of my punkin and said: “[edit.] bruthuh, I couldn’t lose you….. Sgt Whack likes you ….. you probly saved his old black ass today and me from the LBJ, bwahaaaaa!”
It ticked me off that he had clipped the back of my head….. felt like he was treating me like his little brother or something…… as I think back on it, I guess he was. And I didn’t mind…………
So when I have had things that come up in daily life that make me want to dislike black people because of the actions of a few I generally try and do two things: 1) Put myself in their boots and look at the sitrep from their perspective [not an easy thing to do properly BTW] and, 2) Remember the Drapers of this world. Just those two seemingly little things keep me from primer coating all people with that can a spray paint [racial or ethnic prejudice] we all seem to have been issued at supply.
I have a couple other life’s vignettes I always think about too (Priscilla and Royce) I will share down the road if anyone is interested.
15 comments from 10 users
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posted by
GoBlue41
on May 13, 2008 at 08:56 AM
Can you give the short version?... kinda long. posted by
sagefever
on May 13, 2008 at 09:02 AM
Good story Chico and good advice. posted by
ChicoEsquela
on May 13, 2008 at 09:09 AM
Sage, sometimes you just gotta sit back and reconnoiter yerself................ I'll still call a shovel a spade though (if its got a square blade on er......) posted by
ChicoEsquela
on May 13, 2008 at 09:20 AM
Well GoBlue, I guess I can count you as one a the ones who don't wanna hear about Royce or Priscilla............. ;=) posted by
CatherineBaker
on May 13, 2008 at 09:39 AM
Pretty cool, Chico. I can understand your point of view. I just think I'm different, though. I cringe at sex jokes. I don't like violent movies (except, oddly, horror movies.) One time my grandma told me I was old-fashioned. It wasn't a compliment. think that pretty much sums me up. posted by
catpaw
on May 13, 2008 at 10:38 AM
Conjures up a few memories. When someone asks me what it was like, I usually answer that it's an education you'll never get in college. I would not make a good racist either. posted by
GoBlue41
on May 13, 2008 at 10:52 AM
i dont know, the headline brought up enough intrest for me to click it. but I soon lost that intrest when I saw how freakin long this thing was posted by
timec
on May 13, 2008 at 11:21 AM
Chico You remind me of some of my friends here at work. They don't care for blacks but they like me...... posted by
johnburnssucks
on May 13, 2008 at 11:38 AM
Catherine: Watch "Slumber Party Massacre" if you ever get the chance. The killer has a big cordless drill with an auger bit. It's cheap and poorly acted (I saw it on 99c Tuesday many years ago), which adds to its, er, appeal... posted by
ChicoEsquela
on May 13, 2008 at 12:06 PM
Timec -- Where did I say I don't like blacks? Guess you missed my poin.. Oh wellt................ posted by
ChicoEsquela
on May 13, 2008 at 12:36 PM
Timec -- I'd tell or anybody who cares to listen, if you're naive enough to think that it'll be preppy boy Biff from Hyannisport who'll save yer butt when the chips are down in war, etc..... you're dreamin........ More likely it'll be some seemingly mean a** black would be banger from Chicago or some seemingly goofy redneck from West Cesspool, Alabama........ just plain old Americans.......disparate as can possibly be, completely different backgrounds from yourself............ You learn real quick to pull together....... If I learned one thing in Army -- that was it........
posted by
jfrancais
on May 13, 2008 at 12:59 PM
Yer spot on, Chico. We all have preconcieved notions about other people. One of my "battles" was a racist Italian guy from Jersey (ended every sentence in 'Yo'). We never got along on a personal level but we were professionals. We kept most of our prejudiced notions to ourselves as best we could. I was on some good drugs (from a "medical issue, of course) one day when we were under attack and apparently slept through the whole thing. He carried me to the bunker where I woke up pi$$ed off and scared as hell in my boxers and my IBAS (flak vest). I never forgot that. The army can make some strange fellows. Every group has it's a-holes but one must be able to see the good in folks as well. posted by
OldBlue56
on May 13, 2008 at 03:10 PM
Chico, I bet a lot of people who read books and watch TV think they can relate to your experiences over there. If they only knew.... And timec, you are black? I thought you were Puerto Rican with a Cottonwood Road attitude. posted by
anglo1
on May 13, 2008 at 08:12 PM
I 'll read real stories anytime. Bring on Priscella and Royce. posted by
ChicoEsquela
on May 13, 2008 at 08:41 PM
THX Anglo -- I will........ Even if just one person gets anything out of them............ ;-)
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