When you are dead you can’t apply for your VA benefits which means more money for the Jillionairs.

I have been meditating much these days on this hexagram, “Ko/Revolution:”

Above, Tui, the Joyous Lake;
Below, Li, the Clinging Fire

REVOLUTION. On your own day
You are believed.
Supreme success,
Furthering through perseverance.
Remorse disappears.

I pray that it comes to pass.

I came back alive (obviously) and went back to college, the war still on, and while deep into studying Richard Willhelm’s translation of the I Ching, Frances FitzGerald’s book, “Fire in the Lake” came out. In my personal mythology, her book was the last treasure from the almost empty cardboard box.

Bernard Fall’s “Street without Joy: Indochina at War,” then “Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu,” and slew of different university press publications on insurgencies around the world; I’m lookin’ at you, Ché.

Aside from scoring the rare SF or Fantasy, what treasures did I find at the bottom of those boxes?

As a young 1st Lieutenant, I was the one who received the boxes. My method of book distribution (designed by me) was by reverse rank order; privates first, then on up the ranks until everyone got something or the books were gone. Anything left was mine. So began my true education.

Long ago in a war far, far away (there are always wars,) we used to receive boxes of paperbacks sent by book distributors in the US. They were unsold returns from retailers to the distributors for credit, donated for the troops deployed overseas.

Fast Asleep in Frog Pajamas😔