Yo, the D-man an' me we go waayyy back. D-man stands for deadman (but nobody says that to his face cuz that can jinx a trooper). He thinks it stands for Darek. He wuz one crazy mother fucker. He had that thousand yard, see right through shit, X-ray vision stare down stone cold. That shit be givin' ya chills when he does it at the chow hall! I think alot of it had to do with that Cambo Opium he wuz always smoking to keep his head on during those crazy days.
I remember this time we wuz in 'Nam. Just outside of Da Nang. We wuz humpin' it through the bush tryin' to make our check point and meet with able company. That dumbass Lt. Williams hit a trip wire and set off some kinda V.C. claymore mine. It blew his left leg clean off! I saw his boot hangin' from a tree with his foot in it! We all hit the deck. Pretty much everybody caught a little bit of that surprise package. I got a chunk in the eye brow and one piece struck the button off my fatigue trousers. (Thank you lord for your benevolent mercy!) D-man had been thrown against a tree and knocked out from the blast. Then the shit really went down! It wuz a V.C. ambush. The dinks started poppin' up outta no where like that fuckin' "Whacka Mole" game at the carnival!. It wuz like they wuz meltin' outta the trees or some shit! The lead started flyin'. Tracers were whizzin' over our heads. The bullets kinda sounded like soft rain as they tore through the leaves. I crawled over to Lt. Williams and Rudy was already there. We tied off his stump and spiked him with a morphine styrette. Then Rudy looked at me and said "Oh shit man, you got a chunka' scrap in your face!" I pulled a frag about an inch an a half outta my eyebrow. (Poppa always said I had a thick skull.) About this time our boys were tryin' return fire but we were pretty much done for. The dinks had us pinned down in a cross fire and there wuz just too many of 'em. All of a sudden I hear D-man roarin' like a bear with his dick in a trap. He shook his head a bit, stood up and let fly with that M-60 he carried. Kak-kak-kak-kak-kak-kak-..... Like a fuckin' hundred carpenters hammerin' on payday. He started strollin' and I MEAN STROLLIN' towards us all the time layin' it down with the "60". Bullets are zippin' by him but he doesn't get hit by a one! He grabbed Lt. Williams by the collar and starts draggin' him away and all the while he's screamin' "YOU BASTARDS ARE KILLIN' MY BUZZ!!!" What kinda crazy shit is that!!! The V.C. ain't never seen shit like THAT! Hell I ain't never seen shit like THAT! The dinks must thought he was the Thunder God hisself sent down to their paddie! What of 'em he didn't hose started retreatin' and we wuz able to grab the rest of our wounded and hump it on outta there. We eventually made it to rendezvous and back to camp. Got the Lt. to medivac and had some time to eat and relax. Afterwards I went over to the bunker to catch up with D-man. He was in there kickin' back. I walked over and said " Thanks man." He pulled that opium pipe outta his mouth and says "for what?"
I tell ya he is one stone cold mother fucker. In the fire it's like he's got an icicle up his ass or somethin' he's so cool. Thanks again. Semper Fi, bro'.

~ Dirk

Darek is the only man I know with his own caves to spelunk, his own land to roam 'n shoot varmints on, and the only one with a gut named Applesauce. Sadly, he is only occasionaly present in SF from his down-home in Austin, but whenever he does visit, the reserves of alcohol in the city noticeably shrink. Big hearted like the sky of his own state, clever as the skinks that crawl under that blue expance, and whoah nelly, can he get some grill on!