Cold War Short-Short Stories
Cold War Short-Short Stories is excerpted from Cold War Stories
Cold War Short-Short Stories has been published and is copyright protected.
Memphis, 1948 The bus rolls to a stop. I get on and sit right behind the driver. In two months, I will finish training to be an aviation electronics technician at the Memphis Navy Air Training Center. The bus moves through the training center as it picks up more passengers it will transport to Memphis. The bus is almost full when it reaches the training center main gate. A marine checks the passes, the bus driver stands, turns, and announces that all colored folks will now move to the back of the bus. I move to the back of the bus.
Korea, 1950 Damn, marine issue doesn’t cut this cold. Must be below zero. Chinese everywhere, small arms fire from everywhere. I hunker down in my shallow hole. I’m shivering and sweating at the same time. My mind wanders—ponders my escape from that Dakota farm, a world to see, to experience. There is a scream, “Medic, medic!” A mortar round shakes my hole! I hold the M1 in my frozen hands. Do I dare show myself, fire this rifle at I know not what? Maybe milking cows wasn’t all that bad.
War-Torn City Recovers, 1951 Two American marines, recovering from wounds inflicted in the war on the Korean Peninsula, wander around in a Tokyo market. Tokyo bustles. Factories hum, making cigarette lighters out of GI-discarded beer cans, half-price Leica knockoffs, the world’s finest china.
Two women stand out. One, a young woman, beautiful as many young Asian women are, a porcelain face with fine features, a tiny but full body. Beside her, an older version of herself. Both dressed stylishly in shades of blue. The older woman approaches the marines. “You like daughter? Only 3,000 yen, all night.”
Sangley Point, Naval Air Station, 1951 Tom, a marine a month out of boot camp, arrives at his duty station in the Philippines. That evening a corporal, a six-month Philippine veteran, persuades Tom to hit the beach.
Not far outside the base gate a toddler craps in the gutter. The corporal comments, “That’s why the Orient stinks.” They stop at a bar where the beer is cold, the waitress seductive. The corporal introduces Tom. “Just arrived.” he says. “How you like Philippines?” the waitress asks Tom. “It stinks.” She stomps off, muttering in Tagalog. The corporal is impressed. “Takes talent to insult a whore.”
A Different Perspective, 1951 I was a crewman on a navy patrol aircraft that was part of a group of four planes heading to the Far East for an extended tour. We stopped at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station near Seattle and spent a day practicing GCA, ground control approach, landings. That evening a fellow crewman and I dropped into the enlisted men’s club for a beer. There seemed to be a lot of unaccompanied women in the club who were friendly. We talked to a couple of them. Yes, their husbands, members of a patrol squadron, had recently left for a six-month tour in the Far East and they were making the most of it. “Six months goes really fast.”
Navy Patrol Plane, 1952 A navy patrol plane off Shanghai with fourteen men aboard is in trouble: one their two engines fails. Kadena Okinawa, their destination, is possible. It is night. A violent storm envelopes Kadena. Ground Control Approach is talking them in, shouts: You’re low, off to the right! Abort, abort!!Impossible. The plane can only descend, not ascend. Somehow the plane bounces and stops on the runway. The emergency vehicles disperse, and the plane is towed to its parking pad.
A ground crew member sticks his head into a hatch. “Did ya bring any mail?” At that moment the crew chief realizes they had returned to the real world where the plane crews escapade with disaster did not rise to the ground crews main level of concern. “Yeah, we got your mail,” he replied.
Also by Alfred Wellnitz; Three Novels
Finding the Way; From Prussia to a Prairie Homestead In 1871 a young man leaves his family and home to emigrate to America with a goal to homestead free land. He arrives with no money and with another immigrant begins a seven-year odyssey where they encounter hardship, love, adventure and danger as they work their way west in order achieve the goal to claim.
PushBack; Deficit Triggers, Hyperinflation, Terrorism
It is 2033 and an unsustainable deficits causes an upheaval, the value of the dollar to plunges, triggers hyperinflation, resulting in economic turmoil, chaos, desperation when the dollar becomes worthless. This results in the United States being pulled apart into eight independent nations.
For the Cause; The Cold War Turns Hot in Korea and Why Young Men Went To War
Two South Dakota farm boys become men and with nothing better to do, join the marines early in 1950. Soon after finishing boot camp, the Korean war erupts. One of the men goes to Korea with the first marines to enter the war with the Provincial Brigade. The other goes to the Philippines where he is part of a base security contingent. The story follows the lives of each during the last six months of 1950.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Digital or print versions of these novels can be found on Amazon
Alfred Wellnitz Books 
Leave a Reply