Where Are the Snowdens of Yesteryear?
Last edited Tue Jun 11, 2013, 04:26 PM - Edit history (2)
Mais ou' sont neiges d'antan!
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to be afraid of! That's what I always say! So, I want to invite my fellow fearless, nothing to hide D.U. friends to do as I am doing, to use your ACTUAL REAL NAME on D.U. instead of a handle! Confession is good for the soul!
"But Snowden kept shaking his head and pointed at last, with just the barest movement of his chin, down to his armpit. Yossarian bent forward to peer and saw a strangely colored stain seeping through the coverall just above the armhole of Snowden’s flak suit. Yossarian felt his heart stop, then pound so violently he found it difficult to breathe. Snowden was wounded inside his flak suit. Yossarian ripped open the snaps of Snowden’s flak suit and heard himself scream wildly as Snowden’s insides slithered down to the floor in a soggy pile and just kept dripping out. A chunk of flak more than three inches big had shot into his other side just underneath the arm and blasted all the way through, drawing whole mottled quarts of Snowden along with it through the gigantic hole in his ribs it made as it blasted out. Yossarian screamed a second time and squeezed both hands over his eyes. His teeth were chattering in horror. He forced himself to look again. Here was God’s plenty, all right, he thought bitterly as he stared — liver, lungs, kidneys, ribs, stomach and bits of the stewed tomatoes Snowden had eaten that day for lunch. Yossarian hated stewed tomatoes and turned away dizzily and began to vomit, clutching his burning throat. The tail gunner woke up while Yossarian was vomiting, saw him, and fainted again.
Yossarian was limp with exhaustion, pain and despair when he finished. He turned back weakly to Snowden, whose breath had grown softer and more rapid, and whose face had grown paler. He wondered how in the world to begin to save him.
"I’m cold." Snowden whimpered, "I’m cold."
"There, there. Yossarian mumbled mechanically in a voice too low to be heard. "There, there."
Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollable. He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.
"I’m cold," Snowden said. "I’m cold."
"There, there," said Yossarian. "There, there," He pulled the rip cord of Snowden’s parachute and covered his body with the white nylon sheets.
"I’m cold."
"There, there."
" Joeseph Heller, Catch-22 1961
"Those without honor do not recognize truth. They profit through the trading of falsehoods. They pay homage to whatever benefits them singularly, regardless of the suffering it may cause others. The honorable continuously seek information. They recognize truth when it is present, regardless of the costs and consequences associated with it. They
fight, suffer, and die to protect truth Without honor, truth cannot exist. In the absence of truth, all suffer."
HONOR. VALOR. TRUTH.
"On the bottom words are shallow.
On the surface talk is cheap.
You can only judge the distance by the company you keep
In the eyes of the CONFESSOR.
In the eyes of the Confessor,
There's no place you can hide.
You can't hide from the eyes (of the Confessor)
Don't you even try.
In the eyes of the Confessor
You can't tell a lie,
You cannot tell a lie (to the Confessor)
Strip you down to size,
Naked as the day that you were born,
Naked as the day that you were born.
"
Joe Walsh, "The Confessor"
= new reply since forum marked as read
glad you took time to look and post! I read Catch-22 when I was 14. My brother gave it to me when he returned from Vietnam. 
... I got from your post 
