SS Hampton, Sr.

Definitions

I never gave much thought to what the term "war profiteer" meant. Not during Vietnam, or the military build-up during the Reagan Era, during the Persian Gulf War, or even now.

Recently I've given it a little more thought. After all, other than listening to political posturing and rhetoric, the War on Terrorism hasn't touched me much. Oh sure, there's long lines at airports and the presence of combat uniformed and armed soldiers where you'd never seen them before. But that's about the extent of the War on Terrorism in my life.

Anyway, when someone talks about a war profiteer, I think of fat politicians with a big smoky cigar in dingy back rooms counting banded stacks of money. Or military industrialists gleefully offering contracts worth millions to provide the military whatever it needs to fight a war. Trucks, tanks, helicopters, fighters, ships, bombs and rockets, all of the way down to bullets, weapons cleaning kits, MREs, and mosquito repellant.

War really does create a profit for some people.

But, I think the best definition was given by a middle-aged man, a Native American in, of all places, Las Vegas - that glittering man-made altar of graft and corruption erected to sex and gambling in the barren desert. He wasn't a politician or attorney, those specialists who can give new meaning to old words, but sometimes he had a way with words.

I'll call him Job.

The name is appropriate. You could see the weariness and resignation in his thin, lined brown face. His hair was once jet black but now heavily streaked with gray. When he talked he barely moved his lips because he was missing his upper front teeth, which he was embarrassed about.

He was divorced, and though he had children they weren't close. He adored his grandchildren but rarely saw them because one lived in another state and the other, though she lived in Las Vegas, was rarely allowed to visit because of ill feelings between her family and one of his sons.

He never had much of a break in life because that was his pre-ordained path or he didn't know how to really make good decisions. He had a lot of experience, but no college degree. So he was left with the sort of low paying non-professional jobs that the government proudly proclaimed were created each month, each year, to the benefit of the country.

I worked at one of those jobs too. Fortunately the pay was good due to longevity, and my technical skill, learned on the job, was needed. Otherwise, I would have been let go too when work slowed down.

Gambling and gambling accessories drive Las Vegas, and many smaller companies have a habit of laying people off when the need slowed. Other than those who have a specialized skill, being a relative of a supervisor is the best job insurance. Our company and his supervisor were no different. Job disappeared one afternoon after the supervisor took him to Personnel, and she later filled up her section with family members and relatives.

As we all know, that's life.

"Care to meet for a beer?" Job called me one evening out of the blue. I hadn't heard from him for months and was surprised. "My treat."

"Sure. Where?"

He mentioned a bar on the southern end of the world famous Las Vegas Strip, across the street from a gleaming casino-hotel decorated with the ever present palm trees and flickering torches.

After work the next day I found the bar that from outside resembled a fast food drive-thru. He was sitting at a tall round table by himself, already had a beer, and was listening to a song from the old-fashioned jukebox.

"Hey," I said as I took a seat. When the shapely bartender came up I ordered a beer and plopped my credit card on the table. As long as I knew Job he was short of money so I was prepared to pay for the beers and whatever food we had after the first round. I'd never really been poor and it wasn't something I wanted to experience. Besides, maybe my momentary generosity would bring me good karma.

Job looked as old as ever, but there was something different. The air around him didn't feel tired or worn down and there was a glint to his dark eyes. Even his crooked smile - he never smiled openly - was larger, as if he were holding back a boisterous belly laugh. He was wearing a suit, probably one of the four that he claimed ownership of but never wore because he gained so much weight while in Las Vegas.

And, he really did look as if he lost weight. Hopefully because he wasn't malnourished after being laid off months before from our company.

"Cheers," we clinked our tall beer glasses together. "So, what's up?"

"Everything," he chuckled with genuine good cheer. "Everything."

"New job?" I asked. It was obvious he relished having me ask as if he didn't want to spill everything at one time. Or perhaps he didn't know where to start.

"That's part of it," he nodded as he lit a cigarette. "My youngest son's trial is over. He's been found innocent. Now he can get his life back on track," he said with a satisfied smile. "He's still working, and he's even enrolled for the next college semester."

For almost three years his son, falsely accused of attempted murder and related felony charges, had been free on bail. Nothing seemed to work for him in Las Vegas, so he gave up and moved to Arizona before the trial. Everything looked bleak due to his accuser and the confession of his co-defendant - she confessed after two of her five felony cases were dismissed and the charges were lowered in the remaining three.

The accusation of tainted street scum and testimony of someone trying to save their own skin, the lack of physical evidence, a pair of aggressive attorneys, and partial funding from the State for his defense, helped his son to prove his innocence and truly reclaim his freedom.

"That's good to hear," I nodded after he rushed through the news. I knew he'd been worried for years about the outcome.

Justice isn't cheap in the land of the free with the largest prison population in the world. If you don't have the money for attorneys, good investigators, and the expense of a jury trial, you're usually up the creek, especially if you're a poverty-stricken minority.

"My oldest son is doing well back east. He's in college and things are going well between him and his girlfriend," Job added with a satisfied smile. I knew his oldest son had been depressed, for a number of reasons, while in Las Vegas and was suicidal once.

Just like the youngest son, everything seemed to turn around for the oldest when he left Las Vegas.

"Your daughter?"

"She and her husband are doing well. His financial advising business is taking off. She's back in college going for a bachelors in nursing, but she spends a lot of time helping him."

"Your grandkids?"

"I see my granddaughter every weekend," Job grinned with a tight-lipped smile. "And I talk to my grandson once a week. I'll see him next month when I visit Colorado."

"Then, that only leaves a job," I said hopefully. He really did seem happier than at any time I'd known him. I don't think he'd truly been happy except when he was engaged to a woman in Arizona after he arrived in Las Vegas. There were deep problems they couldn't work out and the woman eventually moved to Colorado from where she said goodbye.

"Best damn job there is," Job laughed. "Immediate medical, dental and life insurance benefits. Great pay, steady pay. A chance for promotion. And no nepotism."

"Well, what is it? A casino job?" I asked impatiently. Immediate benefits usually meant a corporation casino job; the smaller, non-corporation casinos didn't offer immediate benefits.

"I'm going to be a war profiteer," he said proudly.

"Come again?" I stared at him.

"I'm going to be a war profiteer," he repeated as he drained his beer and motioned for another.

"How?" I finished my beer with a long gulp. Job was pretty smart. Maybe he found a niche that would end his borderline poverty.

"I enlisted in the Army National Guard."

My mouth dropped open as I stared at his lined pockmarked face and the dark eyes that twinkled with newfound joy.

"The National Guard?"

"Yep," he nodded. "I'm going in as an E-6 instead of E-7, but you make rank fast in the National Guard. I'll be a squad leader with an armored cavalry unit that's on active duty, training to go to Iraq or Afghanistan."

"That's being a war profiteer?"

"Yep," he nodded as the bartender brought a pair of beers. I automatically reached for my credit card but Job put his hand on mine and gave her the money.

"How the hell is that being a war profiteer?" I asked after I took a big gulp of my beer. "People are dying over there. You'll have assholes setting off roadside bombs, firing RPGs, machine guns, and AKs at you."

Job shrugged and put both of his hands around the tall glass. He stared at the dirty white foam as if divining his future, or considering his past.

"You know, throughout my years of existence I've always felt like life was kicking me in the face. My adopted family fell apart when my grandfather lost his business, then he and my grandmother came down with Alzheimer's. I didn't speak with my real mother for almost 35 years, though I always knew where she was. The power's been cut off, no telephone, no food, unable to pay the rent, cars repossessed, and the IRS and so many creditors on my back. And so many legal problems even before my youngest son had his problems. No money to resolve the problems or fight back within the legal system."

I knew he'd fought a bitter years long custody battle when he divorced his wife and the expense of everything sent him into a downward economic spiral. Worse, he blamed himself for trapping his sons in the middle, with the resulting psychological and emotional impact it had upon them that they still denied. Over 15 years later he still blamed himself, though they were doing better now.

He looked at me with now reddish eyes and I wondered how many beers he'd had before I arrived. Or perhaps it was the effort to hold back tears.

"Go on," I nodded. The bartender brought his change back and I pointed at chicken wings and mozzarella sticks on the menu for appetizers.

Job smiled sadly and sighed as he studied the beer. "So many times before I left Colorado I drank myself to black out. So full of a lifetime of hate, anger and bitterness. So afraid to love. And a few times I drank to blackout here too," he said in a low voice. In a stronger voice he added, "If someone tries to kill me in Iraq or Afghanistan, that's just life kicking me in the face again. No big deal."

"No big deal?" I asked. I was worried about his thought processes. Like the rest of the country I watched the news, saw the explosions of roadside bombs, burning vehicles, and American soldiers fighting it out in running gun battles with zealous guerillas. How could anyone call that 'no big deal'?

"No big deal," he repeated as he looked at me, "because the playing field is leveled there. Doesn't matter if I don't have the money for a skilled attorney, or can't pay a bill before someone hauls me into court. Doesn't matter if I don't have a car and no college degree to qualify for a better job. My job doesn't depend on if I'm related to the supervisor. All of that doesn't matter. If life kicks me in the face again I can strike back as long as I have my M-16 and rounds for it. I can strike back like anyone, everyone, else, with an equal chance of success. The playing field is leveled."

I leaned back on the barstool and stared at him. Sadly, in a way I understood.

I knew of people who'd been shafted by the courts, especially when they couldn't afford the same legal representation as the wealthy. I knew of people trod into the ground by creditors with skilled attorneys at their side, regardless of whether the little person dug their own hole, or if unfortunate circumstances surprised them. I even knew of people lined up to take advantage of a low cost university dental school treatment program if they had the money, and those who couldn't, like Job.

"How is that being a war profiteer?" I asked.

He raised his glass in a salute.

"It's good pay as an E-6 or E-7, better than anything I've found in Las Vegas without a college degree. Or being a parking valet," he chuckled. There were long waiting lists for a parking valet job that could be more lucrative than being the CEO of some companies. "The IRS will be off my back while I'm in a combat zone. I can set up payment arrangements with them, other creditors can't start legal action against me as long as I'm in a combat zone, and I can retain an attorney to fight back, if they do. I can pay on my delinquent student loans and some medical bills I owe. I can even send money to my daughter and ask her to purchase a car on my behalf, and maybe put some aside before I come back. I can attend college tuition free." A distant look filled his eyes as if he were seeing beyond the present world. "I haven't had a car in years. It's been years since I stepped foot outside of Las Vegas. Trying to remember when I used to drive 50 or 100 miles just to take a few photographs seems like a fantasy. I wonder if I'll remember how to drive."

"Okay."

"I'll even have teeth again!" His face lit up with a huge grin complete with missing front teeth. I chuckled as he leaned across the table, his red eyes bright with possibilities. "And if I buy the farm, my insurance policy can be split among my kids, with a small educational trust fund established for my grandkids. It'll be the financial foundation I could never give my family, like other families could."

"Okay, I can't really fault the benefits and possibilities," I admitted quietly. The possibility of death always has a way of dampening good spirits. "Other than people trying to blow you away."

In a hundred years I would have never thought of a war profiteer as being an ordinary middle aged man looking for a steady, good paying job with benefits.

"You know," he said, "I'm not patriotic. I'm loyal to the Army because as a young kid from Muskogee it gave me a job, training, and a home. I was proud of being an NCO when I was on active duty and in the Reserves. I enjoyed the camaraderie you find in a military unit. There's none of that in the civilian world." He took a swig of his beer and added, "For two years now, I couldn't believe my Army has been at war without me."

The bartender brought sizzling chicken wings and mozzarella sticks. This time I restrained Job's hand.

"You're not a war profiteer yet," I reminded him and gave her my credit card. There was a reflective look in his eyes as he watched her.

We downed more beers, talked some more about his family, including the mother he reunited with after 35 years, his newfound step-brothers, the future of his family, and his preparations to join his unit. When the bar became crowded and we had to shout to hear one another over the voices and the music of the jukebox, it was time to leave.

Though I offered to give him a lift to the weekly he called home for two years, he declined.

"I won't be riding the damned bus system much longer," he explained as he stuck his hands in his pockets. He watched one of the buses pull up to a stop across the street by the casino-hotel. During the summer I knew it usually took him two hours to get home, a combination of walking from work to the bus stop and the traffic on the congested, yet world famous Strip. The trip was only a distance of five miles. "I might as well savor the memory of what the nightmare was like."

The air brakes of the bus hissed, the engine rattled, and it disappeared into the evening twilight with the stream of noisy cars, trucks, police cruisers, and limousines.

I was reminded of the time that Job worked past midnight and he was sitting at his bus stop with a tourist and a homeless person. He was startled to hear a train whistle. A railroad was near our building and trains were a frequent occurrence. But in the darkness of the warm morning, he said it was one of the loneliest sounds he ever heard. The train whistle sounded like the heart and soul of the disenfranchised of Las Vegas, and even of those tourists who flocked to the city to experience something missing in their lives.

As we stood there in the warm fall evening it occurred to me there was only one thing missing from our conversation. I realized it when he glanced at the pretty bartender. There was no one else in his life. He loved that woman very much and when she ended the engagement after returning to Colorado, it caused a deep hurt. I think he was afraid to love again.

And that was too bad. Every soldier should have a significant other, a lover, wishing and waiting for him to return.

"Hey, take care," I said as we finally shook hands.

He smiled and nodded, then trotted across the street, dodging cars with the ease of long practice.

That was months ago.

I haven't heard from Job since, and I've often wondered what happened to him. His unit deployed to Iraq and the local newspaper wrote about their firefights and battles in distant villages with sometimes unpronounceable names. The unit suffered casualties but no deaths, and some of the wounded returned home for convalescent leaves.

I still work at my daily, well structured 7 AM to 4:30 PM job under the silent gaze of surveillance cameras and the loud clack of punching in and out by the time clock. And there's the annoying ring of the 'school bell' for breaks, end of breaks, lunch and end of lunch.

But sometimes there's overtime, and that pay is pretty good. It's always an unexpected boon to help pay the bills and sometimes afford entertainment for my girlfriend and I.

But it's a cinch that my paycheck and life can't begin to compare with the newly found riches of my friend, Job the War Profiteer.