Dear Jimmie Dale,

I've been talking to your friend and partner Mike Crowley about his pet Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. He sure has a wide array of pets, doesn't he? When he first got that pig, it made all his dogs and cats nervous so he kept it locked up in the upstairs bathroom. He said the pig was smart but seemed to react to him differently than his other pets. Every time Mike came to see him, the pig would back away and squeal in horror instead of coming forward to be petted.

I told him I'd be squealing too if the SOB that was holding me prisoner in his bathroom approached me right there in the lock-up.

"Well, I can't let him out," Mike says. "If I do, the dogs chase him and his little hooves just slip and slide all over these hardwood floors. I'm afraid he'll slip and fall over the banister onto the first floor and kill himself."

I suggested that might not be a bad idea. I asked Mike - given the initial price of the Vietnamese pot-bellied pig - if it would be "cost effective" to turn him into a ham and some pork chops. Mike told me it'd be awful expensive meat and even if it wasn't, he didn't think his wife would like my plan.

"You better start looking for some little pig tennis shoes then - the kind with the non-skid tread," I told him.

I explained to Mike that I had mixed emotions about Vietnamese pigs. Right after I arrived for the Asian war, I was made a non-volunteer member of a counter-sapper squad. (It wasn't until sometime later that I learned "sapper" was a term the military used to describe VC "suicide" squads. These sapper squads would try to penetrate the perimeter carrying satchel charges of B-40 plastique and see how much they could blow up before they were killed.) Our duty was to set up listening posts outside the perimeter and greet them as they arrived. We were given a few weeks training for this unexpected work and then we went out for the first time. That night, under cover of darkness, I moved to a position about a hundred yards from a small village. I had a radio, an M-16, and a couple of claymore mines.

I sat there for several hours watching the village while I engaged in a deeply philosophical conversation with myself. Mostly, it was about how to get through the night without actually having to even consider using any of these weapons to kill someone. There being no rational solution, I decided to affect the outcome with pure willpower.

About three a.m. my radio crackled to life and reported that "unidentifieds" were moving behind my position - between me and home. I perked up. Within a few minutes a red flare appeared on the other side of the village from me - a sign that somebody on our side was engaging the enemy. It was clear to me that I was being surrounded.

Suddenly a violent scream came from the village. "Uh, oh," I thought, they're coming through the village toward me, killing everybody they find on the way." Another scream....something strangely familiar about it....I felt like every nerve ending I had was exposed....at least all my philosophical questions were firmly settled. I'd do what was necessary to survive and worry about the ethics of it later. Another scream. This time I got it. It wasn't human.

It was a Vietnamese pig howling in the night.

Sounded just like Gorbalina, the 350 lb. county fair prize-winning pig my best friend Mike raised while we were in high school. In the summer after our junior year, he got a job driving a water truck in the oil field so on weeknights, I went out to the farm and fed Gorbalina for him. Once, I managed to convince this snobby, high-toned girl I liked to go out to the farm with me. Nothing I could do improved her attitude so - all hope lost - I saw a final opportunity. I managed to get her between me and Gorbalina just as I filled the slop trough. What Gorbalina saw was an obstacle between her and supper. The girl got to see 350 lb. of prize-winning pig shoot toward like a scud missile. Gorbalina screamed and charged right into the girl - knocked her on her butt and left her in the mud - on the way to the slop trough. It was a fine moment.

Soon as I had the origin of that scream settled in my mind, a green flare appeared on the other side of the village signaling no further engagement with the enemy....maybe there hadn't been any at all. The radio stayed silent. The rest of the night I thought about that mud covered high-toned girl and Gorbalina the county fair prize-winning pig. I thought about them until the sun came up and I was on my way home.

Hope to see you soon, Jimmie Dale. In the meantime, take care.

Johnny Rose Paris, Texas