For info on the Shy Man's Guide to Success with Women (or any of Terry Heggy's other writing), please visit www.shyperson.com.

The President's State O' the Union address made it clear that there's a-gonna be a war soon.

Makes you think about the extreme levels of commitment and courage one would have to possess to be a member of the military. My brother served as an officer in the Marine Corps, and I couldn't be more proud of him for doing that. As for me, well, I thought about joining the Army at one time, I didn't do it. (See my blog of 1-17-03 for details.) I support and admire the brave folks in the service, but for some reason, it just wasn't meant to be for me.

Why? Well, maybe it has something to do with growing up. Back then, we had no video games, of course, so learning military strategies by blowing the heads off of electronic orcs and splattering Nazi blood pixels across your computer screen were not available options. We had to use imagination...and plastic army men.

I never had a GI Joe. Joe was cool because you could bend him into all sorts of positions. My buddies who had this "First-ever Action Figure" never seemed to put him in fighting stances, though -- he was more likely bent into scandalous and embarrasing poses with Barbie (if he was lucky) and sheep (if he was not). Needless to say, witnessing these unlikely contortions did not advance my developing personality toward a military career.

We didn't have very many plastic army men, so when it was time to create imaginary battle scenarios, we had to recruit plastic cowboys, farmers, and jungle animals. They weren't all the same size, so in hand-to-hand combat, giant plastic Zorro could handle 5 or 6 bayonet-carrying plastic soldiers without working up a plastic sweat. And though "Grill" the gorilla was actually smaller than Zorro, he was a freaking ferocious gorilla -- so he could shred through the army as if they were tissue paper.

Grill was my favorite plastic toy. I hadn't ever seen a real gorilla at that point, so I didn't realize that his body proportions were closer to an NFL lineman than to an actual jungle denizen, but that's OK. He stood upright with one arm raised menacingly, with his face perpetually in a molded snarl. It was much more fun to imagine him leaping from a tree to dismember an unsuspecting soldier than it was to mentally plot elaborate human battle campaigns.

Perhaps it was because of the toys...or perhaps it was simply an indicator of my own mental orientation, but my playtimes became more and more oriented around monster attacks than around war games. Heck, with his cape and hat, Zorro could easily be seen as an Alien Spaceship Commander. Monsters from the jungle, berserk maniacs from space -- well, the Army men had no chance.

It might have been recognition of my non-earthly orientation, or it could have been an attempt to bring me back to reality -- but Santa Claus showed up with a different kind of toy the very next Christmas. I received a complete "Cape Canaveral Launch Pad Set". It had a large plastic sheet with labels showing heliports, launch pads, blockhouses, and even parking lots. It had 101 pieces, including a couple of jet planes with spring-loaded missile launchers (the kind that could "put your eye out"), and a helicopter with a spring-loaded propeller blade. The 'copter could actually fly a couple of feet if you wound up the launch spring tight enough. Unfortunately, its flight-capable lifespan didn't last long, because in our quest for longer flights, we wound the spring too tight. Sproing! More opportunities for ocular dismemberment as tiny shards of shattered spring went zinging across the room.

The set also contained a phonograph record imprinted on a paper-thin sheet of plastic. (For younger readers, a phonograph record was a prehistoric ancestor of the CD. You played it by placing it on a rotating platter and sticking a needle into the spiral groove that contained bumps for reproducing the music. No lasers. No G-shock buffers. But they were quite able to reproduce sound. Or at least until the dust bunny that collected behind the needle became too large, causing the needle to skip. Or until repeated refusal to return the record to its protective paper sleeve rendered it so full of scratches that it sounded like a crackling campfire.)

Anyway, my "floppy" Cape Canaveral record contained tracks such as jets flying by, fire trucks responding to a landing mishap, and, of course, the sounds of an actual launchpad countdown. Even though the countdown was delivered in a valium-induced monotone, there was nothing more exciting than hearing that "Five...Four...Three...Two...One" chant. The cat would run hissing from the room as my brother and I contorted our mouths to make the loudest possible blast-off noises, unintentionally flinging spittle across all of Cape Canaveral, and onto the drapes, lamps, and wallpaper.

Some days, the launches would go flawlessly. On others, the hapless space vehicle would never make it into the sky; led by Grill the Gorilla, hordes of plastic masked swordsmen, riflemen, and farm animals would swarm onto the launch pad. Accompanied by more mouth-made sound effects, the battles would rage until every building and vehicle at Cape Canaveral lay overturned and embedded in imaginary flames.

These scenarios led my imagination toward dreams of space travel and alien encounters, and probably greatly influenced my becoming a writer. Still, as I've grown up, I've had just enough experience in the real world to have a sense of what's at stake in the Persian Gulf right now. I know how devastating real war can be. Unlike Grill and Zorro, real soldiers don't have the ability to rise up after being shot...they can't just go back in the toy box to attack the bad guys again the next day. Unlike my plastic soldiers, the real ones have families who care, and loved ones who suffer during each moment they're not at home. Unlike the buildings of my Cape Canaveral set, real buildings, vehicles, and lives can't simply be turned over and set upright to restore things after a battle.

It's too bad we can't enlist plastic gorillas to fight our battles for us. We can't. Yet at the same time, we cannot ignore the threats to our land that renegade maniacs may mount against us. As I hear the stories of how our brave servicemen and women are marching off to hostile lands, I find myself wondering what toys these folks played with when they were kids. It would be interesting to speak with them, and to ask what games they played, and how their toys influenced their current choices.

And if I had such a conversation, there would be one more thing I'd want to say... I'd say, "Thank you," to those courageous souls. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Terry