One of the saddest things I've ever seen was in 1969, as a group of lepers surrounded me, piteously begging, as I was entering a Buddhist temple in Cholon, the Chinese section of Saigon, in the old Republic of Viet Nam.
(During my entire two years in Viet Nam, the ONLY kitten I ever saw, was inside that Buddhist temple!)
These lepers did indeed have gaping, infected wounds on their faces where noses, mouths, and eye sockets used to be, and/or hands with missing digits, and/or even missing limbs, all bloody, and all in filthy rags.
The mere sight of such wounds would turn a man's stomach.
And with so many desperately needy lepers, how could I choose who I would give my few piasters to, and who I would ignore, for as a low ranking enlisted soldier in the United States Army, I had little that I could give them?
Each day, in our mess hall, we were given two little white tablets, allegedly to prevent leprosy.
Each Monday morning, we were given a large, pink tablet to prevent malaria.
A few months later, we were no longer issued the little white tablets, as they caused cancer (or so I was told).
@M. Mitchell Marmel - Hey, your punchline works as well as mine!
@Kent Whitehead- You've just raised the bar. Excellent!
@Bruce Bleu- I need to start stealing these punchlines.
@TrickyRicky- Don't forget the noodles!
@John Robert Mallernee- Yikes, that's a very sobering story. Leprosy is a nightmarish disease, albeit one that is now treatable in most parts of the world. I can't imagine what was in those two white tablets they had you taking...or how you felt when you found out why they were being discontinued!
6 comments:
"Eye drops." "What happens after a leper sneezes HARD."
(Thanks for a much needed laugh this morning.)
"The ball drops" when a leper sneezes on New Year's Eve.
I thought is was called "Dropsy".
I was going to go through all the old leprosy jokes...but why bother. I think I'll just go out to the hot tub and heat up the soup.
One of the saddest things I've ever seen was in 1969, as a group of lepers surrounded me, piteously begging, as I was entering a Buddhist temple in Cholon, the Chinese section of Saigon, in the old Republic of Viet Nam.
(During my entire two years in Viet Nam, the ONLY kitten I ever saw, was inside that Buddhist temple!)
These lepers did indeed have gaping, infected wounds on their faces where noses, mouths, and eye sockets used to be, and/or hands with missing digits, and/or even missing limbs, all bloody, and all in filthy rags.
The mere sight of such wounds would turn a man's stomach.
And with so many desperately needy lepers, how could I choose who I would give my few piasters to, and who I would ignore, for as a low ranking enlisted soldier in the United States Army, I had little that I could give them?
Each day, in our mess hall, we were given two little white tablets, allegedly to prevent leprosy.
Each Monday morning, we were given a large, pink tablet to prevent malaria.
A few months later, we were no longer issued the little white tablets, as they caused cancer (or so I was told).
@M. Mitchell Marmel - Hey, your punchline works as well as mine!
@Kent Whitehead- You've just raised the bar. Excellent!
@Bruce Bleu- I need to start stealing these punchlines.
@TrickyRicky- Don't forget the noodles!
@John Robert Mallernee- Yikes, that's a very sobering story. Leprosy is a nightmarish disease, albeit one that is now treatable in most parts of the world. I can't imagine what was in those two white tablets they had you taking...or how you felt when you found out why they were being discontinued!
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