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Gerald Maclennon Quotes

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Famous Gerald Maclennon Quotes

“I don’t even pretend to understand it all. I was president of the Luther League, the youth group of our church. I was a good kid and a bad kid at the same time. I was looking for a very nice girl but also a very bad girl. Do all young men have these conflicts? And, what about whores? Well, in my mind, prostitutes are bad girls. Matter of fact, they are professional bad girls. As I said earlier in this diary, you don’t make love to whores, you fuck them. There’s a difference. They don’t require love and courtship, all they want is my money. I go to the bedroom with them and do the deed with no affection. They take my money and leave. All my life I have been told that girls who have sex outside of marriage are bad girls... sluts. I’ve also been told by my dad, “Son, sex is the most beautiful expression of love in a marriage.” Although I can appreciate the difference, that being, sex is meant for marriage only; my psyche has some difficulty reconciling the two messages. Sexually active girls are bad but sexually active wives are good. I’m afraid that someday if and when I wed the Pollyanna I’m looking for and fulfill my husbandly duty with her, I’m going to feel like I’m turning a good girl into a bad girl. In other words, I change my wife into a slut. And here’s the weirdest part: if my wife becomes a slut, the good boy in me will reject the bad girl I created in her. My angel and devil will be in a clinch hold.”

SexDevilLustAdolescencePornographyHornyTeenage AngstWhoresSluts
Book:God, Bombs & Viet Nam: Based on the Diary of a 20-Year-Old Navy Enlisted Man in the Vietnam Air War - 1967
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“So there we were, in the middle of the night, on our hands and knees with scrub brushes, steel wool, sponges, scouring powder and buckets of water making the old shop look spic and span. We secured from the task at 0400. I should have hit the rack but instead went topside and out to the canoe, the sacred spot where Lieutenant Goldberg and I had sat together contemplating the why's of life. I was saying farewell in my own way. I wanted to experience the Oriskany for the last time on the high seas. It was still dark – the dark that comes just before dawn. The waning moon, merely a fluorescent nail clipping, hung near the horizon. The night air was crisp; the sky a deep, cold black with pinpoints of stars shimmering through the earth’s canopy. Above me was the endless universe; below me, the deep mystical sea. Large undulating swells gently rocked the ship like a babe in its mother’s arms. Mother Ocean. Father Sky. I meditated upon this new life that I am now obliged to live. I thought about youth. I thought about old age. Apparently bad memories fade away with time and only the moments of goodness and joy remain. Those who are nearing the end of their lives revel in the bliss of yesterday but we the young have this day and tomorrow to contend with. Today, we see the world naked, exposed before our eyes. We see hatred, misery and pain. We find it difficult to live for today. Only the desires for tomorrow’s better world can alleviate the suffering that is today. Only tomorrow can offer us hope that glimmering moments will again materialize. So we continue to exist for a dream, a wish that tomorrow we can say: “This is a day worth living.” Excerpted from God, Bombs & Viet Nam: Based on the Diary of...”

WisdomOceanAviationAgeingShipYouthful OptimismUs NavyAircraft CarrierElderly WisdomFather Sky
Book:Wrestling with Angels: An Anthology of Prose & Poetry 1962-2016 Revised
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“It is to my comfort that I entertain stories of ghosts, of discarnate spirits, of angels, of relatives returning to this realm to speak to us... speaking to us in our thoughts and in our dreams. I take comfort in these because no matter how advanced we humans may be... no matter how civilized, how cultured, there will always be some aspect of the spiritual realm that not even the greatest living genius can truly comprehend or explain.”

GodSpiritualityParanormalGhostsAngelsClairvoyantUnknowableEsotericaDiscarnate SpiritsGreat Mystery
Book:Wrestling with Angels: An Anthology of Prose & Poetry 1962-2016 Revised
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“But here am I, riding this steel behemoth – the most ominous killing machine ever conceived; a weapon of war with the innocuous name of carrier. It transports our crew and air wing personnel to the Oriental dens of sin. It takes us to the blood-soaked terrain of the Vietnamese. It is, in a single thought, one of the most obscene but amazingly brilliant products of human ingenuity.”

WeaponsNavyVietnam WarIngenuityCarrierMoral DilemmaAircraft CarrierKilling MachineAir War
Book:God, Bombs & Viet Nam: Based on the Diary of a 20-Year-Old Navy Enlisted Man in the Vietnam Air War - 1967
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“Only God knows the future. When told by doctors in 2014 that cancer could cease function of his mind and body in two years or less, the author experienced a transition. Suddenly all priorities were rearranged in order of their eternal value. Many of those things that seemed so important the day before, became nothing: a grudge was dropped, a hurt forgiven, a threat dismissed, an apprehension set aside, a bucket list reduced to one or two accomplishments prior to death.”

CancerPrioritiesDeath And DyingAttitude Toward LifeTransition SpiritualityPreparing For AdversityRearranging Life
Book:Wrestling with Angels: An Anthology of Prose & Poetry 1962-2016 Revised
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“On the Flight Deck this afternoon, a young plane captain, his mind obviously preoccupied with other matters, walked directly in front of an F-8 intake as the bird was turning up. He was instantly sucked off his feet and pulled down into the jet turbine tunnel. Fortunately, someone saw it happen and frantically signaled for the pilot to cut his engine. Once silenced, two squadron crew members crawled into the intake to rescue the dumb shit or what was left of him. They found his body wrapped around the generator hump directly in front of the turbine blades. He had miraculously avoided being chopped to pieces like steak in a meat grinder.”

Vietnam WarNear DeathHazardousAircraft CarrierTurbineFlight DeckSucked In
Book:God, Bombs & Viet Nam: Based on the Diary of a 20-Year-Old Navy Enlisted Man in the Vietnam Air War - 1967
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