BATTLEFIELD

Happy Birthday

David Morrison was celebrating his 14th birthday today, Saturday, October 8th, 1983, and his parents threw him a big birthday party by taking him and a dozen of his friends out to Pizza Hut and then to a newly released movie, Never Say Never Again, a James Bond movie with the return of actor Sean Connery playing British Secret Agent 007 after a twelve year hiatus from the Bond films. 

David had a great time, but he noticed his friends gave him a few strange looks that evening, especially when he opened up his gifts from his parents! David, was an only child and his parents were not wealthy, but they had good jobs. His mother worked as a surgical nurse at the hospital and his father worked as the assistant manager of a grocery wholesale distribution center. So, his parents did spoil him and would buy him almost anything he wanted and for his 14th birthday, David, as usual, wanted a lot and got a lot. Thats why his friends gave him odd looks when he opened up his birthday gifts from his parents. 

First, he received normal gifts for a fourteen year-old boy, but a large amount of normal gifts! He received a dozen different Dungeon and Dragon role playing books and modules, he received twenty different 1983 pop rock music cassette tapes, and a dozen video game cartridges for his brand new Atari 5200 SuperSystem Home Video Game Console. Then he received what he really wanted, Toys!

Being age 12-15 years-old can be a difficult period in a young persons life, when they must start making the transition from child to young adult, because they are expected to stop playing, primarily with toys and start appreciating more mature subjects, such as clothes, personal care items, and the opposite sex, except they cannot work nor receive a driver's license, until they are sixteen years-old. They are still kids, but are expected to stop acting like kids, a true contradiction and a difficult time, especially with puberty along with acne!

However, at this point in his life, David had no worries about being a fourteen year-old boy in the Eighth Grade playing with toys and could care less that if his friends started to look down upon him for his hobbies. To understand David , he had three hobbies. First, Dodge Ball, which he played  as much as possible and wished he could play more of in gym class at his junior high school. Then there was toy guns, yes, toy guns, David loved to play toy guns with his friends, who had started to lose their interest in David's love of toy gun play, which he could play for hours. Finally, to put in simple terms, he loved to play war, which was more of an inside hobby and consumed most of his time. Action figures, army men, strategy board games, role playing games, military model kits, and action-adventure war comic books.

Now back to the birthday gifts. David received from his parents that evening fifteen different Star Wars: Return of the Jedi action figures, five various Star Wars: Return of the Jedi space vehicles, a variety of twenty GI Joe: A Real American Hero action figures, ten different GI Joe: A Real American Hero action vehicles, thirty boxes and packages of plastic toy soldiers (Army Men) ranging from Matchbox to Airfix to Timmee to Marx to Britain's Deetail line, five very large multi-brand plastic toy soldier playsets, twelve Tamiya military model kits, five battle strategy board games, and then finally fifty action-adventure war comic books. Quite the haul!

To put it mildly, David loved war! In many ways, that has always been normal for boys to spend their time, playing war. Though, David was not one of those boys who shaved his head, wore military green fatigues all the time, hung dog tags around his neck, and told everyone he was going to join the Army or the Marines one day. He also had zero interest in real guns, meaning no interest in shooting Bambi with a hunting rifle or shooting up bottle targets with a pistol. So he was not a want-to-be ground pounder who loved shooting things up. 

No, he was one of those boys who loved war for the shear fantasy and escapism of the subject. David had checked out every history book from the school library and had read each book at least three times. He loved watching war movies, especially Battle of the Bulge and Waterloo. David enjoyed painting toy soldiers, becoming very professional at it and had a passion for putting together military model kits. He was a war wizard at playing the board games Battleship, Stratego, and Risk, which no one ever wanted to play with him anymore, because he always won.

David was not a violent kid, quite the contrary, he was gentle and detested violence towards any person or creature. He loved watching ant colonies and observed the wonder of their organizational skills . David would never try to play sadistic torture games against insects as some other boys enjoyed in doing and he would never use fireworks to blow apart model kits or blow up toy soldiers either. He found hunting inhumane and fishing was boring. However, he did love dogs, but didn't care much for cats, too independent, but dogs were loyal and lovable. That brings us to David's at home playmate, Napoleon, a three year-old golden retriever dog, who was with him all time and slept in David's room.

David's parents had tried to get him to join the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts, but David had no interest in wearing paramilitary uniforms and displaying all the badges he would earn. Then David's parents tried to encourage him to participate in school sports activities, such as wrestling, basketball, and football, but again David had no interest, especially football, which he found barbaric. Now, if there was a school organized dodge ball team, David would of joined that in a heart beat. David did not think throwing rubber balls at opposing team members was barbaric, because that was fun and never harmed anyone, in his opinion. So, maybe he was not a pacifist, but he was certainly a playist.

Yes, David was a contradiction, but he was smart, considerate, polite, and generous. He also treated girls with respect, but at the same time was not interested in girls, yet. If David was given a choice between being given a Matchbox package of World War Two British Infantry toy soldiers or necking with the sexiest girl in school, David would pick the toy soldiers and ask the sexy girl to play army men with him. That was David. 

Back to the Birthday party, as the movie ended and David's parents drove all his friends home, there awaited for David at his house a party host and guest, who did not want to attend the party at Pizza Hut and he no longer liked James Bod movies, even if it starred Sean Connery. This person was David's Uncle Clifford, who was his father's older brother and had served in the Vietnam War with two tours of duty from 1965-1967. David knew his Uncle Clifford was a little different, but was super cool. David also knew his Uncle Clifford and his father had a troubled relationship in the past, due to politics and especially the Vietnam War.

David was told by his mother that his Uncle had supported the Vietnam War and joined the Army to fight for his beliefs, while his father was against the Vietnam War and joined the Anti-War Movement to fight for his beliefs. The two brothers disagreed, but they both realized they were family and made up just as David was born. 

The brothers became very close and Uncle Clifford was like a second father for David and Uncle Clifford was given a guest bedroom in their house, but that was just for convenience, because Uncle Clifford owned his very own home, farm, and business. Uncle Clifford was a financial investment wizard, a talented motorcycle mechanic, and a prosperous farmer of a five thousand acre farm. He was the only person David knew that owned both an Apple Lisa Personal Computer and an IBM XT Personal Computer, plus his uncle owned a dozen of the best video game arcade machines at his motorcycle shop. Uncle Clifford was a cool dude!