On April Sixth, 1917, the United States of America joined the War to End All Wars. Brave young men enlisted to march against a foreign invader to defend France. France had already lost hundreds of thousands of gallant troops resisting the Germans. But their armies were exhausted, and even in open mutiny against the bloodiest war in human history. The Hun "shocking and awful troops" were making gains in the trenches...Until America stepped "up to the plate," as the Yanks would say. And the heroic doughboys began--"TAKE YOUR KIDS TO WORK DAY!"
Grunting under the weight of a 200 pound knapsack and a gun that weighed 40 pounds and fired at the incredible rate of half a bullet a minute, Captain Worville Cheney slogged through the mud and corpses and rats, and also rats eating muddy corpses of other rats. "Come along, Richard! I daresay the Boche have us up a creek, I daresay!"
Little Richard Cheney was all of 6 years old, and yet he carried a fully-loaded Colt 45 pistol, which all the children carried on this day. "Oh, father!" he exculpated, his rosy cheeks gladdened from the walking through the mud and exploded rats and random human finger bits. "I do so hope to get that Kaiser, the cause of all this bumptiousness!"
"Humm!" grunted his father. "Yes, he and his accursed Big Bertha! He could hit Paris with that weapon of relatively long-range destruction, and he has, most malignantly with many a loss of civilian life!" Then Worville paused to nod at his compatriot, Paddy "Irish Potato Eater" McStereotype. "Hullo, Paddy! I see you've brought your hideous Papal scum child with you today!"
"OI!" or "AYE!" or "OORRG!" said the dreadful smelly Irishman, covered with mud and dead rat pieces and several fingers of his compatriots. ''Tis me oin boi Patrick what soides besoides me an' 'elps me drinks whiskey, me being OIrish an' a drunk an' an' all!"
"OI AYE OORRRG!" said lil' Patrick, as he was drunk and Irish and then--
BLAM!
--he exploded.
Shrapnel ripped limb from limb! Men died horribly, as that's what shrapnel does! Worville's regiment, so close to killing the dreaded Kaiser who'd started this mess, was decimated! As were their children, as this was "Take Your Kid to Work Day," or did you forget? Still they slogged through the mud! They feared not! They left their dead children behind! But one man remained!
"Richard...Are you well?"
"Oh, Daddikins! I...I've been wounded! But I ever shall be brave! Do march on without me!"
"Richard! You've been hit! Never shall I lag from the side of your bosom! Where has the cruel Kaiser hit you?"
Slowly, painfully, brave Richard exposed his wounded part to his pater.
"SON!" screamed his father. "They HIT YOU IN THE--!"
And thus evermore, was the brave young boy named "Dick."
WWII.
January, 1944.
Some called it Anzio.
Some called it their grave.
One young man called it "PAYBACK!"
His dick really hurt.
Kesserling, Cheney thought through the pain. Damned Nazi Kraut Hun German General and his crack Panzergrenadiers. I'll get you, I'll get you for this! After I get me one-a spicy meatball!
"HAW HAW HAW!" laughed a big fat Italian, his belly shaking from his laughter and fatness. "Oh, we gotta them Yankees a-good-a, yes? Oh we kicka them in the...umm, you know-a, the Italian word-a for ASSES! Oh mama mia!"
Private Upper Class "Dick" Cheney knew that voice--It was his target, the Douche himself, Mussolini! If he could only get him--The war would end! In days! He crawled up the muddy cliff, triggering flashbacks--There was mud! There were rats! There were--Jesus, where did all these fingers come from? A bit further--a bit further--Climb a bit further, and you'll have the bastard! Decapitate him, and the Axis will greet you as a liberator! "Oh, mama mia! Il Duce, he ate-a too much spaghetts and drink-a too much chianti! He droppa his drawers over this cliff, and keep-a talkin' in third person patois!"
Dick gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, thinking "Wrong place, wrong time."
And thus evermore, was his mood always shitty and pissy.
"Oh God, man, I'm so scared."
"Man, me too. We gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing we EV-er do!"
"Can it!" barked Second Sub-Captain But-More-Than-Lieutenant "Dick" Cheney. He'd fought his way up the ranks to a rank so special, it was usually only given to sons of future presidents or their running mates. He'd earned it. The trenches of Korea, fighting the Chinese human wave assaults. The Bay of Pigs, leading those damned Cubans into a rat trap that was like a trap for rats. Sure, he could've retired and found himself a fat job in the public sector. But when he heard that America was at war, what else could he do but sign up? "Dick" was no chickenhawk! And so here he was--in Viet Nam!!
"Can it!"
"Err, you said that, sir!"
"Hmm? Sorry. I was having a flashback."
"MEEE---TOOO!!!!" said one soldier, dancing around to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
"Private Bush Junior! Cut that out! What would your father say?"
A crabby man in a suit yelled, "Ach, mein freund! I haff a plan to rid der vorld uff evil!""
Dick grabbed him by his civilian suit collars. "Who the hell are YOU?! A Nazi?!"
"Name's Kissinger. I haff a plan! Ve vill bomb der Cong like zere's no tomorrow! Zey vill say, 'Gott und Himmel, I am squawking with awe!' Zen, you vill kill Ho Chi Minh, und zey vill love us like they should." Cheney relaxed his grip. "Okay, pal. That makes sense. Bomb the Vietnamese into liberation."
The dumpy man in the suit writhed like a worm on a hook that had B52s at it's disposal. "VIETNAM?! BAH-HAHAHA!"
Cheney watched as the bombs fell 30 feet to his right, plastering Cambodia. A child holding a doll that was holding a kitten that was holding a puppy that was holding an even cuter kitten exploded, and the mud-covered fingers of the child (or the puppy or the kitten or the doll, but most likely the kid, as they were fingers) flew off. Cheney, bravest of all soldiers since 1917, screamed Noooooo!!! in slow motion as he dived away. But he got the finger. Got him where it hurt the worst...
Bright lights harassed the eyes in his head. Too bright a light, making things with light. Outtasight, makin' things with Lite Brite.
"WHAT?! Where am I?!"
A shriveled face bobbled up and down. "You're heh, you're heheh!"
"GAAHH! ZOMBIE!!"
"Ooh! Zombie? Well...Well...I don't think that I'm a zombie! Am I, Mommy?"
A woman in red with skin that clung to the bones in her face like dried paste said, "No, Ronnie. You're not a zombie." She looked at her watch. "Yet."
A deep sigh was heard from the shadows. A skinny man in a gray suit walked up to Cheney's hospital bed. "Look. I'm George Bush, he's Reagan. You've been in a coma since 1973. It's now the exciting far-off future world of 1988! Wanna guess which one of us is President of the USA?"
Cheney glanced at the zombie. It held up a pad of paper and said "I drawed a cowboy!!"
"You?"
"No. And yes. Maybe if you're lucky, someday you might get the same sweet deal. Nancy, could ya take Ronnie away to the Playscape? We got man talk to say with our talking parts here."
Ronnie yelled, "Make sure he terminates that guy with extreme pretzel juice!"
Nancy said, "That's 'prejudice,' dear."
"What? Not me! I got no problems with the darkies! Without them, who'd shine my socks? And, pretty lady..."
"Yes, dear?"
"You're, uhh, you're who again?"
Cheney stared at them as they left. "What...what's happening?"
"Question. Good question. 'Kay. Good question you've said. Dick Cheney, you're the bravest of soldiers ever since there were soldiers. 'Kay? So you were all coma and we said, hey! Let's keep this guy. Till he's needed. And now, we're with the needing. The needing of you."
Bush looked Cheney in the eyes. He had the eyes of a dead fish. Man, ever see that guy's eyes? Dead-fisharama. Trout in a suit. Flounder from the Beltway. "America is threatened, and we need your help. It'd be prudent."
"Help against..."
"The Middle East!"
"I'm going back to sleep for another twenty years."
"No, wait, need to see the scar. Mentioned back in the Nam thing. There were fingers, a fateful fickle finger flying. Holdin' up a mirror here, for Cheney to look."
"NOOO!" screamed the bravest man alive. "My...My face! What happened to my FACE! My warm, friendly, boyish grin! It's been replaced with a evil SNEER! I look like I hold the entire world in utter contempt and disregard!" He tore his hair out in frustration. Unfortunately, it never grew back.
The now-sneering, bald, pissed off and shitty-mooded man named Dick clenched his teeth, which were in his jaw, so he clenched both. And he was complete--"Dick" Cheney, America's Ultimate Soldier. "I'm now the world's worst nightmare! Crime is a disease, and I'm the cure! I am the law! Hasta la vista, BABY!"
"Wow. I should be writing these down. Catchphrases, catchphrases are good. Wait, wait, idea, coming, in my head--'Read my hips!'"
"Needs work."
"'Read my zits'?"
"No."
"'Gladys Knight and the Pips'?"
"Dammit! What's my assignment?!"
"Whoa, yelling, not good to yell. You need to take this package to--Baghdad! Give it to a man with a big moustache, but not any guy, there's moustaches everywhere. Bring this to Saddam Hussein!"
Cheney nodded. "I understand. Decapitate him. Liberate the country. Bring democracy, and also Halliburton."
"Take a closer look at the package."
Cheney unwrapped the paper over the basket. It was an FTD Forget-Me-Not bouquet, with a card:
"BE WARNED!" said Bush. "He tips bad."