BacSi's favorite quote: A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.Specialization is for insects.
Robert A. Heinlein
According to reliable sources, Lewis T. Pace, Jr., died on March 9 at his home in Queretaro, in the mountains near Mexico City.
Though our readers do not know the good doctor by name (BacSi is Vietnamese for doctor), you know his work well if you read these columns.
BacSi, also known as Cargo Drop among his colleagues in the Special Forces Association, was a Green Beret medic, cross-trained in weapons and explosives.
He ran the rip and read features of The Legendary, guiding our progress through coverage of the insurgency among drug cartels in Mexico and other global points, from behind the scenes.
He was well qualified for the task because he was a 1968 graduate of the MA program in mass communications at the University of Georgia.
Go Dawgs!
He minored in political science. At the University of Texas Pan American, the dons conferred upon BacSi the Masters Degree in educational psychology. He was certified as an educational diagnostician.
In later years, after his retirement on full disability benefits, BacSi served his colleagues as an employee of the Special Forces Association.
His background in media was in radio and television production and it showed in his writing, which was tight, concise and to the point.
He was a classroom teacher for 44 years and leaves six kids and his wife of four decades, Mina, a natural born citizen of Mexico.
A close friend, Bert Hernandez of Waco, who is also a Green Beret, said his family has been out of touch and unavailable for comment. He will keep us posted.
Last August, BacSi wrote a personal memoir about the Mexican culture's fascination with death and the influence of that fatalistic set of ideas on the mind set of such former Special Forces gangs as Los Zetas, an enforcement wing of the Gulf Cartel which has recently gained independent status in vying for the rights to lucrative drug smuggling routes and money laundering territories. Their psy-war signature is to leave a detached head nearby the headless corpse.
In the piece, BacSi explored the fascination with the cult of Santa Muerte, the skinny one, also known as “Catrina,” and the fascination of youthful recruits to Los Zetas with her legendary status in the mythical land of Aztlan, the north, with its fabled seven cities of Cibola, which we know as the American southwestern states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
It was the only by-lined article by BacSi that has appeared in these columns. Nevertheless, The Legendary is proud to have been given the opportunity to publish the journalistic work of “BacSi” Lewis T. Pace, Jr. He got tagged as “Cargo Drop” because of a training adventure in his salad days as an Airborne Ranger when he was unable to fasten his harness on a jump and the cadre made him strip his blouse, only to find that he had concealed several pounds of candy and other gee-dunk in his field jacket. Hence, he was known among the idiots who jump out of perfectly good airplanes screaming for their mentor, Geronimo, as the “Cargo Drop.”
In consultation with our native guide, an Arapaho from the plains state known as The Panhandle, Geronimo is Apache for “Who pushed me?”
Adios, amigo. When you reach those streets paved with gold, please, sir, stake a claim out for me. You would be a good neighbor anywhere you may be headed.
Buenos suerte.
- The Legendary Jim Parks.
In later years, after his retirement on full disability benefits, BacSi served his colleagues as an employee of the Special Forces Association.
His background in media was in radio and television production and it showed in his writing, which was tight, concise and to the point.
He was a classroom teacher for 44 years and leaves six kids and his wife of four decades, Mina, a natural born citizen of Mexico.
A close friend, Bert Hernandez of Waco, who is also a Green Beret, said his family has been out of touch and unavailable for comment. He will keep us posted.
Last August, BacSi wrote a personal memoir about the Mexican culture's fascination with death and the influence of that fatalistic set of ideas on the mind set of such former Special Forces gangs as Los Zetas, an enforcement wing of the Gulf Cartel which has recently gained independent status in vying for the rights to lucrative drug smuggling routes and money laundering territories. Their psy-war signature is to leave a detached head nearby the headless corpse.
In the piece, BacSi explored the fascination with the cult of Santa Muerte, the skinny one, also known as “Catrina,” and the fascination of youthful recruits to Los Zetas with her legendary status in the mythical land of Aztlan, the north, with its fabled seven cities of Cibola, which we know as the American southwestern states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
It was the only by-lined article by BacSi that has appeared in these columns. Nevertheless, The Legendary is proud to have been given the opportunity to publish the journalistic work of “BacSi” Lewis T. Pace, Jr. He got tagged as “Cargo Drop” because of a training adventure in his salad days as an Airborne Ranger when he was unable to fasten his harness on a jump and the cadre made him strip his blouse, only to find that he had concealed several pounds of candy and other gee-dunk in his field jacket. Hence, he was known among the idiots who jump out of perfectly good airplanes screaming for their mentor, Geronimo, as the “Cargo Drop.”
In consultation with our native guide, an Arapaho from the plains state known as The Panhandle, Geronimo is Apache for “Who pushed me?”
Adios, amigo. When you reach those streets paved with gold, please, sir, stake a claim out for me. You would be a good neighbor anywhere you may be headed.
Buenos suerte.
- The Legendary Jim Parks.
My name is Gabriel Pace, I´m C.D.´s 5th son, I thank you for this space...
ReplyDeletemay he R.I.P.
I miss Bacsi, very much.
ReplyDeleteThe Legendary
Jim Parks