Colonel Kurtz
Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (January 5, 1921-March 26 1969)was a famous military man who was known for going rogue and "disappearing" in the Cambodian jungles in 1969. He was friend with Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, a famous surfer man who went on a rampage in the Vietnam War in search for the famous surfing beaches in 'Nam. The feds don't want you to know this, but Colonel Kurtz was a real man. He just assumed the alias Walter E. Kurtz after the name Tony Poe became too dangerous a name to keep. Tony Poe was his real name. Apocalypse Now is based on the last days of Kurtz's lives.
The Beginning[edit | edit source]
Walter E. Kurtz, born Tony Poe, Jr, was a man from the hard-won days of the plains in the Midwest in thee 1920s. He had a bizarre obsession with philosophy, and would always reject religion itself on the grounds that it was unverifiable. He also rejected the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre and the absurdism of Albert Camus in his twenties. He was, perhaps, more deistic or pantheistic in a since. As with every genius in existence, he didn't do well in school, but this was intentionally so. Kurtz is quoted as thus:
“If you do well in school, that means that you are gonna get a mediocre job. I learned this from Albert Einstein”
He read lots of Friedrich Nietzsche, largely smuggled from the library, and admired the Ubermensch ideology. He thought, maybe one day, he could be the ubermensch prophesied in Nietzsche. He also wanted to be a philosopher, but he was stuck learning about cat rhyming with bat. Around high school he began to develop his philosophy.
WWII[edit | edit source]
Kurtz enlisted in late 1942, having failed school and having no prospects of being any future philosopher. He enlisted in the general infantry, not wanting to be in a dead-end job, and not wanting to be in Hartman's Yelling Marines Division. Keep in mind this was around the time the Armed Forces wasn't napalming a country into oblivion because why not, and so Kurtz had no problem. He took part in the Omaha beach invasion of 1944, and in 1945 was transferred over to the Asian front of the war, largely in New Guinea. The time he spent in New Guinea, he completed the first draft on a Hammond typewriter. Ubermensch in War, it was called.
Korea[edit | edit source]
Over the next decade Kurtz expounded and completed the next 3 drafts. This nearly culminated in over 1500 pages, but they were all handwritten, since he had run out of ink for his typewriter. His handwriting was so bad that his son could barely transcribe it. His son transcribed 40 pages of the original 1500 pages. During this time when he was chilling, he reread The Gay Science, and even wrote a poorly translated English version in his time in Vietnam, but largely abandoned it. Kurtz, having no idea of what to do, just picked up a copy of his original draft he wrote in New Guinea, and began editing it.
When war came in Korea, Kurtz rejoined the military. He was now a captain, and he would largely serve as patrol against enemy forces. During this time he met Bill Kilgore, who was known for napalming entire cities and sparing no one, the 'Merican way. Kurtz largely joined with Kilgore in forces, just for entertainment and photo shooting for his philosophy. In 1953, Kilgore was withdrawn from the battlefield, and Kurtz retired from the military, for seemingly, he thought, the last time. Little did he know....
the years between Korea and Vietnam[edit | edit source]
Kurtz now read the long ass novel of In Search of Lost Time, and Kurtz believed he could write an even longer one. Alexander of Persia was supposed to be a 8-volume war novel, touted as being the definitive war epic,with each volume being about 900-1000 pages long. Kurtz got around 2 pages before realizing that writing a long-ass novel with each volume a thousand pages in length was not a very good idea mentally. Also there was not enough material for a 4000 year old man who lived in the middle east and was a conqueror.
Vietnam[edit | edit source]
Kurtz enlisted in the Green Berets a year 'fore the Vietnam War broke out. He carried his typewrier with him, and was now 38 fucking years old. In 1965 he was promoted to Colonel at 44 years. It only took him 40 goddamn years to be a Colonel, but it was 44 goddamn years well spent.
The Cult of Kurtz[edit | edit source]
In 1966, Kurtz went to Vietnam, believing that a war struggling right now could use a big brained intellectual. He staged several operations without proper permission, but MACV allowed it since it made for some nice publicity photos. Most famous was Operation Archangel, in which the goal was to carry out a quick battle that didn't last for several damn years in an endless stalemate. In took him 4 days, but he was with the AirCav via Bill Kilgore, and they eventually napalmed the entire area into oblivion. Again, allowed for nice publicity stunt.
1967 was another successful year. In late Febuary he established camp and there fought guerrilla war against the Vietcong by carrying out random attacks by using Bill Kilgore as his right hand man. Bill Kilgore got bored of doing the same thing, so around this time Kurtz allowed him to play various operatic themes, most notably Ride of the Valkyries and William Tell Overture.
He goes rogue[edit | edit source]
Colonel Walter E. Kurtz was said to be the definitive lazy genius: a man who had many years of philosophy behind him, but was too lazy to use any of it in his day-to-day life. He is also described as having an aurea of 'insane genius' to him. He was also a famous philosopher on the Problem of Love. He was facing backlash due to his unorthodox fighting style, and the fact that he didn't pretend Vietnam was a moral crusade against evil people. Colonel Kurtz, in November, began the final (and incomplete) draft of his philosophy. In the beginning of the Tet Offensive, Kurtz was assigned to work with Vietnamese colonels. He suspected them of being spies, and sent out his right hand man, Bill Kilgore, to spy on the colonels. The footage recorded sent Kurtz into a frenzy: the Colonels? They were spies! Kurtz sent the footage, and requested permission to terminate the spies. The footage, for whatever reason, was 'lost', and so Kurtz took it up on himself. Around midnight on Thanksgiving Day, the 4 Vietnamese spies were captured, and subsequently executed. He fled afterwards, and he carried Bill Kilgore with him. Kurtz carried out many guerrilla operations, and ambushed Khmer Rouge folks and disrupted Vietcong activities easily. Benjamin L. Willard was hired to assassinate him, and for 2 months Willard drifted aimlessly upward, until at-last, Kurtz's last words rang out:
“The horror...the horror...”
Colonel Kurtz also spent a lot of his time penning his autobiography, which eventually reached 3 whole volumes. Volume I: Apocalypse Now. Volume II: The Apocalypse is Now. Volume III: The End of the Apocalypse.
Kurtzism, and the alteration of the narrative[edit | edit source]
The narrative on Wikipedia is intentionally modified by the CIA so that they don't look like hypocrites for assassinating a rogue guy trying to help them. The narrative falsely states that Kurtz would spend over 20 god-damn years in a military school, when normally it would take a person only 2-3 years to graduate. The file that demanded Kurtz be terminated was burned after Willard departed for the Nung River. Kurtz was very anti-semitic, believing that Jews and some unknown demon called Cthulhu were working together in a pact: use Cthulhu to keep the world in order for Jews, and Jews would devote their entire lives to Cthulhu. The fundamental belief of Kurtzism is abandon all morality and focus on the cultivation of utter emotionless soldiers who only know how to kill. A small movement based on the banned book The Hypocrisy of Moral JUdgement in a Moral-less War grew. In 1979, Francis Ford Coppola penned an epic biopic of Colonel Kurtz, during the last days of March 1969.
See Also[edit | edit source]
- Vietnam War-Kurtz was involved in this.
- Cult
- Philosophy