Veteran’s Day with the Bacon Babes Brought to You by The HamTech Processing Plant Ian Golding God Bless America Amen Freedom

First the marching band and the Veterans with their burnt limbs—hardly the chiseled imagery of recruitment ads—then, finally, the Bacon Babes. Perched atop a decommissioned Humvee, they threw pork rinds for the HamTech Processing Plant, and now suddenly everyone’s a fan of meat slurry. Sure, people supported the troops and blah, blah, blah, but seriously, those girls…
Whoa.

Who would have guessed this place could cultivate such raw consumer- friendly sexuality? One half spandex, one half glitter, and another half of pure country charm for good measure all culminating in the impossible mathematics that made dads blush. They ruled over the parade with their taut bodies and Day-Glo smiles.

Whenever a veteran’s prosthetic leg wobbled off, a Bacon Babe popped out the top of the Humvee. Her hair perfect, fluttering like the flag atop Okinawa, she gripped the gun and aimed at the crowd.

USA USA USA

Thanks to a Defense Department grant, the .50 cal was swapped out with a 670psi Hot dog Launcher. It was beautiful, capable of launching a frank- furter with the speed of an MLB changeup.

She put a hand up to her left ear

The crowd on the left went wild

She put a hand up to her right ear

The crowd on her right went wilder

Floom!

The aluminum wrapper glistened in the sun like an Apollo shuttle. The crowd clambered for the hot dog, clawing away at one another until the asphalt was littered with shattered dentures, and then, once the Bacon Babe finished reloading:

Floom!

So thank you HamTech Processing Plant and your meat slurry, and thank you Bacon Babes and the little sequined flags sewn on your keisters. And to the troops with their blown off legs, thank you, for without your sacrifice none of this would be possible.

Ian Golding’s work has appeared in CutBank, Mid-American Review, Hobart, PANK, and other journals. He is currently working on a novel.