One Armed Scissor

THE WAR ANALOGY IS INCREDIBLY ACCURATE! When he says "pucker up and kiss the asphalt now" it's like a hope for good luck and a last touch with reality and safety after the chopper lands in enemy territory. When he refers the the "campaign", it's most likely the war compaign that the U.S. waged with the communist nations. Sputnik sickles, that is indicative of the communist Russian involvement with the North Vietnamese, always monitoring the situation. when he talks of being "a million miles away" trying to write a letter, he refers to soldiers trying to communicate with loved ones from an alien and completely foreign location. soldiers often had to get amputations because there weren't suitable medical supplies to properly cure things like gangreen and other diseases. "send transmission from the one-armed scissor" is a last resort at communication with allies and people who could help salvage lives in a crashing vessel. "cut away, cut away" is the desperate frenzy of a broken propellor in the sky cutting through the thin air and crashing. "skin graft machinery" is often necessary because of the macabre injuries sustained during a war. "unknown origin is this the comfort of being afraid solar eclipsed black out the vultures as they wait" This indicates the feelings of soldiers located in the vietnamese jungles, trekking into what would seem like oblivion and never really knowing where they were. They were always afraid and lost because when night came, the possibility to see the enemy or the "vultures" disappeared or was "blacked out". The enemy waited like vultures hovering around would-be dead men. Lastly, the "Jagged pulp sliced in my veins" could indicate the entry or exit wound of a bullet, jagged and slicing through flesh. The letter he writes while he's dying from a bullet or shrapnel shard might never reach any of his loved ones because he's afraid and lost. He writes to communicate, but only to be remembered because he knows that he will never reach home alive. that's just my take on the lyrics...who knows, but it does seem to fit perfectly.it could be a blanket statement for the entire war, or like baboonix stated, just an analogy for the crashing of a helicopter.