Be All You Can Be

8/9/05

Since General Whacky-Pack and his band of Fruit Loops have taken over the government and put into motion their plan for world domination, the armed forces of the United States have been stretched pretty thin. Right now, in Iraq, the frontline, there are National Guardsmen manning perimeters going on a second year.

Let’s put that in perspective. These are not professional soldiers. They are people who showed up at their local fort/club for, at most, one weekend a month to participate in "exercises" which boiled down to a bunch of guys knocking back cans of Rheingold till they regurgitated all over themselves. The one who can stay under the funnel the longest gets promoted to honorary "General."

Of course, for their service, they would get a modest check and a thank you from Uncle Sam.

Everybody was happy.

He deserves better.

But now, under General Yellow Streak, these same guys who, over one year ago, were stocking shelves at their local Walmart praying for five O’clock to come are now in some Baghdad shit hole, a murky quagmire that even the head coke addict’s architects of fear are finding hard to justify, praying to Christ, holding on to a shred of hope, but resigned to the fact that there is a good chance that they will never see their wives and children ever again.

Ok tough guy. How can you characterize our fighting men as "weekend warriors?" The people in the National Guard serve our country honorably and you are depicting them as a bunch of beer drinking local-yokels who only signed up because of the minimal commitment they had to make and the money. You are sadly mistaken.

To be brutally frank, my opinion was pretty much common knowledge for at least the past 30 years. When I was in college in the late 1980s their were several students I know who were in the Guard and, believe me, their motivation was less than patriotic.

But they "volunteered" to put themselves in harm’s way if their country needed them. They knew what they were in for.

Not until 2002 they didn’t. Before the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, when was the last time Guardsmen were called up IN MASS to be stationed in Combat zones engaging in intense fire fights?

But some Guard units were called up in the 1960s to fight in South East Asia.

Not many. Why do you think the current shit head in charge used his daddy to get into the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War? Do you think he was concerned about the Viet Cong tunneling their way under the Rio Grande and attacking El Paso from Mexico? Actually, judging by his recent foreign policy decisions he probably was.

Just wait a God Damn minute. It sounds like you don’t "support the troops."

I certainly do…do you?

I am terribly sorry for coming to that predictable conclusion but when you engage in conversation with certain types of "surface thinkers" you are inevitably confronted with the same accusation.

As the saying goes, "All roads lead to Rome."

But what started me thinking about the sad state of the military was the recent barrage of recruitment commercials I have been seeing on the idiot box lately.

First of all, I am thoroughly surprised the present administration has not brought back conscription yet. There is NO WAY this pack of blood thirsty, cowering, weasels can continue to prosecute their grandiose delusions of grandeur without more manpower.

We are militarily stretched so thin the Encyclopedia Britannica officially describes our situation as "anorexic."

During the 2004 election, I was running up and down the rows of cubes in my office, ranting and raving "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" style at my coworkers who were mostly in their mid twenties. I was pointing out to them that, although Kerry would probably do it anyway, a vote for Bush was a guarantee that THEIR ASS was going to be drafted.

I vividly remember yelling, “PEOPLE LISTEN TO ME!! LISTEN TO ME!!! YOU’RE NEXT!! YOU’RE NEXT!!! right before I was asked to go home for the day.

It hasn’t happened yet… but the "blood tax" is coming.

In the meantime, to fill its depleted ranks, the military is putting on the full court press with an ad campaign that needs to be seen to be believed.

The first one I saw involves a father talking to his son. Evidently, the son, clean cut, in shape and in full dress uniform, is just returning from they don’t say where but the scene and tone imply he is just back from boot camp.

I can’t remember the specific dialogue but the lines are on par with how the father at first couldn’t recognize his own son because of the dramatic improvement and is so proud of him for "finally becoming a man."

The son, for his part, is terribly humble, radiating a new found respect for his "pop" and a healthy, mature attitude towards his sense of personal responsibility.

With no explosions, shots of soldiers grappling down a helicopter or fast tanks, this Army advertisement is actually an attempt at subtlety.

Join the Army
Be a Man

To be honest I don’t even have any objections to its pitch. All they are saying is if you join the military you will be a better person. That statement isn’t entirely true but it isn’t a lie either. Anyway, what commercial for any product or service is completely honest. It is called salesmanship.

But this is no longer peacetime. General Herky-Jerky and his Gang of Ghouls are going to send this fictional son off to war where there is ample evidence that the events he will participate in and the traumas he will experience are not going to be "cool" and most likely will alter his world view not for the better and, probably, for the rest of his life.

He also might be killed.

As I watched the script unfold I pictured pretty much the same scene except it is now six to ten months later:

Father: I barely recognized you son.

The son with a bandage over his left eye doesn’t react. He sits there staring blankly with his good right eye. He rubs his dog tags with his fingers. His father puts his hand on his shoulder.

Father: It’s good that your home son.

The son still stares and rubs his dog tags. The father puts his hand over his own mouth and starts to cry uncontrollably. He pounds his fist on the table.

Father: Welcome home son.

The son continues to blankly stare. Although his facial expression doesn’t change, a tear starts to form in his eye. The camera zooms in on his face until his good eye takes up the whole frame. A tittle card comes on:

Join the Army…
Things will never be the same

I know this isn’t always the case with returning soldiers but to pretend it doesn’t happen disrespects our troops and is tantamount to a crime.

Which brings me to the other commercial I saw. It has a similar setting but this time it is a mother and her son sitting at a table. The son is telling the mother that he has joined the Army which will give him the training and money he needs for college which, in turn, will give him a better future. The mother is, at first, a little dismayed but then comes around to his point of view. I think, by the end, there are smiles all around.

So, what’s wrong with that?

Working on his Bachelor's

Of course, being war time, I can pull out the same objection I had for the last one. A young man thinks he is bettering himself but then finds out, albeit too late, that the price for his "improvement" is mental torture, physical maiming and his participation in events so horrific that, in the near future, he will barely be able to relate to any "outsiders" which will include his mother and his girlfriend.

Possibly the price is even death.

But that would be too easy.

I am not going to point out that obvious truth

For Christ’s sake, I can’t keep reinventing the wheel for you people.

What I do find offensive is the notion that, in the richest country on Earth, this young man has to put his ass in the line of fire to get money for school. He is presented as articulate, intelligent and responsible. The only reason, it seems, that he would NOT be going to college is because his mother doesn’t have the money. This commercial suggests the Army, with the maiming, mental scarring and the killing, is the perfect solution for this problem.

Great!

Did any one who saw this commercial, or read the description of this all too common situation ask yourself:

Why would we want to keep this man from getting an education?

Wouldn’t the education of this man be better for all of society?

Why, in this country, do we view higher education, as something that has to be paid for?

Can we say we live in a just society if a willing and able person can not continue with his or her education for the simple fact that he did not win the "parent lottery"?

If the answer to the last question was "no/maybe" how the hell do we have the right to tell anyone else what to do?

Both of these fools went to college WITHOUT
getting their asses shot up...with bullets anyway.

By the way, it was not lost on me that the first commercial had white people in it while the second one featured a black, possibly fatherless, family.

It was also not lost on me these completely militaristic messages and attitudes, ideas that would make Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany (circa 1912) blush, were coming to me, free and often, via the liberal media.

If I didn’t know any better I would say we’re getting hoodwinked.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am NOT saying that joining the Armed Services is the worst idea in the world, in fact, it might be the best thing a person could do.

I remember being out of work during the first Bush years (What is it with these guys and hard times?) drifting around aimlessly. Not knowing what my future held, I wandered into a recruiting office on Flatlands Avenue looking to join the Navy. But, unfortunately, I was too fat. The recruiter took one look at me and disdainfully said, "Mister, before we can take you, you are going to have to lose at least 50 pounds."

Somewhat dejected I left the office and bought myself a forty of Old Gold.

I always look back at that moment in my life with regret. Who knows? Maybe if I served my country they would have taught me the inner discipline and self-respect I needed to move forward. Maybe I wouldn’t have taken the dead-end jobs I did in the following years which led to financial stagnation and spiritual bankruptcy.

Maybe if I hit the gym instead of the bodega, I wouldn’t be sitting in a cube right now.

Alas.

Of course, if I went to that same recruiting office today, the officer would probably toss me a rifle and say, "Let’s go chubby."

Hmm...
I was thinking about going back to school...
Sixth Army