I’m not going to give the “thoughts and prayers” song and dance for Boston. I think there’s a fair chance that prayer was involved that begin with “Allahu Akbar” and will end with picket signs that say, “God Hates Fags“.
Honestly, I just don’t like the “thoughts and prayers” statement because it seems disingenuous. If your heart isn’t broken then you’re a bad human being; it shouldn’t need to be said. And if you’re relying on prayer then I’ll spare all of our time by posting a Christopher Hitchens video:
There’s something to be very grateful for however. These acts are almost exclusively carried out by LOSERS. Why? Well, probably because winners are too busy making millions of dollars and banging hot redheads.
Call me. Seriously. I will procure for you a mighty draft horse and the finest of honey wine.
*Ahem*
Now, were a winner to engage in violence we should be worried. But since the domain of cowardly violence (and bombing emaciated marathon running civilians is quite nearly the most cowardly form of violence imaginable) is almost exclusively reserved for losers, when they turn to violence, they’re just not very good at it. For that we should be grateful.
Boston, you’re the birthplace of American liberty. Your politics may suck, but you’re still home to some of the finest brawlers this country can offer. Just keep punching Boston. It’s only fitting that such a pathetic loser would strike out at the Boston Marathon, an epic display of human endurance.
It was my last hour in Iraq. My unit was in a quonset hut waiting for our flight out of the country. I went out back, sat down with my rifle between my legs. I took a long look around me…and I cried. This was it for me. I was going to take that flight home, take my uniform off, and kiss the girl of my dreams. Yet I cried. Hard.
This part of my life was over. Sergeant Griffeath was going away to be replaced by Mr. Griffeath. It was a hard deployment for me emotionally, and I was excited to come home, but I didn’t want to put my true self away. I’ve always liked Sgt. Griffeath. I’d built my identity around war. I felt that I did good in the world. I loved the high you get while at war, the high that many feel but few admit.
I didn’t make a good Mr. Griffeath. I immediately became depressed. I haven’t really pulled out of it yet. It’s a daily fight. But my situation isn’t unique. It’s shared by countless veterans.
They say that the military “brainwashes” you. I don’t buy it. There is a class of people in this country with a different makeup. The military attracts these people and they congregate and feed off of each other. Despite what the recruiting propaganda tells you, the military doesn’t tear you down and rebuild you. Boot camp doesn’t make Marines. It takes people with the precious rare raw material to become Marines and gives them the opportunity to prove it. So too with the other services.
These people, veterans, are simply a different breed of person. They need a fight. They build their identity around it. But what happens to them when they leave the little world where they are waging war, or preparing to wage war?
This:
Becomes this pathetic creature:
I loved Samurai films, and not just because they’re simply westerns on the other side of the world. I saw an excellent Samurai film a few days ago called Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai. The movie is based around a string of suicide bluffs that came after Samurai began killing themselves when they no longer were needed. Many of these samurai killed themselves because when they were no longer needed they became destitute, ashamed of their newly found low status. To save themselves from the shame of their poverty and preserve their honor they killed themselves.
So it goes with the depression suffered by veterans and their high suicide rates. We have our niche and our world amongst each other. We feel separate from society. And we fail to adjust well to civilian life. It isn’t because of the military — it’s because of who we are. The military just gives it a good nudge.
These samurai killed themselves. Batman found Bane and proceeded to find himself again in the fight. What veterans need to discover is that coming home has not removed them from a fight. It’s simply changed the nature of the war. The war in the civilian world lacks the highs, and it’s a long, grueling, protracted war. But it’s real. Look at your country. Look at the survivability of your species. The veteran is needed. The warrior class is needed. And it takes a remarkable warrior indeed who can fight in both worlds instead of one. Veterans need to be shown this battle. It took Bane to rebuild Batman. The veteran doesn’t have Bane when he comes home. The veteran then has to become a GREATERwarrior than Batman.
I haven’t been able to fully internalize the civilian world yet, but perhaps we can show better men than myself the fight that exists all around us.
Enjoy this fantastic video of the president. He mocks those that stand against his gun control measures saying that some people are afraid they need their guns to fight against the government and that the government might take our guns away.
He does this…
…
…
…while standing behind him are the people whom the 2nd Amendment exists to fight against, and will be those tasked to take your guns.
Granted, we’re dealing with a scorned high school senior, but The Wall Street Journal publishes a high schooler who seems upset and surprised that doing nothing in high school somehow meant that she isn’t a successful in her college hunt than kids who, I dunno, did stuff. Her chief complaint seems to be that “being herself” didn’t work.
Humorously, had she wasted some of her time on Cracked, she’d probably be much better off. Their article Six Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person should be required reading for all high schoolers.
The opinions expressed are my own. I don’t speak for everyone, but this is true for a great many.
I joined the Marine Corps in September of 1999. I had this idea in my head that I was going to be on the far side of the world up to my neck in the bodies of my fallen enemies only to return home to be up to my neck in women. Neither proved to be true. The first wave of boots put in my charge were 9/11 Marines. I have a strong feeling that many would have joined regardless, but some I’m sure were prompted by watching the towers fall. I always pitied them as I watched them picking up cigarette butts around the company office.
I preferred the pre 9/11 military. Maybe it’s a desire to differentiate myself, but I don’t think so. It has nothing to do with those Marines I met and the fantastic troops I worked with, but rather with the rest of my country. For the most part, pre-Iraq, and definitely pre-9/11 the fact that I was a Marine mattered only to Marines. It mattered to other servicemembers. It really didn’t matter much to anyone else. I liked it that way, except for fact that I always hoped the uniform would help me with the ladies.
But nowadays being a serviceman means everyone is a hero. It means that the Lance Corporal who spent Iraq behind a ladle in the chow hall somehow is an expert in foreign policy whose opinion cannot be called into question. It means that veterans who are generally just assholes get a pass because “he must have PTSD”.
I don’t want you calling me a hero. It’s awkward, and it makes me feel small and unworthy. I’ve met heroes. More importantly, to many civilians, I just don’t like you. I don’t care what your opinion is. I don’t respect you. I fight, and would die for you, but most of you are unthinking enemies of freedom. You’re soft. You’re self-indulgent. Many of us joined the Corps to get away from you. To join a superior culture. While we fight for you, we mock you. Do you know that? We call you “the zoo”. We talk about the nasty bodies “back on the block”. When we watch “A Few Good Men”, Jack Nicholson is the hero, not Tom Cruise. We are two Americas. We want you to leave us alone far more than we want your adulation. I don’t like you, and you are screwing up my Corps.
Before 9/11 you didn’t care about me. This neglect was wonderful for my culture. This allowed me to train harder. When you weren’t looking, my Corps became stronger. It became tighter. We were more able to police our own.
But now you’re paying attention. You’re making sure your little boys and girls are being treated as good as you think your little heroes should be treated. You seem to think we’re all heroes. This has created an entitlement culture amongst the military. We used to pride ourselves on the sacrifice. It brought us together. Now our military is filling up with people crying about how little we get for what we do. They’re RIGHT. But we’re forgetting the idea that we’re service men, not serve-us men. We are not supposed to be getting adequately compensated for our work. That’s the service part.
So this guy, Bill McClellan, posted an article calling for the end of government paid veterans funerals. He was RIGHT. It costs a lot of money. In the grand scheme of things it is a pittance, but we few, we happy few should be volunteering to shoulder that burden FIRST. That’s what it means to serve. You bet we deserve that rifle squad and bugler. But deserve’s got nothing to do with it. Our country’s greatest enemy right now is its out of control spending. Let us lead by example, show our sacrifice, that America may follow, and in turn save herself.
When we allow the rest of American society to care for us, we get soft, we lose the tightness of our bond, and we stop caring for each other. You will find the tightness of the bond of pre-9/11 Marines is stronger than post-9/11 Marines UNLESS those men served in combat together. They suffered more hardship together. They didn’t have an undeserving society showering them in praise. Therefore, they had, and needed, each other.
Mr. McClellan has gotten a lot of flak, but he is right. And kudos to him for having the guts to stick to his position. I suppose that’s just the difference between a Marine writer and a civilian one. End government paid military funerals. Let us veterans come together and honor our own, rather than put that burden, however small, upon the American taxpayer. Besides, I’d rather a handful of squadmates at my funeral than a city of the people of Walmart lining the streets waving their flags they bought from Chinese slave laborers.
Now if that isn’t a way to come back after a hiatus.
For the most part I’ve made it a point to stop getting so frustrated over politics and the news. Back in 2008 I became pretty emotionally involved in the elections. This was due in some part to the fact that my job had me driving a lot. This meant that I spent a lot of time listening to talk radio. Your personal politics aside, how can you hear Michael Savage and not agree that this is the best voice in radio? The guy will talk about his little dog or cooking spaghetti and yet you feel compelled to listen.
Recently I’ve taken some steps back from getting emotionally involved in politics. I fail often, but the less emotionally involved I become the happier I generally become. But lately my fire is returning.
The big craze right now is talking about our “rape culture”. Following the Steubenville rape, people have donned their armor and bravely come out against RAPE. They do this boldly as if rape is somehow acceptable in our society. Misogyny, I can see an argument for, but really, rape? Yet, the battle is on, and just as a police officer needs to convince himself that arresting and ticketing those damn potheads is making him the protector of society, so too must people attempt convince us that there is in fact a rape culture needing them to cure it. The opening paragraph to this Huffington Post article sums it up well:
On Sunday, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, two football players from Steubenville, Ohio, were convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl and sentenced to serve time in the state juvenile system — Mays for at least two years and Richmond for at least one. Shockingly, in the press coverage of the event, the media chose not to focus their attention on the horrendous acts that were committed, but on how the convicted rapists — with “such promising futures… literally watched as they believed their life fell apart.”
Now that I’ve beat around the bush long enough, here’s the problem with everyone: identity politics, a lack of consistency, and one-upmanship. I agree that these boys should see jail time. Hell, I think they’re punishment should have been harsher. However, it IS sad to see such potential go to waste. Yet everyone has to show they’re more against rape than the next guy by ignoring the fact that these two boys have lost a great deal. They aren’t evil. They KNEW their behavior was wrong, but they lacked the moral courage to do the right thing in the face of peer pressure and a culture that trivializes non-forcible rape. If you imply that their fate is sad, the immediate response is, “Yeah, well what about the victim?” What about her? I’m not talking about her. It’s clear that what happened to her is terrible. Why belabor the obvious? Why? Well, to show that you’re MORE against rape than the next person.
Same goes for the implication that getting drunk and passing out around drunk horny boys might have this result. Take a moment and read that last sentence again because the vitriol is already pouring out your ears. If you suggest that placing yourself in a bad situation may have a bad result, you’re immediately chastised as someone who is saying that she DESERVES it. Hardly. A woman should be able to pass out in a room of drunk men full on naked and talking dirty in her sleep and not have an inch of her body touched. But because you’re a woman, you know that your behavior must never be scrutinized when the topic of rape comes up. And as a man, you know that you must immediately smack down such implications, else people won’t know just how against rape you REALLY are.
Such head in the sand behavior damns our daughters to continued danger.
But there are two things that need specific attention here. First is this picture, which is making the rounds to prove our rape culture:
If you buy this poll, you’re an idiot. You’re dealing with a bunch of high school kids who are being asked the stupidest question possible, “Is rape okay?” The fact that they would make light of it is indicative of a genuine cultural issue that led to the behavior in Steubenville, but NO ONE THINKS RAPE IS OKAY. The only question more absurd would be, “When is it okay to eat babies?” with options ranging from when they’re alive to when they’re covered in A-1 steak sauce. The percentages would surely be similar.
No, this isn’t a needed response. Again, NO ONE THINKS RAPE IS OKAY. NO ONE. And the fact that people, in this case a 16-year old high schooler for the HuffPo article, and a college sophmore for the video seem to think that it is a needed response shows a deep failure in our culture to have the bravery to face down real challenges, instead patting ourselves on the back as we reach for low-hanging fruit, convincing ourselves of our value and valor. What a sad waste of productive and capable minds.
And when men join in this, they might be fooling the women, but they aren’t fooling the men. Many of them are showing their “respect” for women be patronizing them in the hopes that it’ll help them get a girl, but surely they’ll lack the moral courage to admit it.
Real men DO treat women with respect. They don’t treat them like incapable children needing their protection and patronizing support.
One of the most popular arguments against assault rifle ownership being a part of the Second Amendment is that the founders “never would have imagined such weapons”. I disagree:
The Girandoni Air Rifle. You probably didn’t watch the video, so allow me to summarize. The rifle was carried by Lewis and Clark and manufactured in 1779, as in, before the American Revolution was over. It fired over 30 rounds in a tube magazine and while not a pure semi-automatic, it was a repeating rifle that could put those 30 rounds downrange at about 1 per second. Consider that a Marine rifle qualifying in the rapid fire portion is expected to fire 10 times in one minute as a matter or perspective.
One of the popular retorts of the pro-gun crowd is that if the second amendment protects only muskets, then the first would only protect the printing press. I’d like to expand on that. I would submit that the leap of imagination required to go from a single shot musket (and definitely a Girandoni Air Rifle to the AR-15 is a MONUMENTALLY smaller step than going from the printing press to the internet!
