I hope you come out of Iraq alive, but before you do, kindly go fuck yourself.

The BBQ Pit
1

In high school, I had this friend, good guy. Fun to be around, excellent sense of humor.

Then I go away to school, more or less lose touch with him for a few years. Find out that he discovered the extreme right of Republicanism the way some people find God. It’s become his [del]crusade[/del] obsession. So much so that he has pretty well alienated everybody around him that aren’t as outright rabid as him. But typically I ignore him, try and talk about anything except politics when we find ourselves together in a group.

The boy talks shit. Horrible, misinformed shit. And unfortunately he is so deluded that he has gone through Basic and is ready to ship off to Iraq at the end of January, under the belief that it is every true American’s duty to unwaveringly commit themselves to the righteousness of the war. (Note: On reading that, it seems like I’m saying all soldiers serving are wrong, that they are throwing their lives away, that they are stupid. I mean nothing of the sort; I know there are any number of reasons one would choose to serve, and even when another’s reasons are like my friend’s, a lot of it is about presentation. It’s just that this guy flaunts his decision to serve as a sort of moral superiority, by which everybody who he perceives to be against him, anybody who either does not choose to serve or even worse does not believe in the utter correctness of the war, are complete fucking scum who deserve deportation at best, a bullet through the head charged to their widow at worst.)

I hope he comes out of his tour alive, and without any great injuries. I hope against hope that his experience leads to him changing his mind about why he has committed his life to Bush’s crusade, and what he as a grunt truly means to America’s political leadership.

But mostly I hope that he realizes how much bullshit he has spewed forth to alienate all of his friends in the past four years, including the…ahem…poem that led to my weak little rant. It appeared over the weekend on a webpage he maintains, to which I will not link for obvious reasons:

Take a man and put him alone,
Put him twelve thousand miles from home.
Empty his heart of all but blood,
Make him live in sand, in mud.
This is the life I have to live,
This the soul to God I give.
You have your parties and drink your beer,
While young men are dying over here.
Plant your signs on the White House lawn;
“Lets get out of Iraq”.
Use your signs and have your fun,
Then refuse to use a gun.
There’s nothing else for you to do,
Then I’m supposed to die for you?
There is one thing that you should know;
And that’s where I think you should go!
I’m already here and it’s too late.
I’ve traded all my love for all this hate.
I’ll hate you till the day I die.
You made me hear my buddy cry.
I saw his leg and his blood shed,
Then I heard them say, “This one’s dead”.
It was a large price for him to pay,
To let you live another day.
He had the guts to fight and die,
To keep the freedom you live by.
By his dying, your life he buys,
But who gives a FUCK if a Soldier dies!

There’s just so much fallacious bullshit in that to really comment upon it, other than to say this. It starts out bitter that he is being forced by circumstance to fight under ungodly conditions in Iraq, then he’s angry that others have not been forced, and he is subsequently fighting for their lives nowhere near the conflict. Okay.

Here’s to hoping he has a monumental fucking change of heart.

Though I am not pitting Sam Stone, I would like to mention a comment he made in this thread as an addendum:

If this isn’t the exception to Sam Stone’s statement, I don’t know what is. (Namely the line in the above poem, “I’ll hate you till the day I die.”)

2

I should introduce them to my cousin and his family. He’s in Iraq, with the National Guard. My aunt and uncle are just so fed up about the whole mess that they not only spelled out “SUPPORT OUR TROOPS - BRING THEM HOME!” in cut out letters across the front of their house, they have beneath it a sarcastic, “THANKS BUSH!” and then the number of soldiers killed in the war.

It’s too bad your friend doesn’t understand that the reason I want this war to end is so that he doesn’t HAVE to die for a pointless reason.

3

Yeah, in the same thread I conceded the point. The political atmosphere has degraded to the point where there is plenty of hatred to go around on both sides of the fence.

4

Your friend didn’t write the poem. It’s all over the web in one form or another.

5

I read that post over the weekend, and hadn’t revisited it since. Apologies.

6

You know, I have to hand it to you, you are a lot more charitable than I would be. I do not support the troops. Or I guess I should say, I support very few of them. These aren’t conscripts, they are volunteers. Either they signed up to suck off the government tit for free school, in which case they are learning a hard lesson in civics, or they’re political retards who think they’re justified in going and killing people from a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, or they’re butchers who just like the idea of getting paid for killing. No, I don’t support the troops. I’m not quite hateful enough to wish that any of our troops die, if only for the sake of the very few good eggs within the ranks, but I do feel that for the most part these fuckers made their own beds and now they must lie in them. I regret only that the families of those who get killed are probably going to fall prey to the party line of “the liberals and their anti-war bumper stickers killed your children” rather than placing the blame squarely where it lies (in every sense of the word “lies”).

7

I am not surprised to hear that. He’s never particularly had the soul of a poet, even a badly irrational and disjointed one. But that he so often posts things like this, sometimes with introductions along the lines of “People should realize this is so true” or “This is how I really feel”, I know it’s something he posted because he agrees with it, at least in part, if not in full.

8

I’ve never understood people like that. If anyone joins the United States military and isn’t aware they may be asked to go and fight a war, and possibly die, they’re idiots.

Just because soldiers die, that’s not invalidation of the war, it’s just a fact associated with the war.

For better or worse the majority of our political leaders supported the war, and so did a smaller majority of the people themselves. You have to put personal political opinions aside when you are given orders.

I wasn’t necessarily sure the Bosnia situation was one we should be in, considering the complete clusterfuck that was going on operationally (a military campaign, be it a peacekeeping mission or not, should never be ran that way) but you have to put that aside when you’re in the military.

For the particular subject of this OP, I think it is a very bad idea to join the military simply over political ideals. It’s an important decision and I think the main factor needs to be whether or not you’re comfortable being a soldier, not for whom you vote.

9

I do appreciate it when you motherfuckers make yourselves known. Allow me to introduce myself. I joined the Army in 1994 to serve my country because I believe that man is intended to serve his fellow man. I already had a bachelor’s degree and had no student loans or any other loans to pay off. I did not have a passel of kids to support.

I met a much higher quality of person in the Army than I ever did in college. People who believe in something greater than themselves, who aren’t afraid to leave home and become adults at an early age, who push themselves to their physical and psychological limits. I have the deepest respect for them, and only disdain for those who belittle them.

I am good friends with quite a few people who are still on active duty, and every one of them joined up before Bush was even thought of. Some of them intended to retire or get out of the military in the last few years, but guess what–they can’t.

So maybe if you think really, really hard you can think of maybe a few more categories of soldier than the three you listed above. In the meantime, you inhabit the realms of algae-sucking insects like Der Trihs, and I hope you two enjoy each other’s odious company. You are beneath contempt.

10

Martin Hyde, I realize that it is volunteer, and yes, they know very well going in that there may be a war.

BUT, does that mean that it’s okay to squander our troops on pointless ventures? If we had concentrated on Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden half as much as we did on getting Saddam, we would probably have found him by now.

And like I said, it’s not my cousin who made that sign, but his parents. I don’t blame them for being angry-I’m angry and I’m not particularly fond of this cousin anyways. Serving your country is a fine thing-but this whole war is NOT serving our country in any way. It’s just useless slaughter. Apparently, we learned jackshit from Vietnam.

11

Good God, this is such a lot of crap.

Anyone who knows my posting history here will know I’m just a little disenchanted by the current US regime, and in particular the Iraq debacle.

But this statement strikes me as horrendously uncharitable, and unbelievably vicious.

How about: people who signed up for the military from a sense of honor and duty, and are fixed into a set term of duty, and suddenly find themselves under the “wrong” government with no way out. Or those who are so economically disadvantaged that there is little other choice. Or those who are so badly educated that their decision is made because they’re uninformed (I suppose this might come under “political retards” in your words).

I don’t doubt that there are a lot of assholes in the military, but I would wonder if any would expose their inner unpleasantness as you have just done?

12

Don’t be willfully obtuse. Of course they’re aware of the risk that they’ll die in a war.

The underlying assumption is that the war will be justified by a solid cause, such as self-defence, and therefore that deaths will be justified. An army or a society will accept thousands of deaths in a situation like World War 2, but will not accept such deaths in a Vietnam or an Iraq.

13

I’m as liberal and Anti-Bush as they come, and you’re not terribly likely to find someone who’s more against the war in Iraq than I am, but Brain Wreck is just an idiot. And frankly, anyone who quotes him as being representative of the “left” is also an idiot. Brain Wreck represents nothing but his own asshole.

14

Well, you’ve got to hand this much to Brain Wreck. His user name is very apt.

15

Hmmm, I wonder which I am. As a nurse, I completed my schooling before I joined the Air Force, and I could make a buttload more money in the civilian world than I am now, so I guess that eliminates choice number one. My job doesn’t involve killing anyone, so that eliminates choice number three. That must mean I’m a political retard. Obviously, there’s no possible way I could be serving out of a sense of honor or obligation to pay back my share for the privilege of living in a free society that was bought by others’ willingness to serve. Nope, not me. Political retard, I am. :rolleyes:

16

Brain Wreck, the kind of people you listed certainly exist, but make up a far smaller proportion of the military than you would like to imagine. Lots of people who join the military are unemployed and in desperate need of work because of the government’s gouging of the poor.

So in other words, fuck off idiot.

17

Lucretia said it more eloquently than I ever could have, but I’ll add my two bits, since my husband can’t right now.

Last semester, he took a leave of absence from school to go to the Middle East. It’s true that the Guard pays his tuition and stipend, but he set his books aside because he thought his services were needed by his country. And it’s entirely possible that he’s right. His unit isn’t a combatant unit, but they have an essential mission nonetheless. Had his unit not been available, the recent elections might not have gone as well as they did. Worse elections mean a longer haul and more and longer deployments for the servicemen and women you deplore.

So, Brain Wreck, take solace in the knowledge that there are millions of people in uniform who are working for your right to shit all over them.

Robin

18

While you chickenhawks are piling on, I guess I do need to point out a little extra background that I served 9 years as an Army medic (part of it during GW1), So go ahead and have a nice dogpile, of course we all do have the right to free speech. The difference is that mine is earned, yours is granted.

I have had front-row experience with the kind of people that are included in that little yellow ribbon on the back of your cars. And while, like I said, there were a few good eggs, I can tell you that the Abu Ghraib debacle did not surprise me one iota. Where do I include myself on the scale of people who served? Like so many other people, I signed up for the benefits, but you would not hear me glory-hounding or crying the blues when it came time for me to pay the dues for what I received, like so many others seem to do. As someone who has served, I am sick of the self-serving fireman/policeman/soldier hero-god bullshit that has been going on since 9/11. Perhaps I have worded the sentiment a bit strongly, but it is indeed how I feel. If you chickenhawks cannot handle it, you may eat* le shit*.

19

I see one thing you didn’t learn in the Army was reading for comprehension. In case I didn’t make myself clear, I am a currently serving active duty Air Force nurse, that would have been “ma’am” to you when you were serving. Now, again, which category do I fall into?

20

Oh, and Brain Wreck, I myself served in the Navy. And FTR, I don’t have a yellow ribbon anywhere near my car.

Robin