“You Grow Up Wanting To Be Luke Skywalker, Then Realize You’ve Become A Stormtrooper For The Empire”

Authored by US Army combat veteran Daniel Crimmins via Upriser.com,

You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.

Question: How do you Americans as a people walk around head held high, knowing that every few months your country is committing a 9/11 size atrocity to other people. Imagine if the 9/11 terror attacks were happening in America every few months. Again and again, innocent people dying all around you. Your brothers and sisters. For no reason.

Daniel Crimmins from U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division answered:

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Many of us are unable. Many of us watched 9/11, and accepted the government and media’s definition of the attack as a act of war rather than a criminal action. A smaller portion, drifting along passively thought a major war was coming, that people we knew were going to fight and die. Some of us maybe worried about our younger brother being drafted, despite being in college. Now, it seems stupid, but in the 72 hours after 9/11, some Americans, maybe suffering from depression, certainly with a mind shaped by comic books and action movies, ate up the “us vs. them” good vs. evil rhetoric spouted by the cowboy in chief. After all, he was the president, and no matter how bright you might think yourself, you can still be swayed by passion and emotion, led to terrible decisions.

Some of us, therefore, left our dorm rooms, and walked down Main Street to the recruiter’s office. Some of us were genuinely surprised the office wasn’t full to bursting of young men eager to avenge their fallen countrymen. Some of us were genuinely surprised when we had to push the recruiter to stop trying to sell desk jobs and just let us join the damn Infantry.

Image via Upriser.com

Some of us got enlisted, then, and went down to Georgia, head high to mask the anxiety and fear they might have helped. Perhaps some number of Americans in this situation discovered that maybe it hadn’t been the best idea, but would be goddamned if they were going to admit it, and let everyone back home smuggly remark on how right they were.

So they persevere. They learn to work as a unit, to look past personality issues, to see each other as Soldiers rather than as a race, or economic status, or any of the other things people hate about each other. They learn to kill.

Then some of these people, perhaps while sitting hungover in the platoon area in the Republic of Korea hear that we have invaded Iraq. They have “Big Scary Bombs”, and Saddam Hussein, the secular Arab dictator had somehow colluded with the devoutly religious Osama Bin Laden to attack the US. They hated our freedom, you see.

Then some of these young American men might transfer back to Georgia and be assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division, and end up in Iraq in January of 2005. And maybe these kids, still drunk on Fox News and fantasies of glory and renown being enough to win their ex-girlfriends back, are excited to go to Iraq. Sure, we hadn’t found any WMDs yet, and we had Hussein in custody, but they were still somehow a threat and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into Jeffersonian democracy. Inside every dirka is a good American, yearning to be free.

So you fight. You kill. Watch friends die. Its usually quick, almost never quiet, but for the rest of your life, when you remember sitting at the bar with them, they’re blown open. You picture the nights you spent downtown at Scruffy Murphy’s, but instead of the stupid hookah shell necklace, your boy’s jaw is blown off, and his left eye is ruined, and he’s screaming.

You fight, you kill, you watch friends die, and you notice a distinct lack of change. You kick in doors and tell terrified women to sit on the floor while you and your friends ransack their home, tearing the place apart, because they might be hiding weapons. There is no reason to believe this house in particular is enemy, same for the next one, and the one after that, or the seven before; they just happened to be there, and maybe they had weapons. Probably not, they almost never did. There were a few times when we had deliberate raids based on solid intel and we’d turn up some stuff, but generally we were just tossing houses because we could.

Then maybe your FISTer [field artillery forward observer] forgets to carry the remainder, and drops a mess of mortars on the village your supposed to protect. Maybe the big Iraqi running at you screaming was just mentally ill. Of course, you won’t know this until after you’ve put seven rounds through his rib cage, and his wailing, ancient mother is cradling his body, spitting at you.

Maybe when you get back to the FOB [Forward Operating Base], the Platoon Sergeant tells you you did the right thing; next time, it might be a suicide bomber. They tell you it was an honest mistake, it wasn’t your fault. They tell you to go get some chow, take a shower if the water works, and sleep it off. You did good work that day, apparently.

Chris Hondros’ well-known “One Night in Tal Afar” photograph (Getty Images) showing the aftermath of a checkpoint shooting – Samar Hassan, 5, screams after her parents were killed after their car unwittingly approached a US Army checkpoint at dusk in Tal Afar, Iraq.

During chow, the TV is on AFN, and they are rebroadcasting some Fox News show, and you’re hearing about drone strikes, and all the great things we’re doing, and you can’t help but see that poor dumb assholes face, looking past his mother as he bleeds to death. He’s in pain, obviously, but he has the most perfectly confused look on his face. He doesn’t comprehend what’s happening. Little more hot sauce on your eggs doesn’t really help.

Then you realize you haven’t seen anything to support the idea that these poor fuckers are a threat to your home. You look around and you see all he contractors making six figure salaries to fix your shit, train Iraqis, maintain the ridiculous SUVs the KBR dicks ride around in. You consider the fact that every 25mm shell costs about forty bucks, and your company has been handing those fuckers out like shrapnel flavored parade candies. You think about all the fuel you’re going through, all the ammo and missiles and grenades. You think about every time you lose a vehicle, the Army buys a new one. Maybe you start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering.

Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she’s talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don’t respect you or your buddies. They don’t give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you’re nothing to them but a prop.

Then you get out, and you hate the news. You hate the apathy, and you hate the murder being carried out in your name. You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.

Maybe your heart breaks a little every time some asshole brags about a “successful” drone strike.

Your statement is correct enough; if all of America was one dude, that dude would not give a shit about the little brown people we’re burning and crushing and choking to death. We aren’t all like that, but it makes me incredibly, profoundly sad to see what my country actually is.

Some of us care, and I think there are more every day.

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hardscrabble farmer

And that’s what the truth sounds like.

Maggie
Maggie

This could be the young student who had been a drone operator for a year prior to entering training in my husband’s class about ten years ago. The PTSD and guilt the young man felt drove him to try to commit suicide and changed the way Nick and I perceived the US military related careers we were in.

I picked up a book by a young man who had fallen into a homeless life after returning from Iraq. It was bleak. He told a story of such callous depravity by our troops in that region I vowed to NEVER allow my son to join the US military to become what both my husband’s student and that tortured soldier had become. We are supposed to be better than that.

Is why we are bunny farming hillbillies. Is why Obi Won Kenobe lived in a cave away from the empire. Yoda lived in a swamp.

My husband said he saw the USA on a “do not travel” list for street violence and crime. If only it were a “do not immigrate” list too.

An important piece of commentary. Thanks Daniel.

Diogenes
Diogenes

USA, USA, USA!!! Amerika !!! If you don’t like it you can leave it! Them damn Mooslins deserve it.
etc. etc etc …..

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

Wait a second. If no one joined the military, “we” couldn’t do the shit he laments. So why is he asking how WE can hold our heads high? I understand that a lot of poor saps joined up out of some sense of duty, and the government uses hyped up ads to rope people into joining in order to get college money, but as the comedian who Admin posted the other day said, there are other ways to get college money. I won’t blame anyone who joined in the aftermath of 9-11 or those who joined thinking – erroneously- that they’d never see combat, but after the last 15 years, anyone who puts themselves at the disposal of American politicians has no one but themselves to blame and frankly isn’t “defending America” at all.

MrLiberty
MrLiberty

After the Maine lie before the Spanish America War, the Lusitania lie to get us into WW1, the Pearl Harbor (and our provocations that forced Japan’s hand) that led to WW2, the Tonkin Gulf lie that led to 50,000 US dead along with 3+ million dead Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian dead, the Kuwaiti incubator babies lie that led to the first Gulf War, etc. NOBODY should be let off the hook at all, EVEN AFTER 9-11. Sorry, even Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler made it VERY CLEAR in the 1930s what America’s military was ALL ABOUT and what they were REALLY fighting for. Most certainly these ignorant kids’ PARENTS are to blame for not raising them with enough critical thinking skills to get through a news broadcast without the desire to put all their faith in their own criminal government and their lie machine.

Hollow Man
Hollow Man

Makes me sad too

Ghost

Who thinks all the concern about desensitizing kids to violence in video games was valid. When life has no value (Roe v Wade) murder becomes art.

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom

The concept of “law” is an interesting fiction. Much like the “dignity” of the perpetual losing team GOPe DOPE Generals that always throw the game to the Cosmo Kramer Globalists, its just a convenient excuse to use to justify the way the world REALLY OPERATES. Chairman Mao said the law comes from the barrel of a gun. The “monopoly of force” makes EVERYTHING LEGAL. Gun Control is about Unilateral Disarmament. In the end, its force. Raw naked force. That loser wearing a little black dress can use that wooden mallet on dese nuts, but without the guns, he may as well be pounding his OWN NUTS.
Go Big or Go Home. Somebody wins. ITS JUST NOT YOU. Money. M-O-N-E-Y. What if that monopoly money was real? It doesn’t matter. Its not about Gold or Silver. Power is Force. Force = Mass x Acceleration. The mass is the Big Fat Ass of Uncle Sham. The acceleration is the fiat debt that crushes all of you and makes you into serfs. That acceleration is about to hit the Hard Wall of Numerical Impossibility.
Want some John Law? Get some LAW. I AM THE LAW.

Diogenes
Diogenes

Very pithy Dr. Doom

Wip
Wip

“Some of us care, and I think there are more every day.”

I believe that but it doesn’t really matter does it? It only matters what those in charge think/want.

Teach you children.

Zarathustra

Israel did 9-11 to give Bush an excuse to destroy Iraq because Hussein lobbed some missiles at Tel Aviv during the first gulf war and threatened Bush Daddy. That’s what Israel does, you see? When they want the US to go to war with some country, they commit a massive act of terrorism against us. It’s called motivation. There’s always another muslim to blame…

monger
monger

way beyond sad, more of a despising at this point

R.E.Blane
R.E.Blane

My heart almost stopped when my 9 yo granddaughter said she wanted to join the army. She wants to be Black Widow. We have been having “discussions” ever since.

Gayle
Gayle

I do not speak with my Army Ranger son about his four tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. When he was a little boy he became fascinated by all things military, spending hours pouring over encyclopedia entries and filling a notebook with drawings of various military insignia. His father never served, although grandfathers and great-grandfathers did; we never talked up the military life at our house.

He interrupted his university education to join the army shortly after 911. He was thoroughly indoctrinated as to the sacredness of his mission, the defense of the USA. He hunted for bin Laden in the caves of Afghanistan. He was a company commander for a long year in Mosul. We discuss these things only superficially, and not much anymore. I don’t want to know things and he doesn’t want me to know. Thankfully he escaped the kinds of physical injuries sustained by others.

I saw only one brief emotional break upon returning from one of his Afghanistan tours. Other than that, it is all courage and stoicism and silence. But I worry about what goes on inside. He manages his life well despite what he may have to deal with in his heart and head. I know for sure he is not the same individual he would have been without these experiences.

Thankfully he parted ways with the Army a few years ago, which made this mother happy. I wonder if there is regret about his service and a sense of being used. I can’t bear to ask. I don’t know if I want a yes answer or a no.

kokoda - AZEK (Deck Boards) doesn't stand behind its product
kokoda - AZEK (Deck Boards) doesn't stand behind its product

A yes would mean he now mentally understands, at least partially, what politicians do to countries.

MrLiberty
MrLiberty

No offense, but MORE conversations about the TRUTH of the military while he was growing up might have steered him another direction. NOBODY can be afraid of having the hard conversations if things are ever going to change. Its still not too late for those hard conversations that you seem quite happy to avoid, but obviously wonder about.

Gayle
Gayle

I think I will ask him if he is going to advise his own sons to join the military.

None Ya Biz
None Ya Biz

Gayle,

I am a veteran of the Vietnam War. I was there from 1970 to 1971. I came back to the world to Fort Bragg, N.C. to the 517th Aircraft Direct Support (glorified supplies by aircraft transport) unit to serve out what was left of my term of service. While at Bragg, I became more and more despondent over what I experienced while I was in Vietnam. This to the point of self medicating with increasing doses of alcohol. While I eventually stopped and survived, I know others that did not. Just like the young man in the article many found out the hard way that they were being used for other’s profit. Now many of those who were there have infirmities brought on by exposure to agent orange. In my opinion, the copd I experience today is directly due to this exposure.

I have a son. He is exceptionally bright. During his 10th, 11th and 12th grade years in school, he was constantly badgered by recruiters calling the house. It got so bad I had to threaten to lodge harassment complaints. When I did this the calls stopped.

I had sat down with my son when he was early in the ninth grade and explained to him what military service entailed. I did for my son what my father failed to do with me. I thank the Creator that my son listened to my advice about military service. Additionally, I made sure to remind him every year afterwards until he finally graduated from school. He is now nearing 40 years of age and has 2 daughters of his own and is a great dad to them both! I am very proud of him. However, I still have to remind him that the people the government and the MSM deem to be their enemies are not actually his.

Zarathustra

That’s awesome. One of my grandfathers was a veteran of WW1. Throughout his life, he referred to young boys as “cannon fodder.”

Stucky

It ought to be MANDATORY for that article to be given to every young man or woman three days before signing on the dotted line.

No wonder so many vets commit suicide or, worse, live out their lives in a living hell.

Ponyexpress
Ponyexpress

I am from a previous generation who spent a year in Saigon, RVN in 1966, as a Naval junior officer.
The sentiments expressed here by Mr. Crummins reflect almost exactly what I felt and expressed to my family and friends 50 years ago!
I also communicated the opinion to the Chairman if the Armed Forces Services, then , Mendell Rivers.
Once we allowed the executive branch to usurp the constitutionally exclusive right of the people , through our congress, to declare war , armed conflict became another way of brutally pursuing economic goals .
We the people must insist, through our representatives, that we alone can legally declare war on another country.
Unfortunately that does not seem possible

MrLiberty
MrLiberty

The Congress has been owned by the same worthless globalists that profit from war for as long as the Executive branch has been owned and controlled. There is no branch of government that speaks for the people anymore. But indeed, being able to NOT have to publicly vote on war makes it a whole lot easier on the criminals in Congress.

Ghost

Ponyxprs…welcome opinion.

Dennis Roe
Dennis Roe

A bankrupt, delusional Empire Of Death…churning out haunted souls, eviscerated hearts, cripples and madmen. The zombies march in lockstep to the Official Narrative, goin round and round, like a broken record…Shiney, Happy , People. Borrow, consume and obey, it’s all being orchestrated for your pleasure. Don’t look too closely at the picture, the artist is a monster.

TJF
TJF

I don’t get the line about Ayn Rand not knowing what she was talking about. What is that in reference to? I read Atlas Shrugged despite the multiple page monologues and the beating of the dead horse for hundreds of pages. Just not sure what he meant by that part, probably because I don’t know enough of Rand.

The rest makes sense to me. I tend to look at people who have “died for their country” more as suckers than as heroes. They didn’t die for what people think they died for.

kokoda - AZEK (Deck Boards) doesn't stand behind its product
kokoda - AZEK (Deck Boards) doesn't stand behind its product

‘suckers’……………every war?
Think I should disagree with you.

Zarathustra

I think he was referring to this:

hardscrabble farmer

You have to give her credit, to call an entire race of people savages and in the same sentence accuse them of racism requires the kind of hubris that few people can manage with a straight face. And to hear Donahue calls her on it- the audience seems to recognize the dissonance.

I really like the Atlas Shrugged though, so there’s that.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Liked Anthem best. I think the most important Rand work is We The Living, the closest thing to autobiography she wrote.

I particularly like the ending, when her heroine dies on the Polish/Soviet border, shot for trying to escape, repeating in her mind over and over as she trudges out of oppression toward freedom. “It would be better to die than to live in Communism.”

Like most of her work, it is not a page turner nor an easy read, but it is a compelling look at what our own future will look like when martial law is imposed and all property redistributed.

I got a notice payment arrived. Perhaps I will post the recipe and instructions for the Poppy Seed Crescent Cookies. They are my husband’s favorite recipe from his Austrian-Hungarian mother.

I am not very good at Anonymous, am I.

Hardscrabble Farmer
Hardscrabble Farmer

No.

Enjoyed rabbit for lunch today, very good. Saving the treats to have with coffee while I snowplow tomorrow.

Many thanks.

Ghost

I put the recipe in the gender free cookie post. The rabbit was good? Tell Stucky that Big Sis did NOT die in vain.

Uncensorable
Uncensorable

“I am not very good at Anonymous, am I.”

What a very Magnonymous thing to say.

It’s crazy, but I’ve read Rand’s novels and non-fiction books and various other writings, once subscribed to her Objectivist newsletter, have quoted her, written about her, and have debated with others her philosophy while playing the advocate both for and against her… shall we say… weltanschauung; but that video above was the first time I’ve ever heard her voice. I notice she had an accent. There is no way she could have succeeded in today’s America. She sounds Russian.

Zarathustra

I dont see how you could have read so much of her writings and know so little about her. Rand was born Alisa Rosenbaum in Russia. She graduated from the University of St. Petersberg in 1924.

Uncensorable
Uncensorable

The Russian part was meant to be funny, like how everyone is so Russophobic these days.

Ghost

Unreputable…look at We the Living. She seems so foreign doesn’t she? Imagine returning to your home after vacation and discovering 3 families living there. Having to ask your clothing be thrown out the window. Ayn was educated by the hard knocks of Communist Reality. She knows what she is saying; English not so good.

Ghost

I like the new name.

Ponyexpress
Ponyexpress

I would think, that the more primitive and by definition, more ignorant a people are, the more racist they would be. How could it be otherwise?

Maggie
Maggie

I think, and I’m guessing, the comment was referring to Rand’s Objectivist idea that the grunts really do NOT matter. Only those who PRODUCE or have ambition to produce really should have a say so. I think he is referring to Rand’s cold-hearted view of the masses.

None Ya Biz
None Ya Biz

TJF,

I didn’t get this either. Rand explained the nature of working to further the aims of the current U.S. government. She did place an example where the military wanted a death ray and some stupid shit company complied.

Now mind you, I am not a fanatic for Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged is wordy beyond belief but she does drum the evils of socialist government consistently in her writings.

The problem I see with Rand is she thinks that there can be good government. Mind you good government is an oxymoron. All government is force. The initiation of force is evil on its face.

The recent actions of government is nakedly evil. Where state thugs openly murder people and are acquitted. I understand why the jury did it. They were afraid. The names and addresses of the jury are part of the public record and available to others in government, for example, the local costumed thugs called LEO.

The venue for this trial should have been moved to another location as far away as possible from where the incident occurred. The defendant should not have been identified as a government thug so as to not prejudice the jury. Note the judge ruled the thug scrum’s weapon as being inadmissible due to the fact it may prejudice the jury. That judge should be impeached. Now this thug scrum is free to murder someone else in another city/town since he knows he got away with murder before.

NOW THAT IS SAD!

Art
Art

re: Any Rand on Viet Nam war
https://www.quora.com/Was-Ayn-Rand-against-the-Vietnam-War

During the Q&A after a lecture she gave at the Ford Hall Forum in 1969, she said, in response to a question about Vietnam:

In my view, we should fight fascism and communism when they come to this country. As to fighting abroad, let us send all the military equipment that we can spare (without sacrifice) to any fight for freedom, whether it’s against fascism or communism (which are two variants of statism). But let us never sacrifice American lives for somebody else’s freedom.

If you want to help, watch our foreign policy and see to it that no administration, Republican or Democratic, ever puts the United States into this position again. Start a movement for George Washington’s principle of “no foreign entangements.” …

However, she was not in favor of American surrender. She continued:

If we hadn’t gone into Vietnam, it wouldn’t be our responsibility to protect either side. It’s their country; let them fight it out. But since we did go in, and asked for and received the cooperation of the local people, to then withdraw and abandon those people, when we have the power to fight, would be monstrous.

Later, in 1976, after another lecture at the same venue, she said:

I was against the war in Vietnam, but we are not guilty of any injustice except toward ourselves. We are guilty of colossal, stupid self-sacrifice.

Maggie
Maggie

Interesting contribution to the discussion.

bigfoot left town
bigfoot left town

Mark Twain’s War Prayer, 1904

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams-visions of a stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! – then home from the war, bronzed heros, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation – “God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!”

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever – merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory.

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there, waiting.

With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal,”Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside – which the startled minister did – and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said

“I come from the Throne – bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd and grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import – that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause)
“Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits.”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Yes, exactly. I believe Ayn Rand would say “to the victor goes the spoils” and the victor is most usually the one with the biggest tools. That be USA and we apparently think exporting WAR is much better than exporting quality merchandise or foodstuffs.

Each round is $40? Our military leaders are fucking MORONS. All of them. Especially all the ones I flew with and some of you know I once flew with one that stands just a couple of slots away from Trump in that photo. I certainly understand that “who” or what that military commander was twenty-something years ago has nothing to do with “who” or what they are NOW, but still… OMG!

I saw so many military retirees lose their souls when hired by the Boeings, Northrup Grummans, ARINCs, General Dynamics, et al. Former Commanders, especially, being accustomed to fawning obeisance from underlings, made the transition to civilian life POORLY, turning an office building into a barracks. I actually had a former FULL Bird Colonel manager who would enter the building saying “At ease.” He said it was a “joke” but I knew he really, really missed people jumping to their feet when he walked in. Most officers eat that shit up. He was one of those.

I call him Crawfish now. I hope he reads TBP and sees this. When I was an airman, I feared him and respected that rank. When I was an NCO, I worked with him on a project or two and steered clear of his nasty, lewd behavior. When I worked FOR him at Boeing? I filed charges against them all (NLRB violations and harassment) and won.

However, Boeing paid the fine because his value to them because of cronyism and the political pull he had with the military decision-makers. The value of military cronyism is short-lived and fleeting, though. He’s surely retired, a miserable Crawfish sitting at home wondering why his wife left him and no one calls. (I have some deep resentment against that bastard)

For what it is worth, I probably could not find a dozen people in the Management offices at Tinker AFB Depot who remember me from a decade ago. But, at one time, I could walk in and out of the Command Section at will. The difference between myself and the Crawfish?

He liked riding the Gravy Train and didn’t mind that the courseware we were hired to produce was obsolete, incorrect and error-ridden. He had lost all sense of obligation to do the right thing for the USAF. He was corrupt.

Maggie
Maggie

And I am retired. Getting ready to post my cookie recipe. Glad the bunny was tasty.

Mark
Mark

All That I Wanted … All That I Found

I wanted to experience life
instead I took it
I wanted to become a man
but became a guerrilla
I wanted to be brave
but became a berserker
I wanted to be strong
but turned cold and and hard and deadly
I wanted to follow my conscience and convictions
but lived by raw animal instincts
I wanted to help defeat my country’s enemies
but found my country could care less
I wanted to do what was patriotic and right
and almost drowned in the wrongs
I wanted to be a hero
but returned a casualty…with wounds no one could see

from the rose colored glasses
of a teenaged idealist
to the sunken glazed stare
of a shell shocked veteran
all that I wanted
and all that I found
are questions screamed in my mind
that never make a sound

1970

GilbertS
GilbertS

Great article.
I grok.

Jay
Jay

No one cares, not really. Muzzies have been killing each other for thousands of years. What difference does it make if Americans are doing it (this time) in one part of that 4th world hell hole. If they actually gave a shit about life, they’d stop the killing and learn how to build a society, but no, it’s more important to chop off your old ladies pussy lips, and rape your neighbours child, and chant allah Akbar at whatever they think is impressive, and bow the knee 25 fucking times a day, for all that shit. Why do you fuckers try and glorify them? They’re barely above animals, actually, they are below animals as you don’t see the goats they’re fucking killing each other over…dirt? Who the fuck knows. I don’t care, and I don’t want them here. You can’t mix the two. Doesn’t work. But go ahead, keep talking, maybe some libtard wannabee will be convinced that yes, we should love the goat fuckers and bring them over here and make them neighbours. Nothing can go wrong doing that. Maybe it’ll work out this time…

Zarathustra

I hope you don’t live in the United States because I don’t want you to be my countryman. You are really a truly evil and worthless person.

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