Military And Me
My best friend Alexander, who introduced me to the sweet lies of Dungeons & Dragons and also would wear a yellow T-shirt with a picture of a kitten dressed as a ladybug during high school, has just graduated from boot camp and is now in training to become an Airborne Ranger. If, by chance, you’re the guy in the black jeep who drove past us in downtown Salem on December 17th, 2005 and shouted “FAGGOTS”, consider this fair warning: one of those faggots can jump out of a plane and kick your ass now, and the other one has a semi-successful blog.
Shortly after finishing boot camp, Alexander called me – the first time I’d spoken to him in months. He’s changed a fair amount from the guy who invented chainsaw-fu, shouted the names of fine French cheeses in the stairwells to disrupt class, and once came to school dressed as Chewbacca because, in his own words, “It’s Thursday.” Granted, he’s still irreverent as hell, but he does so with a certain maturity and independence that I could only hope to one day pretend to have. Alexander – who, despite being arguably one of the smartest people I know, got a C- in Wellness II for simple lack of effort – is confronting his mortality, serving his country and also learning to do stuff that is, without a doubt, straight up awesome. He asked me what I’d been up to and I honestly couldn’t say anything out of pure shame. I’m bad at Spanish and am chronically unable to get a date; Alexander, on the other hand, gets up every morning at 4:30 and flosses with a squirrel before going off to blow stuff up and crack walnuts between his butt cheeks (his words, not mine). Compared to the average military person, I look like a weenie. Incidentally, I also look like a weenie when compared to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and several different species of plankton.
Periodically, friends of mine in the military or friendly looking military recruiters have approached me with the prospect of joining the service. I understand that the military needs every pair of helping, and preferably gun-holding hands that it can find, but there are literally no words to describe how quickly my own squadmates would frag me if I were to enlist. I’m claustro, arachno, and germophobic, plagued by vertigo and lactose intolerance, and have the mysterious habit of apparently shouting the names of deceased household pets in my sleep, something that’s pissed off other members of the marching band and debate team when we’ve shared hotel rooms and something that I’m sure would piss off the 40 other tough, armed men in my barracks. I’m not “Army Strong” and I feel like my chances of being all that I can be shrink the further I get from a well maintained and climate controlled bathroom.
My lack of aptitude for military service is sort of embarrassing in the face of other people I know. F
irst and foremost there’s Alexander, who I’ll never be able to complain to again because in the course of his Ranger training he’ll age five years in three months. Then there’s my friend Emily’s father, himself a former Ranger and Vietnam veteran, a kind, intelligent, and softspoken man who can, with a single look, frighten a boy vying for his daughter’s attention so thoroughly that the suitor’s vital organs will actually draw closer together inside his body for moral support. Last but not least, there’s my ex-girlfriend Sasha, who you can see on the left here. She's in ROTC, and I'll let the picture say the rest.
My respect for the military grows every time I watch any of their recruitment commercials, because even the stuff they glorify to try to get people to join up doesn’t look appealing to me. Driving around in a gunboat in the middle of the night? That would be mad cold, not to mention the fact that I’m really bad with boats. Ranks of impeccably dressed men flipping rifles? It’s no secret that my hand-eye coordination is a joke; I’d probably just wind up clobbering somebody over the head. A guy climbing a mountain in the middle of the desert without any equipment? You know, maybe the men and women of the Marine Corps are up for that, but I’d probably die of heat exhaustion before even finding the damn mountain, much less climbing it. When I see the pictures of carbombs and dead people in Iraq, my respect continues to grow, because it takes a sort of courage I can’t even imagine to join up when there’s a hundred images like that for every 30 second clip of a square jawed action hero climbing a mountain.
Alexander and I agree that he was born about 688 years too late and would’ve been much better off during the Dark Ages, or really any other time where senseless violence involving battleaxes was socially acceptable if not encouraged. Because of that, I’m glad he’s in the military and I’m glad that he’s going to spend a good chunk of the next few years jetting from one hellhole to another, killing terrorists. I say this for two reasons: 1) The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist (and this is a fact – despite my liberal leanings I don’t have much empathy for people who kill in the name of God), and 2) Alexander once wanted to go into the crawlspace beneath our old house for no other reason than that it was hot, musty, and probably full of horrible vermin. If he’s willing to take that on, I think he’s got about the right mindset for what he’s doing now.
Truman Capps is well aware that women dig a man in uniform - this is why he wears his marching band uniform to singles bars.
Shortly after finishing boot camp, Alexander called me – the first time I’d spoken to him in months. He’s changed a fair amount from the guy who invented chainsaw-fu, shouted the names of fine French cheeses in the stairwells to disrupt class, and once came to school dressed as Chewbacca because, in his own words, “It’s Thursday.” Granted, he’s still irreverent as hell, but he does so with a certain maturity and independence that I could only hope to one day pretend to have. Alexander – who, despite being arguably one of the smartest people I know, got a C- in Wellness II for simple lack of effort – is confronting his mortality, serving his country and also learning to do stuff that is, without a doubt, straight up awesome. He asked me what I’d been up to and I honestly couldn’t say anything out of pure shame. I’m bad at Spanish and am chronically unable to get a date; Alexander, on the other hand, gets up every morning at 4:30 and flosses with a squirrel before going off to blow stuff up and crack walnuts between his butt cheeks (his words, not mine). Compared to the average military person, I look like a weenie. Incidentally, I also look like a weenie when compared to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and several different species of plankton.
Periodically, friends of mine in the military or friendly looking military recruiters have approached me with the prospect of joining the service. I understand that the military needs every pair of helping, and preferably gun-holding hands that it can find, but there are literally no words to describe how quickly my own squadmates would frag me if I were to enlist. I’m claustro, arachno, and germophobic, plagued by vertigo and lactose intolerance, and have the mysterious habit of apparently shouting the names of deceased household pets in my sleep, something that’s pissed off other members of the marching band and debate team when we’ve shared hotel rooms and something that I’m sure would piss off the 40 other tough, armed men in my barracks. I’m not “Army Strong” and I feel like my chances of being all that I can be shrink the further I get from a well maintained and climate controlled bathroom.
My lack of aptitude for military service is sort of embarrassing in the face of other people I know. F
irst and foremost there’s Alexander, who I’ll never be able to complain to again because in the course of his Ranger training he’ll age five years in three months. Then there’s my friend Emily’s father, himself a former Ranger and Vietnam veteran, a kind, intelligent, and softspoken man who can, with a single look, frighten a boy vying for his daughter’s attention so thoroughly that the suitor’s vital organs will actually draw closer together inside his body for moral support. Last but not least, there’s my ex-girlfriend Sasha, who you can see on the left here. She's in ROTC, and I'll let the picture say the rest. My respect for the military grows every time I watch any of their recruitment commercials, because even the stuff they glorify to try to get people to join up doesn’t look appealing to me. Driving around in a gunboat in the middle of the night? That would be mad cold, not to mention the fact that I’m really bad with boats. Ranks of impeccably dressed men flipping rifles? It’s no secret that my hand-eye coordination is a joke; I’d probably just wind up clobbering somebody over the head. A guy climbing a mountain in the middle of the desert without any equipment? You know, maybe the men and women of the Marine Corps are up for that, but I’d probably die of heat exhaustion before even finding the damn mountain, much less climbing it. When I see the pictures of carbombs and dead people in Iraq, my respect continues to grow, because it takes a sort of courage I can’t even imagine to join up when there’s a hundred images like that for every 30 second clip of a square jawed action hero climbing a mountain.
Alexander and I agree that he was born about 688 years too late and would’ve been much better off during the Dark Ages, or really any other time where senseless violence involving battleaxes was socially acceptable if not encouraged. Because of that, I’m glad he’s in the military and I’m glad that he’s going to spend a good chunk of the next few years jetting from one hellhole to another, killing terrorists. I say this for two reasons: 1) The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist (and this is a fact – despite my liberal leanings I don’t have much empathy for people who kill in the name of God), and 2) Alexander once wanted to go into the crawlspace beneath our old house for no other reason than that it was hot, musty, and probably full of horrible vermin. If he’s willing to take that on, I think he’s got about the right mindset for what he’s doing now.
Truman Capps is well aware that women dig a man in uniform - this is why he wears his marching band uniform to singles bars.