Stop, you're killing me

By Miles Greenteeth
Special to Howlin’ Leroy Eenk

I’m from a middle class neighborhood, and a friend of mine who has lived there his whole life is trying to join the Army.

He didn’t do well in school and got a girl pregnant. The girl ended up suffering from mental health problems, and he has been raising his son for the past four years, living with his father, who is an abusive prick, as far as I can tell.

I don’t agree with my friend on everything, especially politics, but I love him. He’s a good person and he loves his son. We’re from the same neighborhood, he’s like a brother, or a cousin. We went to the same schools, had a lot of the same teachers, and are more alike than we are different.

He was working overtime for years, six days a week as a construction worker, and he kind of lost it, got strung out on crack, traded his truck for dope, and disappeared for a couple weeks, sleeping under bridges, too ashamed to show his face to his family and friends, who were in tears worrying about him.

When he returned home his job was gone, and his parents were on his back, and the only future he could see for him, and his boy, was to join the Army.

Not a new idea, lots of young men and women who saw no other options have opted for military service. There happens to be a couple wars going on, though, and a third one possibly on its way. He understands this and says — repeatedly when he’s been drinking — that he would be “proud to die for his country” in Iraq.

I don’t want him to die, or get hurt, or hurt anybody else, and I don’t want his young son to be orphaned, but then again, I don’t know what it’s like for him: he’s in a corner.

I have parents who were nice to me and a college degree. In fact I have a few degrees — plus $30,000 in college loans. If I tried to join the Army they would stick me in public affairs or some other place safe.

For him, he’s going to Iraq, maybe Afghanistan, possibly Iran. And he just might get the chance to die in one of Bush’s wars.

I have another friend, we’ll call him Jay, and he joined the Army out of high school during the Clinton era, served three or four uneventful years and got out. He used the GI Bill to attend massage school, and now is a pacifist, vegetarian massage therapist. The Army isn’t always a bad thing for a young person, especially one from a middle-class family that can’t afford college. However, when Jay served, there was a Democrat in the White House. Jay was safe. “I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m glad I did it,” he said of his experience as an infantryman.

Back to my first friend. The recruiter told him the Army would love to have him, except he had the matter of an arrest warrant for misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

So my friend dutifully showed up for district court and served a day in jail. Since, he has been working to repay thousands of dollars in fines to the court. After that, the Army says they will take him.

The chances of him being killed are not as great as the chances of him killing somebody else, or getting wounded, possible maimed for life. The chance that he could be emotionally maimed from the experience is pretty good. None of his friends like the idea, and his older brother, who spent five years in the Navy, is adamant he not join.

But in the end, it’s his choice. The only thing I asked of him was to be able to see him before he ships out, to get drunk with everybody, and blare the rock music, and not talk about politics or Civil War revisionism (his fave). The thing is, my friend is freaking hilarious, unless he’s talking about the War of Northern Aggression. He’s good natured, trusting, and generous. I’d hate to see him go.

President Bush and his Republican supporters and Kerry’s Democratic rivals say they are offended by Kerry’s remark, which the gonadless war veteran tried to explain as a “botched” joke. Bonus, Republicans can also use Kerry’s comments against Democrats in the Nov. 7 midterm elections.

However, from where I’m standing, what Kerry said was the truth. All the things said by the right-wing about his comments, that it was offensive or shameful, I would say about the fact that young people in this country see no other alternative than to join pharaoh’s army. Kerry said it was a joke. It is.