“HOW DUMB ARE WE?”
by OPOVV, ©2016
(May 5, 2016) — “Listen up and pay attention. Doesn’t make any difference what war you’re in, what your job is or who you are; the one thing you don’t want to be is the last one killed. If you’re killed any time before, except the first one, the one you don’t want to be is the last.”
“So which is it, Sergeant Miller, the first or last you don’t want to be?”
“Look, you don’t have to worry about being the first because some poor slob already got that honor. All you have to do is not be the last.”
“But what difference would it make? I mean, if you were the last killed?”
“Because the last maybe didn’t have to be the last, that’s what.”
“Well, if that’s the case, maybe we should avoid being the second-to-last killed, too.”
“Or the third.”
“So, what are you saying, we’re all going to buy the farm?”
“Look, no one is going to buy any farm, not as long as you do what I tell you, or if I’m not around what Winston tells you.”
“So we’re on our own.”
“Winston is a corporal and you just follow orders, that’s all you got to know.”
“Does that include stupid orders, like these stupid Rules of Engagement? They can shoot at us and then run into a mosque and we can’t call in a bunker-buster; now that’s what I call stupid.”
“There’s ways around that, but, no, you basically can’t fire back.”
“Then what the heck are we doing here? These people have no concept of right or wrong, let along any ‘human rights’ issues. Do you think they’d listen to someone tell them they can’t beat their wives? Tell me if I’m wrong.”
“No, you’re not wrong. Look, we’re here because we were ordered to be here and that’s all there is to it.”
“I thought I’d be proud to wear the uniform, but last time I was home people looked at me like I was a dead man walking.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Hey, Sergeant Miller, how come you never get into trouble? We don’t follow the roads they tell us to use and we all carry these shotguns, as if we don’t have enough junk to lug around.”
“I’ll tell you. My dad was in Vietnam and he said there’s only three things you need, and in this order: water, a knife and plenty of ammo for whatever weapon you’re stuck with, plus a shotgun for good luck.”
“That’s four things, not three.”
“Look at the scatter gun as the icing on the cake, then.”
“So these shotguns and this band of shells are ‘icing’? None of the other platoons have to lug around this stuff. They carry MRE’s and candy bars and they’re allowed to carry their cell phones, too.”
“Look, the powers-that-be think that I’m supposed to lead you men into battle and die with honor, but I’m just not buying into the general’s hype. My job is to keep you guys alive, and if the cost is hearing you guys gripe about how hard you got it compared to some of the other squads, thems the breaks. That I can handle, believe me. What I can’t handle is some poor kid growing up without their father, understand? That, and explaining how one of my men didn’t listen to me and bought the farm.”
“You know, I’ve been hearing about this farm forever. Tell us about this farm; where’d it come from?”
“No doubt it’s a sailor’s expression. It’s like the farthest place you could possibly be from the water would be on a farm.”
“So sailors like farms?”
“Imagine yourself out on the ocean, miles and miles of nothing but water. No land in sight. No islands, no mountains, and the only green you ever see is some drifting seaweed. So a farm is the dream: you can plant something in the ground and it doesn’t just go off and float away.
“Also, after 20 years in the Roman Army you were given a farm as part of your pension, so the Roman soldiers always talked about what crops they would grow or animals they would raise. Good way to get upstanding citizens; I mean, they would get farms where they were last stationed, like in Spain or England, and not just in Italy.”
“I wouldn’t want any farm in this pigpen.”
“And they wouldn’t want you. They kill Christians, you know.”
“But that’s what I’ve been saying: why are we helping people who want to kill us? And as far as ‘helping’ goes, they’re all the same; I don’t give a hoot where they come from. Get enough of them and it’s boys and girls separated in our schools; then ‘Easter Holiday’ becomes ‘Spring Break.’”
“It’s already that way.”
“That’s my point, dummy. What I’m saying is that as soon as the Muslims become the majority in the USA, we’ll have Sharia Law whether we like it or not. They come over with multiple wives who have multiple kids. They’re out-birthing us, that’s what.”
“And we let it happen.”
“How dumb are we?”
“Good question.”