“JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD”
by OPOVV, ©2016
(Dec. 19, 2016) — “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ‘Pulse of the Nation’s Prime Time Player’s Christmas Pageant.’ Hello, I’m your Roving Reporter and will be your MC this evening, so just sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
“To get you in the mood: our city’s philharmonic orchestra will play the theme from ‘Victory at Sea.’
“As you can see, it’s dark up on the stage: it’s 0300. That little floating contraption is called a ‘whaleboat’ and it came off a destroyer about an hour ago. Seems one of our flyboys took a SAM and almost made it to ‘feet wet,’ which explains the boys rowing upstream. They want to extract the pilot before dawn, before the population wakes up. And since you can hear a ‘copter from miles away, the ‘powers-that-be’ figured that little group in the whaleboat was worth the risk.
“What do you say we do a meet-and-greet? I’ll just walk on over to this-here boat; standing at the tiller: who might you be?”
“I’m Marvin, sir. I’m the NCO of this-here outing.”
“He’s our skipper.”
“And who might you be?”
“Name is Hicks, sir. I’m a deckape, er, I mean a boatswain’s mate. We all are, well, the skipper ain’t, I mean now he ain’t, but he used to be like us, that is until he got transferred out to missile division. How come you’re walking on water, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“No, I don’t mind. You see, you may not know this, but you’re in a play. You’re on a stage, not on water.”
“Don’t want to sound disrespectful or anything, sir, but if I put my hand down like this, see? It’s wet. Sorry, sir, but I just have to say this is water, sir; you’re walking on it and we’re floating on it.”
“Right. Marvin, what’s the plan?”
“Plan is to find the beeper: find the beeper and you find the body.”
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“No way of knowing. Best-case scenario is that he’ll be good enough to help us row back.”
“How long do you think it’ll take?”
“What, an audience is good for little over an hour, right? I’d say maybe a half-hour to find him and then hightail it back to the ship.”
“Hey, Skipper, we got ourselves a really strong signal over there.”
“Hey, Clark, could you maybe be a wee bit more specific; I mean, we’ve an audience to entertain, remember?”
“You want it real? Then how about sending some of these mosquitoes out among the audience; how about that? Give us a break. Port 15 degrees or, if you prefer, steer 230, alright?”
“Thanks. Okay, listen up. And Clark, I’ll tell you just one more time: Don’t even think about lighting up. Fair warning. No questions: just do it, or to be entirely accurate, don’t do it. Anytime you feel like getting out and walking is fine by me.”
“Aye, aye, Captain Bligh.”
“Not funny.”
“You boys ever do this before? I mean, search in the jungle for someone?”
“Only once, that was ‘bout six months ago: same scenario; night, up-river. Piece of cake, but we were lucky: he stole a boat and we found him in the middle of the river. In-and-out: like I said, piece of cake.”
“What if I were to tell you guys that people were burning the flag back home?”
“I’d say we’re fighting the wrong people.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“You guys all volunteered for the military, didn’t you?”
“You couldn’t have so much fun otherwise. They feed you and send you on wild adventures.”
“And make you have fun. And make you fight to have fun. Make you fight to the death for your right to have fun.”
“Enough.”
“One more?”
“Okay, last one.”
“Okay, the military exists so young men are afforded a really great time, a time nobody would ever have in any other possible circumstances, with the unique bonus of having some really great stories to tell.”
“Like this play?”
“For sure. Think about it: for instance, if this play had a bigger budget, it would most likely have a couple more scenes, maybe even one with the deck of the destroyer.”
“That would be neat: a life-sized destroyer on stage.”
“So why are we here? What’s the play all about, anyway?”
“It shows a slice of life in a day of our military, I guess.”
“Hey, excuse me: can I just stand up and walk on this water and leave this auditorium if I want to?”
“No, sorry. You have to finish picking up that pilot, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
“About burning our flag: just because you can doesn’t mean you should, right?”
“It’s all about COUNTRY. Nothing else matters, just as Trump says.”
“Who’s Trump?”
“The 45th president. He called for secure borders and his opponent wanted open borders; it’s that simple.”
“But every country has secure borders! How else would you keep track of anything?”
“Yes, of course: the dumbing-down of the American voter, striving towards the lowest common denominator possible, even down to the level of Keith Ellison if that’s possible.”
“So what you’re saying is that it’s all as nutty or even nuttier than we already have?”
“Think even more so; MUCH more so and try and practice Jesus’s teaching of the Golden Rule to see you through.”
“This is a nutty play, is that what you’re saying?”
“No: think that the audience is the nuts, at least the Hillary ‘Out-to-Lunchers.’
“And that’s our little play. We hope you enjoyed it. Careful driving home; be armed; and practice the Golden Rule: Goodnight.”
“Hold it! Wait a minute! Hicks here. Look, is everybody nuts but me? And Clark and these others? See what we’re doing? We’re SNEAKING across the border of a sovereign country, a sovereign Third-World-No-Account country where they travel by bicycle, burrow or ox-cart and EVEN THEY HAVE SECURE BORDERS!
“What I’m saying is that even backward countries have the common sense to realize that without borders there is no country, so why can’t half of our citizens figure it out?
“Hillary lost the election because she failed to put the safety of the citizens first, and there’s nothing more to it. I’m sorry I jumped back, or really it’s forward, in time, isn’t it? Listen: the voters didn’t give a hoot about Hillary’s ‘pay-for-play,’ emails, multiple servers, deceiving everyone in the Middle East: all the voters care about is the safety and well-being of their lives and their children’s future. And I’m sorry if I ruined the play for everyone but, face it, I may get killed in the next few minutes trying to save a downed pilot.
“And one last thing: if the Russians had a choice between Hillary or Trump they’d choose Hillary in a heartbeat, now wouldn’t they? Which kind-of debunks this Russian myth, wouldn’t a prudent person conclude? If you get your information from ‘Morning Joe’ and other brain dead so-called news shows, well, I feel sorry for you.”
“Ah, thanks for your two-cents’ worth, Hicks, I’m sure we all enjoyed it. And there’s our play. Thanks for watching: Goodnight.”