Time to give props to my advertisers. One allows you to thank our man Tony Blair. I don’t care about his stance on any other issue; the way he has eloquently stood up for the war against terrorists in a much more hostile climate than the U.S. forever makes me grateful. Another advertiser, americanforum.net, is trying to foster debate between partisans. It needs more right-wingers to keep it from going the way of Democratic Underground, though. Finally, Life, Liberty, Etc. (home of the babe – though not as good as our babe – wearing the “Peace Through Superior Firepower” shirt) is back with a book about guns and freedom. Check them all out, or you are bad ronin.
Also, while on vacation, I got to see the first season of red vs. blue on DVD, and it was one of the funniest things I ever saw. It’s done with the Halo game engine and seems to be made by people with military experience (they have the newbie go on a snipe hunt identical to some mentioned in some of the Our Military stories). The second season, which I haven’t had a chance to see all of yet, is available on the web. Also, check out the PSA on this page about tattoos. Anyway, buy the DVD of the first season and then watch the second season and thank me later.
Archive of entries posted on 13th July 2004
That Was Quick
Rachel Lucas is back!
Hooray!
Our Military XXIII
Here are more military stories. I’d like to keep this going as long as I can, so, if you’d like to give your own explanation of why you joined the military or have a military story, please e-mail me with the subject “Military”. Thanks.
Chuck(le) writes his reason to join up:
So I was a freshman in college in 1970. Living at home.
One day my Father and i got into something of a discussion. Something about politics. At any rate, the tempers flared and he says, “I’m putting you through college.”
My reply was, “I’m not going to let you hold that one over my head for the rest of your life.” The next day I enlisted.
Got a bachelors and a masters out of the WWII version of the GI Bill as a result, and got out as a lieutenant colonel.
Bryan writes:
It’s as simple as this. I spent 18 years living under the freedom of this country, and decided it’s time to give something back. So I joined the Marine Corps so I could kill everything and anything that threatned our freedom.
And I enjoy that.
So here I sit, five years later, having fought in Operations Iraqi and Enduring freedom, in which many lives have been lost, and many more to get where we are today as a nation. And yet it still drives me crazy that there are people out there that don’t give a damn about freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Instead they’d rather protest with their hippy-liberal democratic buddies instead of supporting our President and his decisions and our men and women oversea’s fighting the fight…
That doesn’t matter, I will glady die in defense of our freedoms, just as the rest of our brothers and sisters will do the same.
SEMPER FIDELIS.
D’oh, I forgot to copy the name of who wrote this. Anyway, here’s another good story of joining up of which I’ll add the name later:
I know this is pretty much for people who have been or are already in the military but I guess this is close enough. I’m not a Marine…yet. For pretty much my entire life I wanted to be in the military. In high school I didn’t quite know what branch I wanted to go into, all I knew was that I was dead set against going into the Marines so I contacted recruiters from the Air Force, Army and Navy. The Army and Navy guys were pretty cool and their pitch was okay…the Air Force guy was an asshole, he acted like he didn’t want any recruits (and it wasn’t like I was a dumb ass, I was taking calculus in high school at the time).
I then dislocated my left knee in my martial arts class and again during a soccer practice. I started listening to a lot of people convince me to forget about the military and go to college and I used my knee injuries as an excuse not to join. I went to a Static-X show and some guy fell into the side of my left knee making it go like this “>.” I got it checked out by a doctor and he said I shouldn’t need surgery and by this time I was getting tired of college. I finally sat down and thought to myself, “What would I really be happy doing?” and a life in the military just trumped everything. It’s not like I don’t have a clue what I am going to be getting myself into, I have plenty of family and friends telling me about their experiences good or bad.
I went around looking at recruiters again but this time I only wanted to check out the Army and Marines because I wanted to fight in combat. I was on my way to see an Army recruiter and I thought to myself, “If I want to fight why not do it right and go check out the Marine Corps?” so I went to the nearest Marine recruiting station istead. I walked in and the recruiter that greeted me was, no lie, Ssgt. Buck. First thing that intered my head was, “Buck the Marine…this has got to be an omen.” So I enlisted and now I’m in the delayed entry program waiting to go off to boot camp and I’ve been working out my knee to get it stronger to help against knee injuries, as of now it never felt better.
UPDATE: The above was written by Joel.
Helpful Suggestion From a Concerned Citizen
Anarchists are going to try and disrupt the GOP convention by spending time at a shooting range to get gunpowder residue on them so they can falsely alert bomb sniffing dogs. Seems like a lot of work when shooting them at close range would also get gunpowder residue on them.
Just a thought.
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Saddam?
For two widely varying views on the Saddam trial, check out Derbyshire’s column on NRO with the “why the hell didn’t we just shoot him” view and Robert Scheer’s column for The Nation (what nation does that refer to?) all worried about us not giving proper rights to the po’ wittle murderous dictator.
When did the left lose all connection with humanity? And is there some sort of physical explanation like a virus that attacks the frontal lobe and affects normal thought processes? Or are they just dinguses? Something to explore in my documentary, I guess.
Ronin Thought of the Day
Today’s thought comes from Sensei Winston Churchill:
Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.
The fight for freedom will never end, so take pleasure in the battle.
Cherish Your Wars
Though some think the Iraq War wrong, I think Iraq war right just like Bush. I even came up with a bunch of reasons:
* Lots of Iraqis are dead – bad ones!
* It made for good T.V.
* Saddam was an evil man and now he’s dead – or at least he will be after due process of law.
* Since the war on Iraq, there have been no Iraqi attacks on American soil.
* Instead of having to travel all over the world to track down and shoot terrorists, they flocked to Iraq for us to shoot them in one place.
* “Iraq” and “attack” rhyme, so war just makes sense.
* Now the most potent Weapon of Mass Destruction currently in Iraq is the U.S. military.
* Since Iraq will now have its own democracy, maybe they will import some of our slimy weasels.
* By having so much anger in the Middle East directed at us, we’ve given the Jews a break.
* If it weren’t for the war, the election would be all about dumb crap like Medicare and gay marriage.
* Setting Iraq free from tyranny sets the course for the rest of the Middle East to evolve into modern democracies by 4012.
* The war made Michael Moore angry… hopefully bringing him closer to his inevitable heart attack (I just hope he doesn’t fall on any children).
* We pissed most of the world off, and, frankly, we hate most of the world and like pissing them off.
* If we waited to attack until we had France’s permission, we would have to hold off until most of Europe was invaded by Iraq– which could have taken months longer.
* With all the practice liberating Iraq, Iran, which is an only one letter difference, should be easy.
* Dude, we like so killed Uday and Qusay.
* Oil! Sweet, sweet oil! Muh ha ha ha!
* Lot’s of bad people are dead; what’s not to be happy about?