Walking through the schoolhouse, I stopped by our administration office and glanced at the headline of the Navy Times out this week. There, printed on the front page, was a headline: War, Gore, and Porn.
Thinking that this might be something to get worked up over (and for lack of anything better to do,) I elected to plop a squat and read.
The gist of it is that there is a nameless website out there on your Internets that allows people with the requisite materials to submit photos of the dead in Iraq in exchange for free access to porn.
‘Well,’ I thought, ‘that’s just great. Fucking wonderful, of all the stupid shit we could do that about takes the cake.’
A year ago I was standing in a hanger in Norfolk, Virginia watching some brass hat babble on about this and that during a change of command ceremony. If you have ever had to stand (us non-members of the Knife and Fork School Graduates Club get to stand in the back) through one of these things I think you know what I am talking about. In fact, I imagine you sitting at your computer and reading these words with a faint smug grin.
For the uninitiated among you, changes of command are ceremonies in which we get all duded up and then stand there listening to the mucky-mucks slap one another on the back. There is usually some funny ha-ha joke that they tell and laugh at for effect. In the corporate world, one might be inclined to say that they kiss each other’s asses for upwards of ninety minutes.
So here we have exhibit A: Commander Helicopter Support Wing Atlantic standing on a podium, orating away in grand style. Maximum blah-blah-blah, minimum discernable point. He is about halfway through his little speech, when this comes out of his mouth:
"...and I want you to take a moment to remember our troops and sailors in Iraq right now, doing God’s work..."
At which point a very loud and incredulous WHAT rings out from the back of the assembled squids. There is a brief pause, people in the seated, official audience, turn around and look toward the source of the interruption. Someone coughs. The Commodore picks up where he left off despite having the applecart of momentum abruptly upset.
Actually, it was kicked the fuck over. I would like to confess that my foot did not hurt in the slightest for having executed said maneuver.
Meanranch, back at the while, I am flipping through the Navy Times, looking for the Porn and Gore article. At the bottom of the third page (as there has been since the war started) is a row of pictures of the recently deceased Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen.
Am I to understand that they were killed in the name of God? Perhaps for Boobies, instead?
I would say that it was probably for media and approval polls. After all, what is better for ratings than a good war?
The insurgents cut people’s heads off, slap propaganda at the bottom and call it a victory over the American Imperialists and the Great Satan of the West. The army of Iraqi liberation takes pictures of whatever it is it happens to run over, blasts some snappy commentary onto the bottom and is rewarded with some Recreational Training Material.
I am told by my betters that I am to accept the war as a part of the Global Struggle Against Things Which We Find Unacceptable to Discuss at the Dinner Table, and Finish Your Peas. I am told that we are doing the Work of The Lord, and for that I should rejoice and sing Hosannas in the highest.
None of us work for god. The insurgents don’t. Neither do we.
God, I think, is staying out of this one. This has progressed to the point where it is too fucked up, even for Him.
If that is the case, then I hope that someone is at least watching out for everyone over there: American, Britain, Italian, Japanese, and insurgent.
So sir, if there ever was a time for a miracle, now is it. You did loaves and fishes, water into wine, parting of the Red Sea, burning shrubbery, big booming voices from the sky, and a failed ban on bacon. Perhaps you might be able to turn M-16 and RPG-7, M249 and IED, into wiffle ball bats? Please?
Just a half dozen, maybe to prove a point? Tell you what: you’ve got no balls if you don’t.
If media monoculture is the new black, then Iraq is the new Vietnam. God help us all.