Well done.

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The Pickled Jester
www.pickledjester.com

I like it, but I don't like how you made the title of the piece using the USMC motto...then you messed with it. What branch are/were you in?

I like the spots of glue, do they represent blood?

no, it was unintentional, like a quick memorial, I didn't have time to find my glue gun, so I used a soldering iron to melt a hotglue stick, and it got a 'lil messy.

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Longun

that's kinda the whole point to make SOLDIERS THINK, I know exactly what the USMC motto means, I was Army, but still I get so sick of the stereotypical dumb grunts and jarheads, that don't consider their roles or orders in the greater scheme of things (yes we do come from a line of traditions that span from previous wars) like the Geneva Conventions and International Laws, the League of Nations, which became the UN, but then again I was studying Foreign Affairs/International Relations as a civilian hoping to work for the State Dept. There really weren't alotta follks who could step back from their politics, from their so-called traditions and really look at the situations we are in and rationalize them with perspective, they were just programmed and didn't have that kinda insightfulness to ask questions. Too afraid of being alienated by their peers, being called gay or whatever the consequence is of being too articulate or assertive in a situation where you don't really exist as a free-thinking individual. Otherwise the U.S. will always maintain this role as world police force, if it is a "global war on terror," why the fuck isn't it a global effort?

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Longun

besides, when you have a year or two of college, you take a few courses in political science, world history, meet some people from other corners of the globe, and you tend to view things differently. You get outta this sense of always believing in the myth of American exceptionalism, that we're always right, what about what the U.S. Calvary did to Native Americans, or the proxy wars in Central America, School of the Americas, Vietnam: MY LAI, Iraq: Abu Ghraib, Haditha. You get out of being blind-sighted by what people tell you to believe, and you come at things altogether with your own perspective. Maybe right now you're just into guns, you think that's a macho thing to do, or whatever, but when you meet the real world, you grow out of that kind of romanticism, when you've had 12 comrades killed, working with vets with PTSD & TBI, women who've been raped or sexually harassed in the military, or my own father getting his leg amputated at the VA in May for something they haven't dealt with since Vietnam. You get out of that bullshit videogames & Hollywood perception of war, you have a very real sense of it, and you see through alotta the indoctrination and bullshit deceptions. You don't swallow all the crap you're force fed, and you become very cynical when you've seen the situation of other vets who weren't heroically accepted when they returned to society, it's not all glory and honors. There's alotta vets who get treated as expendable, you ever go up to the VA hospital, or do you let your recruiter smooth talk you into believing alotta shit. I'm of a long line of veterans, serving in every war since the Civil War; but I was a break from that tradition because I saw foreign policy & intelligence as being skewed; there weren't enough linguists, cultural or regional experts on the ground in Iraq. I qualified for Intel on my ASFAB, I serious considered, until I found out linguists were studying Cold War-era languages in 2002 (when I went to Basic): Korean, Russian, and Vietnamese. Being half-Vietnamese, I wondered the relevance, when we were already well into Afghanistan and not studying a single dialect of Arabic. It pissed me off, since Vietnam was about the language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, if not outright offending people like we do in Iraq by bombing mosques and sacred buildings. Seeing the National Museum of Iraqi History get looted during the invasion said we cared alot about the Iraqi culture, it's a helluva way to win "hearts and minds."

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Longun

hi hi hi well it looks great!

It must be frustrating to come back to your home and everyone around continue their lives asthough everything is perfect asthough they are ignorant. Having a similar experience as your father must make him the one in whom you confide. How are you coping?