I always thought that when a soldier speaks, we should listen. American Citizen Soldier, Buck Sargent as he goes by, is a good one to mind. His newest post is a great must read:
Mind the Gap or the Tao of Modern War : A Buck Sargent Epic
Two of my favorite parts:
Until years have you spent ‘cross the world from your loved ones,
In triple-digit temps short on privacy and bank funds;
Unless mags do you load vice mugs before work,
Pressed with graver concerns than the Boss is a jerk;
Pay heed to the gulf between civvies and warriors,
American Citizens; Citizen Soldiers.
Forget not our spouses who’ve endured more than average,
They’ve suffered with dignity, expected to manage.
Sporting yellow-ribboned magnets so cruelly disparaged,
Alone through the pivotal years of their marriage.
....
Pensioned general mutineers, inordinate theocratic fears.
Pop cultured vultures for months descended,
Scavenged Abu Ghraib unended.
Recruiting depots placed under siege, KIA funeral-crashing sleaze.
Haditha jarheads, "hang ‘em high!" Murthacrats can’t wait to try.
Paper of Record free to choose, national secrets for Page One news.
Saddamized Deal Or No Deal trial, Iraqi justice: O.J. style,
From riches to rags to spider holes, to tailored threads/patent leather soles.
"Stop NSA!" "Close Gitmo Bay!"
Top antiwar accompli faits.
Patriot Acted kabuki dance,
Why can’t they just give war a chance?
On this the appeasers so desperately cling:
"Hostilities have never solved anything."
Except for:
British Crown colonialism... Soviet Block communism... Prusso-German aggression... Southern slaveholding secession... Holocaustic European tragedy... Rising Sun Bushido savagery... Generalissimo Italian fascism... Third Reich Nazi cataclysm...
Although horrid in deed, not the ugliest of things;
Fighting war on the cheap shot, waging politics by other means.
Very truthful and entertaining read. Though I don't at all have a talent for this sort of thing, I'm glad others do!
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