Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 3

September 4, email to Mary Bertani, editor, El Paso Times

Well, Miss Mary, I don’t have it in me to attack you now. I have no heart for battle for a while. After you told me that the story you were hot for yesterday sent cold chills down your spine today, I got pissed and popped an infogrenade on my own brothers and sisters.

I called them and asked a few journalists questions to get them to admit to the Department of Defense guidelines on the difference between public affairs and propaganda, then I told them I was Public Affairs School trained and that I knew that they had crossed the line. I threatened them with the Congressional Investigation, and even prison for treason. I wanted to shake them up so bad that they’d tell the truth. They were shook, but they were Army trained, so they attacked back by threatening me in return. I lost my cool and threatened some black belt shit, then hung up rather than lose my cool worse.

Five minutes later I called them back and apologized. Colonel John asked me to just say it plain. We exchanged first names. We talked. I told him how it had felt to me, and he felt it too. I was crying, and I think he was. He listened, I listened. We knew. We know. So do you and so does everyone I talk to, they just don’t have the guts to admit that they’re chickens. Jesus, is this national cowardice by the media going to become a crisis, maybe even a Civil War? I feel like North vs. South when I talk to my own team, and it hurts worse than you can understand. It’s agony. I don’t know who the friendlies are anymore.

I pity my brother and sister officers. They did what they were supposed to do during the battle: control information so that U.S. forces weren’t compromised by real-time information. I think they did it rather well, because the public bought it. They did it so well that the president ordered them to do it a little longer, and a little longer…, and a little longer. They’re probably a lot like you, with one important difference: They have been taught loyalty to their commanders so that they can wage war; you have been taught to use independence of view to so that you can tell truth. I weep when I fight with my brothers, even with Crazy Colonel Dennington, for they are brave enough to feel tormented by what they have been ordered to do. I do not weep when I fight with you and your kindred. We have nothing in common except intellect, and yours is devious.

Yesterday Rumsfeld replaced the commander of his Special Forces Command in Florida. Does that mean anything to you? You don’t have a clue what kind of indicator it is, do you? If I say that we may have a new Praetorian, or that Special Forces – SF – could become an SS, does that mean anything? Of course it does. It means that the kind of fear that grips you and every living soul I reach is justified. You’re right to be afraid. I’ve been positively paranoid ever since April 8, the day I took a bucket out the University of Houston Honors College and started a one-man demonstration, teach-in and Family Support collection for the heroes of the Battle of Baghdad.

Did I just mention family support? Ha! Do you know that the 90^th Regional Support Command under Brigadier General Sholar is using “Family Support” people to target dissident Army wives. Oh yeah, you know, because I called you yesterday and demanded that you stand up for Candance Robison of MFSO, and you said you would. Now it turns out that you passed on it just like everything else that’s real. You’re scared to help a serving officer’s wife avoid death threats in Texas.

Mrs. Candance Robison has become a bit paranoid since an Army officer in Iraq told her husband that he would have family members kill her if she didn’t shut her mouth about the realities of Iraq. Well, the Lone Star State is pretty much mine by virtue of my movement, so I’ll put your story in with the rest of ‘em, and publish it soon, then I’ll let public outrage and federal prosecutors sort it out. I want you to know that I’m pushing hard for the idea of Nuremberg-style hearings because I think your whole profession assisted in the execution of the Informational Final Solution to the Death Problem………

………Get it, silence. I know you get it, because that’s what you’re going to do to help things keep rolling along, like an unnoticed train to Auschwitz. Folks are just cargo to you. You’re a quasi Nazi, just like the rest of ‘em, and I’m just sick as hell that you failed to come up to standard when everything from the Constitution to Candance Robison was at stake.

You’re immediately included on the Black List, as is that lousy one-star thug. I’ll take you off if you change your mind before Monday morning, but I think the same cowardice that made you turn your back on your duty will keep you running toward a Republican Reich. Remember, every day that passes you become more complicit, and I already know which side is going to win: the side where folks aren’t scared of sacrifice. (That means you have chosen the wrong side, doesn’t it?)

Captain May

You’ve inspired a cavalry tune. Enjoy the fame.

Mary Bertani’s Marching Song

So you got to see things in the light of the day.

Well, how does it feel to be Captain May?

Scary? Yeah, scary; I’ll tell you the truth:

it ain’t no damn trip to the fountain of youth!

Like Ponce de Leon I wander in vain,

with torments to suffer and nothing to gain.

How quickly you turned from my half-a-year trail!

You traveled a day, and then you turned pale.

Why, because darlin’, you couldn’t keep up;

you sold out for safety, and passed on the cup.

Well, then sell out, give none, and take twice:

Safety for self – and the poor pay the price.

All right then, Cavalry, fuck ‘em, let’s go!

I’m with you for life, then in Hell down below!

Saddle up, quit bitching, I’ve had it today!

Get the fuck into ranks! It’s me, now obey!

Come, come sad souls, you shall be released

when the Army comes home and the shooting has ceased.

Then they will love you as though you were fresh,

fresh heroes dripping with blood from fresh flesh!

Then they will see you a time as have I,

With their hearts in their throats and a tear in each eye!

Come on now, boys, we’ll stay in the loop,

so one day they will sing of heroic Ghost Troop!

Captain Eric May, Commander

Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 3