Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 4
December 7 (Pearl Harbor Day), Email to Chase
Untermeyer
Hey Chaplain Untermeyer, it being Sunday again, and it being sixty-two
years since Pearl
Harbor, (a Sunday, just like this one) I thought of you and the Navy. Sad day.
I woke up at 05:30 (Master
Yu has created the habit) to do a bit of tae kwon do in my dojang. It was freezing for the first time this year,
and the chill always helps me to work hard (i.e., if I don’t work hard, I
freeze). Just after sunrise I stopped
training to go out front for the Crummy Chronicle, then came inside the house
to bask in the warmth as I sat in front of the heater and read the news, a cup
of coffee in front of me.
The trance wasn’t to last
long, though. Before long, I had come to
yet-another bilious Tommy Freedman column on Iraq,
another slavish endeavor to sell this Iraq shit as if it were shoe-shine
polish. This time his propagandizing was
especially galling, because he was trying to set up the rationale for a more
extensive American mobilization. Yep, he
was sounding-off the Bushling clap-trap about this
global war being analogous to the Civil War (i.e., our bloodiest war). I’ve
heard the same quasi-Nazi arguments from folks who insinuate that Lincoln’s suspension of
Constitutional liberties (and even habeas
corpus) were a testament to his greatness. [Editor’s emphasis, in all cases] It’s a bit troubling to hear all this coming
from adherents of a man of limited ability (the prez)
with an unlimited ability to shape
national policy, and through it, world events.
This whole war must be the most fun college prank of his life.
Freedman must have been stoned when he wrote in black and white that
the only reason that mattered for going to Iraq was that we freed the
people! Gone are the WMD arguments, gone
are the Al-Qaeda allusions. We’ve done
it all to help our little brown brothers in Iraq. Damn, I feel swell to know that’s why we did
it, and I wish Freedman could walk down an Iraqi street alone at high noon and
bask in the good feeling we’ve created over there among those people. What’s
that word, Chaplain, chutzpah?
Know what, Chaplain
Chase? I was the only professional
military man on this side of the Mississippi
who wasn’t hedging about his doubts for this war. I was sounding the alarm as loud as I
could: “Iraq is quicksand,”
and everyone thought I was being ridiculous.
I’ll never be able to repress a sad smile when I think of David Langworthy laughing as he said he’d run my April Fools op-ed as a late joke,
because I’d be proved wrong in a few days.
Hubris!
Hubris and chutzpah, I
think those two words say it all.
Hell, chaplain, the very idea of taking
the region is crazy! No European power
has managed to possess the Middle East since
the birth of Islam, though many have tried.
I’ll go you one better: I don’t
remember any outsiders since the Indo-Aryan invaders outright conquering
it. Alexander the Great fought his way
from one side of the region to the other, but died early in Afghanistan, and
his empire died with him. The Roman
emperor Valerianus led some legions there (against
the Selucids) and wound up devastated by disease and
deprivation. His army was beaten and he
was captured, tortured, and killed. Mean
turf, Chase, and always has been.
Do you remember back
around April Fools Day, 2002, when I met you for lunch over at Droubi’s? I was
dressed in Luchesi boots, a suit and a clean cowboy
hat (to your surprise), and I explained to you that I was appearing in such
style to commemorate the twenty-fifth year since my enlistment (at seventeen)
in 1977. You’ll certainly remember my
trying to get you to pull some strings to get my brawling record forgiven a bit
so that I could enlist in the Reserves, seeing how a big war looked like it was
on the way. I’ve got to say it: I’m glad you didn’t get me waived through
requirements, Herr Untermeyer. I’m doing a lot more good for my country here
than I would be in Iraq,
and I’m a hell of a lot more comfortable here than there. I’m sure every one of them would rather he
waged his war as I do, close to friends and family. Yep, I got the best job in the war, that’s
for sure.
Well, you can’t say I
didn’t try to volunteer for the worst job.
I was confabulating through Sergeant First Class Faw
(an old Reserve recruiter buddy) about joining a Special Forces unit up in Dallas when I made my
appeal to you. If they aren’t in Iraq or Afghanistan yet, they soon will be,
and if I were with them I wouldn’t be analyzing any problems except how the
hell to get my heavy weapons up the next mountain or whether my area of
operation had been infiltrated during the night. Times are getting tough again, ain’t they? Well,
it’s Sunday, so you go ahead and do your job by praying for better days ahead –
that’s the only hope I think we’ve got.
Captain May
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