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Once upon a time there was a young man, patriotic enough to risk his life to preserve freedom. Call him GI Joe; a war toy.
He had a wife, a life and a strong desire to serve his country, so he joined the Army. Make no mistake, this man was not some weekend warrior, who joined for the benefits, only to be conscripted into active duty without any training in urban warfare. Still, he got no real training in urban combat. On the job training became his task-master.
He joined after it was obvious that fighting in Iraq was not going to be a cake-walk like Desert Shield. It matters little if Saddam Hussein had the third largest army in the world. No one will put their life on the line for a tyrant intent on personal gain. In those days, Iraq troops were more than happy to toss weapons into the sand. They perceived invaders as liberators. Anything is better than oppression and tyranny. Perhaps there is a lesson in this for other robber-barons in power. Then again, maybe not, because it is written that a "wise man can learn from a fool but a fool cannot learn from a wise man." It certainly follows that a fool cannot learn from another fool.
Indeed, some might call anyone that joins the army with real war looming on the horizon a fool but defending a value is not foolish, no matter how misguided the individual is when he or she takes the solemn oath to defend country and Constitution, in the name of freedom.
Think what you will. It is easy to form a quick opinion while sitting at a keyboard or in front of the TV, in a comfy arm-chair. It is easy to see a deeper truth after youthful ideals ripen into some semblance of wisdom. War can seem quite glorious to a young person, until blood gushes into their lap as they sit crying, while the best friend they will ever know expires. At that point, it no longer matters how you got into a situation, which will haunt you every night until you finally taste the sweetness of death. All that matters is your friends, your lover back home and values. Real values, like freedom are priceless. No spoiled brat profiteer who's daddy bought him the presidency knows anything about these values or real life. To individuals so insulated from the real world, friendship, values and even freedom are nothing but a game. To us, life is more than a bank balance that measures score in a game of attaining power over real people with real values bought with real tears.
When it was stylish, many in America drove their fine big gas-guzzlers around with cute little "support our troops" ribbons stuck to a bumper. Sticker-fads, like people, expire. The stylish war is over. Mark your bumpers with blood. Shove the Constitution so many fine Americans died for right up your gas tank. They all died for nothing. Right now, perhaps the best way to "support our troops" is by defending those freedoms they swore to uphold, before spilling tears into the pool of blood that was once their best friend. The time of partisan politics is over. If freedom dies, there will be nothing for any American to ever die for again. When freedom goes out of style so will dedicated troops and so will the Almighty Dollar.
Yes, when GI Joe marched away into hell, "Support Our Troops" adorned the bumpers of his young wife, and best friend, as they tearfully waved goodbye. I wonder if they spoke of him late at night, as the heat of illicit passion dripped from their naked bodies. He spoke of her every night but his words blew across the desert, with a thousand other soldier-dreams, lost in the heat of a moment. Whether it yields to passion or bullets, flesh is weak.
Again, it is easy to judge from an arm-chair but four years is a long lonely time. At least they had either the decency or lack of guts to refrain from nuking his soul with a "Dear John" letter. Who knows, maybe she did love him, after all. At least he had the comfort of thinking she still cared, as he mounted up each day on a fiber-glass Humvee.
One might think a $600 BILLION Defense budget buys our troops well-armored vehicles, considering that Iraq is laced with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and the assumption is finally correct. About three months before the last national election, our government began to see the importance of armoring Humvees, cruising the booby-trap laden roadways in Iraq. Up until then, it was not only explosive devices that were improvised but also armor on many Humvees. The good news is that their is plenty of scrap metal to scavenge and attach to fiber-glass doors. The bad news is that after Joe and his buddies rigged the shabby armor onto the vehicles, they tended to over-heat and break shocks. Oh well, war is hell. Maybe it will matter after the Christmas rush Corporate America so relishes starts to subside. For thousands of U.S. Marines, Christmas came early, thanks to Santa-Cher buying them helmut liners to protect their brains when IEDs exploded.
Yep, war is indeed hell; especially for Joe's buddie who manned a gun at the back of the Humvee. Actually, it became too much hell for him, as he began to say "hell no" when superiors ordered him into "harms way." Four tours of duty is a bit much in any war, "conflict" or "police action." In the Vietnam "Conflict" one tour of duty paid the piper. Generally, anyone gung-ho enough to serve longer did so on a volunteer basis.
What can they do with a soldier so fatigued that he no longer has the heart to kill? Leavenworth Federal Prison is certainly an option, unless some fool decides it is political suicide to start drafting fresh troops into combat. If an unbelievable measure of top-brass resigns, after realizing a lack of boots on the ground spells defeat, then the Roving mentality of money-mongering must make boots stay in place.
Benzoids are a bargain but beefing up the boys and girls on Xanex tends to slow the responses in combat. Still, proscribe the right meds and Johnny and Jannie will march right up the the Devil. "March" might be a bit strong, "stagger" fits better. War is hell, right?
I never met GI Joe before he bravely set out on his quest to preserve freedom. He claims he was a fine young Republican when he left. He's a Democrat now but not a puffed-up idealist that embraces higher ideals of the party. He just wants to vote for Democrats in the future. He seems to think they want to end the war. His buddies are still over there; bleeding, crying and dying. Maybe he can touch a Diebold screen with his one good arm in the next presidential race. Maybe it will matter. The good news is that his wife is once again in love and has big plans for all that disability he might receive. His government wants to know if he saw anyone die up close and personal. His friends want to know why he changed political parties. His soul only wants to know when the nightmares of his best friend bleeding to death in his arms will end.
So, after all this where is THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE IN IRAQ?
The way GI Joe tells it, he set up the ONLY Christmas Tree in Iraq, last year. Logically, what he claims cannot be true. Surely there was a Christmas Tree in the U.S. Embassy or some general's office in Baghdad. What is true is that his little tree was the only thing that resembled a Christmas Tree in the immediate vicinity. It really wasn't that much of a Christmas Tree, according to him. In fact, it wasn't even a species remotely related to the average Christmas Tree in America. Like a fiber-glass Humvee, he rigged a local plant to look a little like Christmas. It almost sounds silly on the surface. Can you imagine, a sparse Charlie Brown-style smidgen of shrubbery sitting all alone outside his barracks with a tin-foil star drooping from the top?
Then, he put a few presents around his tree to remind him of home. He even put a gift there for his dead buddie. In the dryness of Iraq, a tree fades fast but instead of someone stealing his presents, after the first night, there were more. Some gifts were to a lover some soldier would never see again. Some were to a friend that already flew home in a flag draped coffin. By the end of the second day there were quite a few presents. By the end of the week there were so many gifts that it became tricky to walk around the silly scrawny tree. By Christmas, he says they made trails through the gifts to get to the door. Most of the presents were still there after Christmas. Stupid presents to no one sat around a silly dried out tree in Iraq. Maybe for just one moment, to one soldier, war wasn't hell.
Maybe right now in Iraq, some other lonely lost soul is rigging another silly scrub with a tin-foil star. Maybe some other soldiers will wander out of the darkness with gifts addressed to nowhere. Maybe he will feel like it is the ONLY Christmas Tree in Iraq but I damn sure feel like it's time to make it THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE IN IRAQ.
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