cover me

All I ask is that every single Joe gets his 800 word AP news wire write-up and his MSNBC headline when it's his time. That's all I ask. But no, even that's too much. FUCK YOU Joe I hear all over again. Die off screen motherfuckers. And keep your voice down when you do. Take if for the fucking team low wage chump-ass bitches, is what I hear. You don't know the efforts average Joes make to keep these bungling clungling buffoon prima donna motherfucker starlets outta harm's way. But why bother... who wants to know? The silence is nigh unbearable.

Oh no nonononono, you don't understaaaaaaaaand, they're there to cover the war. The people gotta right to know. Spare me the bullshit. I got enough of it on this side of the wire. Right to know? Know what? What is it that you think you know? Mushroom cloud on the horizon on the six o'clock shaky cam. What do you know? What do you know? Mangled to sheer shit car body and gaggle-a-dumbfucks dancing around it. What do you know? What? WHAT? Couple-a-Brads and some Hummers shootin' through an intersection. What's goin' on? WHAT? Major Sheisshnaz sayz we neutralized a dozen terrist motherfucking evildoers, detained fifty more and two Joes got bruised doin' all this splendid shit. What do you know now? What do you know? Colonel Pussyfurlips sayz we restored power and water in some unpronouncable goatdropping sandlot. Which means.... what? WHAT?

Lemme spell this out. You know jackshit. You know nothing. You think you know what's goin' on? WE don't know what-the-fuck is going on. You think these prima donna teevee starlets and their hairdos and all serious-looking mugs know whattheFUCK is going on? Nobody on Satan's burning ORB knows whattheFUCK is going on, and those little slivers of motion and movement and hysteria and madness piped through yur opium tube are just confusing the issue. This is entertainment... GET IT. ENTERTAINMENT. We're your Channel 22 alternative viewing choice between new episodes of Survivor and, heaven forFUCKINGbid, American Idolatry. You wanna know whattheFUCK is going on in the world, unplug yurself from that friggin' opium tube and start asking some questions for a change, instead of swallowing everything these fuckers keep shoving down our throats.

Think Bob Schieffer is gonna take some time outta his broadcast to wish me well when my shit gets fucked up? No. No, I didn't think so.

THANKS Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooob.














Truth be told... I don't even wanna be a fucking prop on your goddamned sham infotainment circus. Not gonna get my shit fucked up over here for your viewing DElight, sorry to report. Shove your lens where the sun don't shine and report on the massive turd of indifference passing through the collective bowels of Amurka. There's your story right there.

veteran voices

Over at T-Bone's War Journal you can get the varnished truth. Bright and shiny and spit-shined with grit and balls and muscle and honest sweat and upright sincerity. This is a message that's being pumped out at over, fuck if I know, five trillion milblogs and counting. Check the red, white and blue blogroll over at the Lifer Uberblog, Mudville Gazette. Honest, sincere, upright, flag waiving, true believers. Soon as you pull up the Gazette, you get this refried horseshit thrown at you:

"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Sure does set the tone. You know why I sleep 'peaceably' well through most of the day? I sleep peaceably because I polished off a fifth of anything forty-proof or better and scored myself a SUPER hottie and we threw ourselves at eachother and went at it till we collapsed from sheer exhaustion and then drifted off to sleep. THAT's why I sleep 'peaceably.' And anyone stepping up to the plate to offer hisself to 'defend' me from the so-called evildoer motherfuckers out there I'd say, kindly fuck off, I'll do my own defending, no matter how ineptly, thank you. One thing I learned but GOOD in the motherfucking Army is that apparently rough men will use any old flimflam reason to do fucking violence, and enjoy doing it too. And if doing violence happens to be 'defending' something, anything, well... how goddamned convenient is that? Sweet!

If you wanna read blogs with some of the varnish chipped off and the polish flaking off the toe and the rifle all banged-up and not-up-to-muster and holes in the uniform and the hair unregulation-ass long and a ready middle-finger right there quicker than you can say straighten-up-and-fly-right, there are a few 'other' blogs...

Colby Buzzell's blog My War is still up, but he pulled all his posts. He managed to score a book deal out of his military experience and my copy should be in the mail just about now and I really look forward to it. I wish more people would have the time and opportunity and mindset to tell command to fuck OFF and cough up their deepest fears and their innermost reservations online. It's like the guys in the middle of the fight are the ones left out of the goddamned debate on the thing and the shit is really pissing me off.

Then I found The Statistics: the heretic, J.D. Engelhardt, aka hEkLe, and Joe Public, three soldiers over at Fight To Survive the first time and was blown away by their guts and I finally said, well FUCK, THAT's blogging man. Their blog has been online for a while and there's a lot to read and I recommend going through all of it. POWERFUL stuff.

Brian over at One Veteran's Voice is finding his. Every single time Brian writes he bests himself, and he just started writing. It's goddamned good stuff. Read it. LEARN. GET the message.

Brian's 18 January entry is the rawest of truths on this bullshit:

War is scared kids taking pot shots at each other because some other guy says it's the right thing to do. War is collective insanity. It can be justified by logic, but it's still chaotic, collective insanity. Sometimes, once you start it, you can't stop it. Maybe you even start to like it-- the rush of temple throbbing, "holy shit that was close adrenaline" that is like a drug. There are most definitely sadists, thugs, and war junkies in the current military. Lowering recruiting standards doesn't help the situation. Most soldiers in Iraq, however, are decent people thrown into an insane situation. They generally react by acting insane. Morality goes out the window. It's law of the jungle time. It's up to America's citizens, not her soldiers, to interpret the morality of our actions in Iraq.

Awesome shit Brian. For real man. Write dude. Write. Get it all down. Get the word out. All of it. And fuck 'em if they can't take it.






Thomas Strickland. Thomas' journey ended some place in time understood as Monday, August 15, 2005. Near some unpronounceable shitdump on some goatfuck so-called mission.

A glimpse into Thomas' thoughts over at his blog, One Foot In The Grave.

The Worst Day of My Life

I remember having a hard time focusing, what seemed like hours of tasks and seconds to do them. Beneath me was the road, black topped, six foot embankments dropping on either side, a canal to the north reeded and muddy, and farmland stretching everywhere else. It was the Mulla Fayad expressway screaming "welcome to the cootch of civilization" its mouth split wide by a 250 lb aerial bomb and two propane tanks wired together as a carepackage from the insurgency[...]

..........

this is what happens to unacceptable tripe

This grossly offensive profanity-laden diatribe has been removed and shredded and then burned and then chemically incinerated and then shipped to a nuclear waste processing facility for once and forever disposal and banishment from humanity.

There.

Happy?

Fuckers.

do the right thing

Oh! Oh! Oh! Me! Me! Me!

(I feel like one of those little asshole suckups from way back in the day, stretching and craning and frantically arm-waiving and doing everything but leap on top of the desk to grab teacher's attention... pick me Teach, pick me! Me! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!)

Check THIS sweet shit out...

The Army's Buying PR

Word comes from RL that the Army has hired PR firm Hass MS&L of Detroit to offer "exclusive editorial content" to blogs willing to run government propaganda.

"The Army believes that military blogs are a valuable medium for reaching out," account executive Charlie Kondek has written to a number of pro-military blogs in a January 6 Email.

"To that end, the Army plans to offer you and selected bloggers exclusive editorial content on a few issues you’re likely to be interested in," Kondek says.

This sweet shit came courtesy of an attentive reader--thanks again Mark!-- wondering if this had percolated down to my end of the sticks, and I just couldn't resist. You know me, ANYTHING to help the war effort... America! FUCK YEAH! Coming again, to save the motherfuckin' day YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

YO! YO! YOOOOOOOOOO! PR DUDES!!!!!!!!! Check this shit out yo! Kickin' ass and takin' names over in the Raqistan. Over in Da Sandbox. Fuck yeah. Kickin' some serious turrist tail yo. Makin' the Raq safe for Mocracy. And pro wrestling! And Jiffy Lube! Defending Muncie, Indiana and Flagstaff, Arizona and Oahu, Hawaii and Kodiak, Alaska from evildoer motherfuckers and Burqa-lovers and unsavory dark-eyed 13th century folk with evil intent and shit-stained fingers. Disrupting turrism and bomb plots and stompin' down hard on all the evildoer mud with every step. Just yesterday I single-handedly built twelve mosques, handed out four-thousand pee-aich-DEEs to said number of Raqi FEEEEEmales, established fifteen new Raqi political parties, eventhough I've never voted once in my life and don't believe in that shit but FUCK IT cause I'm super HARDCORE and mission-oriented and glass-floweth-over CAN DO SIR! to teach the sand people Jeffersonian majority tyranny cause command said MOVE OUT! and what else.... oh yeah, taught a battalion of newly badged Raqi pigs, I mean, cops, how to line up head shots! That's how much boy scout shit I did just yesterday, just me and my left hand (hint hint), in one day! HOOOAH!!!!!!!

Look, PR Dudes.... this is how it is... American Short-Timer is THE obvious choice for all your Insider Poop dispersion. I have like TEN confirmed Left Coast Commie Pinko Naysayer type regular readers, and I ga-RAN-TEE if they start hearing about all our good deeds from the Short-Timer's salivating mouth, word WILL go out in the hash dens and mosh pits and street corners of lefty Murka... We are WINNING the hearts and minds and guts and bowels of the Raqi people, a billion dollars at a time. Twenty thousand dead Joes and ten trillion dollars and fifty years from now this place will be just like downtown Detroit. Free at last, free at last... HOOOAH!!!!!!



So dudes... do the right thing...




PICK ME!!!!!!!!!






PICK MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!






PICK MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!






stodgy prejudiced fucks...

trippin'

Just as assuredly as smoking rots the lungs, wallowing in this shit rots the brain. Simple as that. Heard about this? Guy is home on leave, all giddy-n-shit, partying it up and somehow decides popping off a couple-a-rounds is the way to go about it... and one of his celebratory rounds kills a mother of two. Popped off a weapon on the wrong side of the plane ride. Shoulda saved that shit for this side of the pond homes. Not many give a fuck or two how many rounds you go poppin' off on this side of the peanuts and inflight movie. Poor dumbass. Honestly.

Course, he's gonna suck it down hard. Is gonna have to. And the sweethearts who cooked up this whole thrill ride are gonna skate the skate. Ribbons and medals and awards and promotions and laughing it up at cocktail parties and all, all serious and shit and dumbshit Joe poppin' off a few rounds back home in the hood one night on leave long, loooong forgotten. And how'd Joe get so fucked up again? And what was his point anyway? He's gonna have the rest of his life to agonize over that one.

One bullet, one life. On the wrong side of the pond. Fodder for cops and detectives and prosecutors and judges and dailies and blather radio and the entire social event around it. A trial they call that shit. Weighing the whole thing. In scales. Months of yapping. And judging. Assigning guilt and blame. Contemplating it. Debating it. And the tragedy of it all and yap yap yap yap yap.

This side of the pond bullets splode heads with the regularity of the solar cycle, which is to say, a near daily basis. No fanfare, no commotion, not much by way of drama or discussion or debate. Just physics and causality. Debate that shit? War is hell. There. Debate concluded. Cool as fuck in'it? Think Joe can use the War Is Hell argument and skate on it on your side of the pond? Maybe Joe can use brain rot as a defense. War blackens the brain. Maybe Joe can claim he wasn't quite sure which side of the plane ride he got off, claim geographic and situational disorientation or something like that.

General Assucker will claim nine-hunded-ninety-nine thousand troops done go home with nary a scare and it's all good and this nasty shit falls squarely on Joe's shoulders. Is what generals say most days. Cause they're leaders and responsible and In Command and take responsibility at all hours of the day, cause they understand the principle of leadership so thoroughly and they never EVER fuck up, NEVER and if they do, wasn't their fault, shit's complicated they'll say. Cause that's the typa leaders we got. Awesome motherfuckers who'll bend over backwards for the troops. Check out all the medals those fuckers got. How can they NOT be awesome with all that glimmer. Fuckin' A. Fucker's are so awesome... I wanna run outside and find me some occifers to salute RIGHT NOW... Ask Pvt. England. She knows. Knows all about it.

Wonder how many more Joes gonna be trippin' down the road, outside the box, outta bounds, so to speak, over the next ten, twenty years. And when they do, not if, I said... WHEN they do, not gonna see me pointing any fingers. There but for a whim of the Great Sadist Deity go I... is what I learned.

Side scribbles:

Some great emails and words of encouragement from a lot of fantastic people. Finally had a chance to update the blogroll. Wanna welcome Julie Anna, Sarah, Brian and that old warhorse Sergeant Hardcore hisself, T-Bone to the blogroll. I had to consult with the short-timers on T-Bone's enrollment, I mean, voluntarily associating with lifers-n-shit strictly being a most egregious violation of the Code-n-whatnot, but the committee ruled in favor of the link for the sake of spreading short-timer's disease. Taking one for the team so to speak. So sarge, welcome on board man. You can chew my ass out across the vast stretches of cyberspace all you want. You wrote that you were a short-timer at one point... I figure, you didn't get the right help in time so the Machine sucked you up in the end. Being a Senior Widget Master-n-all... I feel your pain sarge, I really do. I'm here trying to make sure that shit doesn't happen to other short-timers. Give these guys a warm welcome. Check out their blogs in addition to the other fantastic stuff listed here. Good reads!

Just in:

Got an email from a reader goes by the name of Guts. He started his own blog, guts on parade recently with a real passion for it and writes with a fever. Some excellent shit and thoroughly enjoyable. His January 8 post is just fucking EXCELLENT. All this awesome stuff online created by fantastic people and there are still dullards out there who plunk down cash for fifty pages of Madison Avenue crap and Writers' Shop fluff. Unbelievable. You guys are all awesome! Keep at it!

Anyone else with a blog or a web page and an interest in exchanging links just drop a line and I'll get you linked as soon as I can get around to it.