could soon be whizzing over to the big sandbox to “get some,” whether you agree with the policy that put your poor ass in harm’s way or not.
G
reetings! Anybody my age or older will get the joke there. It was how the U.S. Armed Forces let you know you had been chosen, based on your birth date, to drop everything and go downtown, unless you were some sort of unpatriotic weirdo who would do something like Mr. T. Nugent of Michigan: “…I ceased cleansing my body. No more brushing my teeth, no more washing my hair, no baths, no soap, no water. 30 days of debris build. I stopped shavin’ and I was 18, had a little scraggly beard, really looked like a hippie. I had long hair, and it started gettin’ kinky, matted up. Then two weeks before, I stopped eating any food with nutritional value. I just had chips, Pepsi, beer—stuff I never touched—buttered poop, little jars of Polish sausages, and I’d drink the syrup. I was this side of death. Then a week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. Poop, piss, the whole shot. My pants got crusted up!” [Nugent later claimed to have fabricated this story. –NN]
unarmed he could find. All while making hundreds of times what a grunt in a foxhole getting shot at made.
You went down, took your physical, and happily served your country by going halfway around the world to kill people who had done nothing to you or to our country other than watch, for instance, as our own Navy warships—under command of George Stephen Morrison, father of Jim. Yes, that Jim—manufactured an international incident in order to be able to go to war with North Viet Nam for the military industrial complex. While you did this, guys like Mr. T. Nugent of Michigan went around the country playing guitar while wearing loincloths, shot flaming arrows at a skull on top of their amps, hosted phony guitar battles against Mike Pinera—who was easily miles better and a much more interesting guitarist than Mr. T. Nugent of Michigan; Hell, he wrote and sang “ Ride Captain Ride”—and indulged in sex with a bevy of underage girls when not shooting anything inhuman and
I’m not sure how many kids out there realize that, while the Draft does not exist at this time, the Selective Service does, and if you are over the age of 18, you have likely already registered. In a time of national emergency, like, say, oh, an invasion of Iran, it could be reinstated and your ass
It was called the Draft, and it scared the piss out of us who were turning 18 at the end of the Viet Nam War. Officially called the “Selective Training and Service Act,” it began in, oddly enough, 1940, and lasted through WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam, until 1973. It began with a necessary war, then one called a “police action” (?), then one to stop “Communism” and the “Domino Theory,” which meant if we lost, the world was screwed and doomed to life under the yoke of “Communism.” We did indeed lose, btw, and it has not affected the U.S. one iota other than having to act like we won when we hadn’t. The only way out of the Draft was to be deferred, either through a college deferment, failing to meet the physical requirements due to a health issue, or as a conscientious objector.
I am not anti-military, or even antiwar. Our country needs to be defended, and we are fortunate to have enough patriotic young men and women willing to volunteer to fight. I respect anyone who has the bravery to put themself in a shitstorm so most of us don’t have to. Given a reason such as an invasion of North America by an army from, Hell, anywhere, I would even agree with the reinstatement of the Draft. But we also have a seemingly endless supply of cynical politicians, billionaires wanting to be trillionaires, chairborne commandos like Limbaugh, and just plain ornery psychopathic gun nuts filled with Neanderthal hatred of anything that is different or that they can’t understand. This includes four fifths of their countrymen, all other races or religions, all wildlife, and most words with multiple vowels or more than two syllables. You know, assholes who just like trouble and enjoy watching people get killed like it’s a football game, as long as someone else is on the field. You know, guys like Mr. T. Nugent of Michigan. I think defending our borders is of the utmost importance and I, myself, were any foreign force to invade the U.S., would happily—well, OK, not happily—pick up a gun and fight beside my countrymen, no uniform necessary. Hell, I’d even buy my own ammo! Wetre my son to want to enlist to defend our borders, I would be proud and scared shitless for him, and I would respect that decision, if it’s still his to make. Because the Draft can be reinstated with a flick of the pen… And, as we’ve seen lately,
some real assholes want to run this country and invade Iran. Would I have gone to fight in Iraq for the lies told by the criminals in power lying to us? No fucking way. Would I let my son be sent to fight for the folly of a demented father and son and their perverse, lying cronies, war billionaires all? No fucking way! I’d knock him out and drive his ass to Canada before that would happen. I’d shoot him in the foot. But first, I am making sure he knows exactly why he shouldn’t fight for men like that. I show him what fighting three wars for men like that has done to our once great nation— the turmoil it caused in the ‘60s and early ‘70s; the collateral damage to our country’s moral compass; the disrespect and lack of support and medical care for our returning veterans—and how believing everything you’re told only makes more things untrue, only spreads the evil and rot like cancer. I show him how it has played a large part in creating one of the most uneducated, willingly ignorant, greedy, and corrupt cultures built on fear, greed, and hate the earth has ever seen. And yet, even I would give my life to defend it if invaded by a foreign army. But they will not take my son to fight for lies. No fucking way. From my cold dead hands, motherfuckers! In part two, I plan to dig a little deeper into the subject of a war with Iran, our culture of war, and those who only respect men in uniforms with guns, be it military or police… and the men in suits making trillions from it. See ya next time, CC
.
ISSUE 18 NEW NOISE
7