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February 24, 2006
Alaskan in Exile
by Neil Zawicki

    “Join the Army if you fail.”
                          —Bob Dylan

    Not too many people are interested in joining the military these days.

    Why would they be? There is a lot of bad juju out there. And it is a sad state of affairs when citizens of any nation are not comfortable with serving.

    I think the problem is not only that the vast majority of people who might otherwise consider service have decided that to serve means to get maimed, killed, widowed or mentally scrambled. That is a logical consideration for any morally intact American; but I believe the problem is that the military is not targeting the correct audience, and I’ll tell you why.

    If you “support our troops,” then you likely have not served. And if you’re proud that your teenage child would like to serve, then I’m not entirely certain that you understand the world your child is about to enter.

     I recently spent some time with a former Navy man and a civilian who had never served.

    “Thank you for your service,” said the man who had never served. The remark was met with puzzled silence from the Navy veteran. And when I mentioned that I had spent some time in the Army, he thanked me for my service as well.

    The Navy man and I were at a loss for words. Then, our civilian friend said, “I have never met a Marine that wasn’t of the highest moral character.”

    There was a long silence. Then the Navy veteran turned to me and said, “That wasn’t my experience at all.”

    “Me neither,” I replied. And then the Navy veteran told me that the reason he left the service was so that he wouldn’t have to wake up aboard ship next to a guy who had a “W” tattooed on each of his butt cheeks, so that, in the man’s own words, when he did a cartwheel, it would say “Wow, Mom.”

    I understood that story in a way I believe only a person who has done time in the military can. And I think the military recruiting command would be well advised to pander to that fractured and shaky element of our society.

    Really. It is not honest to suggest that people who choose to serve in the combat arms of the military are stable, well-adjusted members of society. That may have been the case during World War II, but the idea of decency in the combat arms went south sometime after the Tet Offensive in 1968.

    Perhaps the military is paying attention after all. The Army, in response to dramatic drops in recruiting goals over the past three years, has again lowered its enlistment requirements to include high school drop-outs, convicts – including drug offenders – and even people accused or guilty of “making terrorist threats.”

     Now we’re getting somewhere. Most historians will agree that the best soldiers are those who have nothing to lose. Consider the film, “The Dirty Dozen,” about a group of condemned criminals who are recruited and become an effective fighting force.

      I encourage this new approach by our military recruiting command, and have a few suggestions for them in regards to new slogans. I have included a few below:

    “Army: Where else can you get paid to learn how to put a bayonet through somebody’s neck in the dead of night?”

    Or…

     “Join the Navy and meet other people who like to masturbate while huffing paint thinner and listening to Marilyn Manson CDs.”

     Here’s another:

     “Air Force: A place where kids who never liked socializing can strap bombs to high-tech drone aircraft and then drink beer while laying naked in a bunk in Tule, Greenland with the latest issue of Maxim under their pillow.”

     And…

     Join the Coast Guard and have access to unsuspecting 19-year-old girls who have little-to-no knowledge of the world.”

     Of course, for the Reserves and National Guard, we’ll need slogans that take into consideration the laws of the civilian communities in which they will serve, but that information is just a couple of phone calls away.

   


   
   
   
   









Neil Zawicki, exiled Alaskan, is Editor at Large for Insurgent49, a former reporter for the Alaska Star, and winner of the Alaska Press Club's 'Best Columnist' award. He is now living out the rest of his days in an undisclosed location in Oregon. He can be contacted at -  neil@insurgent49.com
- Columnists -

Editor's Desk
by Aaron Selbig

Red Alert
by Soren Wuerth

Alaskan In Exile
by Neil Zawicki

The
Bramble Bush
by Kevin Morford





- also by this writer -
Copyright 2005 Insurgent Media. All Rights Reserved.
in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership.