They promised me a war and now all I get is a global struggle.
Hey, with a lump in my throat, I signed up to fight the war on terror. That speaks to me. My patriotic fervor was in full flight. I was pumped.
Me and my buddies, we'll lay down our lives to kill terrorists and defend our country.
Such sacrifices made this country what it is.
That's the least we can do in memory of those airline passengers and all who died in the twin towers.
We ain't macho, nobody in their right mind is when face-to-face with death.
But war, well, it provides clear cut meaning to us. It's black and white.
Or at least it was.
Now, we get this wordy nuance-speak from the bowels of the Pentagon, relying on focus group feedback and the imaginations of jingle-writing advertising savants whose closest approximation to the smell and taste of war is a video game.
Why?
Because enlistments are down.
Piss on it, a global struggle against extremism sounds like the topic of a soiree at William F. Buckley's mansion.
No personal or Humvee armor, mercenaries strutting around getting 50 times our pay, exit dates denied and service periods extended, covering up for colonels and generals but feeding 'sadistic' enlistees to the sharks for public relations purposes and cutting the medical care and benefits of those maimed and killed.
And now this.
Is there anything this cabal is willing to stand for besides themselves?