I am not the sort of person who puts my private life up on display, but I feel that tonight I must make an exception to make an important point. So please, my fellow Kossacks, do not be offended at my pathetic attempt at kiss-and-tell, because it really isn't about that. Again, it is to prove a point.
Tonight, our good buddy Rick Santorum, whom comedian Lewis Black once described as needing shock therapy for his own good, once again appeared with the other "candidates" that the GOP is offering its increasingly irrational, violent, angry base. It's actually quite impressive that this man can actually manage to top himself after all of his previous statements bordering on honest-to-God lunacy. Did you see that screwed-up explanation he gave recently of trying to use "food insurance" as an analogy for health insurance? Wow, that was awe-inspiring in its convoluted brain-contorting logic (and using that word in reference to him makes me throw up into my mouth a little). It's even more impressive, astonishing even, that anyone still takes him seriously as a politician at all, much less as a candidate for the highest office in the land. And yet there he is, on our TV screens, blathering on and on about ... say what?!?!?
Ok, Rick Santorum, I get it. You are mad about what Dan Savage did to your name. Well, sorry man, but you were warned, and you ignored the warnings, so you got what was coming to you. Now every home-schooled little precious snowflake miracle has his or her eyes pop out every time they look you up on the intertubes. I sure hope that there are not a lot of people that share that last name of yours out there, because if there are, I am surprised they don't take it out on you. Guess there won't be any Santorum family reunions anytime soon, and if there are, there better not be any frothy beverages or desserts anywhere in sight unless you want even more comical wrath brought down upon you.
Still, are you really so pissed off about all that, and about the repeal of DADT, that you are going to actually try to make the entire U.S. military celibate? Dude, do you really want several million service members to come down on you like that? Do you have the slightest idea of the size of the can of trouble you are opening?
Allow me to illuminate you.
The Army is where I first learned to really let my freak flag fly. I am SO not kidding, man. I mean, sure I had some experience in high school, but that was mostly low key sweaty groping stuff, with the exception of one young woman who had some sort of serious oral obsession. But aside form that, I was still a virgin, at least according to Bill Clinton, and I do hear he is an expert in these matters. Anyway, shortly before my 20th birthday I met this cute bubbly little brunette on post at Fort Campbell. She was in a service battalion, one of the few types of units at Fort Campbell that had a lot of female soldiers. For reasons I cannot explain she really liked me, and after a short friendship loaded with sexual tension one day we just attacked each other. The next thing you know we were regularly going at it in her room in the barracks. Seriously. Sometimes all night, sometimes several times a day. It was amazing. I had lost my virginity in a female Army barracks. Not something I would have predicted or even been able to imagine before it happened. And I was certainly the envy of most of my platoon, who would literally watch me leave from the barracks windows and then when I returned, make some sort of announcement or something, because the closer I got to the barracks the more heads popped out of windows to ogle me and deliver a colorful running commentary as only soldiers can. Good times, good times.
But a bit of warning, fellow Kossacks: as many of my fellow service members know, these joyful times do sometimes come with a hefty price. And those are also often of a type that frequently are unexpected. In my case, it meant that one night while visiting my girlfriend in her barracks, she went down the hall to the bathroom to brush her teeth and left the door cracked open. And not even thirty seconds later, here comes the CQ down the hallway. And the CQ that particular evening was a particularly large, fairly angry, exceptionally grumpy female E7 who had apparently eaten a large bowl of pissed-in Corn Flakes that morning and was ready to take it out on the first convenient target that came her way. So she knocks on the door, asking if anyone is there. I freeze like a deer in headlights. Oh, God, I am so screwed. I am going to get an article 15 for sure if she catches me in here. So I did my best to sneak out of my girlfriend's bunk to hide where I wouldn't be seen, and of course that was precisely the moment when said large E7 came storming through the door. In the space of two seconds she is in the room, shining her big issue flashlight on me, this stocky little grunt with nothing on but a pair of boxers, as wide-eyed as if I had just seen a bunch of aliens land their UFO right in front of me. Fuck me I am going to the stockade I will be lucky if she doesn't stomp my testicles flat FUCK ME. I had to think fast. So I pulled out my wallet, showed her my old college ID, and explained i was just a dumb college student. It seemed to work, because she did not call the MPs. But she did make me sleep somewhere else instead of going back to my girlfriend's room. I had to sleep on a stupid lumpy couch that night. Under guard. Dammit. Still, better than getting busted. And luckily my girlfriend did not get in trouble either.
On another occasion, I came back to my barracks late one All Hallow's Eve after a night out, to discover that a guy in my barracks had gotten roaring drunk, proceeded to "kidnap" someone's Jack O' Lantern, and then... well, let's just say that a large amount of brain bleach was required that evening, and those of us present will never be able to look at a smiling carved pumpkin the same way again.
Generally speaking my stories here are pretty tame, Mr. Santorum. Believe me, there are many tales out there that put mine to shame. Did you know that the whole swinger phenomenon supposedly started with a bunch of Army officers in the 1940's and 50's? Seriously. And of course sailors are famous for their tales of debauchery in every port and whatnot, and Lord knows that has a hell of a lot of basis in reality. Sex is just something that happens in a place like the military. It's a natural part of what young people do when you put thousands of them together in the middle of nowhere with little else to do. It happens. At times, and far too often, it goes terribly, horrifically awry, and there are unfortunately a lot of tales of horror, particularly when it comes to females in the military and the decades of outright crimes that have been committed against them. But that is not unique to the military. It is also common across college and university campuses. I am not making excuses or minimizing. I am merely saying that the idea of it being a problem unique to the military is patently absurd. You can no more ban sexual behavior in the military that you can ban cows from shitting in public. Those cattle have no shame, sir, and sadly, neither do many of us in uniform (just ask Pumpkin Boy). You may as well try to hold back the tides with a bath towel. Young horny soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are not the exception. They are the rule. Accept it. Or get yourself some shock therapy.