Vagrantjack's Blog

Picture this, a Friday night hipster bar in the pacific northwest, a young woman, a young (well semi-young) man having in general an interesting getting to know you conversation.  The topics shift from various subjects such as said city, to school, to work, to what makes them passionate and what they’d both rather be doing in life.  Then it is revealed to the young woman in the conversation that the young man (well semi-young) was in the war and had served multiple tours both in Afghanistan and Iraq.  So she asks that young man (semi) what it was like over there?

What should the young man do?

A. immediately change the subject because it will only turn into a buzz killer

B. open up because it will show an intelligent insight that most people never get see of their service members and how they feel about the war

C. blow off the question, buy the woman another beer and say something funny in hopes of continuing the effort of trying to get laid

D. get on one knee and propose immediately

Well this man with fire in the heart and good intentions chose option B and went down crashing and burning like the fucking Hindenburg.  One of the man’s problems was how he disregarded his training of being able to quickly assess his surroundings and environment.  Had he done that, he would have realized that this young woman was the type that although pretty and intelligent, she had her mind made up long ago on any man that was a vet and didn’t scream the echoes and horrors of Vietnam.  When asked about how he dealt with what he’d seen over there (and the man has seen some shit mind you), the man replied with a somewhat normal answer and nothing like what she wanted to hear.  The Hollywood image of waking up in cold sweats, violent outbursts, or excessive drinking.

So the young woman replied with “oh so the war has desensitized you and made you emotionally numb.”  The man replied how the war hadn’t desensitize him because that would mean seeing people killed would lessen the impact that those images had made in his life.  When she asked him how it was possible for one to not be affected horribly by those kind of experiences, he replied that maybe it was the training he had received that made it possible to cope and deal with the war.  The young woman replied with “so you think of yourself superior to most of the other people in the military then?”

Now aggravated the young (semi-young) man replied how that was incorrect also.  He responded with how he respected all professions.  He continued to pointed out how some jobs had more intense training than others and how this training could be attributed to creating a more stable mindset in being able to deal with stressful conditions.

So then the woman replied with ” so you look down on quitters and failures.  I think people who try to give their best and fail should not be ridiculed or lessened”.  Taking a deep breath, the man gave up and threw in the towel by saying, ” you know what…..  I should have known better.”

The young woman replied with, “hey maybe if you feel like your defending yourself and your position a lot, maybe you should take a look inward and how you present yourself.”

It’s times like this that make me remember that line from the movie Black Hawk Down:

When I go home people’ll ask me, “Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?” You know what I’ll say? I won’t say a goddamn word. Why? They won’t understand. They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the people next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.

That’s right damn it!! You tell em Eric Bana!!

I forgive you for the Hulk Eric Bana!!

Vagrant