Bile XXXVI

The following was the first Bile that was written upon my triumphant return from my second deployment, in February of 2006.


"My narrative fearless
My word war returns to burn
Like Baldwin home from Paris
Like Steel from a furnace"
-Rage v. Machine
"Calm like a Bomb"

I returned from the Cradle of Civilization, from Mesopotamia, from Iraq, only to find that my home had plunged into a state of chaos that was eerily familiar to the Hobbesian ooze that I had just left. More precisely, I came home to La Casa del Sucio to find my children both larger and more diabolical than at any time in our fifteen year history. If that doesn't scare you, then you should enlist immediately, by God.

Sarah has grown in size, speed, and cunning to rival that of most predatory jungle cats. I should've known something was up in my absence when the Green Berets that we worked with in Iraq were somehow familiar with her personal profile and her recent activities. They seemed shocked when I told them that this demi-god of modern Latin American Nationalist Revolutionaries turned out to be a twelve year old girl who weighs less than eighty pounds and likes puppy dogs and Hillary Duff. They were even more surprised when I showed them that they had indirectly worked under her orders on at least three occasions in both El Salvador and Honduras. She giggles everytime I mention to houseguests that she is responsible for deposing more legitimate Latin American Governments than the Monroe Doctrine...

Daniel, meanwhile, has maintained his soft stance on emotional terrorism and is still enamored of all things having to do with sanity and civility. I had a talk with him the other day about the necessity of kicking the shit out of the bullies at school who are giving him problems, and he asked me why we shouldn't just have them deposited off-shore somewhere by judicial fiat...

Joel, who you may remember once displayed potential with regards to being a sentient human-being, has apparently decided that he's determined to answer the siren call of those who live in Southern California thinking they will make it in the entertainment industry. As such, he has ceased being sentient, and is displaying neural activity common to amoeba. All attempts at causing him to act in a manner befitting those who have evolved past the stage of prehensile tails have failed, and thus he will remain in SoCal for the indeterminate future, trying to make "the Band" work. This despite the fact that he has a college education waiting on him in Texas, has no car, no driver's license, and works in the Commissary as a bagger...

As for me, I'm stoked to be back in this chair, in front of this keyboard, listening to this Tool album, with this bottle at my elbow. The added perspective gained by being where I was from July of last year to this past January just makes my observations more stark than they were before. As with many who return, my threshold for dumbasses is at an all-time low.

Look kids, I've lived years, as have you, enduring the inane at the behest of the apathetic, with little recourse. Well, I'm here to reclaim that lost time. I am Tyler Durden. I am here to verbally destroy what must be destroyed in order for all of us to continue to thrive as a species. We must recognize these idiots for who they are, and get the word out about them, lest we all become like them. It is not a right, but a duty. A duty for all who do not wish to live like the denizens of Plato's Cave, but to come back inside periodically and let the other monobrows know what it is like outside, in the light of logic and reason, without fear of being bludgeoned or stoned for our efforts. They may look at you as they stare at me...in shock and not a little disgust. But if we can just bring but one of them into the light, then we've all accomplished something, because maybe that one person will be the one who will end up being that President who can reduce the size and intrusiveness of government, or who can make Selig ban the fucking Designated Hitter, or who will keep me from climbing the steps up into that belltower. Something along those lines, you see.

We exist in a special place in history, my friends. We're among the few people who have a clue, as we stand on the brink of the modern equivalent of the dark ages. We see the twenty-first century equivalent of the medieval serf everyday. While these aren't the people who go to the chapel to pray to God for a cure for the influenza that is killing the child who lives amid the reek and filth of the middle ages, they are the ones who will worship at the altar of the modern doctor who is getting a kick back from the pharmaceutical firm to push a specific drug to treat a specific set of symptoms, irrespective of the unstudied long-term harm, any unresolved counter-indications, or the inappropriateness of the treatment. ("Do no harm" leaves a hyuuuuuuge amount of lee-way on the ol' moral spectrum when one can pull six figures.)

These modern feudal serfs are the people who think what the networks say they should. These are the people who are not informed by what they experience, but by what they read online. They consume, and are kept happy as long as they continue to do so without question. These are the people who would be ruled by the brutal, ruthless aggression of those media outlets who speak with no other authority than the fact that they are broadcast from coast to coast. At least the priest of the middle ages had authority vested by Mother Church and the Bible. This new priesthood is as false as it is pervasive, and is completely free from culpability for anything it does in the name of "public information", the "right of the people to know the facts", or their irresponsible interpretation of the First Amendment.

However, the serfs will bend to those who are aggressive enough to have an informed opinion. They will sway to those who can make an argument. They will bow before those who have lived, sensed, endured hardship, been out of the fucking cave.

Well, you and I have been out of the fucking cave, my friends. You're damn right, we have. We have lived, done, experienced, endured, overcome. We are all in positions of responsibility. Where we can influence, even in small doses, the way that people think. We cannot give into the temptation of simply going along because the world is down at the stern 45 degrees and sinking fast. We don't have that luxury, because ours is a larger responsibility.

We know the way. Most people do not.

We know our asses from holes in the ground. Most are still pawing at the earth with a handful of Charmin.

I am back, my friends. Impassioned to a level that I hope you're prepared for. I have two CDs worth of Tool, a full bottle of single malt scotch, a full-up six pack of Fosters, and seven months worth of utter venom to get on this Goddamn page before it kills me. I may not survive the fuckin' end...


BILE
VOL. XXXVI
Life Outside the Cave

1) "In response to your question, I think that being a whore makes me an even better candidate. After all, this job is about gratification, and gratification has been my business."
Check out the this shit. From the Dallas Morning News:

Candidate worked as prostitute
Democrat for House cites religious conversion, has no regrets
11:20 AM CST on Friday, February 17, 2006
By GROMER JEFFERS Jr. and BROOKS EGERTON / The Dallas Morning News


The Web page touts the "hot uninhibited" services of a male escort identified as Todd Sharpe, displaying a blurry beefcake photo and listing a Dallas phone number.


But the number belongs to a salesman and former actor named Tom Malin, a Dallas Democrat who is seeking election to the Texas House.
Mr. Malin acknowledged Thursday that he once worked as a prostitute.
"I've made mistakes in my life, and I've stood before my Creator and I've accepted responsibility for my behavior," Mr. Malin said. "I've also accepted his grace and his redemption and his love and his forgiveness, and that's what's important."
Web pages that have been used to advertise the sexual services of "Todd Sharpe" say he previously worked in the New York City and Los Angeles areas. His rates ranged from $200 to $600, according to graphically detailed reviews from men whom the pages described as satisfied customers.
Mr. Malin said he no longer works as a prostitute.
"I knew that if I continued on with that, I would die," Mr. Malin said. "God spoke to me, and I knew I had to make a different choice in life."
Mr. Malin, who was once a member of the Dallas Citizens Police Review Board, said he hoped his mistakes would not cost him a chance to serve in the Texas House. And he said he would remain in the race.
"I don't regret my past, nor do I wish to shut the door on my past," he said. "I think anyone who has made mistakes in their lives can be a viable member of community and society."
But he acknowledged that his previous life could cost him the Democratic nomination in the March 7 primary.
"I know that there are people that can benefit from my experience," he said. "This is not about winning an election; this is about empowerment. There is a higher calling and a higher message involved in this."
All the "Todd Sharpe" Web sites are now defunct. The Dallas Morning News found archived versions online after receiving a tip this week that Mr. Malin might have worked in the sex industry.
The tipster, a fellow gay Democrat who knew the candidate, said he had heard rumors about Mr. Malin's past but had no direct knowledge. He said he feared that if Mr. Malin won a primary race next month and the rumors turned out to be true, their political party would be embarrassed. The tipster asked not to be identified because he didn't want to be dragged into a political fight.
Mr. Malin is running for House District 108, which covers much of central Dallas and the Park Cities.
On Thursday, he received a key endorsement from the Dallas Tejano Democrats, a Hispanic political group.
"We were not aware of this, and he never mentioned it to us during the screening," said Domingo Garcia, chairman of the local Tejano Democrats. "Obviously we will have to reconsider our decision based on the new information." The Dallas Morning News editorial board also recommended Mr. Malin, but in light of this new information, said it was reconsidering that recommendation.

I have seen the seventh bowl opened, my friends. I've now seen a gay prostitute running for a State House seat from Dallas, Texas. Jesus, Mary, and jumped-up Joseph, how in the blue fuck has it come to this? The history of Texas politics is rife with corruption and licentiousness, but this is rather over the top, is it not? I was sitting there at work, minding my own goddamn business and checking out the Rangers latest failure to sign a quality fuckin' left-hander, when this story popped up. I spit about a half cup of coffee at my monitor, by God.

The double entendres are as daunting as the aspect of Thanksgiving at my Aunt LaDell's house. "I know that there are people that can benefit from my experience," he said. You know that's right. This jack-off worked for Mary-Kay cosmetics, for the love of God. He drove a pink Cadillac. He currently works as "a direct sales organization and the marketing arm of Stream Energy." . Yeah...I'll bet he does.

This dude is lucky that he hasn't met with the bidness end of the brush guard of somebody's pickup truck. Why in the hell hasn't someone who doesn't work for the Morning News checked this asshole out? Here we have the most respected publication in the third most populous state in the Union acting like a bunch of kids writing for the college newspaper. No back check. No asking the obvious questions. They've succeeded in looking like the New York Times is what they've done.

This has become the norm for the news outlets, my friends. We have churned out so many journalism majors that there is a glut of informers, but a corresponding pall of discipline to check out the truth behind things. Deadlines are everything, accuracy or truth is secondary. Gotta get the scoop. Even in the realm of opinions, like who to support and why they are worthy, we see newspapers and television journalism try to "compete with the speed of the internet" and have, as a result, ended up selling their professional reputations, and that of the publications that they work for, down the river on a raft made of leaky research and criminal disregard for the actual facts. A good answer has been replaced by a quick answer. And thus we struggle now, like no other time, to try and discern what the facts really are.

Witness:
-Newsweek has reported false or shoddily researched shit on several occasions...and has been caught.
-Dan Rather was forced into retirement for running a bullshit story about the President.
-The New York Times has had so many problems with the truth that their entire editorial board checked into the Betty Ford Clinic back in January.

Read those bullets again. We're not talking about the National Enquirer or the World News here. We're talking about the most respected sources of information in the entire Republic. Now, the Dallas Morning News has proven itself unreliable by endorsing a homosexual prostitute for a State Office. Who the fuck is in charge of these publications, and why is nobody screaming for their fucking ouster? Heh? Every time the administration of this nation is suspected of covering up, or milling about the facts, we see the hue and cry of the left, begging for an inquest. Where is the hue and cry in the case of media incompetence? Why is nobody saying shit about this except my drunkass? You and I know why, and that makes it more vile than anything. FTFF.

People, don't believe a damn thing that you read. Play heads-up ball and check facts before you allow yourself to believe anything. These assholes are out after a buck, and they are messing with our collective minds in the process. Because they could give a shit about the truth. They have agendas. They have bottom lines. Everything else runs a distant third.

2) "Fuckin' Zawahiri. That guy never ends up on working parties..." I just found out that West Point has released two different studies claiming that al-Qaeda has fallen into the modern bureaucratic banality that the rest of us suffer under. No shit. They have to apply for their postitions online, and thus there is an administrative recruiting hierarchy just like any other American company. They have bureaucratic requirements to operate that are not unlike what we suffer under. So, apparently, this war on terror has become a war against an organization that has managed to hire more incompetent motherfuckers than we have. Hmmm...for any who have been out there and submitted resume`s as I have recently, this may come as a pleasant surprise.

No, seriously. I've seen first hand how we work at the Regiment-and-Higher levels with regards to Intelligence, and I know of domesticated turkeys who are much more likely to make a Denver Omelet than for the CIA to be able to actually vector the good guys onto the target while disregarding the local expertise of the intel section from the battalion that has run that area of operations for months. Most of it is a tendency for the macro-levels of command to attempt to do micro-level work without the input of us down here on the factory floor. I'll bet that is exactly what al-Qaeda is running into. Some asshole, in some cave in Pakistan, is trying to make tactical level targeting decisions in Iraq. Betcha. Just Betcha.

That's kind of an odd way to count on winning a war. Isn't it?

Wait a minute, though. That maybe kinda cool. I can see it. The al-Qaeda equivalent of the battalion commander, who insists on approving the location and mission of every fireteam on the battlefield, is thwarted time and again, as his teams keep getting crushed by coalition fireteams getting similar direct guidance from an American battalion Combat Operations Center. He fires his subordinates on a whim, thus fomenting unrest in them. Unable to find qualified leaders, he loses again and again...

We've got the command and control assets, and the trained personnel, to allow for that and still get by (been there/done that...T-shirt etc.) . I guarantee you that the bad guys don't.

Think about that for a second, though.

The tradition of the American fighting man has traditionally been his ability to work within the framework of commander's intent through a chaotic situation. We're on the path to shitcanning that, however, because the expectation from Regiment and higher is for the battalion staff to be on top of every single unit in the battlespace, due to the capabilities that we have now, to get a common operational picture down to the Corporal's level. The bad guys can't do that as well as we can. We can directly influence every engagement within unit boundaries, whereas the undertrained mohammedan cannot. So, we'll win every engagement because of our ability to more efficiently micromanage subordinates. Hmmph. Weird way to win a fuckin' war, no?

3) Five ways to know that you've just returned off of a post-deployment max leave period
A) You try to "color up" a $100 bill, and put twenty on the "Pass Line" at the conference table at the Monday Command and Staff meeting.
B) Delirium Tremens cause you to stab your laptop with a letter opener after it "bit" you.
C) Your golf score is better than most retirees, but your run time is slower than most retirees.
D) You ask your armorer to cash in a stack of $25 poker chips at the armory window instead of checking out your rifle.
E) In order to be understood, your company 1st Sgt has to pass word at formation in whale-song.

4) The inevitable return of the Cull List.
Oh-so many people have used my absence from the Continental United States as an excuse to become a boil on the ass of this fine nation. Below, please note the list of these folks, who will be beaten with a sock full of ten-penny nails as soon as I can contrive it:

A) Howie fuckin' Mandel. No deal, asshole. Grow some hair, shave the goatee, and go back to doing voices for "Bobby's World". Thanks, asshole. Nice try.
B) Alphonso fuckin' Soriano. Hey Al, you couldn't make Daniel's coach-pitch league, playing 2nd Base as bad as you do. I personally know of at least two quadriplegics who can catch a baseball better than you can. My one-legged aunt Mildred has turned more double plays since the 2000 season than you have. Nobody cares about the 30+ homers if you can't field any better than my border collie. Go to left field and shut the fuck up. Thanks.
C) Matt fuckin' Lauer (the Today Show dumbass). Somehow, the cull lists of the past three years have missed this galactic dipshit. Master of leading questions, vilifier of personal freedoms, apologist for liberal fascism, and worshipper of Katie-on-the-Cross. This guy weeps more than Dick fuckin' Vermeil on Oprah. Anybody who has suppressed his manhood for this long may as well show us his boobs and be done with it. C'mon Matt, unbutton that shirt and bare 'em. You know you've been wanting to for years. Just do it and be done with it.
D) Dan fuckin' Rather. Oh yeah. Sorry. Missed this asshole last year. Hey Dan, howzit feel knowing that your end came about because someone actually caught you in a lie? The irony here just causes me to giggle like I killed the fucker. Here's an asshole who made himself a name by exposing random scandals on 60 Minutes only to become exactly like the lying assholes that he used to expose on prime-time. Lesson: don't fuck with Karma. Hey, Dannyboy, have fun on the lecture circuit, bragging about how many ambushes you compromised while trying to get air time as a correspondent in Vietnam, you fucking hypocrite...
E) Cindy fuckin' Sheehan. Yeah, might as well get this over with. Look, when she first hit the top forty, I told Mike Cochran to leave her alone. I mean, as far as I knew, she just lost her kid...Little did I know that she got more than her share of red-carpet treatment from the CinC before she turned on him. Look lady, your kid took an oath. Same as we all did. He didn't make it. It ain't GWB's fault. He didn't kill him. Some motherfucker behind a rock with a cordless phone did. I'm sorry it happened, I really am, and I feel sorry for the fact that the liberal media have gathered around you like a pack of bottom-feeding assholes, but it ain't the CinC's fault, it ain't the fault of your son’s Commanding Officer, and it ain't the fault of his squad leader. Your son, madam, with full knowledge of the dangers that lay before him, deployed to a combat zone in defense of the Republic of the United States of America. Once there, he performed duties commensurate to his rank and seniority. He upheld his oath, and as far as we know, performed in a manner commensurate with all the other young men who have sacrificed themselves for the cause of liberty. I understand your cynicism, but I have met many more family members of fallen servicemen who chose not to engage in sedition following the sacrifice of their loved one. You have been seditious, and it dims the sacrifice of the young man for whom you are mourning. You are being used by a media who relishes in the plight of those who suffer. Not because the cause is unjust, but because blood has been let. You, Cindy, have become the pawn of those who would see the values of your son become something trivial and quaint. They do not care for you, for your son, for his sacrifice, for his cause, for his oath, for this Republic. They care for their own influence. They care for their ability to sway the public policy of this Republic. Wake up, for the love of Christ, and realize that you are pissing on the memory of your son, and that all your fame will be remembered in contrast to his sacrifice. Find Lisa Clay and walk in her shoes. She is a hero. You are a schmuck.

5) Epilogue.

It may cause most of you to shudder as you read this and calmly reflect that I was approached by the Marine Base youth sports department and asked to serve as head coach of Daniel's Coach-Pitch little league baseball team. It will undoubtedly cause all of you consternation to know that I accepted the offer. We will be a hard group. Grinding it out. First to Third on singles, baby. We'll steal your lunch, pal. And it's coach-pitch...can you say "brush back"? I knew you could. Make Pedro look like a wallflower. My goal is to have at least one pre-pubescent child charge the mound.

Make no mistake, these kids will carve out your fuckin' liver for a run, once I'm done with 'em. Today was Training Day One. I got buy-in. These kids are excited, they're hungry, and they want to play. Stand the fuck by...


Anger is a Gift,
Unclean

Bile XXXV, The Right Way

This one is my favorite. From Fall '05. God bless Mikey B...

• Most of you...hell, all of you...have come to expect a certain levity in this space. However, times being what they are, I want to do something a little different, and tell a story about a friend of mine. I don’t try this much, as I reckon my talents lie elsewhere, but I received something today that I thought you all needed to see.
  I will make it up on the next pass. I promise...I’m good for it, I swear.

BILE
Vol.XXXV
The Right Way.

1) “I was angry.”
Last year, during OIF II, I got linked up with a buncha good explosive ordnance disposal techs who helped me and a couple of engineer squads blow up one of the captured Iraqi ammunition supply points in 2/7’s area. One of those EOD guys was a Marine Gunnery Sergeant named Mike Burghardt. He and I have stayed in touch since then, although I hadn’t heard much from him since we came back for Son of OIF II: The Redemption.
Gunny’s been in the Corps for eighteen years. Been blowing up shit for fifteen of those, and is on his third hitch in Iraq in the last twenty months. He’s married and got a daughter about Sarah’s age. Mike is a lot like me, in that he will talk about demolitions until somebody begs him to shut up, is a little on the goofy side, and refuses to stress out about the little things. Brian K claims that I have a “man crush” on Mike, and while I find that characterization somewhat insulting, I do call him friend. We’ve blown up a lot of shit together.
Got an email from him today. Seems he’s had a rough week. Y’see, last Monday, Mike got blown up.
He was doing what he normally does. Woke up on Monday to the phone ringing, picked it up, listened to some Watch Officer tell him that there was an IED that had blown up the night prior, and would he please go clear the site so they could recover all the vehicles? He grunts, nods, hangs up the phone and gets his team moving.
They get off base, get out to the site, talk to the guy in charge out there, and start clearing the sides of the roads up to this intersection where there was an overturned Bradley fighting vehicle and some damaged HMMWVs from the night before. Off they go, him on one side of the road, his assistant on the other, stopping anytime they see anything that might be an IED, and eventually getting to the intersection. Now there’s a big crater there. About chest deep, to hear Mike tell it, and so he’s in a hurry and jumps down in there. He looks around and sees a piece of what appeared to be a tank used to hold acetelyne or propane gas. He moves that and...
Oh shit.
Just underneath the dirt at his feet is a piece of buried packing tape. Just a bit showing. He clears enough off to see a receiver built out of a cordless phone base station.
Gotta hurry just now.
So he turns around and waves his arms and yells for everyone behind him to stop and keep their distance. In an ecstacy of fumbling, he bends back over and probes around, and finds a three foot section of detonation cord, which is usually used to trigger multiple devices near simultaneously, and two artillery projectiles. He quickly uncovers a little of the artillery projectiles and cuts the det cord leading to them. Hears footsteps behind him.
Goddamnit.
Mike turns around to shoo the idiot away.
CRACK
When one is that close to an explosion, the boom that normally resonates isn’t present. The mind only registers the crack, I think probably because so many things are happening at once. Dirt flying through the air, intense and brief heat from the flash, all this shit flying around, and this big shock wave bludgeons the senses.
The people behind him see the explosion, see him launched out of this hole, see him move ten feet through the air, and watch him land on his side…motionless.
Oh Shit. The EOD guy is dead.
So there is Mike. Laying on his side. Mentally taking stock of all his attachments. Can’t feel anything below his chest. Brain trying to reset itself like a CD player that has been knocked off of a table. And he’s thinking, “they finally got me. Dammit, they finally got me.”
The soldiers with him think he’s fuckin' done. I mean, why not? Jesus, they just saw him thrown out of a hole like a ragdoll. So they move up security and check him out. Hey! The EOD dude’s still alive! They check him over and administer first aid. His trousers are pretty much gone, so they finish cutting them off, and he’s got three marble sized chunks of flesh pinched out his lower back and thighs like some sick asshole got after him with a melonballer, and a buncha red marks that will be either flash burns or bruises. They call up a helicopter, which lands, and they’re about to take him on a stretcher...
But Mike slowly begins to feel his feet! His toes are wiggling. He’s wiggling his fingers. All is right with the world.
“I’m not riding a Goddamn stretcher! Help me up!”
Anger replaces shock. Pride asserts itself. He rises.
Now, in all likelihood, Mike was being watched from the minute he first got out of his truck. That fucker watched him walk the length of the entire site. He waited as Mike messed with the device, but couldn’t see what Mike was doing because he couldn’t see down into the crater. He was waiting for more Marines or Soldiers to enter the kill zone. He watched Mike wave the guy off. He pressed the button. He watched Mike fly outta there like a 180 lb. bald mortar round. He probably watched him and laughed as he praised Allah.
I sincerely hope that son of a bitch stuck around long enough to see Mike stand up, give him the finger, and motherfuck him to the skies.
Mike told me on the phone earlier today that he was screaming every curse he could think of while the photo from the Omaha paper was taken. And he stood there. Bleeding. Head up. Proud. And he promised “that motherfucker that I’d be back tomorrow. I told him I’d be back and find his ass. I laughed at him and told him that I was still here, that he didn’t get me after all.”
Not “why am I here?” Not “this is all pointless.” Not “how could my President allow this to happen?” No, his first thought was to ensure that the SOB that “got him” once would go to bed knowing that his problems had officially begun as of that very afternoon.
Mike told me that he will be back out on the roads around Ramadi looking for IEDs (and the asshole who blew him up) by Friday of this week.
Now, Mike is exceptional, as we saw last April when he and his team rendered more than sixty devices safe in front of 7th Marines, as we rolled around Fallujah. Both Mike and his assistant team leader both received Bronze Stars for that action. However, I will say that this sort of esprit d’corps is indeed common. I look at the attached picture and I can visualize any number of Marines that I work with everyday doing the samedamnthing. It’s what they’ve come here to do. It’s what they’ve trained their lives for. They are today what they’d always hoped they could be.
Skilled, well-trained, well-led warriors fighting an enemy who is blatantly evil.
Which is all a long way around the bend to get to the whole point in all of this. Folks, look at the picture of Mike. Here’s a guy who just had eight-to-ten pounds of RDX and PETN explode less than fifteen feet from him, standing and giving the finger to the guy who did it to him.
That is indomitable. Unbending. Undefeatable.
I submit that we cannot lose this here in Iraq. This sort of heroism is constant, Marine, Army, Navy. This sort of pride moves around Iraq in every area, city, town, and shithole that Americans patrol everyday. This war can only be lost at home, in the US of A, by people who are not physically involved in any way, shape, form, or fashion.
I ask that you remember the face of Mike Burghardt standing there—bloodied, half-naked, and unbowed—the next time you turn on the television and see those gathered in DC waving signs and wearing silly t-shirts.
We’ve come too far here to ride home on a stretcher with these assholes thinking they’ve beaten us.
Mahalo,
Unclean

Bile XXXIV, Camp Mercury Bile I

Well, that failed. I posted Bile 33, and then went back and found that 32 was pretty damn funny, but this thing won't let me swap them out. Anyway, the below volume is from August '05, from Camp Mercury, Iraq, east of Fallujah. I kinda like this one, so I'm putting it up there. Lemme know whatcha think...

-U-

• As has been the case for the last four years that I have been penning these little missives, I have again had the question asked of me: “Where do you find time for this?” I get the distinct impression that the question is intended to point out that my time would be better served doing something else. And I’ll level with you, this is one of my guilty pleasures. I could very well spend every waking moment engaged in some vital area that is undoubtedly going horribly, horribly wrong right now, as I am typing out this very sentence.
  
  I have no counter-argument other than the simple fact that this little habit has, for me, become something like a mental colonic. Like anyone who writes, everytime I look up in the left hand corner of my inbox window, I see that “New” button. It calls me. It challenges me. It laughs at me and calls me a pussy. When I click it, all this empty space opens up on my screen. Pure, white, untrammeled. Just waiting there to have something put on it. Just waiting to hold my smarmy self-inflated personal opinion. Vandals must feel the same way about a bare wall in a public restroom. All that virgin space...It must be exploited.
  
  This is all very Freudian.
  
  However, I see all these things going on around me. I read all the silly shit going on back home. I detect the hypocrisies at work in the world, in the government, in my trou, and all of it must be commented on in some way, shape, form, or fashion, as publicly as I can make it...lest I go mad.
  
  So I do this.
  
  Ladies and Gentlemen, like the dog who must shit in the same spot in your living room, I am back again. Sober as the day I was born. Dry as the desert that is my home. Wired on coffee, cigarettes, and...
  
  BILE
  VOL. XXXIV
  THE CAST (Pt. 1) and what dropped out of their faces this week.
  
  1) “Wow, I thought the people I worked with were odd.” It is a fundamentally good thing, when in situations like this, to be surrounded by people who are dedicated, hard working, and rabidly dysfunctional. Were it not for people like this, the world would indeed be a depressing place, and getting out of bed would take that much more effort. For me this is never a problem. I don’t think that Mel Brooks, Kevin Smith, or Mel Blanc could’ve put this crew together at the height of their abilities. Truth, in this case, is much, much stranger than fiction. Without further ado, please allow me to introduce the Cast and Crew of my Battalion.
  
  A) The 3A—Donnie: Donnie comes from somewhere. Nobody knows where. He mumbles some involved tale about relatives from Nova Scotia, being raised in a jungle in some french colony while being educated by Jesuits, and attending Nazification seminars somewhere in the South prior to being commissioned. Smart dude. Funny as hell. Has the odd habit of coming into my office late at night, as I’m finishing up, and ransacking the place. It’s like one of my kids coming in there, I swanny. Chairs, papers, the odd water bottle, and plastic chairs flit about the room effortlessly. I just sit back and watch him. After about a minute, I give him the same basic speech that I give my dog, Sadie, when she starts chewing on random articles of clothing in the living room: “Why? What does this possibly accomplish?” Why indeed. He and I had a pretty funny thing going the past few weeks, at least until I fucked it all up.
  
  Ya see, the chaplain from our Higher Headquarters does this thing everyday where he forwards to everybody on the whole unit distribution these quotes in some half-assed attempt at motivation. Don’t know where he gets these things, or what possesses him to think that any Marine actually sees the benefit of them, but they hit every morning. Something like this:
  
  They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
  -Carl W. Buechner
  (Apologies to those who can’t view emails via html format. You lose some of the inanity of this by just viewing as a text file.)
  
  So, we come into the CP everyday, ready to whip it on, and do a quick check of the Non-secure email before the games begin. You know, see if the fam has written or friends have sent messages of undying admiration and support. And everyday, after seeing that we have unread messages and getting excited, our hopes get thrown under the bus when we see that it’s just the RCT chaplain, trying to cheer us up. So anyway, Donnie and I start forwarding these things back and forth with caustic replies. You can imagine. (“Hey, Chaps. Who the fuck is Carl W. Buechner and why does he want me to act like I’m gay...” Like that.)
  
  Well that went on for weeks. Then one day, I get the daily moto message which goes like this:
  
  It isn't the mountains ahead that wear you out, it's the grain of sand in your shoe.
  -- Unknown
  Without a thought, because I had a lot of shit to do, I hit [alt+R] and whip out the following response:
  
• “Wrong again GodBoy, it isn’t the grain of sand in my fuckin’ shoe. ‘Cause I’m smart enough to stop and empty my shoes, rather than attempt to walk up a mountain with a boot full of rocks…” and then hit [alt+S] and get on with my day... Three hours later, I’m sitting there, mindin’ my own damn business, when the Battalion XO walks in, flaps a printed version of the above message with an addendum page sent by the outraged 0-5 RCT Chaplain in my face, says sixteen unintelligible cuss words, and stalks out of my office. Because, while I am smart enough to empty my shoes, I’m apparently not smart enough to be left unsupervised with a keyboard.
  
  [Alt+R], you see, are the quick keys to reply to the sender. [Alt+W] are the quick keys to forward the message to another person not on the “To” line. Oops.
  
  I quickly fired off the most sincere and contrite apology in the history of such things, and marched my dumbass over to the Old Man’s office for my beating. (I do feel bad about it. It was really a case of Captains being Captains. I really didn’t mean to run over an ordained minister with the verbal equivalent of a road-grater.) The CO listened with a bemused smile to my story, told me not to be a dumbass, and let me go at that. I’m still embarassed by my stupidity, but it’s happened before, and I’ll probably do it again someday. Now Donnie and I both have somebody read the addressee aloud to us over our shoulder before sending any such nonsense.
  
  Funniest thing is this: until I explained how I screwed up to the XO, he actually thought I intentionally smoke-checked a member of the clergy via email.
  
  B) The S-2—Rainman (aka Joel): When I first checked into the battalion in February of 2004, before we came over last time, one of the first Marines I met was this Lieutenant in the Intel section. Birth Control Glasses perched on the end of his nose, shorter than me, with an ebbing hairline that just passed the Neap phase and was just starting to roll back to low tide. I asked a few questions about where we were going. An hour later, Joel took a breath, after speaking without pause for that long, just in time to watch my eyes roll up into the back of my skull. This guy’s got a degree in Astrophysics, for the love of God. He does algebra for fun. When we got to Iraq last year, I shared an office with him and the rest of the intel section. My Standard Operating Procedure for any and all muck-a-mucks who barged into our space was to introduce them to Joel and pull the string that comes out of his back, and go back to work as Joel spent an hour talking about everything in the Area we Operated in until the visitors’ eyes glazed over. Chicken, my boss back then, started calling him Rainman after about three weeks in Iraq. It stuck.
  
  Joel is probably the only Red Sea Pedestrian that I have ever met who sings “Deustchland Uber Alles” and goosesteps like a native German. I’ve referred to him at various times as “Iron Feliks” and “my little Himmler”. I generally do so with a straight face, because Joel’s got a mean streak wider than my aunt Linda’s ass. Worse, in addition to Astrophysics, he’s a student of medieval European History, and was educated by some virulent strain of Jesuits, if I make my guess. Pope Urban II woulda loved this guy in 1098, ‘cause he would’ve cleaned out entire cities of Mohammedans like the Orkin man. I used to think he was more of a Libertarian, but I was wrong. Joel is the first Hebrew fascist to come along in modern history.
  
  2. We get quotes. Spoken words, documented by the 3A...
  
  “He should start emailing quotes from the Book of Job. Now that was one hard, dedicated motherfucker. That has a hell of a lot more application to this shithole.” –S-3A’s response to the RCT Chaplain’s daily quotes.
  
  “I inadvertently blue-flamed the 0-5 RCT Chaplain, which has long term ramification regarding my eternal soul.” -My SitRep comments referring to the Chaplain’s outrage at my stupidity.
  
  “On Call, all USMC units decamp from the City to Camp Fallujah, to provide overwatch on the Iraqi Security Forces. Sink or Swim. If they start to sink, we kill every male in the city and pile the bodies on the highway for all to see, then turn every structure in the city into a pile of rubble, burn it, and sow salt into the ground. Let all see the mercy of Asshurbanipal and know that this is the price of defiance to the Lord of Nineveh.” --S-2, spitballing courses of action at 3 in the morning, on the tweek again.
  
  “Today is the S-3A’s Birthday. At 1700, all Marines on Camp Mercury will fire their individual weapons in the air for one minute in celebration.” -Inserted into the daily Intentions Message by the S-3A, with virtually no one noticing.
  
  “Those who keep their wealth and do not share it will go to hell and their money will be the fuel for the fire in hell...When you die the money you kept from charity will transform into a serpent which will strangle you in hell and tell you ‘I am your money, I am your money.’” --English interpretation of the Money quote from a local Imam’s sermon
  
  “You know their Names?!” -Battalion Adjutant, after listening to the S-2 talk about local insurgent targets for the first time.
  
  
  Epilogue. When you get the next opportunity, please raise a glass to the memory of LCpl Ramon Romero: Gunner of 2nd Squad, CAAT Red, 2/7. He passed from this world this past week in an IED explosion. Romero was a fine man. Eager in performing his duty. Cheerful, no matter how bad the situation. He will be missed.
  
  Dust to Dust,
  Unclean
  

Bile XXXII, Post-OIF II Bile

I got back from Iraq in September of 2004, and put up a few volumes. This one is my favorite from that period. Any who wish to receive other archived copies should leave a comment, and I'll send them directly to you. Now, without further ado...

• It's all about endings and beginnings, sports fans. I shit you not. There is inevitably something that often goes missing in our daily lives, which is commonly so fundamental, that we don't even notice it when it runs out under the crack in the door. Think about it.
  
  Tomorrow, as you go about your lives, many of you who are unmotivated by your job, your car, your house, whatever...you have probably lost touch with something that was there before that did motivate you. It just kinda went away and you can't really pinpoint the exact time that it left. Ever wonder how that happens?
  
  I do. I think about that shit constantly. How exactly do we come to take for granted those things which we treasure above all things? One who isn't as familiar as we are with human nature might think it illogical. But for some reason, shit like that is as constant as the changing seasons. You get in a groove, the groove becomes a rut, the rut takes you places where you'd rather not be, you become miserable and want to just chuck it all in and do something else. Where did the groove go? Huh? It's still there somewhere. It truly is.
  
  Trick is, it ain't gonna find you. It is up to you to find the groove. To reclaim that place that seems so fucking righteous.
  
  I recognized its passing. I felt its loss. But, I knew where it was.
  
  I knew how to get there. It took me awhile, but today I found that fucker...
  
  LUUUCCIEEE! I'M HOOOMMMMME.
  
  It's kinda like that first hit of single malt on Friday night...
  It's
  BILE
  Vol. XXXII
  Talkin'bout my Discrimination, The European Libertarian Nightmare, and why you should trust large, intrusive gubmint.
  
  1) "I'm weak, cry for me. Just don't make me carry anything heavy." Earlier today, St. Michael of Ann Arbor tried to kill me. Yep, Laura has been instructed to sue him for wrongful death when I fucking stroke out in front of the computer. Ya see, he sent me a buncha shit, most of which I'll dutifully talk about in a minute, which was cleverly designed to cause me to throw my coffee cup at my XO and curse at my computer, and thus entice me to come home with the bit in my teeth and write this shit. Meanwhile, my blood pressure reached levels previously thought impossible by modern medicine, and the ringing in my ears reached a level that was unprecedented, even taking into account my relative presence to explosions larger than 50k NEW and my steady intake of inhuman amounts of coffee and nicotine. While I banged my head on my keyboard in response to Mike's untoward attempts on my life, I also offended my erstwhile Wolverine by expressing discrimination against those who might be calorically challenged. I achieved target lock. He's right. I am a discriminating bastard. Bigoted. What follows is a list of those individuals whom I discriminate against:
  - I discriminate against those who can't do what they claim they can do. (Bullshitters)
  - I discriminate against those who can't follow simple fucking directions. (Incompetent motherfuckers)
  - I discriminate against those who take credit for achievements they did not contribute to. (Lying Careerist Assholes)
  - I discriminate against those who cannot adhere to simple rules of logic. (Dipshits and/or Stupid motherfuckers)
  - I discriminate against those who refuse to take responsibility for their actions. (Assholes)
  - I discriminate against those who seek to make themselves better by bringing down better, more talented men. (Weak Cocksuckers/Bullying motherfuckers)
  - I discriminate against those who try to replace the end with the means. (Bureaucratic Parasites)
  
  Should I be found wanting by those who sit in judgment for the above propensities, so be it. I feel that, at this point in my professional and personal life, things like this must be said...must be shouted. Else we as Marines end up like all the rest of the branches: a buncha incorporated assholes trying to justify our existence.
  
  The great thing about being a Marine is that our existence is justified every fucking day. We don't need to dream up a PR scam. We have been somewhere on this green Earth for the past 229 years kicking the living shit outta some wog or other for the betterment of the Republic. EveryGoddamnday. Projecting our interests, our influence, our ideal. We may not conform to this newfangled idea of treating our men like summer campers. We may actually demand that the people who swear an oath to the Republic in joining our particular service Branch conform themselves to the traditions that made us who we are. We might actually be INSENSITIVE [gasp] and UNCARING [wheeze] to the plight of those presented with special problems. We don't fucking care. Sorry, not our job. That's why there is a Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) to help weed out those not mentally or physically able to accept the challenges of doing what it is that we do (not that they catch all the unsuitable fuckers that I have to discharge...sorry, another story). What is it that we do, you may ask? We shoot fuckers who need shooting. In the face, when possible. Twice, when necessary. As General Mattis says: "It's a hoot". Semper Fidelis. Pray that you don't see me in a Human Resources department near you...
  
  2) "Today in England, John Locke spins free of his grave. Film at 11"
  This is what Mike tried to kill me with today. This folks, is what happens when you don't have a constitution that is very fucking specific about the relative duties of all the governing bodies. This is why each of you should beat anybody who proclaims to you, or your children (for the love of Christ) that the Constitution is a "flexible and living document". Nuh-Uh. It ain't flexible. It's definitive. It sez it all right there. All we gotta do is follow the fucking directions. Any questions? Read the fucking document. Thank you. Else we end up like this:
  
  [CNN.com]"Dog owners in Turin [Italy] will be fined up to $650 if they don't walk their pets at least three times a day, under a new law from the city's council.
  People will also be banned from dyeing their pets' fur or 'any form of animal mutilation' for merely aesthetic motives such as docking dogs' tails, under the law about to be passed in the northern Italian city.
  'In Turin it will be illegal to turn one's dog into a ridiculous fluffy toy,' the city's La Stampa daily reported.
  Italians can already be fined up to 10,000 euros and spend a year in prison if found guilty of torturing or abandoning their pets, but Turin's new rules go into much greater detail.
  Dogs may be led for walks by people on bicycles, the rules say, 'but not in a way that would tire the animal too much.'"
  Wholeeefucking shit! If that wasn't intrusive enough, check this motherfucker out:
  [From "National Geographic KIDS" (for the love of God)]"People in Reggio Emilia, a town in central Italy, must pamper their pets or pay a fine of up to 500 euros (about U.S. $600) according to a new law. Dog owners are required to provide roomy doghouses, and owners of a single canary or parakeet must buy a second bird so their pets won't get lonely, according to the law. And you won't find pets sporting racing stripes in Reggio Emilia. Citizens there may no longer dye their pets' fur."
  Would somebody explain to me, for the love of all that is holy, when domesticated animals began to share equal rights as family members? C'mon now. Few things here:
  1) What if I like to dye my neighbor's cat day-glo orange? The cat can't tell. It's a fucking cat. What? Does the thing go to a bar and get laughed at by other cats? No! Nobody cares but people, and apparently people in Italy are less concerned about protecting their right to do whatever it is they want with their property than they are with oddly colored domesticated animals.
  2) What if my neighbor's cat wants to be day-glo orange (which would actually be pretty convenient, to tell the truth)? Who would know? Who would care?
  3) By what fucking right, ever conceived by anybody who has ever spent more than six seconds thinking about political philosophy does a governing body start telling me that: a) I can't conform to centuries of traditional animal husbandry by cropping the ears and tails of puppies to make them better able to move around the house without bloodying their ears/tails on the corners and walls of the house; b) I must walk my pet three times a fucking day. I challenge those fat fuckers to identify any 24 hour period where they themselves have walked at least three times; c) There is a fucking zoning code for housepets?! Their homes must be roomy, and any single birds must have a friend? Whaaa? How 'bout Joel, my oldest? Do I have to import a young Philippino woman to befriend him? Where does it end?
  
  Kids, stay away from Italy. I may bitch about the slippery slope that the Republic seems to be on, but this shit makes me glad to be exactly where I am. Thank God for Locke, for the Idea. Thank God for Jefferson, for codifying that Idea. Thank God for Madison for the sanity check. Thank God for Washington, for kicking the shit outta them Limey Bastards.
  
  3) Epilogue
  Gentlemen, as I said in the early part of this missive, life is indeed about perspective. Kazman calls "perspective" the second most sublime word in the language, second only to "fellatio". I am inclined, (as I am in most cases where Kaz has managed to shower and change underwear sometime in the past two days,) to agree with his logic. That being said, I am very happy to report that a young man began his young career as a baseball player last Thursday. Daniel, my youngest son, came to bat twice in his first organized baseball game. In those two at-bats, he made contact with any flying object in his zip code. Therefore, despite the fact that my eleven year-old daughter pitches better than the 30-something coach who has been appointed to do so, Daniel James Adams started his "baseball life" with two stand-up doubles, and scored twice as well--showing his genes by running through two consecutive stop signs by the third base coach. His happiness at achieving the seemingly simple task of reaching base and, subsequently, scoring safely brought new meaning to the seemingly mundane shit that I do in preparation for going back and doing the things that I have worked so hard to perfect. It's the joy of practicing something to a fine point, and then executing it successfully...when it matters. Because training is about the execution of a task, not the result. Daniel reminded me that if you can stay fixated on the execution long enough, the result is a foregone conclusion.
  
  Brothers, just execute the plays as they come to you...
  
  
  Rally round the family...with a pocketful of shells,
  Unclean
  
  (Mike, I hope you're taking notes on this parenthood shit.)
  

Bile XXXIII, The First Bile From the Front

...And so we come to the back end of these things. For the below post, I was in Fallujah, Iraq with 2/7. Skinning mules, and keeping Jon Riggs in sandbags (long story). I did, however, have some really good friends around who kept it all going. We gelled in that way that happens on good ball clubs, and good Marine battalions. The next few posts will be from that time. I am very proud of the Marines that I went over there with, despite the fact that we all have been marked by "He who shall not be named"...may God have mercy on us all.

-U-

• So there I was…
  
  
  Chaos generally has a negative connotation. Pictures of the Conradian nightmare, Lord of the Flies, the Hobbesian State of Nature, my Living Room all come to mind when a chaotic state is spoken of. Sounds forbidding, gloomy, hopeless.
  
  Well, I don’t know about that. Seems to me that chaos is sort of the natural state of things. Oh sure, we run around this little planet trying to order our little cubicles, but none of it really takes. Entropy is pervasive. We haven’t a prayer at nailing down half the shit we waste our day chasing. Seems to me that we all oughta just kinda slow down and take things the way they’re presented. As someone comes into my orbit, I generally try to alter their path into a ballistically predictable pattern and watch ‘em fly off. Linear thought is pointless. Things and people run in circles. Accept it, or stand by to get so damn dizzy that you deposit your lunch all over your shoes…
  
  However, a man who is smarter than I am, by several orders of magnitude, recently wrote that “Serenity is the realm of the ignorant and the defeated”. It was done tongue in cheek, I think, but it is an interesting point of departure. Should we be accepting of those things over which we have no control? Will that ever result in anything truly getting better? Should we not all strive towards an optimal state, and “shout into the forest” until somebody listens?
  
  Some might. I think there is a moral imperative there that has some merit. The idea of “duty” is to be steadfast in your expectations of yourself and others under your charge. So maybe that’s the right way to act.
  
  I think Aristotle had it right. You can take anything to an extreme and make it vicious. In this case, having the ability to demand a high standard of conduct of yourself and others is the right and proper thing to do. As long as you can maintain realistic expectations, then there are no problems. However, once you start asking things of yourself and others that are beyond your and their abilities, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment on a grand scale, and the maintenance of a positive attitude towards yourself and all of mankind becomes somewhat problematic.
  
  And so I find myself. In Iraq. Surrounded by a nation of people who have no concept of a social contract, no idea what is expected of them regarding the daily maintenance of their personal freedoms, with them making deals with both sides of the war in order to make a quick buck and save their asses in the process. Most importantly, they have little or no conception that their problems will begin when we leave, and they are left to tend this tree of liberty with the blood of their own sons. No concept of causality. No drive to make shit happen for the long term. Making plans like most people look for their car keys.
  
  Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ve been here for a month. I’m so dry (due to General Order #1: "Thou shalt not drink anything") that I could spontaneously combust in the blink of an eye. However, I’ve got a half rack of Beck’s N/A, half a pack of smokes, and enough instant coffee to crunk a corpse.
  
  Don’t look now your soaking in it…
  BILE
  VOL. XXXIII
  Moms of America and Quotes from the Front
  
  1) “I’ll stand out here and say outlandish shit until you stop paying attention, then I’ll sign a book deal and end up on the Lifetime Channel…”
  Who is this Sheehan woman? The one on Dubya’s front lawn. Why should her sad story be any different than any one of the hundreds of thousands of similar stories about the families of brave men who have been shedding their blood for this country since Georgie Treeteeth was freezing his ass off on the Delaware? How is her story an indictment of anything wrong? Her son took an oath to “support and defend the constitution of the United States against enemies foreign and domestic”. He did so. I’m over here surrounded by a whole nation of people who won’t stand up against tyranny, and this idiot is pissed because my country goes out and finds tyrants to overthrow? Why is she bitching? Why are we listening? Who keeps putting a microphone in front of her?
  
  I argued with St Michael the other night via email about this. I said that I wouldn’t raise my hand or voice against this woman. My point was that she was displaying normal behavior during the most traumatic of times, and that she wouldn’t be in the news, but for the parasitic fuckers who keep a camera in her face. Now why would these leaches do that, ya’ reckon?
  
  Because they are trying to start another peace movement, and they’re exploiting the shit out of this rube to do it. The same baby boomers that stood around and bitched about their war in the late sixties are in line to bitch about mine. They have found yet another opportunity to attempt to foist their world opinion, which is based on the lyrics to Beatles songs, upon those of us who are responsible enough to a) have a job, b) pay taxes, and c) don’t enjoy being bombed by Mohammedan fucking radicals. I won’t argue the merits of this war. I’m too close to it, and see above about accepting those things that are pointless to stress over. I will, however, explain exactly why this most recent attempt at a peace movement will fail utterly.
  
  The late 1960s was a period marked by inconsequential sex, and heavy loads of drugs. These idiots who run the media have these wonderful memories of laying back
  with a buncha stoned assholes and talking about how they were going to make a big score of weed and “change the system from within”. Then they went and got a fucking journalism degree and we’ve been suffering ever since. What’s worse, they have cameras, and everybody wants to be on TV. Now, they only show people on TV who are spewing incoherent shit that pushes their agenda, or who are alternatively either wounded, dying, or suffering in some way that can be manifested visually. So what you see on the tube is generally about as representative of reality as a Domesticated animal that can work an abacus with his penis. What they’ve never seemed to understand is that their worldview has two fundamental requirements:
  
  1) Ingestion of massive amounts of mind altering substances.
  2) Numerous instances of inconsequential sex.
  
  The problem with their paradigm is that most people don’t want to get that stoned, and generally can’t score that regularly. Fortunately, we have jobs, we have spouses and kids, and we realize that these are things that must be defended. We realize, after watching two skyscrapers explode, that there are bad guys out here who only want to kill each and everyone of us in the name of their God.
  
  Fortunately, the adults are running the show again.
  
  Perhaps the window sticker on one of my LCpl’s pick-up truck sums it up best: “You shut the fuck up. We’ll defend the Country—USMC”
  
  2) They actually said it:
  
  -Me, upon discovering a Cpl from Comm Plt sitting at the Bn XO's desk, fixing the XO's computer: "Wait a minute, you're not the XO."
  Reply: "No sir. Not yet."
  
  "I'm going to go find a long, dark hallway with no windows or doors, and run down it until I hit something."
  -S-3A on "stovepiping" during operations planning at RCT 8.
  
  "Well, then he'll get along with the Iraqis real well."
  -S-3A, upon being told that a member of the staff has "a little sugar in his gas-tank".
  
  "I just tell them I'm a garbage man, and hope they don't talk to me."
  -My Company XO, regarding social interaction with members of academia.
  
  "I think I'd like to cross-deck and stay here. Have you seen how many shitter trucks they have here? I can definitely find a job."
  -My Company XO, again.
  
  "Good Morning, Gentlemen."
  -S-3A, each day at five successive 1:00 P.M. Ops/Intel meetings.
  
  "I have no concept of time here."-S-3A
  "You shouldn't. It's either light or dark." -S-3 in reply
  
  "I like suffering."
  -3A while sitting 12 inches from an AC vent, eating a powerbar.
  
  "It's a sad day when you have to ask a Jew how to spell Christian."
  -Bn S-2...on a Sunday, no less.
  
  (Perhaps the most nebulous sentence ever uttered in the English Language) "If you need something to do a certain thing in the COC or otherwise, and don't know exactly what to ask for, explain the problem and we will run it to ground and get you a solution."
  -3A in a draft guidance message to the company cmdrs…about midnight.
  
  "Appreciate your work. Let me know if you need anything." -3A to young engineer LCpl
  "Sir, you know any tricks to beating a court-martial?" -engineer reply
  "Why are you in trouble for something?"
  "Naah. I figure I probably won't make it through the whole deployment as a Lance Corporal, so I figured I'd ask."
  
  "LCpl, are you overworked?" -S-2 to his 0231 clerk.
  "Sir, you need to define 'overworked' for me." -0231 clerk reply
  
  "Listen to the Giant Voice for further instructions." -last line of a placard, on Camp Fallujah, (translated from english, to arabic, and back into english,) explaining the base's nuke/bio/chem immediate action procedures.
  
  “We need more acronyms ASAP”—S-3A to S-2
  
  “Sir, I got your email, but what did you mean about those in the "T-O" line owing you input for the slide presentation?” –Communications Officer
  “You mean the “To” line? As in ‘From’, ‘To’, and ‘CC’? S-3A in reply
  
  “Feel free to Godify it as much as you want.” Me, granting the chaplain a space to hold services in.
  
  “People’s brains here are spinning so fast it’s ridiculous...They’ve got to go eat a block of cheese or some milk-duds or something to slow themselves down.” S-4
  
  “At approximately****, an unidentified individual reported that an unspecified group was ready at the encirclement possibly near *****”-Actual intelligence report (asterisks replace classified info)
  
  “Well, I’m up at MEF [the echelon of command higher than division], so if there’s anything we can do to obstruct or hinder what you’re doing in your area of operations, let us know.” –MEF senior Watch officer
  
  “I briefed this product request this morning to the CO and the S3, and was told that it was too old of an incident to exploit.” PsyOps Det, explaining why a product that had been in the approval chain for a week could not be executed.
  
  “That’s it, I’m going back to the Old Testament with these people.” --Rifle Company Commander
  
  “That’s where inexperience and an Annapolis education meet” -S-2, commenting on a 2ndLt company XO’s command chronology submission.
  
  “Occasionally, somebody leaves TBS, gets to the fleet, and does pretty well”—former TBS instructor on Lieutenants
  
  “Chesty Puller made Captain at 38, so I’m right on track” My XO, 1st Lt., age 35
  
  “I always wanted to be a secret agent” S-2A quoted in a college newspaper
  
  “I just watched fat, brown men argue with each other for two hours. All they could decide was that they need more meetings” S-2, following his first exposure to the Iraqi “Democratic Process”
  
  “So, at home, I’ve got this T-shirt with the Periodic table on it, and the radioactive elements glow in the dark. It is sooo cool!” S-2, Homesick.
  
  “If I want to live in a place that respects individual liberties, I’ll move to southern Thailand, where I can pretty much do whatever I please” S-2, dogged libertarian
  
  “Have you ever jumped out of an airplane, Marine?” –S-3A
  “Yes sir. Airborne Assault on PS2. The light turned green, and I pushed ‘X’”- S-2 clerk
  
  “I have surround sound speakers that put more fear in me than receiving live rounds”-S-2 clerk
  
  I love this one:
  “I’ve got a really simple task for you. SO simple in fact, that I was almost going to do it myself”. S-3 to his S-3A
  
  “Somebody asked me the other day, ‘what’s it like over there’. I told them to visualize a world that combines ‘Planet of the Apes’ with ‘Escape from New York’.” -S-4
  
  
  Epilogue
  That’s the best I can do, this go round. The quotes were all documented by my S-3A, Donnie Hasseltine. He’s funny. My project for the next Bile is an accurate portrayal of all the dudes that I work with who can’t crush my balls when I make fun of them in public. Shouldn’t take me long. It’s a fun crowd.
  
  Be safe, wherever you be.
  
  Immundus, ergo sum,
  Unclean
  
  
  

Bile XVII, War Protestors and Random Spleen Venting

My Friends,

This is the last bit dealing directly with my childrens' attempts at an exit strategy, following their failed attempt at governing a third world nation. Also included is some pretty funny shit about the war protestors from back in 2003. Do enjoy.

Unclean

• As if there was any doubt... Joel, Sarah, and Daniel went to the Hague and just dominated. I'm serious, I haven't seen a performance like that since Randy Johnson in the 2001 World Series.
  
  Daniel, as the Prime Minister of Surinam, was answerable to all the charges of Crimes against Humanity. Through Joel's coaching, and Sarah's backroom deals, it was a complete rout. Sarah had videotapes of some European diplomat screwing an underaged, slightly retarded Filipino, and she had her secret police kidnap and ransom the children of one of the tribunal members. Meanwhile, Joel had already purchased the non-judgement of one, maybe two, members of the tribunal. As soon as Daniel got up on the stand and claimed that all we wanted was "the secoowity of the wights of the induhvidual", it was over. There wasn't a dry eye in the fucking place. Not only were they absolved of everything, they were carried out of the Hague on the shoulders of the assembled gallery. I was so proud...
  
  Afterwards, we had a family pow-wow. No more purchasing of third world countries. No more rule by fear. No more death squads. We agreed to abide by the fourth and sixth Amendments while living under my roof. They all nodded dutifully, but you can bet your ass that I'll keep my eye on them. I caught too many meaningful glances between them to actually think that they aren't plotting their next attempt at some renewed attempt at building an empire...
  
  You guessed it, I sleep with a loaded weapon under the pillow, and I check the truck every morning for IED. It's ThreatCon Charlie at La Casa Del Sucio, It's...
  
  BILE
  Volume XVII
  Human Shields, Campus Protestors, and other Sedition
  
  1) "You mean I not only get to blow up the electrical power for the city of Baghdad, but I get to blow up fifteen of these greasy little fucks? Shit, where do I sign?" It enrages me. Here we go, into the breach again, for a pretty goddamn good reason. Namely, that some crazy fuck has VX, Sarin, and probably Small Pox and Anthrax with which to completely fuck over his own citizens and some of his neighbors. Meanwhile, in some nostalgic fit of pique, we've actually had idiots from Canada, England, and the US go to Iraq, gain entry into the country, and seek to become human shields to deflect bombs and missiles that would destroy orphanages, hospitals, and the like.
  
  First of all, how delusional are these fuckers, huh? "Human Shields"? Are you shitting me? Webster defines a "shield" as "one that protects or defends ". Somebody kindly explain to me how some scruffy hippy wanna-be is going to protect or defend a goddamn thing besides the dime bag in his hip pocket. How is some Bob Dylan look alike going to actually stop the missiles and planes from ripping him into julienne slices? I mean, shit, that ain't a deterrent, that's a fucking incentive. That kind of shit actually makes Marines want to blow up or bomb electrical power plants. Not because of any strategic value, but for the positive evolutionary influence that it would have on the American Culture as a whole, once these evolutionary flunkies have been summarily selected out of the gene pool. Things were looking up for England, Canada, and the US. These assholes were going to be excluded from the genetic strain. According to the Washington Times, "Among the Westerners roaming Iraq now are religious groups, peace activists, solidarity seekers, and human shields - those who are so committed to preventing a war that they are, effectively, daring their own governments to kill them as well as Iraqi civilians." Stay committed, I say. Please, I beg you. Just stay there for another week or so...
  
  Suddenly, today I heard bad news. The Human Shields had bugged out of Iraq.
  
  Damn.
  
  Again, according to the Washington Times: "On Friday, the head of Sweden's largest peace organization urged the human shields to leave, saying they were being used for propaganda purposes by Saddam Hussein."
  
  Yafuckingthink? Really? Propaganda? You mean this guy ain't a communist from whom we can derive some sense of base identity with, as a formerly oppressed colonial territory? You mean Saddam is a dictator who only wishes to hold onto power for as long as he can, using the corpses of any whom he can find to aid him in his attempt to appear as a poor supplicant to the aggression of the US government? I'm fucking shocked. No...No. I can't go on with this. It's too much...
  
  Wait a sec. Give me a second to take all of this in. The idiocy of it, that is. You mean to tell me that these peacenik motherfuckers never thought for a second that Saddam could be using them as propaganda? That it never occurred to these dolts that they might be used by a man known worldwide as the "Butcher of Baghdad" as a means to his own end? Really now. Seriously.
  
  These people should be welcomed back into these United States. Give 'em a parade, I say. Into Times Square. Give them a medal. Then, when they are most at ease, smiling, waving, happy...shoot them. Twice. Preferably, in the head.
  
  As I said earlier today to a couple of you: What does it say about the modern culture, that even the protestors, the self-proclaimed disenfranchised, and the oppressed opposition have an attention span that is only slightly shorter than an adult cocker-spaniel?
  
  No wonder the world thinks we're a bunch of weak idiots...
  
  2) "Dude, we're at Cal Berkley. We need to protest something or other..." I read some shit today that St Michael sent me that talked about a buncha college kids scheduling protests against the war in between classes. Like this makes them somehow more responsible than their parents, who were just stoned outta their minds and could give a shit about their 9:20 A.M. Statistics class.
  
  Hey, you college students. Realize something here. Your parents were stoned and protesting in the late 60's because: a) Ganja was relatively cheap; and b) they were terrified of getting drafted. Period. End of analysis. They realized that if they bilged out of college, they were going to end up in Vietnam. So they protested, in the most passionate manner that they could, out of simple self-preservation and cowardice. They were America's best and brightest, and they denied her utterly.
  
  So, where does that leave these scruffy, scroungy, fuckers who are up in arms over the impending conflict in Iraq? It makes them look like spoiled children, that's where.
  
  They won't be drafted. They won't carry a rifle into this fight. There they are, living on either Daddy's stipend or a Stafford Loan, drinking for 16 hours a day, going to class when it occurs to them, and fucking anything that moves during the hours in between. Meanwhile, there are PFCs and LCpls of the same age on the Line of Departure right now who are ready to kill and/or die for their right to do whatever the fuck they want.
  
  Kids. Children. Get A Fucking Job. Contribute to the fund of human dignity and stop trying to be Kurt Cobain. Cobain is dead, because he was weak, and because his wife and his heroin habit caused him to want to die. Not because he was downtrodden. So quit it and start acting like adults. Emulate that LCpl on the LOD, who exists on personal pride and an unwillingness to allow others to see him in an unfavorable light. Appreciate the sacrifice being made for you, you narcissistic brats, and do your best to earn the price being paid for your continued state of prosperity by men of your same age who decided to serve the Republic.
  
  Or not. I'll tell you what else you can do if you want to feel that you're oppressed. C'mon over to my place tonight. It's two-for-one ass-whoopin' night at La Casa Del Sucio. Women have no cover charge. C'mon over and my kids will whip the ever-loving-fucking shit outta you, and one of your friends, for no charge whatsoever. None. It's all part of the service. Then you can go back to your dorm and talk about how "the man" beat you down. Black eyes are free, and we have a special on broken noses. Please, come on down to 1908 Camille St between eight o'clock and midnight, and we'll beat the bloody piss out of you for no reason whatsofuckingever. My Kids are standing by to persecute you...
  
  3) "Somebody needs to stop that guy"
  
  Bring a lunch, motherfucker. Otherwise, shut the fuck up and pay attention, I'm throwing out pearls here.
  
  -Ever notice that 90% of the stories you read about that deal directly with the deployed troops in the Middle East center around the experiences of female servicemembers? Why is that?
  
  -The Soviets had their political officers, to ensure that the commanders were fighting, leading, and developing their subordinates in a politically correct manner. Can somebody tell me why we have Public Affairs Officers and Staff Judge Advocates embedded with these deploying units?
  
  -Quick. Everybody read T. R. Fehrenbach's This Kind of War. He analyzes why we got our asses kicked in Korea before September of 1950, and during the retreat from the Yalu in late '50-early '51. It applies directly to the state of the DoD today, and is frightening as hell. Between '45 and '50, the administration whacked the hell out of the military, adopted policies that weakened the warrior ethos, and treated professional soldiers like yardworkers. We got our ass kicked as a result. We've done the same thing since Billy Jeff got elected in '92. I haven't slept in a week...
  
  EpilogueI'm afraid that I must confess something to you now. I, like Dan Quayle, have been dodging the prospect of combat. I decided to become an active duty Marine officer, and asked again to become an infantryman, because I knew that I would be left on I&I duty in Bossier City, LA during the biggest conflict since War 2. I am ashamed. Shoot me, please.
  
  "Grandpa, what did you do in the Marines during the Great War?"
  "Sonny, I gave away toys to underprivileged children during the Toys for Tots campaign in Shreveport, Louisiana..."
  
  
  How long? Not long. 'Cause what you reap is what you sow
  Unclean

Bile XVI, an analysis of a former president...

And so we continue in the vein of the great Surinam Experiment. Those were heady days, m'friends...the children all excited at building a concensus, the U.N. getting in the way because they could, and my Sarah being able to practically apply all the lessons that she'd studied in reading all of those counter-intelligence manuals that she had been reading since the first grade...

From early '03, more deep background. Enjoy.

Unclean

• Got something interesting in the US Mail today. Seems the little ones have been getting out of hand here lately. Yup, you guessed it, they've been summoned to the Hague to appear before the War Crimes Tribunal and answer charges of Crimes Against Humanity. It serves me right for reading the Small Wars Manual to them before bed. Then there were those certificates of completion from the School of the Americas, and I should have asked more questions when "Idi", "Slobo", and "Mohamar" kept calling for Joel or Sarah at all hours about their "class project". I sat them both down earlier and just chewed their asses for this. I remember specifically addressing cannibalism, corruption of the clergy, and the gunning down of politicians when they took over Surinam last month. Joel keeps denying all knowledge of what actually happened, saying that he was at the UN when it all went down, and Sarah keeps throwing Machiavelli's The Prince in my face. "But Dad," she says, with huge brown puppy dog eyes, "it's better to be feared than loved. Machiavelli proved it. Here, read this paragraph..."
  
  I haven't seen or heard from Daniel this week. Without Joel in New York City, keeping IMF cash money rolling in, Daniel's pretty hamstrung with regards to domestic issues. His weekly radio address didn't help him any, as his continued references to the Quantum Force Power Ranger and the Wild Force Megazord apparently went right over his constituents' heads. He told Laura last Thursday that he was planning on dealing with the insurgents decisively, but with Sarah grounded to her room, I don't hold out much hope for any meaningful successes. Daniel's more of a coalition builder, Sarah's the real muscle on that team. She's even got a poster up in her room of Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, for the love of Christ. When she was six, she used to "interrogate" her Ken doll with a bare bulb lamp, a twelve inch length of 1/4" tubing, and a margarine tub of salt water. Used to say that "it's not the broken fingers that do the trick, it's what you do to the joints..." We thought it was cute.
  
  I think they'll beat the rap, though. Joel's paid the right people off, Sarah's too careful to leave anything behind, and Daniel will take the witness stand and have the room eating out of the palm of his hand as soon as he flashes those dimples and mispronounces any word beginning with the letter "r" as a "w".
  
  It's insult to your injury, salt to your wounds, it's...
  
  BILE
  Volume XVI
  All Billy Jeff. All the time.
  
  1) "Hey Ted, let me drive. It's raining out..." Denis Leary did a piece a few years back that talked about how only the good musicians died young. Hendrix, Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughn, etc. He said that "you could put Motley Crue on a plane filled with two tons of crack" and they'd land safely and on time. "Shit. They're Still Alive.." I contend that there is a similar relationship with the survivability of shitty politicians. Explain Strom Thurmond. Please, I dare you...
  
  I mean, you could put Billy Jeff Clinton and Teddy K in a car with a whole squad of tainted whores, a box of expired condoms, and fifteen bottles of 100 proof vodka on I-10 South between Baton Rouge and New Orleans (about 35 miles worth of bridges on that road) and they would arrive safely in the French Quarter two hours later without a dent, a drop of liquor, or an unused condom in the car, while being completely free of any STD. These guys are like cockroaches...
  
  The solution? I say we take a page from the ooooooold school. We start lynching. Yep, a man who is clearly afeared of stretching is awful fucking careful of who he pisses off. We're in an age where the governors are waaaaayy too comfortable with the displeasure of the governees. It'd just take a couple of these Incentive Streching Exercises to encourage the others who are in office to act in a manner befitting someone who may get hung if they act like dumbasses.
  
  2) "I don't know, I never remember reaching an actual decision regarding foreign policy in the 90's. I just did what Stephanopolous told me to..." There was an interview on the CNN page with Billy Jeff talking about what the Bush administration should do about Iraq. This fucking hayseed says that we should completely trust whatever Blix says to do. That we should allow him to lead us...
  
  We interrupt this argument for an ad homonym attack.
  
  Can you believe, looking back on the last decade, that the enlightened public elected this guy? Not once, but fucking twice?! Amazing. Added to that amazement are my experiences driving through the state that this guy was governor of for like twelve years. Arkansas has less than a hundred buildings which actually have foundations, and fifty of them were built by army engineers. The roads are fucking goat paths, and the tooth per capita rate is like 4 1/2. The whole state makes the denizens of my beloved Bossier seem fucking cosmopolitan by comparison. If Arkansas is any indication of the management qualities of our former Prez, it's a wonder that the entire lower forty-eight hasn't turned into one huge fucking trailer park. Furthermore, the fact that we didn't hear from hardly anybody in Arkansas decrying how ineffective Billy Jeff has been, stands in mute testimony to just how fucking backward that place truly is. [Note: To place the above in perspective, the author wishes to remind you that he hails from Lubbock, TX, and his family is from Coryell County, TX, the world's capital of Hayseedism.]
  
  Now back to the main argument, already in progress...
  
  ...wait a fucking minute. Hansmotherfucking Blix isn't even an actual US citizen. He's not a statesman, not a diplomat, not a soldier. The guy's a weapons inspector, and a shitty one at that. We should trust him to do exactly what? Not find any weapons? Trust him to report that "he hasn't found sheeeit". (Reference to SpaceBalls: "Comb the Desert!") Let's talk about this in baseball terms. (After all, Pitchers and Catchers reported for spring training last week...hope springs eternal.) You've got a pitcher who hasn't won a game all year (Blix). He can't throw strikes, and probably couldn't hit water if he jumped out of a fucking boat. It's the World Series, game seven, you're up a run. Who do you trust to go into the ninth inning and get the three outs that will win you the Champeenship of the World? The guy who could manage to fuck up a free beer, or the guy who's put away more men than the black death (the Honorable Mister Bush )?
  
  Look Billy, we have a leader now. Not that he speaks English so good, but at least he goes on record taking a stand on this issue or that, and takes responsibility if he screws something up. There is a humility here that was noticeably lacking in the years between the hedges. Think of all the men that you've worked for. Think of all the men that you've wanted to emulate. Think of all the historical figures who are truly admirable. Three factors leap out at me in analyzing their nature: Dignity, Humility, Fidelity. All three are part of what we call "honor", but spelling it out in this manner is even better. Saying that Billy Jeff is without honor is like saying that night lacks visible definition. For a president to be effective, he must first earn your trust (fidelity), then he must attempt a common identity (humility), then he must comport himself in a manner worthy of admiration (dignity). (Yeah, I know, there's eighteen billion schools of leadership theory out there, and there's JJDIDTIEBUCKLE, and Billy Jeff's lacking in about every fundamental department, butI'monarollhere, soshutthefuckup) Now, think about the guys who piss you off. The Deion Sanders. The Billy Jeffs. The Alec Baldwins. The Leonard deCaprios ("Leonardo" is bullshit. You just know he went by Leonard in High School and lay unconscious in a puddle of urine every day after Gym class...) What do these assholes lack? I tell ya' what, they're all arrogant motherfuckers, that's what. No humility, none. How can you respect a man who acts as if he has never made a mistake, and never will?
  
  Fundamental difference between the Honorable Mister Bush and Billy Jeff #2220: the Honorable Mister Bush admits he's as fucked up as the rest of us. (Shit, he traded Sammy Sosa for the love of God.) But despite that, he continually attempts to do the best that any mortal can, given his responsibilities and the scrutiny under which he is being held. Meanwhile, Billy Jeff continually reminds us of our shortcomings, while building himself up in the eyes of the media. Also, Billy continually lets us know that he is seeking ways to publicly help us attain his degree of beneficence, despite our inability to understand what he has been trying to accomplish all this time.
  
  In case you were wondering, the fundamental difference between the Honorable Mister Bush and Billy Jeff Numero Fucking Uno: BJ is from fucking Arkansas and my President is from the Republic of Texas. 'Nuff Said. Viva Res publica!
  
  3) "I tell ya what Hillary, by the time we leave, I'll have them dressed in tu-tus and singing acapela at the Kennedy Center Banquet..." Major V, (he of Bridgeport fame) sent me something the other day which I'd seen before but kind of dismissed because I couldn't verify the accuracy of the numbers. I'm sure many of you have seen it passed around. It's an editorial that asks you to identify a country that has so many hundreds of thousands of active duty troops, so many more thousands of reservists, so many air wings and so many thousands of ICBMs and concludes by pointing out that all these divisions, all these air wings, and all these rocket batteries were downsized in the Regnum pro Billy Jeff. In a distinctly militaristic sense, it was straight propaganda against the idiot from Hope.
  
  But it triggered something in the libertarian that dwells deep within the left side of my brain. It all came together, as most conspiracies do. DACOWITS. Tailhook. The downsizing of the military to a ricockulous extent. Hillary. Draft Dodging. War protesting. Chinese spies given full access to General Krulak's footlocker without his knowledge.
  
  Let's say that you're an idealistic twenty year old who fears for his life and rails against a system that could start and prosecute a war against a sovereign nation in Southeast Asia. Let's say that you dodge the draft completely, and then skip out on your obligation and go to London to attend college there. Let's say you visit the Soviet Union, and come to understand their intent with regards to evening the distribution of the wealth of a nation endowed with great resources. Let's say that you make a goal at the point that your plane touches down, following this mind-expanding world tour of modern socialism, that you will change the whole system from the inside, that you will succeed where all the other more militant protestors have failed. Let's say you climb the pole. All the way. To the White House.
  
  What then? You've got everything you ever wanted. You've got more power than any single man in the history of the fucking world. (Accepting possibly Dan Geltmacher, who is a sexual Tyrannosaurus Rex...) You can do...anything you want. Your imagination and the manipulation of a willing press are the only limiting factors in what you can accomplish. What then?
  
  Well, let's look at this. Most of us writing and reading this are in our thirties. Some are exceedingly close to our forties, and at least one of us is damn near older than fucking baseball. (That tooth bit was for you, brother...) How many of you have really changed since you realized that you had a brain? You know, that time about 20-23 years old where you realize that you are the wisest, most intelligent, most virile creature to ever grace the surface of Terra Firma. Oh sure, we've figured out the finer points since then. We've calmed down a bit. We don't drink as much. We stay away from easy women, But how many of us have given up that true ideology that we discovered when we were young, and it all. fell. into place? At the bottom, I firmly believe that we retain that idealism. That we refine ourselves, and become more realistic, but that the germ of idealism never truly dies.
  
  Let's avoid making this more complex than Disco Stu. Billy Jeff sabotaged the military culture, subconsciously or not, because he could. Look at the results and please argue otherwise. What he did to the warrior culture, borne out for eight years, shows a definite purpose, if not conscious intent. Somebody tell me, what was Clinton's first fight when he got into office? Hmmmm? Anybody? Gays in the military. Followed by feminization of the force. Followed by appointment of lapdogs into the higher echelon. Followed by drastic reduction in available deployable forces. Followed by radical increases in missions abroad. Take it in. Take it all in, and tell me I'm wrong. Please.
  
  This guy had it in for us since the Johnson Administration. He got the chance. He systematically plotted our downfall in a direct fashion. The Somalia embarrassment. Haiti. Bosnia. Kosovo. Everywhere we went, and everything we did looked ineffectual. Was this the result of the chicken or the egg? Did he dismantle us so we could fail? Or did we fail because he dismantled us? Interesting question, and one that I expect some feedback about.
  
  I look forward to hearing your response(s).
  
  4) "That Dirty Larry's a baaaaaad mother..."
  "Shut your mouth!"
  "Hey, I'm just talking about the Unclean"
  
  ...You dammnn right.
• I passed yet another sign today, here in this underevolved clutch of simians, that advertised "Mardi Gras Patry Headquarters". Morons. I'm surrounded by morons. Tell ya' what. I'm enforcing intellectual adequacy from here on out. The next one of these mistakes that I see will be followed by me entering the establishment responsible, asking to see the manager, and then hauling that individual into the parking lot by the hair, followed by me beating that individual to death with a tire iron. You've been warned. Consult your fucking dictionaries...
• I saw on the cover of one of those infernal tabloids that Rosie's beefing up to try out for starting right Tackle for the Redskins. The picture, which I know could've been doctored, had her looking at least two-and-a-half bills. I also hear that the editorial staff of her magazine is suing her, or vice versa. I love it. Only bad thing is that I'm not sure who to cheer for. I mean, who is more moronic? Rosie, or the idiots who actually applied for a job at a magazine bearing her name?
  
  5) Epilogue. Over the past four evenings, following my beloved wife buying an additional TV specifically for the playing of video games, I have stayed up past four in the morning playing "Siphon Filter 2". It's worst than masturbation, and three times as addictive. I can't stop. The fact that my kids all gather in my office to watch me play, and therefore badger me until I get a game on, doesn't help. I haven't slept in almost a week, and I looked up just now and realized that I've gotta get up at 0600 in the AM and lead motherfuckers. Shoot me.
  
  Six pack of domestic brew goes to the first person who can name the Disco Stu reference. (Jerry, you are excepted in this.)
  
  The Exodus is Here,
  Unclean
  

Bile XV, Europe and the Gender Wars

Americans,

In order to put most of my comments in context, I'll need to show you about five or six more archived copies from the archives. This one contains some explanation of my childrens' relative malignancy. It is from early 2003, when Joel was fourteen, Sarah was ten, and Daniel was six. This is why I have more security cameras in this place than the vault at the Belagio...

Unclean

• The pervasiveness of the computer age astounds me.
  
  I just found out that my kids bought a third world country on ebay. Yup. No Shit. True story.
  
  Joel, Sarah, and Daniel put their savings together and put down the winning bid on Surinam. It's a country located in South America between Guyana and french Guyana. They got it for like seventy-five bucks. The UN recognized their sovereignty in special session this morning. Joel is the UN delegate, Sarah is the Minister of the Interior, and Daniel has agreed to be the Prime Minister. Nobody wanted to take that last position because the PM has a life expectancy of about a week, but Joel pointed out correctly that Daniel is the youngest and thus gets third pick. Sarah has made assurances that her Secret Police, whom she has named Niñas de Satanás, should be able to protect Daniel indefinitely, but I have my doubts. The last poor bastard that had that job was strung up inside of a month. I would intercede and tell them to stop this nonsense, but Surinam has some pretty good untapped oil resources, and I think I can teach the kids to rule in a reasonably beneficent manner. Sarah scares me though. She's already taken to wearing a monocle, and becomes irate when anyone addresses her in the first or second person. She calls herself "La Reina de Solana" and will not return any calls, so don't even bother.
  
  It's not fatherhood, it's animal husbandry. It's...
  
  BILE
  Volume XV
  European Criticism, History of Western Civilization 1301, and the Wonder of Different Genetalia
  1) "In today's elections, Ronald McDonald replaced jacques chirac as the french Prime Minister, as well as the Chancellor of Germany..." Look, this is not trigonometry, folks. We lost thousands of innocents in a bombing of the tallest building in the world. We are pissed about it and we won't rest until we shoot enough people in the face, who were affiliated with the crime, to assuage our conscience. Further, we have access to the most advanced crime labs in the world, to find out the culprits. We have the most advanced intelligence gathering apparati in the world, to pursue them. We have the most powerful military in the world, to track them down and kill them. All that we need is a true strategic foothold in the middle east to better surveil and prosecute the apprehension of those responsible, those affiliated with those responsible, and those who abetted those responsible. We gotta guy who claims the land around the Tigris and the Euphrates and who has gaffed us off for the past ten years and done exactly the shit that we warned him to stop doing. Sowhatsthefuckingproblem?
  
  The problem is either one of jealousy of our ability to do just whatever the fuck we want, or complicity in the scheme to begin with.
  
  france has shown, since the day we interrupted their German language classes in March/April of '45, a proclivity to stand on the sidelines and bitch because we either don't ask their permission before we take action, or we take action with their full knowledge, but in a manner which they feel is precipitous and over-aggressive. They withdrew from NATO, they became socialists, they bitched about the Quadafi bombings, they bitched about the first Gulf War. Shut the fuck up already. They clearly feel some need to act like the wise older brother, or uncle, telling us young'uns how we should slow down and consider the big picture before we act hastily.
  
  That breaks down when the older brother, or uncle, has lost his fucking house twice through two divorces and had his shit taken from him completely after declaring chapter eleven three different times. Especially when we've posted bail for the worthless fucker on two different occasions...
  
  Look, I took Western Civ 1301 from a man whom the students referred to as "Red Ed" Troyansky. He was as big a francophile as has ever been born. He loved pointing out that the french helped us out at Yorktown. He wallowed in the french revolution, and he took great pains explaining that it was something that was unequaled to that point in European History. However, he was somewhat mute when I brought up the fact that Cromwell had revolted in England a hundred-thirty years before the french rev, and that the U.S. had revolted against a European monarchy ten years prior. (I'm positive that is why he gave me a "C" in Civ and a "C" in Middle-Eastern history the next semester...) The french have contributed jackshit to this whole indo-european culture deal. Their cheese is nasty, their wine is overrated, and their women are hairy. The only reason people speak glowingly of the french womenfolk is because they're easy. Ever wonder where the term "pogey-bait" came from, when speaking of candy? HMMMM? Well, I grew up next door to a retired squadron commander of B-24 Liberators. The guy was a stud, who flew over twenty missions in War 2, including Ploesti where 33% casualties were inflicted on allied aircraft. He told me that between War 1 and War 2, after france lost pretty much every marrying age male to indirect fire, that frenchwomen were literally throwing themselves at American servicemen in order to get out of the post war squalor. They were termed "Pogeys" and could be lured into just about any liaison with the promise of a Hershey bar. Thus: "Pogey-bait". No shit. Don't believe me? Ask an old guy, he'll tell ya...
  
  If the french are complicit in the plot to bring us down, and I would not rule that out, then they should be the next target after we get through in Iraq. It'll be a weekend. We could do it with a rifle platoon. I mean, shit...the only military organization that they have with anything close to a reputation is the Foreign Legion, and those guys, by law, can't be french. I think the fucking prosecution rests.
  
  Germany. Why the hell Germany is standing around with their hands in their pockets is beyond me. I mean, think about it. Since Arminius kicked the living shit outta the Legions in year 9, the Germans have been pretty damned bellicose. By all rights, they should be looking for a reason to work out the rust against an Arab nation. Validate new weapons systems, keep it relevant, stay ready to invade france again with little loss of life...you know.
  
  Instead, their Chancellor is making noise that sounds somewhat....frenchy. GWB is too aggressive, they say. He's analogous to Hitler, they say. We should consider giving peace a chance, they say. Sad. At least throughout the cold war, one could respect the West and East Germans for at least giving the appearance of being able to defend themselves. Now they're talking like cheese-eating surrender monkeys, and adhering to what St Michael C. referred to as "using lyrics from a Beatles song as a basis for sound domestic and foreign policy."
  
  ATTENTION FORMER WORLD POWERS WHO HAVE BEEN RELEGATED TO SUPPORTING ROLES ON THE WORLD STAGE: EITHER GET A NAVY WORTH A SHIT, OR SIT DOWN AND SHUT YOUR FUCKING MAN PLEASERS. THANK YOU.
  
  
  2) "Tell me the truth, SSgt. Do these Dress Blues make me look fat?" This is something that I really haven't dealt with in these pages very much. Why? Hell, I don't know why, I guess I'm falling down on the job here lately. But it's something that is really coming to the fore with regards to the social makeup of this country. The feminization of this nation goes apace, and there ain't a lot stopping it. Do I have any evidence of this trend, you ask. Well, fuck. Take a look around. Men are going to great lengths to act like women, even those of the heterosexual bent, and women are going to extreme lengths to act like men. I want to know why. Once upon a time, we had a good system. Men acted like they had a set. Women acted like they didn't. Seemed to work. No?
  
  I can't point to it's exact beginning, but sometime within the last twenty or thirty years, we started acting like this and it's thrown the whole system into a frenetic duality that seems to contradict the last 10,000-plus years of evolution. Need evidence? Watch any sitcom on network TV (excepting The Simpsons, Groening tells it like it is) and you'll see the lead male part act in ways that were never contemplated by the creator when he endowed us with Johnnies. Please, somebody, write back and identify for all of us any mainstream network program that portrays a male that we might wish to emulate. It ain't out there. I don't watch much TV outside of Baseball, Football, and old movies, but the latest respectable prime-time male lead on a network program was on "The Cosby Show" , or "Married with Children". If somebody has seen different, (and Hank Hill's got issues, goddamnit) by all means, let me know.
  
  And women roles in the media? GI Jane? Sound familiar? How about the detective movie that Kathleen Turner did or the western that Sharon Stone bombed in? Hmmmm? C'mon, I know we're past the whole Leave it to Beaver age, and I'm actually kinda glad about that, but just be women. There is dignity in that. Much more dignity than acting like a guy, because most of us don't act dignified when we're around you anyway...
  
  We've become indistinguishable. Men and Women. You've got men with earrings and women on Naval ships. Men nowadays try to be something that has never, ever worked for them: sensitive.
  
  We're not sensitive. We can't be. We have dicks. I'm sorry. It's the truth. My wife, God bless her, is trying to stop smoking, and I just got through being a huge asshole to her, undoubtedly causing her to desire a smoke. Sorry. It's just the way I'm built. I try, but I fail, because I have a dick. It's fucking biology, whatcanItellya.
  
  And I'm not saying that we should just shit on people and blame it on our Ho-hos. What I'm trying to convey is that we will shit in our shoes because it is biologically impossible for us not to. We can't fly, we can't nurse infants, we can't give birth. We can't be sensitive. It ain't in us. Buy a fucking cat.
  
  But, on the other hand, you women out there, stop trying to be men. We can't be sensitive, you can't keep up with us when it comes to physical exertion, and you can't handle it emotionally when we yell at you for not acting like a guy.
  
  But look at what we've done here. Kids are confused nowadays because all of the above has become confused. Not only can my kids not display their sense of humor and laugh during class without being beaten down (as I was, and as Sarah is daily), now they can't act out in anyway that is socially healthy. Kids are getting suspended for kissing, for Chrissake. What are we doing here? I'll tell ya what we're doing, we are dooming our kids to becoming the selfsame, boring, mass produced parts that we dreaded as teenagers, and despise as adults.
  
  The solution is simple. Have faith in yourself as a member of whatever gender you happen to be. There is no shame in acting like a man. There is less shame in acting like a lady. There is a difference between the two, (thank God), and the difference is really great, so let's stop blurring the lines and just enjoy the civility that was once present when the world was a little more simple, and everybody knew which set of genetalia they were endowed with. Thank you.
  
  3) "This guy's fucking lost it..."
  You know it. Stay where you are. Nobody move, nobody get hurt.
  
  
  -People who try to pass off a ton of shit in an express checkout lane, I am buying a cattle prod tomorrow. If I count more than fifteen items, I will jam it in your ass. You've been warned. Don't be surprised if you wake up wondering what the fuck hit you...
  
  -EVERYBODY IN THIS GREAT NATION: GET SOME WALKING AROUND MONEY. I'm serious, stop paying for a half-pint of Half n’ Half with a check, stop putting a pack of smokes on your credit card, and don't debit a candy bar. STOP WASTING MY MOTHERFUCKING TIME.
  
  -Media fools: while I do possess a dick, I refuse to watch your reality bullshit on the off chance of seeing attractive women. For the love of God, stop pandering to me like this. The fact that you think that you can manipulate me so easily is actually insulting. Pay a screenwriter and some actors to act out an actual plot line that is more complicated than "Ross" going to the store and running into an old girlfriend, or "Joey" attempting to open a quart carton of milk. That in itself would be a novelty. Casting agents, please stop putting John Ritter in your programs. Thank you in advance.
  
  Epilogue: As I explained to Matt and Mikey C, last night ended abruptly not quite due to writer's block, but more like a torn mental ACL. It became too hard, and when it doesn't flow, it ain't worth the hackneyed attempt. Thus, I let it go and saved up for this evening. It did help that I was inundated all day with articles slamming the french and Europe in general, and I encourage you to send all word that you find outrageous (I'm holding the Southwest Airlines discrimination suit until I'm particularly drunk...) and I'll get it in. Precious few things escape my general angst, and I can formulate an opinion about damned near anything, so send me all the weird shit that you can find (excepting the cannibalism of genetalia, Dave. Some things are too fucking weird, even for me.) I look forward to your input.
  
  
  With a pocketful of shells,
  Unclean