THE PHONY TOUGH AND THE CRAZY BRAVE

He Said, She Said, Ed Said

I always wondered what I would do in the face of real danger. I never had to experience combat. I enlisted in the Army National Guard in 73 just after the draft had ended.

Can't say I had some high altruistic motive for doing so. It was more to do with my undiagnosed ADD boredom, looking for something different to do with my rudderless life.

I made it through Army basic training just fine in fact near top of the class in all but one area.

The ability to take shit from someone else. You see back then I had a real problem with authority. Yeah not exactly a virtue in the military.

Flash forward some 40 plus years, I have some regrets about that. I admire those who serve our country in the military and regret I was not a different person back then.

Watching a movie such as American Sniper always has me reevaluating myself in Army Basic Training.

I don't flatter myself thinking I could have even qualified for SEAL training much less earn a Trident. 

Basic training was tough enough for me. When I learned what BUDS training consisted of, I was in awe of anyone who could make it through that hell.

These guys who earn that title even if they never have to do one actual combat mission deserve accolades.

Then you think about those guys who make the grade then get deployed and do a tour in country, then do two tours, then do three tours, then do four tours.

But that man who joins the military, applies for SEAL training, then is one of the few that actually graduates BUDS, then is deployed 1,2,3,4 times. Holds the record as America's deadliest sniper in U.S. history. Comes home, devotes his life to helping other vets who are disabled and has his life taken by some returning vet. This is the guy the Hollywood elitists want to call a coward.

What am I missing? Is Michael Moore qualified to make judgments on an American hero because he makes fake documentaries trashing the U.S. and can devour a whole can of Crisco at one setting? Is Seth Rogan qualified to make judgments on an American hero because he can smoke a whole pound of weed while he jokes about how many times he whacks off each day?

Ok, I got that out, I was supposed to blog about the content of the movie American Sniper.

I have to admit Bradley Cooper is one of my favorite actors. Not because I look just like him (I wish), I just think he can play any role convincingly, he even does well in comedic roles. And Clint Eastwood is a proven quality as an actor as well as director.

Watching this movie or any combat movie more often than not leads me down memory lane to my own lackluster military career. And always has me wondering if I would have had the right stuff in the heat of battle.

I can't usually remember what happened last week, but I will never forget the time in basic training when the enemy of one of our fight songs led by the DI's was switched overnight. It went from,,

"I want to be an Airborne Ranger, I want to live a life of danger, I want to go to Vietnam, I want to kill some commie congs". You see, almost all of our Drill Instructors were fresh back from country. Vietnam was still their enemy.

Then suddenly overnight, the song was changed, not the tune, just the enemy. That next morning as per usual we started our morning run around the Parade Grounds while singing war songs.

"I want to be an Airborne Ranger, I want to live a life of danger, I want to go to Israel, I want to kill some Egyptians".

Yeah overnight.

This was1973, the Yom Kippur War pitted Israel against an Egyptian/Syrian alliance when the Muslims launched a surprise attack against the Jews on the Jewish Holy Day of Yom Kippur.

In basic training you get news not from the network TV, but by word of mouth so reliability sometimes suffers. I had not been training that day, I was stuck on KP duty which was worse then crawling through mud while a D.I. was kicking you in the ass.

My buddies came through the chow line with wide eyes exclaiming "man were going to war!, they put some infantry units on ready alert and us Nation Guard guys are getting 6 additional weeks of combat training and then we're going to be sent over to the Mideast!"

It was the next day when I went back to training that the war song was changed to killing Egyptians.

The day after that one of the guys in our BTC decided he would bug out. He had joined the 82 Airborne unit. An Airborne infantry unit, a unit you join expecting to someday go into combat with. That day he just refused to train, he stood against the barracks wall and threatened to hit anyone who came near him.

Why would you join a damn infantry unit then bug out if you thought you would have to fight.

Ahhhh the Phony tough! 

That line is from one of my favorite movies, "Full Metal Jacket". The narrator talks about the phony tough and the crazy brave.

What was I thinking during this time? I had lived my young life being both phony tough and crazy brave at times up until this point. Funny thing was, I wasn't really terrorfied at the possibility of going to war, it was unexpected for sure, I thought I was there to learn how to operate bulldozers. I had joined an Army National Guard Engineering unit. Now I was going to have to go through infantry training then go on the other side of the planet and kill Egyptians.

I hadn't planned on killing Islamics, but I was the one who signed on the line, I wasn't going to bug out.

Yeah I know the point of this "he said, she said, Ed said" was to give my take on the movie American Sniper. But when I'm watching a really great film I get inside the movie and I wonder things like what would I do? How would I handle that situation?

Movies I've seen about combat always take me back 40 years ago to BTC in Fort Leonard Wood Missouri and I remember how tough I thought Basic was at the time.

 

Uhhhh, I keep getting off track here, chasing rabbits as a former pastor said. I'm supposed to be reviewing a movie here.

American Sniper had me cursing under my breath the Islamic terrorists and cheering when Chris Kyle blew one of the scumbags heads off. The end of the movie had the entire audience in silence and we ushered ourselves out of the theatre as if it had been transformed into a funeral home.

American Sniper is an amazing movie, I would not expect it to garner many awards though. It will not be politically correct to do so. Hollywood is replete with the phony tough. 

Michele (sic) Moore has made a good living utilizing freedoms fought for by others.

His hack so-called documentaries would not be possible in most other places. This talentless Crisco Kid has found his niche, tearing down the very nation that he uses for his own personal gain. And he calls the likes of Chris Kyle a coward?

Back to Fort Leonard Wood 40 years ago.

Turns out Israel had no need for either the phony tough or the crazy brave. They kicked the living shit out of the Islamics just like they did in 67.

I was a relief to all of us of course, as for the phony tough, the 82nd Airborne guy that wanted to bug out when he thought he might actually have to go into combat and who before that spent all his spare time telling everybody how badassed he was, got handed a DD and was sent packing. I went on after Basic Training to A.I.T. and played in the mud of Fort Leonard Wood on a D7 Cat bulldozer for a couple months. Never got tested on the battlefield, had to settle for a few barroom brawls instead.

But it always left me wondering, when I think about the ones who have been tested, like the guy in the movie I sat and watched today, or the guy who sat on the other side of my sister who was tested in Vietnam. I wonder if I would have measured up. Not a war hero, just a soldier who could one day say I did my best.

To read She Said go here.  http://ihavearighttospeaktoo.blogspot.com/

Then go to Ed Said. http://ed-bonderenka.blogspot.com/