Thursday, May 26, 2005
About Me
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- Name:B.K. Marcus
- Location:Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
B.K. Marcus is an amateur political economist with no formal education in the subject. He is a house husband, a faculty spouse, a dilettante, and a layabout. Once upon a time, he made a fair living as a web developer. If you accuse him of being descended from entrenched Establishment Keynesians, he will deny it!
Previous Posts
- berets, left and right
- après moi le déluge
- linoleum blownapart
- fear of abandonment
- the right to make choices
- social responsibility
- simply a babbler who parrot-like repeats what he has picked up
- for our protection?
- la bamba
- the economics of fascism
Links
- bk's homepage
- bk's other writing
- "to quote myself ..."
- bk's economics portal
- 3 tiers of belief (3E/3P)
- BlackCrayon.com
- random blog entry
Random Quotes
"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."
-- Murray Rothbard
4 Comments:
Used to be that the beret was the exclusive property of elite units in the army. Now every soldier can wear a beret and feel elite. I always preferred the baseball cap with my fatigues and the class A hat with the eagle insignia and the black bill. The class A hat looked like the hats worn by doormen or the cops on Adam 12, but it was a lot better than the godawful c**t cap that is worn in paper form at fast food restaurants.
I recognize the John Wayne photo from "The Green Beret", a piece of Vietnam War propaganda if there ever was one. I am sad to say that I have seen it about 5 times and that the final scene where the Vietnamese boy learns that his beloved "Peterson" has been KIA chokes me up. As the boy and John Wayne walk along the beach, the "Green Beret Hymn" swells, and I start to cry. I also cry when I hear "Here's to my brother, George Bailey, the richest man in town."
Of course, none of these pictures gets anywhere close to the style achieved with our berets in my unit in the Army. I spent hours (in front of a mirror in the latrine with the other guys in my platoon who gave a, well, shit) trying to get the shape of my beret just so. Now, as vache folle says, any bozo can strap on a black beret and go.
"Follow me!!"
One interesting thing, which is probably only interesting to me but nonetheless, is that all I ever wanted to be was a soldier; more specifically a Ranger or a Special Forces trooper, and despite being an outstanding trooper and spending most of my time in a scout unit (not unlike a Ranger platoon in terms of physical and mental demands, just without the live fire deployments) I was not given the option to go to 'Ranger Bat' or to Special Forces. I was given no incentive to stay in the military. When I went to reenlist, the reenlistment NCO just sat there like a bucket of water:
"So Sarn't, if I reup, can I go to 'Ranger Bat'?"
"Nope. No slots."
"Special Forces?"
"Nope. No slots."
"Uh, so not even any kind of guarantee that if I sign up for six more years that I'd get a chance to go if a slot came available?"
"Nope."
Spending six years cleaning my weapon waiting for things to change didn't appeal to me at the time. When I got out in February of 1990 I believe that there was something approaching an entire platoon that was released at the same time, and most of them were, like me, given 'early outs'. The whole time I was in the military we never had money for training (meaning bullets, MREs, fuel, etc.) and the reason I know this is because it is something the NCOs and officers complained constantly about.
Hats off to el jeffe, senor Clinton for that one, I suppose.
And now, it makes me cry to read in the newspaper that the military is pretty desperate to get guys into special operations. And well, I'm 36 and can't run a 6 minute mile anymore, at least not 5 of them consecutively as I often did when I was in.
Ah well, and you can shoot me for saying this if you like, I'm not so sure I agree with the mission over there and elsewhere in the world anyway. It does suck very much to see the names of these 20 something kids from National Guard and Reserve units in the paper. I'm sorry but those people did not sign up to die. Nonetheless for me jumping out of planes, blowing shit up, and spending hours getting my beret to look good was very intense and gave my life some kind of meaning, there's just no two ways about it.
anonymous might consider himself lucky that he did not get what he wished for. My sainted grandfather, the best horseman and best marksman in living memory in my home environs, lost out on his deam of being a cavalryman in WW1 due to an unfortunate logging injury where he lost most of his right hand. He regretted this but was spared participation in an idiotic war and went on to sire many fine children and live a respectable life as a yeoman farmer.
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