Fantasies of War & Valor

I've slept in the last couple of days, because I feel like I need rest, since I've been sick. Whenever I sleep longer than my body wants to, like waking up, and forcing sleep back on myself, I dream weird dreams and I remember them. I thnk this one was based on a TV commercial I saw while I was at Dallas & Caryl's house. It showed all these guys on a Navy Boat having the time of their lives. They were pulling in something heavy on a rope, one of them was climbing up the side of the boat, and they kept intersplicing Rambo-esque shots of a guy getting ready for battle... You know, tying his shoes, putting a knife in his belt, and piecing his gun together. One guy turns to another guy and says, "Just think, some poor schmuck is out there somewhere buying a minivan." What a romantic image. No offense to anyone who is in the military, but I'm sure it's not as fun as the commercial looks. I don't think real-life vacation cruises are as fun as this commercial looked.

So I was dreaming this morning that somehow, at the age of 27, I was drafted and some mean person was singling me out as a ferret or something, I was required to take more risks to infiltrate the enemy lines and kill people. The only problem was I think my dream skipped the part where I trained to use a gun, to build up stamina, and not to cry. I was scared out of my mind! I survived okay, I imagine that it's like that dream where you are falling. People say if you ever hit the ground, you die. I didn't get shot in the dream, so I lived in real life, and I woke up in time for my gall bladder test. Thank the Lord for that.

I did get shot at, and I did shoot another guy, with a revolver. It felt good in the dream, but then when I woke up, I felt bad. In the dream, it felt good because that guy was trying to kill me. Waking, I knew that it was fantasy, and I had felt good about killing someone in a dream. I have in the past considered military time, mostly to pay for college. But I never went through with it. In high school, I arranged for one of those recruiters to come to my house and talk to my parents. They waited for the guy to leave and tried to talk me out of it. Then they had my brother-in-law talk to me about not doing it too. He was older than me, and I looked up to him. I still wanted to do it, but my mom told me that they make it look & sound good, but when they get you in there, it's another story.

I have nothing against the military as a way to protect our nation from harm. I don't like it as a solution to economic quarrels. And I don't think it's right that military time is a poor person's main way out of the slums. The only rich people interested in the military seem to be future political candidates who want to increase their credibility. Otherwise, it's people who signed up thinking they'd never have to see any action, they'd just do their training and weekends here and there and take the free college education. Why not make college more available to everyone, not just those willing to gamble their life on the hopes of a few years of peacetime... I don't think a lot of people are counting on peacetime any time soon. I wonder if that's why the army is having to increase the romanticism in their commercials these days.

yvaN ehT nioJ - Thank you Matt Groening & NSync