Swan Song: Bushies Begin To Realize Their Fall Is Imminent

OCT 16 - 31, 2004

VOL. 2 ISSUE 20

FIRSTHAND STORY FROM A SOLDIER

I have done a lot in my life.

I was in the Air Force for nine years and five days. I performed “force protection” duties in back water bases where, it seems, people have just discovered fire. I was a courier, where, I believe, my secondary duty was “make-shift bullet catcher”.

I performed light construction duties, in helping in both the construction of the forward air base facilities, then, upon thinking my job was finished for the day, the Comm Squadron, would pull me right out of my cot in my tent, and make me set up the Comm center for them. I was assigned to the unit doing the constructing, but, I was a Computer geek. This means both units were bickering over me.

Compared to some people who had the luxury to sit in a – normally – well-protected building, and did nothing but play cards, I feel I did more for my country than the obligations on that little piece of paper I signed listed. In fact, in many cases, I performed duties so outside my alleged “job description”, they should have just called my career specialty “Some Airman we have do whatever we tell him to”…

I got out of the Air Force to a USA that was different than the one I joined up to protect. Being that my original field was, in a broad sense, computers and communications, I tried hard to find something in that area…

All I got was stocking for Wal-Mart.

I left Missouri (My home of record), to Washington D.C. in July of 2001, under the promise that the National Capitol Region was the “New Silicon Valley”. The press laid that all real nice and thick. “The Dulles Corridor has enough jobs to satisfy ALL computer-related professionals…” They also said that this was part of the initiative to privatize the “unimportant” jobs in the D.C. area, and that everyone would benefit. Sure, whatever…

I found myself in competition with (Now MIND YOU, this is before the job went to INDIA. This is when they brought the INDIAN to the JOB.) people who didn’t even know what a HOT DOG was. Everybody I knew, who had a birth certificate that stated a location in the USA ended up bagging groceries, stocking shelves, or waiting tables. Yes, I left a stocking job in Missouri, for 2 stocking jobs in the D.C. area – NONE of which, when combined (And I will add the Missouri check with those two D.C. checks, for this example!), could even pay my RENT in D.C., let alone FOOD.

I ended up getting a nice computer job for a contractor in the beltway. WOW! GREAT! I was supposed to report for work, September 13^th…2001…I was told the job was so much mine, only an act of God could take it way. I thought everything was looking real bright for me…Boy, was I ever wrong…

The morning of September 11, saw myself with my Double Gulp cup of Coca-Cola in my hands, walking down Columbia Pike - the road the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77 used as a guide to crash into the Pentagon. Don’t let any of these vitriolic paper-hangers fool you…I saw a plane go down – along with, yet, another promising job.

I was stocking, yet, more shelves for a living until June 2002, when I was evicted from the tiny room I lived in, because, though I was working a boggling mind and body-breaking twenty hours a day, seven days a week, and directly signing all paychecks over to the RENT, I wasn’t making enough…So, I took what I was able to, and fled back to Alamogordo, New Mexico, where I had gotten out of the Air force just about three years prior.

In the office where I got a job in on the local base, I saw co-workers deploy for the Iraqi invasion. It was an invasion, I felt, was wrong, because we were going after the wrong people. I give the troops support. What the hell else am I going to do – I used to be one of them. However, I thought the geo-political strategy of throwing them and tax dollars into Iraq had no reasoning behind it. ESPECIALLY since anyone with a BRAIN knew that a fundamentalist like Bin Laden was water to Saddam’s oil. Besides, the only countries I know that had rich enough people to use the money they refer to as “petty cash” to fund the felling of two of the tallest buildings in the world, as well as damage a fortress like the Pentagon was probably either a Saudi or a Kuwaiti. I doubt any of the movers and shakers in a country like Iraq would fund that. I am surprised, during those sanctions, even the highest echelons of the Iraqi government didn’t know what the hell a FOOD STAMP was.

So, here I am, with a computer job (MIRACULOUSLY!), sitting at home, writing this, asking the following…Where and when the hell did everything go wrong? Why is all this happening? Where did both the stupid global leaders and the cunning, devious, evil ones (That take advantage of the stupid ones …) come from? Is ANY of this MY FAULT?! And, last, but not least, If there IS anything I can do about this, WHAT IS IT???

A comedian once said, “The world went to hell about the time they switched “Darrins” on “Bewitched”. This could be true. For all I know, for example, Republicans could have been screwing things up like CLOCKWORK whenever the electoral votes swung their way – Or when some of “Daddy’s Boys” just HAND you the White House, and you tell the public, “Jesus gave it to me…”

I don’t leave out the Democrats…I am just too tired to continue the list…Maybe I should create deck of cards instead. I think THAT would get my point across!! NOT 52 cards. Maybe 78 like a TAROT DECK or something like that. I’ll put Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan in the deck, only because my red blood wants to see total DOLLS as “The Empress”, and “The High Priestess” cards…After that, I think I will have PLENTY OF ROOM to throw all the JOE SCHMUCKS that I feel screwed us over in….

It is not as easy as Dudley Do-Right just strutting up, like some rooster, crowing out, “I’ll save you!”, or, like some shifty agent in Hollywood, saying. “Don’ worry! I know what I’m doin’. I got it all handled.”

I hate voting, because I don’t know who I can trust. I feel I have to snatch MOPP gear from the base, and wear the stuff when I go vote. I feel like a friend of mine here, after he stays in Vegas longer than three days. He says he gets this oily feeling, like it’s the sin of the city rubbing up against him. Yeah, that is EXACTLY how I feel after I vote…

So, Where do I go? What do I do? Tell you what – trying to figure this out isn’t all that easy!

Getting all this off my chest makes me feel like I am at an AA meeting. Like these thoughts are WRONG in the eyes of society, or something. One I thought I was helping.