signing the dotted line

“You don't need a patch on your arm to have honor.” -Tom Cruise as Lt. Daniel Kaffee in the film, A Few Good Men

i’ve known individuals who never

signed the dotted line---

they never took the $20,000 sign up bonus

&

they never pretended,

lying to themselves beforehand,

that when they were

enlisted,

that it would somehow be “peace time,”

whatever that means. 

 

i’ve known folks who have worked at a

gas station for years to pay off the bills that they

could have easily caught up on,

had they had the salary promised them,

if they had become

professional

hired

killers.

 

and i am well aware that there are those

that say that they had no other way to go to college,

than to join the military.

 

and i am well aware that these scumbag recruiters

prey on the poorest neighborhoods,

often seated right at the bottom of the stairwell of a

subway exit.

 

but i just don’t have any

sympathy for you,

if you have signed that dotted line---

because when you do that,

you are saying that

someday,

somewhere,

you won’t have a problem killing someone whom you have

never

met---

having stolen them from their family,

having taken from them all that was life,

for the purpose of

the

state---

you may even be sitting in an office in

arizona,

as i write this,

“manning” a drone,

that has entered any one of our prospective

targets (victims),

in order to beat them senseless

&

rape their land of their natural

resources.

 

if you come back & they hail you,

you still signed the dotted line.

 

if you come back in a box,

you still signed the dotted line.

 

you are a hired killer the minute that pen hits the paper &

no amount of praying or

“good deeds” when you get home,

will rectify doing so.

 

i have so much more respect for those of us that

work our asses off every day in a country with a decrepit

education system, no universal health care, 14+ million

unemployment, etc. etc.---

because we

stick

it

through---

we will never try and convince ourselves that even the

possibility

of killing someone else

or helping destroy another people’s country

will somehow

solve our own

problems.