It's really nothing new, war time or no, we've still got to get rid of our servicemen if we find that they're a bunch of peter-pumpers.
Is there any price too high to pay to satisfy the fragile ideals of what manhood and fitness for duty really are held by the frightened and ignorant men in Washington and wearing the brass?
Even after being hit by shrapnel from a Grenade, Stout is ready and willing to go back into action, and serve country that wouldn't have him; too frightened by the prospect of the fact that different in some ways, though he may be, he's still a human being, and still identifies as a patriotic American willing to put his life on the line for us all. It's quite a shame that neither his willingness nor his ableness, and not even his prior service or proof of dedication to the cause have anything to do with the consideration of his discharge.
Well I've got to hand it to fellow sciforums poster, Baron Max. It seems that his dog-dumb anti-analysis summation that rules are rules, and are somehow beyond any reach of logic reason or assessment seems to be catching on. I must be getting old; the idea that rules were to serve some sort of purpose seemed to be much more prevalent when I was young.
Mrs. Donnelly's assessment of the situation, as absurdly fatalistic and unthinking, though it may be, causes a little smile to creep across my face each time I read over it. It reminds me of an episode of the Cartoon Network's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" In which Frylock asks Shake if he finds it at all odd that their friends Meatwad and Carl were washing the car at midnight - Ever dense and dismissive, Shake just shrugs and says "People do things, It's a fact!" and creeps away, satisfied that the situation has been adequately addressed. Though the scene may lose a bit of humor in translation to text, I assure you that the delivery on the show is simply hysterical. Kind of a shame that our country's leadership shares the spirit of message with a talking milk shake, though.
A familiar story, my own discovery of my homosexuality was fairly similar, lots of odd feelings in highschool that I just considered a phase, and gradual acceptance later on. Stout is only a year older than me, if things had gone different I could have been in the same place as he's in now. I was wondering how to pay for college, and my parents and I were thinking that serving in the army might just be a good way to go about it.
Indeed a few of my highschool buddies have been over in Iraq. They've killed, and been shot at, they've come back changed, and seeming a lot older than they were last I saw them. One of my classmates, one year my junior returned from his third tour recently. He went back to my old highschool, which my little sister now attends. He spoke to the students, told 'em what life was like out there. He was treated as an honored guest of the school, hailed as a hero. Just as Stout was, when he was Awarded his Purple Heart.
The discovery, however, of one rather trivial piece of information - simply who he was thinking about back home to keep him going each day, to kill when he had too and stay focussed on his job transformed him from a hero into an exile, and anathema. We honored him, he's ever god-damned kid we think of when we tie those yellow ribbons around our mailboxes, and put the stickers on our cars saying that we support our troops. Now, though all we've got to say to him is "Thanks for the blood, Stout - yours and theirs, now get the hell out of our sight, you make us sick."
I can think of no final words of incense and disgust. I'm going now to seek strong drink, and put on Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut". There are times when I can't bear to admit that this is America.
