This is a guest post from Peter Lucier. Peter is a Marine veteran (2008-2013) and student at Montana State University. He writes as a member of the Council of Former Enlisted for The Best Defense blog, and is the editor of the soon to be launched Return to Base (rtbmag.com) You can follow him on Twitter @peterlucier
WARNING: This article is rated S, for “Satire” and should not be read by children or people who take themselves too seriously or who have an aversion to the calculated profanity of the Marine Corps.
The year is 2030. Women have been fully integrated into combat units. We come upon our heroine and hero at Ultra Enhanced Mojave Cobra-Viper training, in preparation for a deployment to Afghanistan, where the war has continued quietly and unabated. It will be their first combat deployment. As the sun sets over the jagged mountain ranges and the ancient lava flows, and the cool of night quickly rushes in, two lance corporals stand watch.
“My dad deployed to Afghanistan” She says quietly, as if to no one. “In 2009, a few months before I was born”
“Does he have a Combat Action Ribbon?” he asks, eager for stories of hard charging bad assery.
“No. Total fucking POG,” she replies, emphasizing her disdain with a healthy expelling of dark, rich tobacco juice. Copenhagen protrudes from her lip, the way the mountains jut into the sky, the way a grenade pouch bulges, heavy with the weight of something ready to explode, he thinks to himself.
“What a wuss.” He readjusts his flack, stuffing his hands into the space between the body armor and his chest. She can’t help but notice the way the moon glints off his Blawkhawk tactical tomahawk.
“If 1stSgt sees that on your flack, he’ll throw a shit fit”
“1stSgt is a total fucking POG,” he echoes her, and their eyes lock for a moment. “I’m gonna get a kill with this tomahawk.” The juvenile promise of violence electrifies them both, their moto, like the French elan, rising, building, searching for a climactic oorah.
“Do you think I could… steal a pinch?” he asks, tentatively.
She nods, and as she passes him the can, their Mechanix-gloved fingers brush for a moment. He is shaking as he tries to capture a pinch of tobacco between his trembling fingers.
“Here… let me.” She pulls close to him, one hand holding the can steady, while the other deftly scoops the long cut product of God-loving American farmers from Kentucky, and Virginia, growing, harvesting, curing, shredding, all that work, all that love, and care, gone into a single can of star spangled goodness, of tightly packed sexual tyrann-osity. She pushes deeply into the gap between his lips and his teeth, tiny shards of fiberglass biting deeply into his soft pink flesh.
“I love your dip inside my mouth,” he murmurs.
“Is that a Monster in your Magpul after-market single stack magpouch, or are you just happy to see me?”
“I want to take you to Valhalla, you Amazon-Spartan warrior.”
Inflamed with the mix of disparate, non-contemporaneous cultures, the lack of historical context, the barely graduated School of Infantry alumni could bear it no longer.
“I’m gonna put you on your knees, like Allen West with that prisoner.”
“We have to get you out of this prepared position” she teased. He tore into the range cards, covered with the trappings of professionalism like primary directions of fire, left and right lateral limits, leaving them in tatters in the sand.
“You read me like an open Navy Seal memoir book, like a 1200 word veteran Facebook rant railing against athletes. If I knew how to spell, you’d make me forget. I want to be your sheepdog.” His Monster felt like it was ready to explode from the built up carbonation.
“Lets play Fox and Friends. I’ll be Geraldo and you be Ralph Peters. I want to give away your position.”
“I want to violate your codes of conduct.”
They were quickly losing themselves in warrior-osity. Tobbacco juices mingling.
“If only we didn’t have all these restrictive ROEs, all these rules holding us back. We could go a-Viking like Hans Erickson. We could pillage. I hate all this civilian control.”
“Those politicians don’t know anything about war fighting.” Pulling him close, she whispered in his ear, “What if we lived in Starship Troopers world, and only veterans could vote…”
Her hints of a military dominated fascist state were too much for him. All those hours on libo spent in front of the cold blue light of a laptop, late nights of spewing furious anger in the comments section of lib-tards blogs. The pent up desire of wanting to swing his broadsword like a Crusader, to destroy the evil of radical Islamic terror…”
“What the fuck are you two boots doing,” a voice in the darkness snapped the spell.
“Oh shit… its Staff Sergeant”
“Well… report your fucking post”
“Aye aye, sir, I mean staff sergeant,” she stammered
“Sir! Fucking sir! Get your shit together, boot. Is that… is that a fucking tomahawk on your flak, there fucknuts?”
“Yes, Staff Sergeant.”
“Give me that fucking shit. Keep your fucking eyes on your AOR. Tommy Talib is gonna sneak up on your dumbasses, cut your heads off, and use them as fucking soccer balls. Goddamn boots, all you think you’re goddamn Ricky Recon with this shit. Where is your goddamn range card anyway? Y’all better unfuck yourselves before we get into the shit. One of you take a radio and go walk the perimeter. I catch you playing grabass again you’ll run gun drills until you puke.”
Unclipping the MOLLE straps of the tactical tomahawk, his head hung low, he hands the weapon over to the platoon sergeant. “When can I… I mean, will I get it back, Staff Sergeant?”
Cracking the faintest of grins, Staff Sergeant laconically replies, “Molon Labe, boot.”
About the Editor: Angry Staff Officer is an Army engineer officer who is adrift in a sea of doctrine and staff operations and uses writing as a means to retain his sanity. He also collaborates on a podcast with Adin Dobkin entitled War Stories, which examines key moments in the history of warfare.
The Angry Staff Officer 