Jay wrote:
I enlisted in September, 2000, two days less than one year prior to 9/11 occurring. I joined for many reasons, I was aimless and without a trade and had a girlfriend that I had dated for four years that I thought I might marry one day. I was depressed because I was stuck at home commuting to college via bus while my friends were all away at four year colleges. If any job had presented an offer to pay for four years of college I would've taken it. It just so happened that the military was offering such a deal. I'd really like to know how working a low paying job with the threat of danger constantly hanging over your head is somehow akin to being on the welfare gravytrain. Actually, no I don't. I'll leave you with this quote instead:
"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."
-Dr. Samuel Johnson
I remind myself of that quote every time one of the cowards on this forum that never served likens military service to welfare.
haha. jay quoting samuel johnson, that's funny. i can't think of a personality who you should by right despise more on character trait and principle: dr. johnson embodies just about everything you claim to despise. but of course you'll quote his 'wisdom' because it suits you. are you going to move to london soon, too, then?
"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
-Dr. Samuel Johnson
here's another quote for you, from someone a little more modern and down to earth:
"when one doesn't have the courage needed to be a pacifist, one's a warrior. the pacifist is always alone. the warrior is sure of being in agreement with most people. if it's a majority he wants, he can set his mind at ease, he's in it... if, like everyone, he needs greatness, it's in the mess that a 'greatness of his own size' is found for him. everything is prepared for him in advance. if a man trembles at the idea of one day surpassing Man, let him tremble no longer but become a warrior; or, simpler still, just surrender and let himself go - he'll be set among the warriors as a matter of course... the whole game of war is played out on the warrior's weakness... the simple soldier: neither good nor bad, recruited into it because he's not against it. he'll suffer the warrior's lot there without causing trouble, until the day when, like Faulkner's hero, he discovers that anyone can stumble blindly into heroism by mistake, as easily as he can fall down a manhole left open in the middle of the sidewalk.
it's absurd to claim that an army made up of millions of men is the personification of courage: that's the conclusion of a facile mind".
-Jean Giono, preface to
Carnets de moleskine.
sure sounds like a lot of the jobless chavs who go into the rote military as a 'career' and 'direction' in life over here. standard infantry/army fodder. sure sounds a lot like your life as you laid it out in that last post, too. 'aimless'. oh and that quote was from a guy who fought in the trenches of world war one, not someone who took a desk job whilst some farmers threw rocks at his fortified position.
Last edited by aynrandroolz (2013-01-02 10:52:01)
