Innocent Abroad

I think it’s time to send a clear and resounding message to the elite armed forces of the good ol’ US of A. This applies mainly to Marines in my experience, though I doubt any branch of the military is exempt from this charge, that being: you’re fucking up. I’m not referring to anything you are doing abroad—I could give a fuck about your conduct overseas— and I’m not worried (for the moment) whether your continued presence in the planet’s biggest sandbox is right or wrong. No, I’m referring to the way you treat the women you leave at home.

I feel I need to tackle this subject in the context of something that happened recently—a girl that I’d known for some time called me out of the blue one night, obviously drunk, telling me all about her new Marine boyfriend and how happy she was. To be fair, I was probably drunk too, but I had the foresight to tell her how great that was, that I was really glad for her, and that we should have lunch sometime— lies and more lies, of course, but I know how these things go and knew exactly what to say. About two weeks later I got the text message—my asshole boyfriend and I broke up… (insert sad face). I rolled my eyes and wrote back ‘sorry… what are you doing?’ and she immediately responded with ‘getting drunk at my friends house… you should come over!’ Being that it was 1 in the AM and I had just poured a beautiful glass of whiskey on the rocks I politely declined, until she called and begged me to come see her. I mentally juggled the options, attempting to rank my addictions in some way meaningful enough to choose between the alcohol and the girl. The compromise was simple: go to the party, take care of business, and hopefully be back before the ice in my drink completely melted. Besides, I rationalized, if she’s getting drunk at a friends house there should be plenty of alcohol there.

I should have thought harder about that second thing. My mistake was not remembering who her friends were—a white trash cluster-fuck of underage girls, each with their own military boyfriend. A good rule of thumb: you know you’re at a party with military fucks and underage girls when the only alcohol in sight is Coors Light. For Christ’s sake, even rednecks know better than to touch that shit—at least they drink Bud. Now I may be a thrifty drunk and a downright whore to alcohol on occasion, but NEVER have I been so desperate to get drunk that I was willing to guzzle a dozen aluminum cans full of Rocky Mountain Moose Piss. But I digress—

I was greeted at the door by a very tall and naked man with his bottomless girlfriend in tow, parading around a living room lit only by a black light, shitty techno pumping out the speakers. I found my ‘friend’— who was far more sober than I had been promised, by the way— and we retreated to a quiet room where she relayed the details of the breakup, me hardly listening and not really caring, knowing the plot but not the script. I’ve heard the story a dozen times and it’s always the same— alluring at first because of his uniform and cocky attitude, before long he became overbearing and selfish, controlling and manipulative and after a few weeks of constant fighting he found an easier target and moved on. An argument could be made that it’s an important aspect of male military culture; those feelings of misogyny and superiority, the emotional detachment and almost complete disregard for the psychological well-being of female companions. Maybe the military is like the Dark Ages-era Catholic Church, preaching that fealty to a woman brings you away from your true human purpose (obedience to God or Donald Rumsfeld) and relationships should strictly be sexual within arbitrarily appropriate parameters. After all, effective killing machines aren’t generally in touch with their emotions.

If such is the case, then so be it. Or if you actually care and it’s just general malaise that keeps you so despondent, maybe you should take heed because when you treat your ladies like shit it only makes it easier for guys like me to bang them with my tongue. Either directly after the breakup or while you are overseas, ‘consoling’ your lovely (or not so lovely) young ladies is an all too easy pursuit. You should really do better by them considering that, despite all logic and reason, they’ve accepted the mantle of kicking around their hometowns, uneducated, working minimum wage jobs, just waiting desperately for you to return, fuck them, and leave them with a child while your military command sends you somewhere else you couldn’t find on a map to kill people you’ve never heard of. I’m sure the idea of a free, warm piece when you get back home is comforting, plus sharing pictures and dirty stories with your fellow Marines probably passes for entertainment in the desert. The bottom line is this: if you don’t want guys like me manipulating girls like that into a quick blowjob on the bathroom floor and a hearty laugh at your expense: be a little fucking nicer, please!

That being said, nothing really happened on this occasion. We awkwardly made out for a few minutes before she asked a very strange question considering how far we hadn’t gone and how bored I was— “did you bring a condom?”. I off-handedly said no, and then she got angry. “What? The fuck is wrong with you? Why wouldn’t you bring a fucking condom?” It was at this point I had to burst her bubble by laughing in her face and saying ‘you actually thought I was going to fuck you?’ The look in her eyes was a priceless mix of confusion and anger as she pushed me away and disappeared into the bathroom. Say what you will about me (everyone else has) but when it comes to coitus I’m pretty choosy— no way in hell was I going to dip my stick in the well of a recently broken up military wench. I would have let her give me head, of course, but realizing that wasn’t going to happen I packed up my shit and left— but not before spitting in the pockets of her coat.

Okay, maybe I’m just as big a fucking asshole as all you jarheads playing grab-ass in the desert, but I’ve got the endless supply of girls on my side of the ocean.

Enjoying the freedoms I’m told you’re fighting to defend,

Adam

P.S. Go see Jarhead, in theaters November 4th or better yet, read the fucking book.

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