So today one of the captains comes over to me and another sergeant and starts talking. My unit has a lot of captains. I've never been entirely sure what they all do. At some point in the past, there must have been one commander or another that was very successful at either pushing Lts up a notch or two, or filling Lt slots with captains. Whatever the reason, we got a bunch of captains.
But that isn't really the point of the story. See, this captain, he's kind of in love with the Army. Joined up a lot later than most folks do. If he hadn't gone into the Army, he would have bough a little red sports car or cheated on his wife. He has that kind of relationship with the Army.
Well, he comes up talking about how wonderful it is that the Army protects religious freedom, how amazing it is that Baptists and Catholics and Mormons and whoever the hell else can come together and work towards defending freedom.
“Yeah,” says me, “That is pretty cool."
But then the captain, he leans in real close and says, “And this is just between us, but these Muslims, I mean I know we have a few in the unit, but these Muslims, they don't know one thing from another. That religion of theirs keeps them from being able to think clearly or know right from wrong. Who do you think it is they can never keep a democracy going over there. But that's just between us.”
And you've just got to bite your toung with officers, you've just got to smile and shake your
head, because you work for them, because no matter how ridiculous their ideas are, their plans are, well dear reader, you work for them, not the other way around. That's one of the big differences between the Army and the real world, one that a whole lot of folks never seem to get.
It doesn't matter what you think in the Army. It matters that you have a job. it matters how you do that job.
Sometimes that's great, sometimes you get to feel like that one very special light of freedom shining in a hard world, but friends, a lot of times it is just hard.
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