RANGER AGAINST WAR: How I Lost the War <

Saturday, August 20, 2011

How I Lost the War

I'm a loser
I'm a loser

And I'm not what I appear to be

--I'm a Loser
, The Beatles

Some day, yeah

We'll put it together and we'll get it all done

Some day

When your head is much lighter

Some day, yeah

--Ooh, Child
, Nina Simone

Maybe I, I tried too hard

to find someone to blame
And maybe it's me who changed
And now I'm left with nothing again
--Failure, Unloco
_________________

[*This is a true story. No sh*t.]


There are some things to which a man cannot admit. We cannot countenance the thought that our peckers are small and short-fused, nor admit that we have reluctant bladders, or that we really were not heroes.


The following admission goes way beyond these foolish psychosexual fripparies. It has been Ranger's secret cross to bear for decades. You see, he is the reason the U.S. lost the Vietnam War.


Forget all of the armchair quarterbacking you've heard over the years, blaming everything from hippies to the U.S. running like scalded dog. I'm here to tell you the real deal: The weight of the nation rested upon the fitness of U.S. Army personnel, and Ranger let the sacred honor of the nation down on this front.
He knows because CPT Willoughby told him so. It was OH Dark Thirty and the universe was clipping through the month of September in the year 1968. Tet '68 had just delivered a humbling, and Ranger was a young shave-tail wearing infantry brass on his collar, if not in his heart.

The revelation occurred during Physical Training, specifically, the jumping jacks portion. Ranger was dogging it because he was tired, hungover and just did not give a flip about the exercise regimen of the Army at that moment. His mien was dour; Richard Simmons he was not (nor is he.) He needed some serious tightening up.


His bad attitude was infecting the Army, or so said Captain Charles
"Fucking" Willoughby, the class training monitor. Charles called Ranger all sorts of sorry motherfucker and said in no uncertain terms that it was guys like him that were losing the war. Incidentally, it was Ranger's first exposure to motherfucker as non-hyphenated noun versus verb -- Motherfucker as an entity in and of itself, and not the description of an unsavory action.

That encounter started his thinking about alternate recompense for being a soldier. If the Army paid a quarter for every time someone called him a motherfucker, he would be a rich motherfucker. Sadly, this initiative was never adopted.
(He'd like to kick the ass of the motherfucker who nixed his proposition.)

In retrospect it is clear the National Liberation Front and VC had a rarefied intel apparatus to be able to divine my dogging it during PT and learn that all they need do was wait for me and my ilk to make our way forward.


After a lifetime of forced denial, Ranger bares his soul and individual culpability in this colossal failure. This is why he shuns most fraternal military gatherings: he knows we lost before he even got on station, and that the loss was his doing.
His crossed rifles may as well be scarlet.

This is my most important confession.

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6 Comments:

Anonymous CholoAzul said...

It is never too late to make amends.
The Navy SEALS Workout video is on sale at Amazon, even as we speak.

Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 12:53:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger Underground Carpenter said...

Hi Jim,

Simon(Bill Paxton in True Lies): [Whining and pleading] Oh God, no, please don't kill me. I'm not a spy. I'm nothing. I'm navel lint! I have to lie to women to get laid, and I don't score much. I got a little dick, it's pathetic!

Thanks for 'fessin' up. I'll call Jane Fonda and tell her she's off the hook now.

Dave

Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 11:30:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger Underground Carpenter said...

Oh, and for GD: Soy un perdedor

Dave

Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 11:43:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger Rez Dog said...

Thanks for taking responsibility for that fuck-up, Ranger. I thought my negative attitude was the reason we lost. Imagine my relief.

Monday, August 22, 2011 at 9:29:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

Rez Dog,
One of the rated items on a OER is-TAKES RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS ACTIONS.
I reckon it's long past due.
jim

Monday, August 22, 2011 at 9:38:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Ghost Dansing said...

yeah, well... shit Soy un perdedor

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 5:17:00 PM GMT-5  

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