Light and hearty observations from a fat and ugly guy. Home of hackneyed drivel and ersatz-existentialist effluence. Choleric biliousness a specialty, since 1958.

Drummin' on Rummy in Iraq

So Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld goes to Iraq to show face and wave flag with our fighters on the ground. Morale building and all that. While there, he does a little Q&A with US troops, and ends up facing tough questions from a couple of soldiers. Two thoughts occur to me about two of those questions:

• As to the issue of poorly armored or lack of armored Humvees--this is shameful and ridiculous and whichever bureaucrat is responsible for procurement in this regard should be forced to do his or her procuring whilst inside a poorly-armored Humvee on active patrol in Fallujah or Mosul or Baghdad.
  
  That'll fix the problem, quick-smart.
  
  
• As to the issue of extended deployments: a big old puffy buff my scrotum to the whiners. Yiz gets what yiz signed up for, to wit: you bought into the advertising, and got excited about the free money for college and free medical and specialized training offers to become a Special Ops nuclear physicist jet fighter pilot secret agent. Fair enough, I've considered it, too, as I peer over my spectacles and across my ever-expanding beer belly to the TV set whence all this marvelousness originates. But you've now found out that "being all you can be" isn't just a weekend-once-every-month deal. That they weren't kidding during basic training about the hardships involved. Check the fine print on the deal you signed, and you'll find that, guess what: they've got the right to hold you over pretty much as long as they need to. We appreciate what you're doing, and we know it sucks, but: Suck it up.

That is all.

posted by Nigel St.John Regina Smegmatica Howle-Raines @ 10:28 AM