Kelly Crigger's Blog, page 2

Why Veterans Make Great Authors

Winston Churchill, a soldier and writer long before he was a politician, said “there is nothing more exhilarating in life than to be shot at with no result.” That somewhat captures the veteran mindset: someone who has had his or her life almost taken by someone else (on purpose) but survived. Many veterans have been to the edge of the abyss and stared death in the eye only to come back a changed person. The ones who choose to tell their tale are truly special.

Veterans have seen and done things the average person hasn’t which has given them a perspective on life and death that’s hard to explain. When they find their voice and an outlet to share their incredible experiences, the outcome can be moving and can even help others.

Reading a book by a veteran is many times enlightening because it’s a book about life written by someone who is comfortable with death. The ability of the veteran author to capture what it’s like to stride through life looking everyone in the eye because there’s nothing to fear from humans is cathartic. They have a unique ability to find the words we all want to say like Army Lieutenant Matt Gallagher who described the people of Baghdad as “too tired to hope, but too human not to” in his book Kaboom.

The vernacular of the soldier is unlike anyone else’s. Veterans have a way of stringing together the most obscure, yet direct words and phrases to make a point. In the Army, fuck can be a measure of anything: length, strength, temperature, intelligence, or anything troops can dream up. Something can be long as fuck, strong as fuck, cold as fuck, dumb as fuck, or the coup de grace when describing a boned up person, place or thing; wrong as fuck.

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines also do dumb things in combat that end up being the funniest stories you’ll ever hear. Humans always find something to do that is inherently risky and has the potential for loss of life. In the military the risk is galactically higher because of 1) live ordnance 2) heavy equipment and machinery and 3) the previous two being under the control of relatively young people. I spent 24 years in the Army and not only saw troops doing dumb things, but was that guy who did them. I landed a parachute in a tree, stood underneath an artillery gun when it went off, nearly rolled a Humvee down a mountain, nearly blew up the same Humvee, let off a trip flare in front of a bar, and ran the most dangerous weapons range ever. Capturing these moments in words was therapy for me and a good laugh for the reader.

There are too many great veteran authors to list, but some who have survived combat to write amazing memoirs and novels like Homer Hickam, Colby Buzzell, James Michener, Kurt Vonnegut, Gary Linderer, and Matt Gallagher will be featured on my website BooksByVeterans.com. If you are a veteran and have a story to tell, let me know. The barriers to being a published author are not as difficult to surmount as you might think.

Who's the Greatest Leader?

This is what happens when I get drunk and get into an argument over who the greatest leader of the 20th Century was.

RU Twisted: You said that Dwight D. Eisenhower is the greatest leader in the 20th century and that you would stab anyone who disagreed with you “IN THE FACE.” Man, I hope your stabbing hand is warmed up because I just don’t think it’s that clear cut and simple.

KC: Let me guess, you’re going to give me some liberal hippie gobbledygook about how Clinton balanced the budget, defeated the evil Haitian hordes, and fostered kumbaya through multiracial Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn all while being a beacon of integrity and not having sex with interns.

RUT: Listen, although I usually judge politicians by their ability to procure a blow job in the Oval Office, picking Slick Willy as “best” anything would be like rooting for the first girl who shows her boobs in a horror movie. Sure she’s likable, but also really dumb and makes little sense in the overall plot, kinda like Bill. But what about people like Patton? In the civilian sector there are guys like Ross Perot, or if we’re sticking with presidents, Teddy Roosevelt or Grover Cleveland (for wildly different reasons)?

KC: Anyone who grew up with the name Grover is probably a badass because he got picked on relentlessly and learned to stand up and fight for himself at a young age. But Uncle Google says his greatest accomplishment was strengthening the power and autonomy of the executive branch, so when you stack that up against Ike’s resume it’s barely a gnat on his Kansas scrotum. IS THERE NO ONE ELSE?!

RUT: Grover “Office holders are the agents of the people, not their masters” Cleveland: the greatest “good idea fairy” smasher in presidential history, vetoing more stupid laws than every president before him combined. Ike: Played a shit-ton of golf and increased federal spending by over 60% during his time in office. Holy balls! He must have liked the private resorts…

KC: You mean the ones in Europe? The ones he liberated at the forefront of 8 million freedom-loving Allies? Cause that’s what this really comes down to-leadership. And no one led a greater group of humans in a more worthy cause against such long odds as Ike. Just think about the name itself. After the war the people chanted “I Like Ike!” The only Grover anyone remembers is that blue fucking muppet.

RUT: Hey, Grover the Muppet was loved by millions of children! That aside, you make a solid point.
What about Teddy Roosevelt? The man resigned his political office to lead a charge into war. On horseback. And got punched in the face for fun. Name another leader with stones like that.

KC: I will concede that Teddy was a man among men who strode through life with the presence of the Great Sphinx atop the Titanic steaming through the Panama Canal, but if we’re comparing cajones to cajones, Eisenhower commanded a kajillion times more combat power than Teddy ever did and got the Brits to actually work with the French and WIN! He should be sainted by the Pope for that alone. He also started the space race, built the greatest highway system in the country, and coined the phrase “domino effect” while presiding over one of the greatest eras in human history-the 50’s. Did I fail to mention that Ike stared communism in its red eyes and didn’t flinch? If it wasn’t for Ike our parents would have been eating borscht and singing Das Kapital instead of bee bopping at a sock hop because the Reds would have eventually swept through Europe and kept going. Okay maybe that’s a stretch, but we don’t have to worry about it because Ike stood tall and beat that ass down.

RUT: None of that success in Europe would have happened without George Steel Balls Patton, who redefined “ass kicking” on a strategic scale while St. Ike sat back and got all the credit. The man demolished the German army in 6 different countries in about the same amount of time it takes a baby to gestate. If I’m lining up behind a guy against the most powerful army in the world, which one of those two am I going to choose—the one riding the desk or the guy who out-blitzed the people who invented the Blitzkrieg?

KC: Patton was hell on wheels himself, but in the end he was executing who’s plan? Say it with me…Ike’s. And though Patton’s life was tragically cut short and we’ll never know what he could have accomplished in the long run, Ike went on to lead the greatest country in the world years after he led the greatest invasion in history. Comparing Patton to Ike is comparing a bonfire to the sun.

RUT: Speaking of the sun, I think I just got burned.

KC: No, you got stabbed in the face.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

Voices

I wrote an article about finding what you love in life and letting it kill you only to find someone else had pretty much written the same thing before me, so it’s now in the trash never to see the light of day. And that got me thinking about all those inspirational life coach gurus who pass around the words of someone else as infinite wisdom that we should all live our lives by.

When you think about it, the message is almost always the same down through the centuries. We’re really not as creative as we all like to think we are. Take courage, for example. So many people have said something about it in different voices and at different times, but they all make the same point-be strong. Pretty straightforward message, but for thousands of years everyone has said it in their own unique way with the same point. Follow along…

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
-Confucius, 6th century BC

The longest journey starts with a single step.
-Lao Tzu, 5th century BC

It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.
-Horace, 1st century BC

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 1st century AD

I love those who can smile in trouble.
-Leonardo da Vinci, 15th century

Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.
-Shakespeare, 16th century

Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.
-John Milton, 17th century

Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm and whose conscience approves their conduct will pursue their principles unto death.
-Thomas Paine, 18th century

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
-Oliver Goldsmith, 18th century

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century

Bite on the bullet old man, and don’t let them think you’re afraid.
-Rudyard Kipling, 19th century

Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
-Herman Melville, 19th century

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them.
-Rabidranath Tagore, 19th century

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
-Thomas A. Edison, 20th century

A man can only stumble for so long before he either falls or stands up straight.
-Brandon Sanderson, 20th century

If you’re going through hell, keep going.
-Winston Churchill, 20th century

Tough times never last, tough people do.
-Robert Schuller, 20th century

Suck it up, cupcake.
-Sergeant Major Terry Brown, 21st century

Dear Universe…you hit like a bitch.
-Me, yesterday

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

Government Worker Frustrated He Hasn't Come Up With More Red Tape

Ronny McLazy isn’t fond of cliché American tweets. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it is for losers who like to say ‘Merica and Git R Done,” he says. An analyst at the Defense Technology and Awesomeness Agency, McLazy has plodded on in his cushy government job for nearly ten years, but for this career douchebag one thing remains absent from his “I love me” wall of certificates. McLazy still has not enacted a new measure of silliness to gum up the Federal works.

“Everyone I know has added a layer to the chaos,” he says. “But for me it’s just not happening. Call it writer’s block. Call it Virginitis. Call it whatever, but I haven’t been able to engineer a piece of the red tape process to call my own. It’s maddening.”

Four snack breaks and six trips to the bathroom each hour provide no respite for this dedicated inefficiency expert. Even hundreds of empty “teleworking” hours haven’t been able to clear McLazy’s head enough to get his roadblock packet on track. Most of the people McLazy works with have advanced degrees in Analytic Thinking and Systems Engineering, so with incomplete studies in Women’s Fashion and Dead Languages he’s already swimming hard to not drown.

“No one listens to me,” McLazy says while rebooting his Microsoft Windows 2003 yet again. “It’s far too easy to do our jobs here. It’s like they actually want to get work done sometimes. It’s my duty to to pump the taxpayer’s brakes and lower their crazy expectations.” McLazy breaks out a pair of Skillcraft scissors to manicure his Bansai tree and points at a nearby cubicle. “See Sal over there?” he says dropping Bansai clippings on his Low Energy Consumption Work Plan Seminar Certificate of Participation. “He single handedly added 6 days to all interdepartmental purchase requests by introducing 3 forms and 8 signatures to all packets. It took him six months and he only came into the office 3 days a week! Genius.”

McLazy previously submitted a proposal that all field research had to be performed by dwarves or regular sized people with less than 14 total combined fingers and toes, but it was rejected by the Coitus Is Not In My Job Description Committee.

“That was amateur,” he says looking back on it. “I think if I can get my pending executive action packet that would require all Federal writing devices to contain 50% marsupial sperm to the boss by next month he may schedule an initial redundandt meeting and push my bill to the Secondary Action Committee of Knowledge (SACK) and actually load it into our proprietary document tracking software to begin the Intermediate Unnecessary Seminar before the next Olympics….Winter Olympics of course. Then I’ll be complete.”

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

The Curmudgeon Universe

“Is that Kim Jong Un?” Sean said looking at the TV.

“That dude’s in the outer rim,” I responded.

“Dare I ask?”

“Outer rim. I’m the sun and he’s Pluto.”

“So the galaxy revolves around you now?”

“Not everyone’s. Just mine.” I grabbed a dry erase marker and sauntered to the board. “Let’s say this is me.” I put a dot on the board. “The people who agree with me and share the same beliefs are Venus and Mercury. Kind of like you right now.” I drew two small circles around my dot.

“Awww. You think I’m a God? How sweet.”

“Stay with me, Petunia. Next comes Earth and Mars, which represent the people who are like me, but don’t always agree. They’re good people and I like or respect them, but we don’t see eye to eye.” I drew more orbits. “The next layer is Jupiter and Saturn who are the people that disagree with me but maybe do it in a respectful way so I tolerate them. I wouldn’t hang out with them though, because they’re full of gas.”

It was an awesome joke. He rolled his eyes, clearly too sober for this deep discussion. “Neptune and Uranus are the people who have a totally skewed point of view and if we ever had a conversation it would probably devolve into ‘nuh-uh’ and ‘you motherfucker!’”

“And Pluto?”

“Total fucking nutjobs you should never interact with.”

“Interesting.”

“But here’s the thing…in their universe, you and I are Pluto. We have right wing beliefs so they think we’re the crazy ones. We’re the unbending, business-loving conservatives who they think are out in right field, which is fine. Everyone has their own universe and layers of people they surround themselves with. I think that’s part of being a curmudgeon; you finally realize that you’re never going to change anyone’s universe. They have a belief system and are set in it…but so are we.”

He paused to think about this mind-blowing truth. “So who’s right?”

“The person who has history, hard data, or facts on their side. Capitalists think Communists are on the outer rim. We think they’re a whole different bag of crazy, but Commies feel the same about us. So who’s right? I’ll tell ya who. The one with a hundred years of proof behind them…us. Capitalism has mostly succeeded in every country that has attempted it except the ones who were idiots about it while Communism has failed every time it’s been attempted but two and those experiments are getting anorexic.” I pointed back to the TV as Kim Jong Un waved to the crowd.

“Pluto.”

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

We're Not Family!

“We’re all one big happy family here,” a boss says to his workers.

No. We’re not. I have a family at home and you are definitely not part of it. A couple of people in the office I consider friends, but that’s where the line is drawn. You can call it a tribe, a clan, a team, or a gaggle, but not a family. If it was a family my mother would have shipped half of you off to work Australian Opal Mines never to be heard from again.

I get what you’re going for. You want me to feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself so I work harder to support my brothers and sisters. But it doesn’t work like that with me and if you were a smarter boss you would see that. I had a group of brothers and sisters whom I would kill or die for. They were called the US Army and this company is not the US Army.

Trying to convince me I belong to your family is hollow and walking around the office saying it over and over again does not make it true. In fact it probably has the opposite effect on most of us. We roll our eyes when you say it, which only erodes any respect we may have for you and castrates what little leadership you had.

Let’s assume for a second that you’re right and we’re a tight knit family. Do you think I would work more efficiently alongside someone I share a blood relation with? Or would we quarrel like tasered wolverines like we did over Mary Jane Rottencrotch’s attention in high school? If I worked with my siblings or parents, our dysfunction would make it impossible to get anything done, ever. If you want to get the most out of me, put me in an office with absolute strangers who I respect or even fear.

Now I may not be typical. There are certainly those who need a warm, soft environment with their mommies, a blanky, and chicken soup in order to get anything done, but I’m not in that demographic. So maybe you need to better understand your employees and refer to the wussies as family while simply demanding more from me and those like me by appealing to our competitive nature. Or just hire my brother so I can outperform him.

That’s the mark of a true boss—being able to motivate everyone with different carrots and sticks. You might have grown up with carrots, but I grew up with sticks.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

Do You Have Standards?

“Enlisted men drink beer. Officers drink bourbon,” my curmudgeon step-father told me many times growing up, clearly disappointed in my affection for cereal malt beverage. His message wasn’t so much about being better than the enlisted man and, in fact, he was always the first one to promote the benevolent Foot Soldier as the most virtuous man on earth. But he had an old-world chivalric way about him and knew where the line was between the ranks.

In my day just about every officer drank beer, but that wasn’t the point. Pop’s message was much larger than the beverage of choice. It was all about standards.

People aspire to gradually increase their quality of life little by little, year by year, and raise their standards. There’s nothing wrong with that. In our twenties, driving an old beater car and eating Spaghetti-O’s out of the can in a dorm room was just fine. By middle age it’s a cold day in hell when either of those things happen.

It’s sad to say, but cutting corners, not trying as hard as I could, and accepting sub-standard work was fine once in a while back then. Now we demand more of ourselves and everyone else. There’s a standard to keep and we don’t want to back off of it (notice I didn’t say ‘won’t ever back off’ because compromise happens – see the next section).

There’s a difference between standards and expectations. Expectations are things you want to achieve in the future, but standards are set by things in the past. Standards are usually based on actual events while expectations are based on hope. A silver spoon teenager raised on Fifth Avenue has a standard of dining in 5-star restaurants and an expectation that he will always be able to do so. Whether or not that happens is up to him.

Just like expectations, some people set their standards too high. While the Occupy Wall Street movement was raging against the machine and claiming there were no jobs for college grads, millions of openings stayed unfilled. The youthful protestors didn’t want to accept an entry-level job because they thought they were better than that, and maybe some of them were. But if you want a job and there’s an open job then take the damn job and quit whining. This isn’t rocket surgery. Setting ridiculously high standards is a recipe for failure unless living in your mom’s basement and eating tuna fish is an acceptable life.

Curmudgeon Quiz

You’re sparring with a friend (let’s assume you’ve thrown a punch at some time in your life even if you haven’t). He’s slacking. His punches are weak and he keeps dropping his hands. Do you:

a). Say “you’re clearly not into this today so let’s go get a latte and a bran muffin.”

b). Let him hit you in the face to build his sagging confidence.

c). Punch him square in the nose and follow it up with a legkick that’s borderline on the testes.

The answer is C. If I hit you during sparring then that’s my way of saying I give a shit because it’s my job as your sparring partner to prepare you for a real fight. If your defense is whimsical and your strikes are weaker than Dakota Fanning’s then it’s my responsibility to get you to tighten your shit up and pain is a great teacher. Tough standards save lives. Iron forges iron so if you can’t hang then get out of the ring and sell shoes. If you don’t quit then I’ll be ecstatic, but I’ll test you until you do because I have standards and you should too.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

Be Careful What You Expect From Life

Listen up…come closer to the page…if there’s one area that all young people should be educated on, it’s this. Expectations cut several ways. People expect things of you and you expect things of them and when those expectations aren’t met we get disappointed, mad, violent, depressed, and build headless snowmen that horrify the neighborhood.

This is important. Put down your cocktail and pay attention. DON’T EVER over-inflate someone’s expectations. Manage them. If you tell your neighbor you can get Van Halen to play his kid’s graduation party and don’t come through, you’ll go from savior to goat in a nanosecond. “Under-promise and over-deliver” is a rule everyone should live by. Don’t promise jack shit unless you can deliver it and conversely don’t believe everyone else’s snake oil cure-alls and promises of Ponzi returns. Be skeptical of people so when they fail (and they will) it’s no big deal.

Example:

American McKayla Maroney was picked to win a gold medal HANDS DOWN in the event that she owned for several years leading up to the 2012 Olympics, the vault. So her expectations (and everyone’s really) were astronomically high going into the games right up until the moment that shit happened. She slipped and fell on the final attempt and got a silver medal. She accepted her silver like a curmudgeon; with a scowl and contempt.

But wait…anyone would kill for an Olympic silver medal right? Not her. Why? Because her expectations were higher. For the rest of her life she will look at something anyone else would be incredibly proud of with nothing but disgust, a reminder of her failure because her expectations were off. How sad.

Curmudgeons have low expectations in others and deservedly so. We’ve been duped, misled, and over-excited about a widget that sounded like the next great thing but turned into vapor. We’ve experienced loss and in turn have lost faith in people who over-promised so therefore we know that getting our hopes up is a bad idea that will likely end in disappointment. We keep our expectations of others low because we know the world will just let us down in the end more often than it will impress us.

So what about when we look inside? What do you do when your life doesn’t meet your own expectations or doesn’t even come close to them? Does anyone’s life meet their expectations? Probably, but it’s more an exception than a rule. So do the 95% of us who don’t do as well in life as we hoped to just wallow in self-pity in a dark room or do we keep trying to make our lives better?

On the one hand it’s human nature to be envious of what someone else has, but on the other hand, begrudging someone their success is petty. It can be devastating to look around and see other people achieving what you wanted to, especially when you have a friend who’s living your dream life. But so what if someone else did all the things you wanted to? That’s no reason to hate him for it.

Reason says we’re supposed to do the manly, right thing—suck it up, smile, say ‘I’m happy for you’ and move on. But we’re humans and we’re prone to those pesky emotions. We want to be the best or have the most, therefore the benevolent man is the one who overcomes his spite and says congratulations. Americans love to win but hate a winner. Someone else is leading a charmed life and we get jealous and want that charmed life ourselves. In reality we need to suck it up and build our own. In the end, if your life sucks then you have no one else to blame but yourself for making bad decisions or having unachievable expectations.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

15 Things Hollywood Will Get Wrong About Iraq and Afghanistan

Someday Hollywood will start churning out movies about Iraq and Afghanistan like they did about Vietnam. If Vietnam is a model then it will probably be 10 years before this country can really open up about it with serious filmmakers getting out there and ripping open the old wounds. We predict they’ll make a lot of similar, stupid mistakes. Fifteen of them to be exact because, unlike Hollywood, we’re a meticulous crowd that pays attention to detail.

1. Uniforms. Let’s start with the obvious. You will see the wrong camo pattern in the wrong place and wrong time, upside down patches, hands in pockets, backwards body armor, long hair, beards where there were none, nonsensical boots, and gloves on penises. They almost never get this right and the lone time they did (Band of Brothers) was because some genius hired Captain Dale Dye who made the actors live in their uniforms for weeks before filming.

2. Weapons that don’t exist. This is another easy one. We’ll see M-16A1’s that fire 18,000 rounds in 4 seconds and LAWs that you can recock like a shotgun and take out a tanks that the Iraqis never had. We might even see death ray guns.

3. Haji can’t shoot for shit or blow anything up. Meanwhile our troops always have pinpoint accuracy and ALWAYS get head shots. Miraculously 5.56 will down the enemy on the first shot, and the 7.62 will always find the SAPI plate (which always works) until there needs to be drama then everything is reversed and the troops are in a hopeless situation that can only be saved by one person who makes everyone else look like chumps because he is a Rambo reincarnate. Also there will definitely be the explosion that either kills everyone in a ten block radius of the blast EXCEPT the hero and friends or alternatively, the explosion that looks like it should have killed everyone in a ten block radius but actually harms no one.

4. Fantasy Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures. Ever see a Naval Quartermaster unit fastrope into a hot LZ, take out 1000 terrorists (without reloading their M16A1s), save a buxom redhead CIA agent, and get slingloaded out by a high altitude zeppelin without a single scratch? You will.

5. Acronyms and units that don’t exist. We all know the military is acronym crazy, but just wait until people who live outside reality are unleashed on our lifestyle. SPECWARUNDERSEASPACESUPPOSITORYTWITTERCOM will be a real thing and gullible idiots across the country will line up at the local recruiter to join it.

6. Troops delivering stupid, political one-liners as if they weren’t written by an anti-war committee. Movies are not made by one person. The script is agonizingly scrutinized by a battalion of writers, producers, and directors until the dialogue is as profitable as possible no matter how unlikely the character is to utter the final lines or not. So when you hear a head-scratching catchphrase like “When politicians can’t put an idea in someone’s mind, I put a bullet in their body” don’t blame the actor. Blame the producer who’s agenda the line supported.

7. None of us wanted to be there. This is where shit starts to get real and is completely predictable. Hollywood is notorious for making war movies where everyone hates war and takes drastic measures to ensure they get out of it with their conscious intact. It’s their own leftist agenda at making the world a better place by ridiculing those of us who serve. You can bet your ass every film will have some underlying theme of “war is bad and all the participants are there against their will, the poor souls.” What they will miss are the people who are genuinely proud to serve and (God forbid) actually want to make someone else’s life better.

8. Desertion is acceptable if you disagree with war. It’s not, but someone will try to get us to empathize with a lost soul caught up in an evil situation that a corrupt establishment created so we root for him to break free of his oppressive bonds and walk away to be a champion of the little people who deserve a free life because we’re all bad people.

9. We all hate Muslims. Undoubtedly someone will make the GWOT about religion and make a movie that portrays us as hating anyone who’s not a God-fearing Christian. Even worse is the predictable movie about crossing the Christian-Muslim divide against all the people who tell him or her it’s wrong. Some uncreative writer will take a small bit of anti-Islamic prejudice farther than necessary because the forbidden love story – Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, Dirty Dancing – has been worn out throughout the history of arts so he will redo it in a Christianity vs Islam way because he doesn’t have enough brain cells to think of anything original.

10. Troops have no sense of humor. Troops do the stupidest, craziest and sometimes funniest shit of any demographic, especially in combat. From distilling crude booze out of brake fluid to forcing a newbie to wear the Platoon’s lucky thong on a patrol, we’ve thought of it all and tried most of it. I once broke open a chem light, poured the juice all over a pallet of artillery rounds and sat behind the guns with night vision goggles watching each beautiful green streak arc across the sky for hours. But Hollywood will miss this part of combat life and replace it with over tense drama coated in extra serious sauce. Which brings us to…

11. Drama where there is none. Troops are pretty straightforward people who use a lot of nonverbal communication. We frequently speak without speaking because we live by an unwritten code that some things just don’t need to be said. You saved my life? “Thanks, brother” is all a real soldier needs to say. “What do you think of Joe Schmoe?” one soldier asks. “He’s a good dude,” is all you need to hear to know Schmoe has your back. Long-winded, overwritten responses aren’t required, but Hollywood will draw it out into a long monologue about the meaning of life that will completely miss the mark while civilians who have never been there cry about how eloquent soldiers are.

12. Everything is a conspiracy. Some things are just as simple as they seem on the surface. If a guy gets shot by the enemy then that does not mean there are six degrees of separation between him getting killed, the Illuminati, pyramids, and the ark of the covenant. No government shadow cell had him offed by a sleeper agent because he knew the truth about the man with one red shoe. He was just an idiot who didn’t know the meaning of cover and concealment. End of story.

13. Overemphasis on sexual assault. This topic is undoubtedly the albatross around the military’s neck and totally deserves to be talked about as long as it’s kept in proportion and not taken out of context. But who am I kidding? This is Hollywood, so everyone in uniform is a sadistic rapist. The issue will be blown out of proportion so it looks like we’re all sexual predators. Nevermind the 90% of all servicemen who keep their business in their pants. Some writer, producer, director will take it as a personal mission to vilify sexual deviancy as the norm rather than the exception. Which brings us to the other completely wrong stereotype…

14. We’re all mentally imbalanced after combat. Like the current disgrace of sexual assault in the military, this has some nugget of truth to it, but will be blown out of proportion as applying to all who serve. We’re all different after seeing and doing the things we’ve done, but many walk away from it unscathed. Even those who have issues with PTS do a great job of managing it so none ever sees it. I mean who the fuck do these high and mighty shitfucks think they are labeling us as unstable? I haven’t lost my grip on reality! They’re the ones who don’t know jack shit about the real world! THIS IS MY UNICORN AND YOU CAN’T HAVE IT!!

15. Rewriting history wrongly. This is Hollywood’s most dangerous weapon. They can make a movie that is utter bullshit and people will believe it. I still remember my father and his buddies who had 16 tours of Vietnam between them saying Apocalypse Now was complete nonsense, but if you ask anyone to this day they believe that “Charlie don’t surf” scene happened. Most of us in the military can deal with the small things being wrong like uniform violations and weapons that never need reloading, but getting the big things right like the re-telling of true stories will be the main issue we have in the coming years. A great example of this is the Lone Survivor movie. The true story was extremely compelling in and of itself, yet they still felt the need to change/dramatize/Hollywoodize it. The most dangerous part of that? The overwhelming majority of the public will take those events as the truth, which effectively rewrites history. Even in the case of fictional movies on the GWOT, I think it’s entirely possible to have a lot of technically accurate movies, but the over all themes being dramatized or inaccurate, which Hollywood will blame on “creative license.”

Now let’s be fair. Some movies come very close to reality, but we also have to be careful what we wish for. As a very experienced operator told me, “I don’t want Hollywood showing how my guys get in and off a target. I don’t want them showing how I select a breach point or where my guys are going to be when they enter a building. I don’t want them to understand who I work with or the type of fire support I have available to me. That is why we sign non-disclosure statements. I’m sure most of us would love to be action heroes and make millions telling everyone how awesome we are. I like to think that most of the men that serve have the discretion to realize that it is not in the best interest of the guys still doing the heavy lifting to tell everyone how we work.” So maybe it’s not their fault. Maybe they’re fucking it up on purpose just to protect us. And maybe Sophia Vergara will accompany my kid to his 7th grade dance if I make a witty video and appeal to her sympathy on YouTube.

In the end it’s very rare that Hollywood produces a war movie with 100% accuracy, but the most heinous part of this story is that it doesn’t have to be. It takes literally minutes of research and / or reaching out to the people who were there to make a great film that’s also mostly accurate and profitable. Or at the very least one that doesn’t insult us. Hollywood exists to make money. Lots of it, so they don’t have to care if it’s right, just entertaining. So let this message be clear to you entertainment types: your need to make money is not so crucial that you can trample on our lifestyle. It’s our privilege and duty to protect this country, so we consider it your duty to get it right.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

No One Owes You Happiness

Think you’re owed happiness? You’re not. Happiness is a luxury, not a necessity. Some say “if you’re not happy doing what you’re doing then don’t do it.” Those people are surprisingly more comfortable with a welfare Christmas and a moped than the average person. It’s idealistic, but many times unrealistic and as we’ve learned already, idealism has a cost.

The definition of happiness is different for everyone but one thing is for sure-it’s fleeting. Just when you think you’re on the verge of a touchdown, the goal line moves. The variables change and suddenly you’re on a quest to make it to the next level of happiness. Even then, you can accomplish your mission in life and buy a nice house, nice cars, and a baby giraffe and feel happy but then you realize you have to protect it. You have everything you wanted and a life that’s enviable. That means you have to maintain it. You have to keep it going. That adds pressure and makes you unhappy again. It’s a vicious cycle.

The universe does not owe anyone a single atom of happiness and there’s no law that says you have to love your chosen profession. As long as a job provides income and necessities for the family then it can suck badger milk because true happiness for a man comes from being a provider. It’s our responsibility to take care of our kin and we want to fulfill that responsibility no matter how happy or unhappy it makes us. Curmudgeons sacrifice the happiness of the self for the needs of the family because we’re not egotistical or narcissistic.

Some Deepak Chopra Zen master schmuck will tell you that you have to be happy in life or that you should continually strive to find greater levels of happiness. That works for some, but if you’re a family man then you have the responsibility to provide for those you love and that's it. If you're not happy but you’re providing a good life then suck it up, cupcake.
My soul dies a little each day at work, but I provide a comfortable living for my family therefore I will be its punching bag and shut up and take it. Some days I hate what I’ve become but then I step through the doors of my house and it’s all washed away. Coming home from a day on the job is like finishing a hard ass gym workout. It sucked, but in the end it’s satisfying to know my sacrifice had a purpose and my good health means I will live to work another day and my family will be good to go a little longer. Men are wired to provide, even if it’s just for ourselves, and when anything threatens our ability to do that we freak out just a little bit.

On the grand scale of things happiness is a want, not a need. We need to provide. We want to be happy but if we're not happy, but we're providing then that's a form of happiness in itself or at the very least a form of satisfaction. I may not fit some liberal’s view of happy but I’m content and that’s good enough for me. Don’t agree? Quit your crappy job just to spite me. It’s not easy is it? Show me a job that pays as much as I'm making now that I can enjoy and then I'll listen to your "don't work in a job you hate" argument. Otherwise leave me alone. I have a family to provide for.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife