Thank You for My Service

by Mat Best

High-fiving some jihadi’s face into martyrdom with a suppressed AR-15? That’s just a warm slice of freedom pie with an ice-cold scoop of America on the side. Understanding the fragile, ephemeral nature of life and then being the one to snatch it away from some fucking terrorist who hates you and wants to kill you and everyone you care about? It’s better than Chick-fil-A…and let’s face it, nothing is better than Chick-fil-A.

Yet the most satisfying kind of war story of all, karmically speaking, is when one of these dickless shitbirds suicide-bombs himself into oblivion but fails to take anybody with him because he’s fucking stupid.

The plan was to execute a basic offset infil, which means that the helicopters drop our teams about three to six kilometers from the target location so the enemy can’t hear us and we can use the cover of darkness to walk in and fuck their souls in the middle of the night.

For someone from the birthplace of mathematics, this guy understood angles for shit. But that’s to be expected with a lot of suicide bombers: They’re not known for being deep analytical minds who think things through completely. It’s hard to get mad at a walking Darwin Award like that, especially when he saves the U.S. government the thirty-three cents it would have cost to shoot him.

Me: Congrats on being a Marine, bro. Alan: Thanks, Mat. Me: By the way, you have cancer. You better semper fi-nd a doctor.

“No dude, that’s useless,” Travis shot back. “We need to get into something harder. Something to get us even more prepared.” “Shit. What will get us more prepared than ROTC?” I asked. Travis turned and looked around, all conspiratorial-like, making sure no one was listening. “Civil Air Patrol,” he said, squinting and nodding, like he actually knew what the fuck he was talking about. I didn’t really know anything about ROTC or Civil Air Patrol at the time, so I had no way of judging them against each other, but I didn’t feel like I needed to, because the conviction in Travis’s eyes had already sold me. “I’m in.” The next day, Travis and I enrolled in the after-school program known as Civil Air Patrol. In case you are as unfamiliar with Civil Air Patrol as I was when I signed up, let me sum it up for you: The only difference between a member of the Civil Air Patrol and a Webelo Scout is pubic hair.

I took a sip of my beer and attempted to regain my composure. “Where do you want to go?” Great question, Mat. Why don’t you just ask her which hole the pee comes out of while you’re at it?

The part of me that was starting to get used to this whole Captain America thing wanted to believe that she was at home, sitting on a bag of frozen peas, writing me love letters in her diary:

Dear Mat, I am so sorry for big-timing you back in “the high.” Last night, while you were making love to all of my bathing suit parts, I finally felt what it’s like to be a true American again. Like a real one, you know, like John Cena or Hank Williams Junior.

The only thing missing was a case of Bounty paper towels, because this former cheerleader was a squirter, and by the time we were done there was a mess all over the backseat of the Buick, and, even worse, all our body heat and friction had baked it into the fabric. There was no way I could bring my parents’ car home smelling like diluted girl pee. We’re not Germans. I had to fix this.

Nobody recognizes the best moment in life as it’s happening. It takes distance and time to see. But once you do, it has a tremendous pull on your heart and your soul and your brain.

Hardship paves the path to light. Be strong, be kind, be relentless, and always choose life.