Category: Shitbags

Taking advantage of his big megaphone at the Huffington Post, Matthis uses the opportunity to tell us what a great big expert he is on all matters military, but all he is, as always, is a great big blowhard. He tells what to think about the Secret Service scandal in Colombia this last weekend. You can go read the whole thing, but I have a few clarifications to make on his mumbling bullshit;

I continued by revealing the details of a particularly painful memory from a deployment to the Philippines, in which I was unwittingly purchased by a prostitute and later made to have sex with her, despite neither of us having really been equal or willing partners. Of the experience, I concluded that, “I sold out on my manhood that night… I felt as though I had raped her. I felt as though I had raped myself.”

At the time, my piece created quite an uproar in the anti-war community which had not yet begun acknowledging the existence of these issues for our military.

How does a guy get “purchased by a prostitute”? It’s been my experience that it’s usually the other way around, that’s what makes them a prostitute. I don’t know about the “uproar” that his tale caused in the anti-war community, but what caused an uproar on my blog was the fact that he blamed his flesh purchase on the military culture. No one forced him to make the deal, he willingly pulled the bills from his wallet and exchanged those bills for sex. There’s nothing in the military culture that mandated his behavior. In fact, the military was the first organized US institution to begin frowning on engaging in prostitution and made such encounters illegal for it’s members serving overseas. That Matthis didn’t get the message is not the fault of the culture. More than likely, he simply ignored the rules.

He went on to describe how his peers forced him to watch a “banana show” in Okinawa. Now I’d never heard of such a thing, so I had to look it up. But, I’d like to know how someone could be forced to watch the performance if they didn’t want to see it. I have two legs which can carry me right out of the building, and they work on command.

If we are seriously going to tell the military no more sex with prostitutes, and no more alcohol binging for that matter, half the force may desert overnight, and no one would show up for basic training.

Yeah, nice try. People don’t join the military just to engage in sex with prostitutes, and it’s naive and close minded to even say that stupid shit out loud. Maybe Matthis had problems getting company without having to pay for it, but the rest of us can’t be lumped in with his narrow experience. As far as I know there aren’t any prostitutes in Afghanistan, and no one is complaining about that aspect of the duty there. The same went for Iraq.

In my two decades living immersed in the military culture, I never felt pressured to engage in solicited and compensated sex. I’m not saying I didn’t, but I’m saying no one ever pressured me into it. Peers or superiors.

This is just another example of Matthis not assuming responsibility for his own actions.

Earlier this month, I wrote about Naomi Wolf’s idiot complaint that Katy Perry’s latest video (at the link above) “Part of Me” glorified military service. The video does nothing of the sort. It shows how tough training for the military is and would scare away most of the kids today who think that the military is all fun and games.

Daniel sends us a link to Naomi’s latest complaint that Fox News picked on her and asks why Katy won’t divulge whether or not the Marines paid her to make the video at Camp Pendleton;

The creepy parts of the video, in my mind, are many: girl power is represented as what Perry accomplishes in the rigors of basic training. Feminine impulses toward romantic revenge are depicted as rightly channeled into getting armed and being shipped to some mystery Afghanistan-like set overseas, locked and loaded. Trade in your bad boyfriend for a hot AK-47!

For one thing, you ditz, there are no AK47s in the video. Katy is carrying an M4, our enemies carry AK47s like all of our enemies have for fifty years. If you want to sound like you have a valid, informed opinion, learn the nomenclatures. And it seems to me that a feminist would revel in the fact that Katy depicts a woman who immerses herself in a traditionally male world and emerges as an equal to men. But, no, because Naomi doesn’t approve of the military and the job they do;

The whole videography of the scenes at Camp Pendleton – in which Perry crawls through an imaginary minefield, trains underwater, learns she can do the impossible, etc – is straight out of Leni Riefenstahl: the same angled, heroizing upward shots, the same fetishization of physical power, of gleaming armaments, and of the rigor and mechanism of human beings cohering into living militarized units.

Yeah, because the Marines are Nazis, or at least make her feel like she’s watching Nazi propaganda, or something. I guess the shots of a woman keeping up with men during the most grueling part of their preparation for defending their country is somehow frightening to the woman who defended Bill Clinton daily from accusations that he objectified young, impressionable women.

There is something else about the video: it feels … like an ad; specifically, a focus-grouped, consumer-tested ad to attract more women to join the Marines.

Yeah, because every woman who saw the video wants to do log PT in the surf, crawl through mud and climb log walls, get yelled at by Marine sergeant who has spent most of her adult life perfecting that craft, roadmarch in the California sun laden with full gear…and what teenage girl doesn’t want to slather on some camouflage face paint?

So I wrote that I felt that this was a piece of “war propaganda” and that, if Perry had received money or message guidance directly from the military to make the video, she should disclose that information. […] Now, to be fair, while journalists are expected to disclose any such conflicts, I have absolutely no evidence of any such transaction, and artists are subject to no such expectation.

Then why even bring it up, you ditz?

A more realistic portrayal of military life might note that no one threw them a parade after the end of the Iraq war, and no one bothered to thank them for their service. It might show how the military machine chews up patriotic young men and women and spits them out. What men and women in the army and navy today tell me directly is that they know they are fighting for corporate interests, not their country’s true defense. They say they tell themselves, “I am fighting for my colleagues” – because they know they can’t say that they are truly fighting for their country.

You boneheaded, silly moron. The military doesn’t chew us up and spit us out. The members of this forum are representative of that. We’re all out here in the real world, most of have finished our military service and we’re better people for having served – in contrast to you. We say we’re fighting for our buddies, because of the relationships that are forged in the military, the relationships that carry on after the rifles are silent. Our experiences bind us together with people we’ve never met like those of us on this forum. And our relationships exclude idiots like you who do your damned best to tear us apart. That’s probably why you despise us and our culture, because you’ll never understand it…and you’ll never be a part of our culture.

You know, Naomi, you sound like those white liberals who tell us that they know about black culture because they have a black friend. Don’t patronize us with stories about your imaginary veteran friends. It’s obvious from your idiot observations in this piece alone that you don’t like us, that you don’t appreciate what we’ve done for you and you wouldn’t walk across the street to spit on one of us if we were on fire.

A glossy, seductive “war is fun when you can’t get a date” pop video is over in three minutes. The truth about the darker side of military experience – trauma, injury, and the loss of loved ones – endures for ever.

I know it’s hard for a Yale grad and Rhodes scholar to understand, Naomi, but it’s called a sacrifice for something greater than oneself. And the military experience has been good to me and my family. Maybe you’re the one who needs to be exposed to the truth about military service instead of wallowing in your outdated and worn cliches.

On Sunday, we discussed Debbie Russell, sister of Cindy Sheehan when she insulted the entire city of Austin in the wake of the murder of officer Jamie Padron at a local WalMart. Russell wrote on her Facebook Wall about the incident; “Curiosity may have killed the cat, but ego killed the cop”. On a local radio show at KLBJ, the Todd and Don Show (podcast at this link on Wednesday and about 15 minutes into the show) they called her a “scum bag” with no apologies.

So I guess Russell, a member of the local school board is feeling the heat. She just dropped off a link to an apology of sorts in the comment thread where she embarrassed herself and several of her idiot friends;
(more…)

Kateser sends us a link to an article in Seattle’s KING5 about some Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldiers who thought it’d be cool to have a LAW anti-tank weapon to pass around, well, until the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives found out about it;

The soldiers’ secret reportedly became revealed when one of the troops was deployed to Afghanistan last year. His girlfriend called police when she found the rocket launcher in their closet.

Investigators said they don’t believe the soldiers planned to use the rocket to harm anyone. However, they do expect charges to be filed in U.S. District Court for possession of a military-grade weapon.

I guess it’s probably be a good idea to let your girlfriend know that there’s a high explosive armor penetrator propelled by a rocket in her closet before you deploy. I wonder how that relationship is holding up at this point.

I added the video only because there’s a really cute Asian babe in the report. What’s most important is how some officer lost accountability of the rocket launcher. Privates are not your friends.

Some halfwit named Air Force Staff Sergeant Nathan Rodriguez thought it would be a great idea to post his application for conscientious objector to Lew Rockwell’s website. His explanation of his views is fairly typical of what we’ve heard over the years, Raised in a Republican home, growing up as a conservative, the “horrors” of war that he witnessed as an Air Force commo guy and what he “studied” led him to his suddenly anti-war leanings.

he begins his story telling us that he joined the Air Force as a stepping stone to a career as a politician, and I’m guessing that goal hasn’t changed since, instead of quietly filing his application and hoping for the best, he’s broadcasting his intentions to the world to make a name for himself.

Abiding by the Non-Aggression Principle, and adhering to Scripture, I realized that my service was in direct contradiction to my personal beliefs. This came to fruition before my deployment to Afghanistan in July 2011. The duties I carry out directly leads to the loss of life. This fact has been stated numerous times during official AF classes and formal gatherings, such as CC calls, and official creeds.

The thought of me as a “warrior” for the USAF is a nauseating one. I do not wish to fight any man or group of people I have never interacted with or who have never caused harm to my life or property. It is obvious wars are fought between states and not between the people, though others would have everyone believe otherwise. I am surrounded by this nationalistic aura that I fail to agree with. I am encouraged to be proud of the military heritage, and what is has supposedly accomplished. I am expected to give respect to murderers in the name of the beloved country. All these sentiments weigh heavy in my soul and the toll of my mind has been great.

I don’t know how many people he had to murder as an AF commo guy, but I’m guessing I could easily count to that number even though I’m merely an infantryman. I’m guessing that the political climate has changed since he put his grand political plan into action and since he liked the beer more than he liked taking college classes got in the way of educational plans, so he wants to get out of the service and play with someone’s private parts instead of being an airman.

No matter what job he has in the Air Force, he was never a “warrior”, he’s just little pussy who has been gobsmacked by reality. Nothing in that letter indicates to me that he is really a conscientious objector.

Thanks to JP for the link.