Selfless Service Eh?

It’s been said that the definition of madness is repeating the same thing over and over but expecting different results.

So why is it that some of the military has missions, indeed the mission of many over here, that is exactly that? Go to clear a road, a route, and get blown up, maybe ambushed. Wake up the next morning and do it again.

What is it that drives soldiers such as myself to willingly, unbegrudgingly, and even happily accept this madness?

People in the military will throw in blatantly jingoistic terms like “selfless service” and “duty to country” every time someone brings up the driving force behind soldiers. I am not going to say these are simple PR terms, some sort of propaganda the federal government will use to sucker other unsuspecting youths into signing up. I’m sure to an extent they fill those needs, but there is some truth obscured in the all smiles and salutes patriotism that seeps through the message.

There comes a time in many sorry soul’s lives when the tepidity becomes painfully clear. Sometimes a person wakes up another day, week, month, year older and they see the benign routine they put themselves through, the same shitty job. Or you’re trying to further your collegiate career but let’s be honest, you aren’t the best student right now, and your transcripts are beginning to show that. You find yourself walking in a circle, nothing seems to satisfy the empty pit in your stomach that was long ago filled with youthful exuberance, and hope. If you’re lucky, this terrible feeling will pop up while you are young, an age much closer to the beginning of your life then the end.

You decide to do something to fill that gnawing pit, even if temporarily while you work shit out. Some people pick up and move, cross country change. New friends, new environment and atmosphere. Suddenly it’s like high school, that hope is back. With any luck, you’ll find a more satisfying career there, or suddenly pay attention in school like a valedictorian on steroids. But you are of course running the risk of falling into that routine again. And lord knows you can’t afford to uproot yourself every time this happens.

So maybe you think ahead a little bit. Okay, you look forward a great deal, and you’re an old man, crouched under a discarded refrigerator box in some awful alleyway. Your layered winter clothing is tattered and smeared with trash and general filth. Unkempt and reaching out wildly, you wear a thick beard and long, greasy hair matted down under a third hand stocking cap. No one walking by knows you, and if they ever had they certainly wouldn’t recognize you, not voluntarily. The business woman walking to work sees you and turns her head in disgust. You are no better then the bottle of Hawkeye whiskey in your hand or the box you cower in. And if you died one cold, snowy night, curled up in that alleyway, one might think you’ve wasted your entire existence and indeed ruined many more.

Except in your mind, as the last thoughts drain away with your life, you know the truth. You understand that regardless of what happened to you in the past or present, even with the negativity you brought to people in your life, that for three, four, maybe even six years of this meager life, you contributed the your society. And you did so in a relatively rare fashion, serving for a branch of the armed services. You know that less then two percent of the nation does so. And this is the sole moment of your life you don’t regret.

This is that selfless service idea. That duty to a nation is bullshit. It’s a duty to yourself and to your loved ones. To hell with the rest of the nation. It’s truly selfish service, that just happens to benefit almost everyone else (Ayn Rand would love it).

And if that isn’t the case, well, we soldiers are probably just living this madness cause it pays well (kind of). Or maybe we’re just mad.

As you can probably tell, I’m just doing it for the money.

Keep on keeping on.