The interpreter on mission with us this time around is the shit.
Seriously, the guy is cool. Let me start by explaining, to those who aren't versed on Army stuff, that when afforded, every platoon that goes out on mission is assigned a "terp" to accompany them. It's a must if you plan to make any civil contact with villagers that you inevitably run into, people who occasionally have something useful to tell you. This is particularly important in the Afghan theater at the moment, as we are trying our damnedest as a military to work with the people, be civil, blah blah blah.
Ziza (not his real name, trying to save a little face here), has been working with the United States military for about three years now. He speaks very good English, as well as four different languages they speak here in country. He worked as an auto mechanic in Jalalabad in order to pay his way through school to learn English.
Unlike a few of the other terps we've had for past missions, Ziza is very talkative and, being cooped up in a truck for most of our days, he is therefore entertaining. He helps educate us on different things regarding the culture, where he grew up and just how everyday things around here work. He loves to answer all our questions, and seemingly answers them earnestly.
He's tried three times since starting work as a terp to get residency in the US, maybe work on being a citizen. All three times, his paperwork has gotten lost somewhere down the chain, or so he's been told. It actually relieved him a little when we showed a complete lack of surprise that such a thing could happen three different times when being handled through the military. All the red tape can really suck.
I asked Ziza what he wanted to do when he got to the United States. What kind of careers he had in mind, what cities he would live in, etc. He told me when he got there he wasn't gonna settle down in one city and get a job and live out his days as a citizen, but rather was going to hop around as much as possible, seeing as many cities, getting drunk in as many bars (a great Muslim, I know...), and sleeping with as many women as he could before he ran out of money and came back.
It struck me later in the day, after the mission was over, that this is what America has become. Ziza was working so hard to get over to America so he could party like a madman.
There was a time when men, women and children from countries all over the globe would dream about coming to America, land of opportunity. People with third rate jobs in third world countries, thinking about all the great education, the well paying jobs, the important positions throughout the US just waiting for them. Hell, a job as a high school janitor was a big step up.
We used to have THE economy in the world. THE education, THE opportunities. Now? Now we've got THE Jersey Shore and 17 seasons of Survivor. We've got this shitty new MTV that promotes everything wrong with out country. TV shows about spoiled rich girls unhappy on their sweet sixteen birthdays, and teenage mothers being thrown into a fame that leaves the other young women wondering how hard it would be to poke holes in condoms.
I could continue the list of first rate bullshit we as a society churn out on a daily for probably two dozen pages, and it'd be the tip of the iceberg.
All this for what? So our eternally attention-span less minds can be entertained? So we can push through the rest of our tragically short mortal lives as brain dead as possible?
People have even had the tenacity to tell me that these are signs of progress. America has so few "serious" problems that we have to worry about the stupid little things. To be so naive as to think these things were little.
Twenty years ago, the Ziza's of the world would have all sorts of apple pie dreams about what they were going to do once they moved to America. They'd talk about how smart their kids were going to be, how much better off they would be than the generations before them.
Now all they want to do is get "crunk", fight "The Situation" and bang Snookie...
Ah, well... Keep on keeping on...
No comments:
Post a Comment