Israel Mobilizes for war
My IDF pal told me that his Seyet Maktal (i.e. very bad juju for terrorists) unit is often alerted by simple radio broadcasts on regular Israeli radio. Sort of like the BBC (currently the Baghdad Broadcasting Corp) sending signals to the French Resistance.
Go get ‘em, Gabe!
All 18-year-old men are drafted for three years…
(CAUTION; OLD FART alert)
Ya know, whippersnappers, when I was 17 and graduated from High School (started early in Germany… dad was Army and ‘I was big enough’), the Navy had a program called ‘2X6’.
Two years active duty followed by 6 years reserve… I could be out to go to college at 19, GI Bill, a real skill (Medic, guaranteed! I checked, SUHweet prospects for temp stuff in civilian-land hospitals!) Only, this was October 1973. Viet Nam, you know?
Long story shorter: Two weeks out from graduation and ‘A’ school (medic training) assignment, Prez Nixon came on the radio and announced “NO MORE AMERICAN SERVICE MEN WILL GO TO VIET NAM”.
So. If anyone under 50 tells you they are a ‘Viet Nam Vet’, please kick them… hard.
The following 2 years were… interesting. Surgical Intensive Care Unit, Infected Surgery, even some time in Research! (Don’t volunteer… they have tubes they want to stick in the damndest places!) Anyway!
What it did for me and my peers was nothing short of excellent. Honestly, there was loads of dull stuff, mopping and being yelled at and whatnot, but, at the end, you were a skilled, decent, clean, healthy human being.
What you did with that afterwards was your own affair.
Why do I burden you with this? well, first, I value my “Full Citizenship”. You didn’t know that fulfilling your military obligation bestows this, did you? It does. Look it up. You’re not one.
Beyond that, and all things considered, when I look at the ‘parents’ who raise the mewling, puking little rats that infest the malls and lockups, I wonder what life would be like if all children reached their adulthood during 3 years of service to their country.
Pushups for minor infractions, the ability to drink without killing anyone, tattoos without hepatitis, training in something you can actually make a buck doing on the outside… Everything you should know, that schools don’t teach!
To this day, I still feel like I owe you all a debt, you citizens of this great country, for what I learned and eventually became (nothin’ special, but I BLEW through college, and am doin’ fine, thanks!) and if my cellphone buzzed and I was told to report…
I’d go.
It’s been damn quiet around here since I got the tomatoes in…
Posted by heldmyw
07/22/2006 at 11:28 PM
