A Tiring Query

There has been this annoying recurrence I noticed recently. Generally speaking, I am not a shy person. Perhaps when I was a young boy I was shy, but that was before the days of blood and fire (my tour in Guantanamo, which sounds much sexier than simply '1994'). The point is that I am not afraid to strike up a conversation with virtual strangers. I don't go around starting up chats with everyone I meet, but if the circumstances are not inappropriate, I have no qualms about pleasant conversation with people I do not know, I just am guarded in some aspects of my life, that is all. For those who know me, it should come as no suprise that I am not bashful about mentioning my service in the Corps. I have regrets in my life, and some of them are bitter, but joining the US Marines is certainly not one of those. For all of the sacrifice and grief that the Corps gave me (sometimes in great quantities!), it also came with a wisdom and understanding that can only be purchased at dear cost. Ted Williams was right when he spoke of the Corps. He said that as more time passed, you realized more and more just how special a thing it was to be a Marine. Like youth itself, the magnificence of what you are is never truly appreciated until it has been a long time gone. So, while I detested "boot tattoos" of Marine emblems, and bulldogs in doughboy helmets at the time, I wish I had gotten one now. Similarly, while I had little in the way of "moto gear" like USMC emblazoned coffee mugs and stuff, I have found myself putting that eagle globe and anchor on anything I can find from the fleece blanket on the couch to the grips on my .45.

So, eventually, I relate to whomever I am speaking with my prior service as a Marine "grunt," upon which, lately, the most common response I seem to get is "I bet you are glad to be out, now" or "Aren't you happy to be out now?" To which my prepared response is "that's what I keep hearing." Because, I am not really glad, or thankful, or anything like that at all. There is this part of me that wishes I was called back into service. A kind of cheesy scenario where some Major behind a desk in the pentagon calls me up out of the blue, tells me that there is a shortage of physicians they can send to Iraq, so they are pulling prior service guys back in to go to the sandbox, and guess who is at the top of their short list of physicians with combat arms experience? Yeah, I know, it ain't gonna happen, no matter what the democrats say (and I can recall several physicians admonishing me to flee to Canada if GWB gets re-elected. Cowards *spit*). But here's the thing; the only thing that kept me from signing up earlier is my obligation to Domestic-6, and that trumps just about anything else as far as obligations. If things were to change, like another 9-11 (God forbid), or a medical draft, I would saddle up and go. I said this a while back, and I say it again today. The thing is that today is a different story than a couple of years ago.

The war has not gone smoothly for a while. We keep on taking casualties, and because of the nature of the war, we cannot see what our blood and treasure has gotten us. I simply do not trust the general media to be honest. They have ulterior motives, both political and economic, to warp their transparency. Bloggers and freelance reports from IRaq (Michael Yon, this means you in particular), are much better, but at the same time, they are the trees that do not necessarily depict the whole forest. In the end, we can count casualties, and not much else, and since the counting appears to continue unabated we assume that this means that there is no progress, whether that is the case or not.

So, this rhetorical question about me being 'fortunately free' of obligation is a relatively new development. Privately, this has caused me to ask myself an honest and difficult question of myself that I am not sure that I like the answer to. Would I still really sign up and go if conditions were such that Domestic-6 released me to go? The answer That I have come up is an affirmative one, but it reveals some ugly realities. I wouldn't go because I wanted to. I wouldn't go because I thought I would be 'safe' as a doctor. Most of all, I would not go because I am a brave man.

Ironnically, I would go because I am afraid of being thought a coward. Having once Staked my willingness out in fairer times, now that hardship has set in, were I to reverse myself, I would be nothing more than a springtime patriot, a fairweather friend to the motherland. I would go because it would kill me slowly, and for the rest of my life to know that my kid sister, as fearful as she was, and as much as she had to leave behind, went, while I refused. I would have to hold my manhood cheap around my sister, and that is a prospect I find sickening and distasteful than a mortar barrage.

But most of all, if I were to turn my back on the challenge, then I would be turning my back on everything that I profess to be true. If that day were to come, then everything that I believe would be a lie. That there are things worth fighting for, that there are things more important than yourself, that we should honor what is honorable.

And that is why I don't like the answer to the question of whether I would go. Not because I would, but the reasons why I would. I would not go because I am brave. I would not go because I believe in the cause, and I would not go because "that's what Marines do." I would go to a messy war not to prove that I am courageous, but to prove that I am not a coward, which, ironically, is what I fear most.

Respectfully Submitted,
-doc Russia