One Weekend a Month

[mpolans]

I'm starting to question which is more hilarious, the initial pic posted or the ensuing debate!

[Duane Thomas]

My take is that humor is making fun of something or someone, upon a certain category of people, animals, things, etc., that might think your humor is not that funny!

Robert Heinlein said, "We laugh because it hurts." Think about it, our funniest jokes, the ones that generate the true belly laughs, are always the ones in which someone's getting hurt. We laugh to deal with the pain.

[Skywalker]

Robert Heinlein

Not one of my favourite SF writers, but definitely one of the best.

[AGYoung]

Been on both sides of the picture, active during VN and Guard after. When I see something like that picture, it brings to mind the soldier that wrote it. A citizen soldier left his family and job for the protection of the USA. Is he happy that “others” have ordered him into action. Probably not, but he is there, doing his job.

As a former commander, I saw plenty of that type of expression mostly in the field, just as we saw the famous cross - road signs pointing to every small town in America. Those were expressions of “We are here but wish we were there.” Same idea. “One week end a month” is the mantra of the Guard & Reserves. Just like “hurry up, and wait” belongs to the military in general.

Let them bitch. One of the things they are fighting for is the right to FREE SPEECH. Readers of the forum have the same rights (understanding the rules) and our soldiers are continuing to fight to maintain those rights.

(my $.02)

[DogmaDog]

I enlisted in the Marines at 18, and though I was in for an enjoyable time "playing guns"...the cold war had just ended, the Berlin Wall had just come down, war was no longer a worry...or so I believed.

Then Iraq invaded Kuwait while I was in boot camp. Recruit's fathers came to say goodbye on their way overseas. Some drill instructors were called off the drill field to go to Kuwait.

I learned that the contract I had signed had a lot more gravity to it than I first thought.

Now 14 years later, just back from "Iraq part 2" as a captain (no, I didn't go to the first Gulf War), I see I've grown a lot since I was a new recruit. At some point I realized that getting activated and sent off to war was inevitable, that I had the resolve to go do it, that I had given my word and I needed to keep it even if I didn't fully understand what that would entail.

So when my company produced commemorative T-shirts with "one weekend a month, my a$$" written on them, I and my fellow officers were kinda ticked off--we didn't share the sentiment. But most 18 year-olds signing on the dotted line don't really have any idea what the hell they're getting into, and for them to have that sentiment, at least initially, is probably to be expected.

And as controversial pictures from Iraq go, I'll take this one any day!

Semper Fi,

DogmaDog

[tightloop]

You the Dog.