Chickenhawks

First, I'd like to apologize as I haven't written an article in a few weeks.  Sometimes shit happens in life and I got a little busy out in the real world.  Hopefully I'll have enough content coming to to make up for it.  In other news, I know there are some new readers here thanks to my appearance on The Statist Quo Podcast.  I hope you all enjoyed that show and enjoy these articles.

Now, there is a reason  for this definition for what has become a rather obscure word.  Chickenhawk has been added to my vocabulary a lot lately, mainly due to what was the ongoing situation involving Iran.  I won't lie there has been an ulterior motive behind it of course.  Mostly it has to do with some people (including my own family) insulting my military service and claiming that my lack of direct combat experience means my opinion on rather or not we should send young American men and women off to fight and possibly die is somehow less valid.  Either that or everyone knows that I was a Marine and get indignant since my answer to that question in obviously no, we shouldn't.

This really started to piss me off when one person in particular decided to start some shit.  My own brother.  Naturally, these incidents began at Christmas.  One of two holidays where family gets together and something usually happens where family members argue and eventually stop talking to each other (if you didn't know the other is obviously Thanksgiving, follow the memes).  The whole Iran crisis situation didn't start yet so I don't entirely remember what we were talking about but seeing how my brother is a die hard Neoconservative it probably had something to do with bombing someone.  I chimed in naturally that I'm sick in tired of sending people to go fight and die for bullshit causes.  The exact words I believe were "Yes, let's send another generation off to go and be traumatized by yet another war that has nothing to do with our freedoms."  My brother decided to go ahead and devalue my opinion on the matter by stating that because I sat in air conditioning behind a desk the entire time I was deployed that I wouldn't know anything about being traumatized.  After the whole Iraq situation (you know the embassy and bombing political theater bullshit) everyone I knew began beating the war drums.  At this time, the Afghanistan papers were made public and I've kinda had it with the cognitive dissonance and stupidity.  Naturally I'm doing my usually thing on social media.  Starting shit.

Most of these people screaming for us to bomb Iran and make it a parking lot.  Most of these people never served a day in the military so naturally I posted the above meme.  Not too long after my brother has to come in and insult me yet again about my time as a desk jockey.  My immediate and rather heated response was to call my brother a chickenhawk and post the above definition.  I haven't spoken to my brother since.  I don't feel bad about it either.  I'm kinda done being insulted by people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

I have to take some amount of the blame.  I haven't been forthcoming with my family about my time in Afghanistan or since I've been home.  They know that my primary job in Afghanistan was writing reports (that and making coffee because I was literally the only one who knew how to type and not fuck up coffee) what they don't know is that the first report that I wrote was of an E.O.D. Tech who's head was blown off while trying do disarm and I.E.D.  Not long after that was a report of a Marine who decided to do the head exploding trick on his own.  Not to mention the Marine who got confusing orders from his vehicle commander and blew his best friend's face off.  That doesn't include the countless Afghans with bullet holes in them or the 30 that were killed when there bus blew up after hitting an I.E.D.  Afghans who I looked at with callous indifference.  Then I came home and have lost track of the amount of times I passed out drunk sitting alone in my room listening Velvet Revolver and Five Finger Death Punch (yes I know how cliche).  Next thing I know I have my pistol in my hand and I'm just sitting there thinking about it.  Then I just find myself breaking down laughing just thinking about how pathetic I was.

So if anyone ever wonders what my stance on war is well, now you know.  I don't want people passing out drunk, alone and isolated.  I don't people to spend an hour staring at a gun.  Most of all I don't want people to what I was thinking about with that gun because they don't know what to do with themselves.  If anyone thinks that the things I've experienced aren't worthy of a valid opinion on war can go fuck themselves regardless of who the fuck they think they still are to me.  Then you have these shit heads who never served a day a servant of the state got no problem sending people off to war beyond 'Murica.  Well those fuckers can kiss my ass.  I've had it with these douche bags who want to live vicariously through the misery of others because they some masturbatory love for war and empire.  Fuck the chickenhawks.