Big Talking Cowards Need Your Vote

The current flap concerning the respective war services of John F. Kerry and George W. Bush has got me asking the hard questions about our nation’s veterans: like what have they done for me lately? So I called my buddy Trevor who served in the Army and saw combat in Panama. He also gets really good weed and it makes conversing with him not just illuminating, but downright fun.

BLAG: So Trev, what do you think about a guy who sat the Vietnam War out at home (and couldn’t even be bothered to show up for National Guard duty) funding an enormous campaign to discredit someone who actually went, fought, and was wounded?

TREV: In the army we had a word for those guys—Loud Talking Cowards.

B: That’s three words, Trev.

T: Bush knows he dodged his service in Vietnam by joining the Guard, that’s why he closed that loophole for all the poor suckers serving in it now. They thought they were making money for college or retirement, but they didn’t read the fine print. Now they’re stuck in Iraq with no end in sight.

B: How do you feel about these conservative pundits on TV who think that any American or civilian casualties are acceptable as long as we achieve Bush’s foreign policy objectives?

T: That gets back to the loud talking coward thing. None of these people have served in the military, let alone in combat. They’d shit their pants if they saw what war is really like. Rush Limbaugh couldn’t do three sit-ups, let alone heft a rucksack through the desert and aim a rifle at people. Ann Coulter would be lucky if they shot her dead before violating her pretty blonde corpse. It’s real out there in a war, it’s not a video game. The only Bush appointee who served is Colin Powell, and he was against the war from the beginning. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, loud talking cowards every one!

B: And what is Bush’s foreign policy objective anyway? It was ‘WMD,’ then it was ‘democracy for the Middle East’, then it became ‘Saddam’s not a nice guy.’ And are you ever gonna pass that goddamn joint back? You’re sucking as hard as a new punk band on that thing!

But, so what if some of Trev’s fellow vets still get migraine headaches or have to shit in a bag? So what if they wake up screaming and feeling around for phantom limbs? So what if Veteran’s benefits keep going down and right wing blowhards keep pushing a hopelessly muddled political agenda using the corpses of young Americans as cannon fodder?

What Trevor seems to forget is that loud talking cowards like me were helping to keep this country safe for bad music while he and his buddies were out there in the jungles of Panama snorting cheap cocaine and listening to Pat Benatar records. In fact, this particular war has been largely forgotten by we, the people of the country that started it. Even the current 80’s nostalgia revival omits Manuel Noriega and his crew as too insignificant to mention when compared to cultural avatars like Boy George and Tipper Gore.

In fact I’ve just had a revelation! In honor of our current war, I’ll switch to country music. That always works when you get too old to rock. Maybe I can team up with Toby Keith and the rest of the patriotic cowboy crowd and we’ll form a conservative super group. Just call us ‘LTC’- the Loud Talking Cowards.

BLAG DAHLIA


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