i am transiting a large city in the south of the us and in the recent past had two surreal conversations take place around me
one involved a couple of people I am reasonably certain are prominent college football players, boasting to their buds about looking up this other guy (over a girl I gather) and "wham, wanna fight, wham" (impressive ability to deliver high speed sucker punches, with sound effects, I do admit)
ok, whatever, except for the slightly fascinated and somewhat amused off-duty policeman sitting not a million micrometers from them...
this might have repercussions
the other conversation, was between two army enlisted reporting for training before deployment, and other than speculation on whether they'd get bumped to first class ("nah, only on the way back") and "girl" issues the line that caught in my brain was, and I paraphrase closely: "I can't wait to get down there, you can do all this shit you can't do in civilian life, like just go out and kill someone"
disturbing on its own, but given their stated destination for AIT, and which infantry unit is there training for deployment, I am estimating a several percent probability I know their commanding officer - and he would be so unamused - not high enough odds to have a chat, but he really would not need flakes like that under his command
bummernickels
...
I am sure the blustering 'enlisted' will soon be forced to come to grips with the reality of 'killing someone' and other 'stuff like that'. We can only hope anyway...
...tom...
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