Be All

This actually sucks. When I was a kid, the military ads stank. Totally weak. I wasn't the slightest bit persuaded to go. To Serve. But now, the ads they have are just...so much more of a quality. They inspire! The spirit soars, as we see these determined youths in their bulky camo garb and drab helmets, holding their grim weapons and gazing into the distance with just the right glint of determinedness and intrepidation and kill-the-enemy in their eyes, but also with a certain humanity - a certain vulnerability perhaps, as if to say, "hey - I'm not some kind of fighting MACHINE, just a brave soul who was willing to sign up to do the JOB."

And that kind of gets me! It puts a catch in my throat. It makes me wish they had ads like these running back in the day, back in my day, before I became all...old and useless to the effort.

I might have joined.

I might have SERVED.

And by God, if that had happened, we wouldn't be in this mess!!!