Last night, around ten, while I was relaxing on the living room couch with the latest issue of Harper’s, my cat Twinkle curled up at my side, purring away like a tiny, idling motorcycle, the phone rang. Being so comfortable, I decided to let voice mail pick up the call. Two minutes later, however, it rang again. Obviously, whoever was trying to contact me didn’t consider leaving a voice mail message satisfactory, so I gave in and answered. It was Vinnie.
Vinnie: Tom, how you doin’?
Tom: Not bad, bro. You the one who called a couple of minutes ago?
Vinnie: Yeah, that was me.
Tom: This can’t wait, then, huh?
Vinnie: No, Tom, it can’t. I got a buddy of mine from Iraq here. He called me about something, and when I found out what it was, I knew it was way over my head. The only thing to do was call you.
Tom: Okay. Your friend’s on the line now?
Vinnie: Yeah – Rocky, this guy here is Tom Collins. He’s this total Brainiac, okay? Works inside the Beltway, doin’ all kinds of smart-[expletive] stuff for important people, including the [expletive] [expletive] at the [expletive] White House and the [expletive] Pentagon who sent us to [expletive] Iraq in the first [expletive] place.
Rocky: Hi, Mr. Collins.
Tom: Call me Tom.
Rocky: Okay. Hi, Tom.
Tom: So tell me, Rocky, how you came to know my good friend Vinnie.
Rocky: We were in the same unit when he was here. Then he went back home for some medical [expletive]. The [expletive] was he was gonna get sent back, but then he swung some [expletive] pipe and got a cushy [expletive] job recruiting [expletive] kids who don’t know any better to join the [expletive] Army; and I find out from him, he did that after he talked to you.
Tom: Vinnie? Care to comment?
Vinnie: Well, that’s basically what happened, isn’t it?
Tom: Okay, I’ll take partial credit, at least, for your not having to go back to Iraq for another tour.
Rocky: [Expletive] [expletive] stop-loss [expletive].
Tom: Right. I understand. How many tours of duty have you served in Iraq so far, Rocky?
Rocky: I’m on [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] Tour Number [expletive] Four, and there’s no [expletive] [expletive] way I’m coming back for [expletive] Number Five!
Tom: Rocky, it sounds like you’ve certainly served your country about as much as a person should be expected to.
Rocky: [Expletive] Bush! [Expletive] [expletive]-sucking Republican [expletive]! I spent the last five [expletive] years of my [expletive] life sweating my [expletive] butt off in the [expletive] desert with [expletive] sand fleas throwin’ parties up my [expletive], [expletive] scorpions bitin’ my nuts, and [expletive] blood-suckin’ flies gnawing on the rest of me, while I’m dodgin’ [expletive] Hadjis [expletive] I-[expletive]-E-D’s, and watchin’ my buddies die in this [expletive] war those lyin’ sacks of [expletive] got me in. And now, after this “surge” bull [expletive], everything’s supposed to be [expletive] copacetic over here, everybody holdin’ [expletive] hands and singin’ [expletive] “Kum-Ba-Yah” and [expletive], so everybody back home has [expletive] forgotten about us, running around with their heads up their [expletive], [expletive] and moaning about their [expletive] mortgages and the [expletive] price of [expletive] gas!
Tom: Given the circumstances, your state of mind is perfectly understandable, Rocky. But how can I help you?
Rocky: Like I was tellin’ Vinnie, there’s this guy who used a Koran for target practice.
Tom: Yeah, we heard about that over the weekend. The story broke here Saturday.
Rocky: Okay, so, he puts a Koran up on the firing range, blows the [expletive] out of it…
Vinnie: Nice shooting, too. Did you see the pictures?
Tom: Yeah, I did. Tight grouping, very consistent. Obviously, that guy knows his way around a rifle.
Rocky: Sniper. Section leader. Staff sergeant, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry. Assigned to the 64th Armored.
Vinnie: That explains it.
Rocky. No [expletive]. Fourteen holes, not one more than three [expletive] inches away from any of the others. So then he writes a cheerful little greeting for our camel [expletive] donkey [expletive] sheep [expletive] goat [expletive] [expletive] sand monkey brothers and sisters on the [expletive] inside cover…
Tom: And what was that?
Rocky: “[Expletive] yeah!”
Tom: “[Expletive] yeah?” He wrote “[expletive] yeah” inside the cover of the Koran?
Rocky: [Expletive]-A he did!
Tom: Well, there’s no doubt that his message was very frank, straightforward and to the point.
Rocky: [Expletive] yeah, it was [expletive] frank, [expletive] straightforward and to the [expletive] point! And then he leaves the [expletive] thing where they can find it…
Tom: Which was where, specifically?
Rocky: A stinkin’ raggedy-[expletive] pile of [expletive] called Radwaniyah, outside of Baghdad, at the [expletive] sand monkey police station firing range.
Tom: And then?
Rocky: And then the [expletive] hits the [expletive] fan! There’s [expletive] eating [expletive] rag heads [expletive] yellin’ and screamin’ [expletive] bloody murder for the [expletive] TV cameras and bang! Just like that – this guy, they pull him out of the [expletive] sand, they make him sign this suck [expletive] queer [expletive] apology some [expletive] West Point officer wrote for him and then? Then what do they [expletive] do? I’ll [expletive] tell you what they [expletive] do! They [expletive] send [expletive] him [expletive] home!
Tom: Yep; sounds like what I read on the Internet.
Rocky: Right. So, like I was sayin’ to Vinnie, here, a few minutes ago, why don’t I do that?
Tom: You mean, why shouldn’t you do that?
Rocky: Do not, should not, could not, would not, whatever.
Tom: Okay, well, to begin with, you would be showing a great deal of contempt and disrespect for the most holy book of a major world religion.
Rocky: Oh, so, like if I was to shoot up some book that was holy to a religion that ain’t major, that would be better?
Tom: No, that’s not what I mean. Shooting up a copy of the Avesta is no less reprehensible than shooting up a copy of the Koran.
Rocky: Avesta?
Tom: The Avesta is the primary holy book of the Zoroastrians.
Rocky: Never heard of them.
Tom: I didn’t expect that you would have. That’s my point. Just because most people have never heard of the Zoroastrians, the Baha’i or the Jains, that doesn’t mean it’s any more acceptable to use their holy books for target practice.
Rocky: How come those religions, what you said there – the Zoros and the Bali Highs and the Dick ‘n’ Janes or whatever the [expletive]; how come I ain’t never heard of them?
Tom: Because there aren’t very many of them left.
Rocky: Why?
Tom: Ah, well, actually, there aren’t very many of them left because the Moslems killed them off when they refused to convert to Islam.
Rocky: No [expletive]! What was the deal on that?
Tom: They either had to convert to Islam or die.
Rocky: Says who?
Tom: Says the Koran.
Rocky: Well, [expletive], ask me why I don’t find that [expletive] to be no [expletive] surprise at all. So, tell me, if the date-stuffing [expletive] boogie-woogies out here in Iraq have this [expletive] piece of [expletive] pack of [expletive] decorative [expletive]-wipes that tells them to kill anybody who doesn’t convert to their [expletive] sand monkey religion, what’s so [expletive] bad about putting a few [expletive] rounds in the sucker?
Tom: Contemporary hermeunetic theory holds that currently accepted interpretations of the Koran need not agree with literal readings of the ancient text, Rocky. That would be like believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible. It would be like saying that the universe was created over a period of six days in the year 4004 B.C.
Rocky: Pardon me, but ain’t havin’ a disagreement and such [expletive] about when the world began somewhat different from ordering your followers to convert members of other religions and kill the ones that won’t go along with it?
Tom: Well, if you get right down to it, according to the Old Testament, the Jews had an even less enlightened approach.
Rocky: Which was what?
Tom: Let’s put it this way – during the ancient times of the Old Testament, the Jews didn’t accept converts.
Rocky: So?
Tom: Well, at least, back in the day, when Moslems conquered a civilization, they gave the vanquished an option to go on living if they converted to Islam. But when the Jews won a war, they just exterminated everybody on the other side.
Rocky: I donno, Tom, sometimes after I finish working a roadside bomb explosion, with our guys lying around in pieces, and [expletive] blood and guts everywhere, I think to myself, [expletive]! Maybe King David and his crew, maybe they had the right idea, know what I mean? Why don’t we just kill all these [expletive] [expletive] Arab [expletive], and take all the [expletive] oil for ourselves? That’s what we’re [expletive] here for anyway, ain’t it?
Tom: Sir, if you were Jewish, I would suggest you emmigrate to Israel and run for the Knesset. Since you’re not, I suggest you cool it. And even if you aren’t a Moslem, you need to recognize that the Koran is a great anthology of literary art, just like the Old and New Testaments.
Rocky: “Literary art?” You think they’ll pull me out of this rotten, reekin’, [expletive] hell hole and send me back to Brooklyn if I shoot up the collected works of William [expletive] Shakespeare?
Tom: No, what I’m saying is, the Koran isn’t just a book, like the collected works of Shakespeare is, any more than the Pentateuch, the Acts of the Apostles or the Bhagavad Gita are. They’re symbols, too, like the American flag. How do you feel when you see news videos where demonstrators desecrate the American flag?
Rocky: Yeah, all right, sure – I get mad. Or at least I used to, anyhow.
Tom: What, not anymore?
Rocky: Not since those [expletive] suckers ordered me back for this tour of duty. Now when I see a bunch of [expletive] burning an American flag, I don’t feel [expletive] nothin’.
Tom: You mean, you don’t get mad witnessing vandalism of an American flag anymore?
Rocky: No, now I get mad when I have to [expletive] salute one.
Tom: Surely, Rocky, you must admit the advantages. You found a home in the Army didn’t you?
Rocky: [Expletive] that! I was in the [expletive] Reserves! I had a home, and a wife; a kid and a journeyman plumber’s license – and I did all new work, too – strictly construction pipe layout, no plunging out dirty toilets or nothin’. Now I ain’t got [expletive] besides child support payments comin’ out of my lousy Army checks, and, oh, yeah, some kind of worms or somethin’ – the docs ain’t sure what and they won’t say it keeps me from “adequate performance of my duties,” the [expletive]. You know how bein’ in Bush’s Iraq Army is like bein’ in the French Foreign Legion?
Tom: What?
Rocky: There’s no [expletive] way out to either of them! You know how it’s different?
Tom: How?
Rocky: Those bastards in the French Foreign Legion get laid once in a while! So, what do you say – how about I shoot up one of them rag head portable [expletive]-wipe carriers with the colorful decorated sheets inside?
Tom: You need to understand that desecrating a Koran is tantamount to insulting the Prophet Mohammed, Peace Be Upon Him.
Rocky: [Expletive] the prophet Mohammed, and pieces of [expletive] be upon him!
Tom: Now, really, that’s entirely the wrong attitude for someone in your position to have.
Rocky: What the [expletive] is that supposed to mean?
Tom: You and your fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are in Iraq to protect and defend the United States of America and fulfill American foreign policy, embodied in a Zionist, neoconservative-inspired program to bring Western democracy to the Middle East, whether the Middle East wants it or not.
Rocky: Screw that [expletive]! I signed up with the Army so I could do what the Army does – blow stuff up and kill people!
Tom: Rocky, I’m afraid you have misunderstood the true nature of the contract you have with the American people.
Rocky: Oh yeah? What is it then?
Tom: A person serving in the armed forces of a modern industrialized technological democracy such as the United States does not volunteer for that.
Rocky: No? What the hell does he volunteer for, then?
Tom: Instead of volunteering to “blow stuff up and kill people,” as you put it, he, or, I might add, she, in fact volunteers to risk death for America. What you really did when you joined the US Army was to offer yourself up to be slain in the name of democracy, the defense of the United States, and American foreign policy as determined by the President and Congress – which, in this particular case, is a policy of neoconservative Zionist expansionism. In the name of those things, you volunteered your body, your mind and your soul to be used as weapons, to be exploited and consumed like tools; and to be small, expendable parts in a vast, unimaginably powerful machine of destruction, murder, intimidation and terror, directed from posh meeting rooms in Washington by a coterie of deluded, narcissistic fools, most of whom have never even been in combat themselves.
Rocky: What the flippin’ [expletive]? You think if the recruiting commercials on TV said that, I would have joined the [expletive] United States Army?
Tom: Of course not. Serving in the armed forces of the United States in the 21st century is a dangerous, dirty, thankless, morally perilous and ethically disruptive job in a cold-hearted organization that chews you up and spits you out when it’s done, leaving your mind and probably your body hopelessly scarred for life. You think guys tough enough and smart enough to deal with all that and become the generals and admirals who run the Pentagon, are going to pay for advertisements that tell every impressionable teenager in America the truth about what they’re getting into? Who the hell would voluntarily enlist in the armed forces of the United States if they knew in advance what a total screw job being in the service really is?
Rocky: Nobody.
Tom: Exactly. And then we’d have to draft teenagers so people like Dick Cheney and George Bush could entertain themselves, enrich the shadowy scum bags who pull their strings, and fulfill the misguided wishes of delusional religious maniacs obsessed with a thirty-five-hundred-year-old myth which happens to say God gave Palestine to somebody named Moses. Where, pray tell, would American democracy be then?
Rocky: I see your point. At least I think I do, anyhow. I’m a [expletive] sucker, so great, [expletive]-A, another reason to want out. What do you think, after I shoot up a Koran, should I deny it first, like that sniper did, or just go ahead and say “[Expletive] yeah, I did it, now ship my [expletive] outta here?”
Tom: As I understand it, Rocky, the sniper who shot up that Koran was relieved of duty with prejudice, reprimanded by the commanding general with a memorandum of record attached to his military record, dismissed from the regiment and redeployed from the brigade. Are you prepared to accept those sanctions in order to be shipped out of Iraq and forbidden to ever return?
Rocky: Hey, what the [expletive], ya know? The guy’s general had to read an apology to the [expletive] local rag-head militia, and his colonel had to kiss a [expletive] Koran and bang his [expletive] head on it, and then both of them had get down on their knees and kiss every reekin’ sand monkey [expletive] in the [expletive] rag-head militia. So why should I [expletive] care about a bunch of [expletive] paperwork and [expletive]?
Tom: All right, listen carefully, Rocky, because General Hammond promised the Iraqis that something like this is never going to happen again. He said that the action was criminal behavior, and that he, Major General Hammond, had “… come to this land to protect you, to support you — not to harm you — and the behavior of this soldier was nothing short of wrong and unacceptable.”
Rocky: Okay, fine. I say this [expletive] war is [expletive] wrong and [expletive] unacceptable!
Tom: Be that as it may, you need to recognize, Rocky, that, in addition to making those statements, the general also said “This soldier,” by which he meant the sniper in question, “has lost the honor to serve the United States Army and the people of Iraq in Baghdad…”
Rocky: “The honor?” The [expletive] honor, my [expletive] [expletive]! General Hammond can have the [expletive] honor of taking my [expletive] place on the next [expletive] convoy escort to [expletive] Indian country, that’s what he can [expletive] do!
Tom: You need to develop a concept for the implications of such actions, Rocky. After the Koran target incident, militia members took to the streets, chanting “America out, America out, America out of Iraq, America out of Iraq now!”
Rocky: Damn it, Tom, if I can get back to the United States alive, I’ll take to the [expletive] streets chanting that myself!
Tom: But the Army said what that sniper did was “serious and deeply troubling,” and “not representative of the professionalism of our soldiers or the respect they have for all faiths.” The local Moslem clergy issued a statement saying that “There is not any difference between this soldier and the figure in Denmark who made the caricature drawings against the Prophet Muhammad.”
Rocky: Those [expletive] cartoons? They’re still [expletive] and moaning about those [expletive] cartoons?
Tom: It seems as though they are, yes.
Rocky: When I get back Stateside, I’m getting that cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban tattooed on my right [expletive] cheek, so’s every time I take a [expletive], [expletive], when I wipe my [expletive], Allah will see that I give his [expletive] prophet the [expletive] respect he deserves!
Tom: People are calling this incident “the Abu Ghraib of religious freedom,” and a “disgraceful aggression against the entire Islamic world.” Face it, Rocky, the next soldier who shoots up a Koran may get shipped out of Iraq, but I doubt he’s going to be visiting Times Square anytime soon. It’s obvious you’ll never get away with a copy-cat strategy; if you want to get sent home, you have to do something else.
Rocky: Like what?
Tom: How about, instead of getting that picture of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban tattooed on your butt when you get back, you go and get it off the Internet now, while you’re still in Iraq?
Rocky: And then?
Tom: Print it out on some nice, thick paper, glue it to a piece of cardboard, and use it for target practice. When they catch you, say you thought it was a picture of Ahmed Ali Ahmed Abu Omar.
Rocky: Who the [expletive] is he?
Tom: The Al Qaeda in Iraq leader who was sentenced yesterday for murdering Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho.
Rocky: Chaldean Catholics? Eighteen years I went to his church in Brooklyn, Father Scaldini never said nothin’ about no Chaldean Catholics. Where the [expletive] is Chaldea?
Tom: Never mind the details; like they say, don’t sweat the small stuff. Just write this down: A-H-M-E-D A-L-I A-H-M-E-D A-B-U O-M-A-R. That’s Alpha, Hotel, Mike, Echo, Delta, break; Alpha, Lima, India, break; Alpha, Hotel, Mike, Echo, Delta, break; Alpha, Bravo, Uniform, break; Oscar, Mike, Alpha, Romeo. Got it?
Rocky: Roger that.
Tom: Read it back.
Rocky: Ahmed Ali Ahmed Abu Omar.
Tom: Who is what?
Rocky: Al Qaeda.
Tom: And did what?
Rocky: Murdered a Catholic Archbishop.
Tom: Great. You’re Catholic, Abu Omar’s the enemy and you didn’t know it was a picture of Mohammed.
Rocky: Sir, yes, sir! Heard and understood, sir! Outstanding! Vinnie, you were right, this guy’s a [expletive] genius! Thanks, Tom! Oh [expletive]! I gotta go!
Vinnie: What…
Rocky: It’s another [expletive] sand monkey mortar attack. You have my eternal gratitude, Mr. Collins!
Tom: You’re a brave and selfless warrior and you’re damn welcome. It’s been a privilege and and honor to advise you. Good luck!
Rocky: You the man, Vinnie! Thanks again!
Vinnie: You think shooting up a Danish cartoon of Mohammed and claiming he thought it was some piece of [expletive] from Al Qaeda will get Rocky out of Baghdad?
Tom: Well, if that doesn’t work, he can always do what they did in Vietnam.
Vinnie: What, frag his LT?
Tom: Hell, no! Come on! I meant, Rocky can always just shoot himself in the foot.
Vinnie: Accidentally, you mean?
Tom: Of course. Who shoots themselves in the foot on purpose?
Vinnie: Right. G’night, Tom, and thanks.
Tom: You’re welcome. It’s always a pleasure to assist our men and women in uniform.