Being a Ronin part I

Time: Late Saturday night/ Early Sunday morning.

Music: The Doors ... This is the end

I suppose the thought of moving permanently back to Japan has made me evaluate and reflect on many things.  In a cathartic move, why not repost some old entries of mine from the late nineties, and eventually catch up to now?  So now, I will start with the first entry, which talks about my decision to go into the military in 1995…  Looking over it, I cant believe I wrote some of this stuff.  Its interesting how much some of my perspectives have changed.  If you are easily offended, perhaps you shouldn’t read further, but this is the unedited way this journey really started.

Where shall I begin? Shall we begin like David Copperfield? I am born? I grew up? I won’t be at all that organized. Let us instead begin in the middle. I joined the National Guard as an Infantryman, or rather I joined the ROTC in college. I was so gung ho about being an officer, and despite what people may think, ROTC at my university was the real deal. It was like a fraternity with a mission, run by Army Rangers. It was a common phrase to say, "School shit is getting in the way of Army shit again…" I volunteered for everything… Colour guard, field trips, and functions involving the ROTC. There was a program where you joined the National Guard while you where concurrently enrolled in the ROTC called the SMP program. "What a fantastic opportunity" I thought… "A real officer should know what it is like in the dirt before he leads men." The officers and of course, the National Guard liaison thought it was a great idea as well. I would like to tell you that it was all a logical decision. I would like to tell you that things worked out for the best. But this is no fairytale land and things could not have gone in a stranger direction. Enter Meche… A euphemism, ghost or specter of my past… A woman. I was destroyed inside because I gave my heart to a woman who cared nothing for me. Like all idiot men in love, I did not get it, and destroyed my dignity trying to woo her. I will not say that it was all her fault and that I hate her for being a cold unfeeling bitch… But that would be lying. I tried to hate her, but it became clear in my eyes that the fault was more of my own, and my obsession with her. After all, I am not a movie star, underwear model, or a Rock God. In fact I am the opposite, and in comparison, a swamp when compared to a scenic coastal vista. She wasn’t a goddess either, but that is not why I fell in love with her.
I joined the Army in a last ditch effort of my mind, trying to kickstart my heart, to clear my mind of Meche. Infantry Basic training was at the home of the Infantry itself… In the place where basic training was still hard… A wilderness where the PC politicians of Washington had little sway. I went to the hardest basic training post in the country, to the hardest basic training battalion in the brigade, to the hardest basic training company… The house of Pain, to the hardest basic training platoon… The Warlords. Women where viewed as dilution of the standards… I remember when we graduated basic training, our drill sergeant saying, "Now you have finished basic training… That was all the shit all the other pussies and women do… Now its time for Infantry shit!" Gay people did not exist there, and it was a commonly held perspective among the more liberal drill sergeants to "… Put them all on an island and let them butt fuck each other to death." If that was against what you believed, you just shut up and took it.  It was not a place for discourse, and if it bothered you, you just learned to let it slide.  In the end, giving you a thicker skin was their mission. Your worth there was what you where capable of doing, and I respected that. In the end I learned a great deal from basic, about myself. I have never been a physically, in shape guy, and those little tasks seemed insurmountable to me. I learned all of those things where based on how you perceived things. Once, on our 20-mile road march, I twisted both my ankles while carrying the M60 machine gun… It wasn’t about the pain anymore though. It was about not giving up… and that is what I learned from basic training. It’s all a matter of perspective. On my graduation day, when I earned my blue chord and discs which where what only the infantry where allowed to wear on their uniform, I felt 30 feet tall. One of my friends had the honour of going to the house of pain, and he told me that they where cutting the standards down drastically on the next cycle, and opening it to women as well… He said the drill sergeants where now going to call it The house of pancakes (pronounced Pain – cakes).
When I came back, the ROTC did not want me there. I didn’t have the credit hours in school enough to complete the program in 2 years… Although several cadets existed that where in the same boat, yet still in the system. So I was on hold. They let me in the next year, but they kicked me out on a paperwork error after I failed a diagnostic PT test, but I was invited to try again. Fuck that… I got stuck with a 6-year guard contract, with no GI bill, no sign up bonus… just my ass, and a small paycheck every month.
My mechanized infantry company was a mixed bag. A combination of highly motivated soldiers, to lazy NCO’s that preferred to hide in the woods, get drunk, and show up for final formation. Most of the excellent soldiers there where self-starters, and in themselves a clique. After all, the rest of the unit was every National Guard stereotype made true. The thing that surprised me about the clique that I hung around with had a morbid fascination with WWII… Especially Nazi Germany, and the Schutzstaffel. Not the politics mind you, but the innovation of these organizations. They pretty much invented mechanized warfare, and set the standard for a modern army… Mainly Blitzkrieg. They emulated the SS to a certain point, and it was common for us to jokingly refer to some of the lieutenants as Ubersturmfuhrer or Obersturmfuhrer… The German army equivalent. That is where it ended though… A good soldier was a good soldier no matter what they looked like. So don’t get yourself to believe that they where a sort of KKK type organization, because that would be far from the truth. It caught me off guard merely because anything vaguely connected to the Nazis is incredibly taboo. Over time, most of these soldiers left the guard, changed units, or where promoted to another unit… At the end of my rotation, very few of the original, exceptional soldiers where left. It was mostly those lazy NCO’s, getting drunk, barking orders, and hiding when it was time to do any serious work. In the end, the command structure dissolved completely, and we where left to mill around on the half understood orders of Battalion commanders who where disconnected from their soldiers, and wanting to look good to the politicians rather than improve their forces. Morale was destroyed, and when my time came up, I jumped at the chance to leave. When I put on my uniform now, I felt like a maggot… A parasite who fed off the taxpayers to stand around and wait for the uninspired orders and mindless bravado of higher up. I was ashamed.