Sometimes I think, “Maybe I was a Marine in a past life. Or maybe I want to be/could handle being a military wife.” Then the episode of “Generation Kill” ends and my senses return.
Surprisingly, it’s the first possibility that remains within my realm of reality. How else could I have survived the mean streets of Staten Island (don’t tell me you haven’t seen that episode of “MTV’s True Life”) for sixteen years and thrived in the harsh environment of a Catholic elementary/high school for twelve years? To an extent, this all-(adolescent)-girl environment is probably worse than then elements of the Marine Corps. Seriously. Imagine 100 or so teenage girls in the same small classes, hallways and buildings for four years. And remember this is a private Catholic school in Staten Island. On top of this, my principal made Captain America look like a brave man and Encino Man look like a Mensa candidate. I won’t even get started on some of my teachers. They deserve at least one later entry of their own.
While I do not see myself shooting guns, launching grenades, defecating in public and doing other Marine-y activities, I am slightly afraid of how unoffended and how humored I was at the flurry of racial, sexist and homophobic slurs the men let fly. I know I should have been disturbed and angered but their camaraderie and comfort in each other reminded me of how my high school friends and I were, how some of us still are. We’re brutal and honest and sometimes both simultaneously but we know, in our hearts of hearts, we would do anything for each other. And that, at the end of each day, is what matters.
But the military wife thing, completely busted. No matter how much I adore the HBO mini-series, its writing and its stars, I know I could never handle being the wife of a soldier. I hold to the liberal side of political ideals and dislike how right the military tends to blindly lean. I also, on occasion, need to be the first in my man’s life. Not all the time. But certainly once in a while. I don’t think a soldier could afford that. And I know it would be impossible if he were on deployment. I refuse to be unfair to this imaginary soldier pining for my affection and especially to me.
It is also important to remember the fact these men are probably completely different in combat and among their brothers than in their civilian lives and among family and friends. A necessity for their survival and sanity, I imagine. Even though I harbor the hope there is a real-life, high-as-a-mo-fo-on-Ripped-Fuel Corporal “Ray-Ray” Person. Regardless, and almost in spite, of Episode 7’s revelations.
I also remind myself I’ve fallen for characters based facades created by Marines witnessed by an embedded “Rolling Stones” journalist (who I’m pretty sure developed man-crushes on and slight hero-worship for said Marines) and reworked by screenplay writers. Then I put on the next episode and my senses once again desert me.
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