The New York Times keeps posting opinion pieces: Army Base Shooting Highlights Difficulty in Identifying At-Risk Soldiers. Taking the cue from its master, Marquel, TPVs Times Sharpshooting correspondent winks: as long as you don’t look in army bases.
The army seems to have a problem finding killers in their midst. Marquel visited a nearby base and found 4000 of them instantly. There was one sad sack who resembled the sad sack comic book character (so long ago that Marquel doesn’t remember him that well either), who was obviously posted to KP duty, peeling potatoes outside on a wooden stairway. He looked the only one who might not be a killer. But he was in a uniform so give him a gun and who knows, right?
I mean what are army bases for except to hold our killers between killings? So it should be no problem to find the killers. They’re right fucking there.
But the army says they’re having trouble and, good American that I am, I thought it my duty to help out. Maybe they’d give me a medal. I’ve always wanted a medal. But I think you have to kill for that.
I asked the PR Major they provided me.
“No, not at all. First of all, you’ll get a medal if you’re killed. Even injured. I know one guy who got the purple heart because he got a fungus infection in his palm that never went away.” He looked at me with a kind of proud irony.
“But aside from being killed or killing and the occasional fungus infection, what kind of medal is available to the ordinary Joe, like that sad sack outside peeling potatoes.” I queried.
“We have a medal for that. It’s the Good Conduct medal. It’s important for the boys when they get leave to have a medal to show their moms and dads.” He said.
“So sad sack” I said, “can get that”
“Well,” he hesitated “that KP might be punishment for something and he’ll have to overcome it to qualify.”
“That seems fair,” I said, “now can you tell me why you can’t identify these risky soldiers?”
“There’s so many of them. These are like needles in haystacks.” He asserted. “You have to admit when one of these stories comes along it’s really surprising that the suspect seldom fits the stereotype profile.”
“Really?” I wondered, “don’t they all fit? Maybe that’s the problem.”
He looked puzzled. “I don’t follow.”
“Well they all have guns and like to shoot.” I explained. “They’re taught to kill.”
“Of course.” He looked taken aback. “They’re soldiers,” he added.
“So if you’re looking for a killer, you’ve got 4000 of them right here,” I said as gently as possible.
“Well,” he insisted, “you’ve misunderstood. They’ve been taught to kill the enemy, not their colleagues.”
“There you have it,” I said, suddenly meeting revelation, “what happens when their colleagues become their enemies?”
“That’s impossible,” he insisted, “you need a declaration of war to have an enemy.”
“Really,” I asked, “just off the top of my head I can think of Korea, Lebanon, Viet Nam, our longest I believe, Grenada, and a few others. We just don’t have a lot of declarations of war these days.”
“I think that’s because they’re afraid it’ll start a war,” he answered, uncomfortably.
“So anyway it’s actually surprising that you don’t have more incidents,” I noted, “with thousands of trained killers on countless bases here and around the world.”
“Why thank you,” he said, “we try to be careful.”
“In what ways?” I asked.
“The most important is that guns aren’t allowed.” He said poker faced.
“What?”
“Yes, nobody is supposed to have a gun on base. These killings always involve guns they sneak onto base.” He smiled.
“So the guns…The real guns…army guns…where are they?” I asked.
“All locked up except when used for authorized training exercises.” He explained.
“Maybe that’s the problem,” I said.
“What?” He asked.
“You train them to kill then you don’t even let them have guns.” I said. “That might make me want to kill. If the pothole trained me to write–I’m not saying they have yet–and gave me a gun but no pen, I’d be mad enough to go out, get my own pen, and write without authorization. ”
“You wouldn’t get a good conduct medal,” he said, grinning.
“No,” I admitted, “but I probably wouldn’t kill anybody either.”
“That’s the upside,” he said. I started to leave, but had a sudden inspiration. I saluted him. He just laughed.
I passed sad sack on the way out. There was a huge pile of peeled potatoes in front of him, but just as many unpeeled in sacks. I wondered whether he could be the killer if the army didn’t have such good gun control regulations.
***
For more army advice for @THePentagon. For more Marquel insights, follow our underpaid writer @MarquelatTPV, and his masters @ThePotholeView.
I am devoted to your writing. This is just one more example of why we don’t need to think, just to read your articles. Bravo!
“The army seems to have a problem finding killers in their midst. Marquel visited a nearby base and found 4000 of them instantly.”
A wholehearted “ditto.”
Don’t be a copycat, David. Find your own style.
Big laughs at this:
“You train them to kill then you don’t even let them have guns.” I said. “That might make me want to kill. If the pothole trained me to write–I’m not saying they have yet–and gave me a gun but no pen, I’d be mad enough to go out, get my own pen, and write without authorization. ”
That’s scary. A homeless veteran was asking for money in the subway the other day. I was wondering when he would start shooting at the rate he was getting no money