Ok let's start of with the bare facts of this. A guy gets hit in Afghanistan, in the process losing both his legs. In case you were unaware, that's pretty painful. The medic, a female, gives him a shot of morphine, and he's still in pain, so he asks her to flash him. She laughs and refuses, continues to treat him then sends him on his merry way up the chain.
Ok, look first off I'm pretty sure he was joking at the time, but even if he wasn't, so what? The comment's section is the most telling, and it shows people neither understand combat, the people that fight in it, nor the world in general. Even the fact that this story was somehow worthy of the news at all rather than something somebody laughs about in a bar years later shows how truly messed up people have become.
I don't know what idiot spread the "wife and mother" thing. I never saw that. I only saw young men scared out of their mind screaming in pain. The ones that died didn't have time to say anything, and the reality was too horrible to tell their families. So we tell them that they said something about loving their loved ones before slipping away. In truth you'd do anything for just one more second of life if you have the presence of mind to think about it.
The life of the military can often be vulgar. Saying the "F" word may be common place now a days, but in the military you say it about almost everything and anything. The jokes made about wives and girlfriends are not fit for those wives and girlfriends ears. I really don't want to talk about the things that get you by in terms of the opposite sex. So yes it's probably not the most valorous image imaginable. One of the Greats once said "Single men in barracks don't go into plaster saints".
Further to that, there are a TON of things that happen in combat that you would do anything to keep your mind off of. You get rattled, shaken to your core. One of the only ways to cope is humor. Pranks are played, jokes (often very unkind) are told and stupid stunts are pulled. Stating the obvious in a deadpan way, even a sense of extreme fatalism is common. Death is everywhere and anywhere, fear will cripple you, so you do anything you can to stave it off.
Was he serious? Probably not. He was in pain, and possibly thought he was going to die. Even if he was serious, given that he had both his legs blown off could you really blame him for wanting to see something to take his mind off things? If a woman had both her legs blown off and Channing Tatum were treating her, would you really blame her if she asked to see him shirtless? We all know that it was a totally impractical thing to ask for, she'd have to have taken off her armor and uniform when she'd waste valuable time when she could have (and did) save his life.
Here's the thing, it was totally harmless. Nothing came of it. She laughed it off, and he lived. This should have been a story told over beers many years down the road. Somehow this story ended up on the web. Somehow this story was seen as an actual "story" worthy of the "news". It really strains things to the point of incredulity to think in a big giant war, and a world going to hell in a hand basket, that somehow this is news worthy. Maybe it's a sign of how messed up relations are between men and women that something that should have been flattering and even a little funny is now the subject of hair pulling hysterical rage.
Ladies, we're hard wired to like your assets. You know this, hell you wear clothes with words on your butt so we're forced to look. The whole species is dependent on males and females looking at each other's physical characteristics and liking what they see. A woman can tell a guy he as a cute butt, but he can't tell her the same in kind? Seriously if we're putting 2 and 2 together, this whole thing is just plain silly. The worst part of all the Sexism that is perceived in our society today is that it has made interactions between the sexes an absolute minefield. Jokes are ok, as long as they're only going one way. Perhaps this story is a greater symptom of the massive dysfunction between the sexes that has nothing to do with the parts of the anatomy we enjoy looking at.
1 comment:
I posted an excerpt of the story on Able Veterans not thinking twice about it. I was 14 when I went through Walter Reed to have a tumor removed in 1973. I won't forget the night in ICU. Ever.
When I read the story I saw a guy who thought he'd impress the soldier with his courage in the face of what had hit him. It was something you would see on 'Mash' back in my day.
Sad that there are people who have nothing better to do with their time and potential than to try and find something wrong with this story. It's an innocent story about two soldiers coping with the real crappy situation they found themselves in.
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