The indomitable Fred Reed responds to recent news that Army ROTC candidates were forced to march in high heels as part of sexual-assault awareness events. Here's an excerpt.
Dear General,
I see that on your watch the Army is turning into a transvestite marching corps in high heels, a Ziegfeld cross-gendered or bisected gay-bath sexual zoo vacuuming up every sort of erotic loony, not to mention becoming a home for unwed mothers and prostitution rings. I commend you. I have always wanted to be defended by a freak show.
. . .
What I figure, General, is you ought to set an example for the troops by wearing panties and a bra (if you don’t already wear panties: I give you credit for miitary foresight.) A good officer--we had some--doesn't order his men to do anything he himself wouldn't do. Walk a Mile in Her Skivvies, General. (Actually, when I was a hard-charging young Gyrene, we spent a lot of time trying to get into women's skivvies. Now it’s going to be mandatory?)
. . .
Now, General, I speak only for myself as a Marine who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, but others may agree with me. (A “rifle” is one of those awful long thingies (no, not those long thingies) that make boomy noises and stinky smoke and put stains on your cocktail dress that just ruin it.) Outside of Da Nang we used to lie behind sandbags at night with mortars coming in (a “mortar” is one of those gun thingies with a tube—no, a different kind of tube, General—that shoots--never mind) hoping a hit wouldn’t spray a buddy’s guts around. To a man we were thinking, why couldn’t we have a leader like a Pentagon general to give us cute little heels instead of these uncomfy old boots?
There's more at the link.
"Fred Reed". "Political correctness". Two phrases not normally encountered in close proximity . . . or in high heels!
Peter
This is just too good. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteYou can cut the snark with a knife right there ... :^) I read that description of Marines marching in heels and couldn't for the life of me figure out why they would do that to any man. Women are not ordered or asked to wear those shoes - why should men ?
ReplyDeleteI check his site every day, looking for new pearls of wisdom. I wish hes was running for President. There would br some hope, at least, that we might get back on the right path.
ReplyDelete...but it was no big deal when we did it to prisoners at Abu Ghraib, right? I mean, it was no worse than what fraternities do to their pledges, isn't that what they said? This doesn't even rise to that level.
ReplyDeleteOh, Fred's a caution. His article on writing for SOLDIER OF FORTUNE (which is on his site) is hysterically funny, and most instructive. I still treasure a little gem of wisdom he dropped into a Washington Times article on the myth of the Genius of the German Genereal Staff;
ReplyDelete"Stupid comes in three grades; Dumb, REAL dumb, and invading Russia."