There’s a scene in the movie Hamburger Hill that rings so true, I can’t help but remember it every time I hear someone say pass the potatoes. Usually at Thanksgiving or Christmas, someone will say it and I’ll smile privately, remembering the actor Michael Boatman who played the part of Private Ray Motown telling a story about how he went home and couldn’t keep from acting like a jerk.
To set up the scene, Motown is trying to convince one of the other men who is a short timer that he isn’t ready to go home. Motown is trying to explain that the military changes you, it indoctrinates you, it makes you do things for a reason that have no place at home… and sometimes there’s no reason at all. So he’s talking to the man and telling about how he went home on leave:
I smile at my Mamma. Great meal, Ma. Would you please pass the f**king potatoes? The ham is f**king A, Ma. You don't know how… how f**king great it is to be home. How you going to act, huh?
The scene is silent for a few long moments as each one of the men imagines how they’d act. You can almost see it in their eyes as they all realize that they’d probably act the same. And it embarrasses them. In fact, they’d rather be at war.
I remember this scene so well because I did the same thing. It was 1986 and I had just returned from my first duty assignment and a year in Korea. I hadn’t been home for more than 14 months and I was on leave between duty stations. I can see it in complete and utter horrifying clarity in my mind’s eye as if it were yesterday. There I was, sitting at the dining room table at our (then) home in Ooltewah, Tennessee, with my little brother, my mom and my dad.
I don’t know what I’m eating. Hell, even then I’m not sure I knew what I was eating. It was probably potatoes. I was so delirious to be in the Land of the Big PX and home and with family that I forgot absolutely everything about decorum and the way a person should act. I was telling a story which revolved around several Korean hookers, a drunk soldier and a Kimchi House. I was dropping A-bombs and F-bombs like a cellblock of felons doing life without parole. I can picture my mother and father glancing at each other several times as I was talking and shoveling in the food. I can also picture my little brother staring at me as if I was the greatest, bestest, foulest mouth he had ever seen and he wanted to grow up and be just like me.
It’s one of the most embarrassing moments I’ve ever been cursed to remember.
Would you please pass the blanking potatoes, ma?
I’m of the impression that soldiers should come with warning labels. One should be WARNING- WORDS COMING OF THIS MOUTH WILL BE OFFENSIVE AND INAPPROPRIATE.
On my way into Kabul for the first time, my friend, a sergeant major, was giving me a tour. “They’re building a Hilton there,” he says.
Channeling Nostradamus and Bobcat Gothwait, our driver shouts, “S**t’s going to get blowed the f**k up.”
We were in Afghanistan and we laughed and nodded like it was Solomon himself levying prophecy, but anywhere else the words wouldn’t be even remotely hilarious. Hell, even re-reading them, they’re funny to me, but then I’m an old soldier. The absolutely profane idea that a building getting blown up is funny is clearly a coping mechanism. What makes it okay to laugh is that the builders should have known better than to give the insurgents such a tasty target.
But is it really okay? Not in real life. But then war isn’t real life either.
Here’s a statistic. According to the New York Times, at any given time during the last decade less than one percent of Americans served on active duty in the military
So we’re just a sliver of the population. Real life isn’t us. We’ve separated ourselves from real live and joined a reality known as the military.
Understand, we have to make war not real life, or else it totally messes with our head. But why do we talk like that?
I’m not going to pretend to know the answer, but it has always seemed to me as a some sort of coping mechanism. The indoctrination begins at the beginning. Although things have changed and become more politically correct since I joined the military, I can remember how the desensitization campaign began my first day in Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. After the drill sergeant was done cursing and fuming, and we got our heads shaved and a complete new suite of new camouflaged color clothes, we went on our first run. It was then I learned of the thing called cadence.
Cadence is not only a tactic used by drill sergeants to help us forget we were running, but also to keep us in step. A third unspoken reason for cadence is to desensitize and prepare our young minds for things we’d never believed we’d do.
Was it/is it on purpose? Is there a room in the basement of the Pentagon called the Global Military Desensitization Office? Or is it merely custom, maybe something we do as a measure of intellectual protection without even thinking about it? I’m sure this can be answered by someone with many more academic letters after their name.
But for now, read these snippets of cadence. If you’re alone, say them out loud and imagine soldiers responding to these call-response cadences, shouting them as loud as they can:
I think a version of this one was in An Officer and A Gentleman:
Flying low across the trees,
Pilots doing what they please,
Dropping frags on refugees,
Napalm sticks to kids.
Or…
A yellow bird with a yellow bill
landed on my window sill
I lured it in with a crust of bread
THEN I CRUSHED HIS F**KING HEAD!!!!
Or…
Up jumped the monkey from the coconut grove
he was a mean motherf**ker, you could tell by his clothes.
He wore a two button ditty, and a three button stitch
he was a loud motherf**ker and a son of a b***h!
He lined a hundred women, up against the wall
and bet anyone, he could f**k them all.
He f**ked 98 till his balls turn blue,
Then he backed off, jacked off, and f**ked the other two!!!
Whew! That was a bad one. I’ve sung all of these and more. Now, looking back at it, I have to admit, I’m pretty shocked at some of the things which came out of my mouth. Knowing my mother is probably going to read this, I’m very happy she never heard me actually sing it as part of cadence, which I did, up and down the streets of Fort Jackson, Fort Gordon, Fort Carson, Fort Huachua, Fort Ord, Fort Hood and a dozen other places to include the Land of the Morning Calm.
Before I ate that dinner at my parent’s house, my first unit in the military was a nuclear artillery unit in Korea. We wore t-shirts, hats and jackets with the words Nuke ‘em til they Glow scrawled artfully for all to see, along with whatever graphic representations the Korean workers could stitch. We were proud young men. We loved the fact we could rain down radiation on our enemy. We were lean, mean fighting machines, ready to do everything and anything to keep our way of life… anything and everything so that other people’s sons and daughters could stay at home safe.
There’s a reason fighting men and women talk like this. There’s a reason we think like this. It helps us focus. It helps us deal with the idea of killing someone. It’s a coping mechanism.
We should just make sure we don’t do it in f**king public or else the world might find out how absolutely bloodthirsty we really aren’t.
Potato image via YumScrumptious. Cadence photo and more lyrics via Fearless Men.
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Weston Ochse is the author of ten novels, most recently SEAL Team 666, which the New York Post called “required reading” and USA Today placed on their “New and Notable List of 2012.” His first novel, Scarecrow Gods, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in First Novel and his short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in comic books, and magazines such as Cemetery Dance and Soldier of Fortune. He lives in the Arizona desert within rock throwing distance of Mexico. He is a military veteran with 29 years of military service and is currently stationed in Afghanistan.
Interesting post
I’m in.
omg, I have to wash my eyes out with SOAP now!!
Thank you for the giveaway
sounds good!
sounds interesting
Love to win this for my hubbie!
This sounds like an interesting read. I look forward to receiving it and reading it soon.
Great article. Guilty as well…
Looks great.
I need to read this f*****g book!
Awesome cadences.
looks like a kick ass book!
wow – I guess war is hell and does change a person – sounds like a great book –
Appears to be an interesting read. Would love to win it.
Count me in please…Dee
cant wait for this to come out!
Enjoyed the blog so I know I would really like reading this book.
How long has it been? about sixty years since Lenny Bruce taught us we don’t need the ***** anymore. And George Carlin re-emphasized it. Just use the words you want.
F*****g A!
Count me in.
I love a great review…
Thanks for this fabulous book giveaway opportunity!
Cindi
jchoppes[at]hotmail[dot]com
What a book! I can see it may be hard to read, but I would like the chance! After working with Vets for many years they are their own people. Great!!!
I notice in my kids working emergency (fire and ambulance), the language went south with more experience. I agree it’s a coping mechanism to help them deal with some of the horror they see on a daily basis.
I expected a book review, but what I got was an effing brilliant essay.
My brother is a cop in a big city, and I think he must feel the same way sometimes–the stuff of his daily life is a world away from my quiet, rural life.
After 20+ years of having to be politically correct to people calling me worse names than the above, I look forward to real language!
Insightful post… Thanks for the chance!
Sounds interesting and I would love to read it. Thanks for this chance.
I think most people understand the desentizatin and language used by most soldiers, and even cops. It is when that behavior spills into family and other social life that most of us have a problem. Talk all you want, just don’t act.
[b]I’m a veteran, and I love a good boots on the ground book.[/b]
[b]I’m a veteran, and I love a good boots on the ground book.[/b]
none of those lyrics were on the marching cd my daughter brought back from Camp LeJiune (forgive the spelling please) when she went on a trip there back when she was in high school. But I wouldn’t be surprised that there were worse ones.
I hope I win this f*****g book!
I remember the monkee jodie, but could only remember the “punch line”! Thanks for the memories!
Pass me the f**king potatoes, would like to read it!
#34 you stole part of my line….”pass the f**king book so I can read it!”
I hope I’m old enough to read this f**king book!
…so I was having dinner, & my dad walked by and showed me the contents of my 90 year old formerly constipated mother’s diaper. I think I can handle this book…
Love the blog and I will be humming along with you.
Love the blog and I will be humming along with you.
Fascinating stuff you’ve been blogging.
Count me in, please!
My husband is retired Army and would enjoy this book. He sang many cadences in his day (and still does).
I’d like to win this for my dad, a Vietnam vet, and my brother and nephew, vets from Iraq and Afghanistan.
I enjoyed your first Seal Team 666 novel and this one sounds like a winner! Your blog posts are great!
This would be an interesting read. Enlightening too!
Liked the first book, despite some silliness.
sign me up
yes it does take time to adjust when you come back to the civilian world no matter when you served .
Count me in, please. Thanks.
On the flip side, this reminds me of a time a friend and I where at a huge Society of Creative Anachronism event and there where a bunch of kids running around cursing. We jumped their asses and told them to stop and then relized we’d be talking the same way if we hadn’t just spent a week and a half in this isolated Renaissance Faire atmosphere.
Why does this sound like my day to day life?
I would read anything that includes a group known as Followers of the Flayed One.
War is hell, but reading is informative. Thanks for the review. I’d love to read the book.
Count me in
I’d like this.
Debut was great. Looking 4ward to this one
Weston, I follow your exploits on FB – can’t wait to read this book!
CW3 Kate-T, US Army (ret.)
I enjoyed reading this blog entry! Insightful and thought-provoking. The idea of a coping mechanism for the harsh realities/possibilities of war correlates with the extremes in horror books. Thanks.
My son is a soldier, so I’d love this.
Holy F*ck, I chant you some cadence that would make you blush and never speak to me again! Then again all you’d have to do is read one FB post and it would be the same result. 😛
Thank you.
looks like twould be a fantastic read!
looks interesting.
great
Sign me up!!!!!
would love this book – thank you
The language returns to reasonable soon–just wait
This sounds like a great read!
Lol, my f*cking virgin eyes!
Hope I win; thanks for the chance.
My husband would love this book.
Thanks for thee chance. Looks like a great book to read.
I would love this book.
I want a copy badly
This appears both intense and humorous. I’d love to win a copy!
luv 2 win/read this book
Looks good!
Would really enjoy reading this, thank you
Like all, I would enjoy this.
As far as your bird cadence, for years I’ve known nearly the same and still laugh today when I recite it. I learned it from a Marine friend of my husband’s in the late 60s, right after they returned from Viet Nam. It has a different twist–
I saw a little birdie lying in the snow.
Its wing was broke; it could not go.
So I fed the little birdie a crust of bread, and then I crushed its f**cking head!
hubby would love this, thanks
looks like a good one!
This looks like a good read- I have a friend who I know would really appreciate this book 🙂
Sounds great
thanks
a new book for my collection
Thanks for the giveaway
I would love toread the work of Weston Ochse!
sounds fantastic
The lighter side of barbarism.
i have alots of friends was in wars and my father was too luv to win
Lots of entries for this one. My Dad would love this.
This seems interesting.
What a great giveaway.
Would be a great read!
I’ve pretty much heard it all in my military career, so this is right up my alley!
I am entering your giveaway.
It would be great [b]to win a hardcover copy of [/b]
[url=http://www.criminalelement.com/stories/2013/10/age-of-blood-new-excerpt-weston-ochse-paranormal-politics-seal-team-6-6-6][b]Age of Blood: A SEAL Team 666 Novel [/b][/url][b]by Weston Ochse.[/b]
I enjoy reading and discovering new authors.
This looks like a book i think i would enjoy reading.
Thank you for having this giveaway!!!!!!!!
Well, that certainly woke me up – I was starting to drowse off and then__________!!
This looks interesting
Thank you for the great giveaway please count me in 🙂
Good deal, count me in!
i would really enjoy reading this.
Awesome review. I love a good war book.
I’m laughing, but wow!
My Hubby would love this!
I need something new to read!
I have a son in the Navy, so this would be a perfect book for me read.