The Armed Forces

(c)1998 by Dennis Miller

Does anybody remember how innocent being in the service was in Gomer's days, huh?

Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but it appears our military his become an overpriced 4-H club rife with hazing, homophobia, harassment, and hypocrisy and a hopeless money pit dug ever deeper with million-dollar shovels and billion-dollar buckets.

I know we need the military, I know that without them, America has enemies who'd be down on us like Luciano Pavarotti on a ballpark frank. And when I talk about the military, I am not speaking about the regular Joes, the men and women who have given their lives for this country or the millions who have served honorably. I have to speak to the people who run the military-the generals, the Congress, and the squares in the Pentagon.

I know what you're saying. You're saying, "Dennis, you were never in the military, how can you criticize it?" Well, first, neither was the commander in chief, but that doesn't stop him from running it. Second, I, like the rest of you, am paying for it. And third, because my grandfather was the guy Patton slapped in that tent. You know, my grandfather on the other side had a military connection too. He was LeBeau^'s lighting stand-in on Hogan's Heroes.

Now, the first thing they do when you join the armed forces is strip you of any personal identity and make you indistinguishable from everybody around you. It's sort of like getting a sitcom on network television.

For many people the military provides an option for a career when you can't figure out the fryolater at Denny's. You aren't doing that well in school, you're in trouble with the law, and you need some discipline.

So the recruiter drops by the high school you're at and shows you the brochures about shooting big guns and going to exotic lands. The next thing you know, they're shaving your head at an indoctrination center in Twiddle-Your-Ball-Sack, South Carolina, getting you up at four A.M. to take ten-mile hikes in the rain with a pack on your back containing a hyperactive midget while the drill instructor screams at you that he's about to rip your eye out and fuck the socket. By the way, the Socket Fuckers happens to be the name of our show's softball team. Trust me, you don't even want to see the mascot,

Now, the military's called the "armed" forces, but you know, with all the scandals of late, perhaps there's a more appropriate appendage to use as a description.

If the recent deluge of sexual-misconduct incidents is any indication, behind the spit-shine pomp of the military facade, the armed forces is just one big Benny Hill sketch with everybody chasing each other around in double time with their pants around their ankles. Christ, the stories oozing out of the Pentagon these days couldn't be more libidinous if the Joint Chiefs of Staff were Larry Flynt, Bob Guccione, Billy Idol, and Caligula.

A question that's been bandied about a lot the last few years is "Should there be gays in the military?" Now, first, there are already a lot of gays in the military. I mean, you don't get that many men all living together to be that neat and tidy just by discipline alone. Okay? And secondly, forget the gays, lately the heterosexuals have been the ones, uh, shall we say, firing their weapons at unauthorized targets.

Besides, there's a long, proud tradition of gays serving in our military. I saw those looks Captain Binghamton was always giving McHale all along. That look that said "You know, I'm mad at you, Clint, but I can't stay mad at you." If you think McHale's Navy was a sitcom about a group of misfits defying authority, you're wrong. It was a love story, Fuji.

Military service offers great opportunities for women. Where else can you be raped by your commanding officer and then be court-martialed because while it was happening you didn't call him sir? You know, from Tailhook to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, women have fared about as well in the military as a balsa-wood chair in Luciano Pavarotti's dressing room. And it's not surprising when you take into account the fact that for thousands of years, and up until very recently, females were categorized in the military mind under the heading Spoils of War, mere objects to be carried off and defiled as proof of your forces' superiority. Undoing centuries' worth of conditioning, as recent events have borne out, is going to be as easy as jetting Janet Reno into a size four catsuit.

And this recent episode with Lieutenant Kelly Flinn being discharged proves that men aren^'t responsible for all the sexual shenanigans in the service. Kelly Flinn was stupid. If she wanted to get away with adultery, she should have fucked a general. Okay?

So why has the military gone completely to hell lately? Well, one big problem is that I think the names army, navy, air force, and marines are just. too tame, too old-school. To perk things up a bit, may I suggest the following more impressive and scarier name changes: army-Murder, Incorporated; navy-Aqua Kill 3000; air force-The Dead Foreigner Squad; and the marines-The Fighting O.J.'s.

Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.