Honor those who Honor Us

*This entry will contain explicit language – If you can’t handle or accept that, skip and come back next week for a new entry.*

I am so furious right now.

This government shutdown has me up in arms and pissed off in a way I didn’t realize that I could be about something that doesn’t directly concern me. The thing that has me so irate is that our military may not get paid.

One more time for effect:

Our.

Military.

May.

Not.

 Get.

Paid.

Seriously, what the fuck is going on?

These men and women sacrifice so much for this country and our sometimes re-fucking-tarded foreign policy and it is blatantly disrespectful and completely unacceptable for our (yeah right) lawmakers to withhold money these troops have earned.

I have never been truly man (I don’t mean that in a sexist way) enough to join any branch of our military. I flirted with the idea a considerable amount, but I never did it. To me, my family was more important. That’s a selfish way to be, but it’s how I am. I can contemplate making sacrifices – including the ultimate one – for our safety and well being, but right out of high school I was too chicken shit to do anything. Then I had nephews. “I don’t want to join because I don’t want to miss out on them growing up.” Then I got married. “Well, obviously, I can’t join up as a newlywed.” Then we had Grayson. “I need to be around to take care of my son.” Then Jackson came along. “I’m a family man. I need to be here for them.”

As you can see, I’m chock-fucking-full of excuses. I regret not joining when I was young and didn’t have so many factors preventing me from doing so. I regret never having the testicular fortitude to grapple with the fact that I’ll miss my parents and my brother and sister.

What these men and women do for us is far and above what most Americans would consider. Who wants to miss out on their baby’s first words or first steps? Hell, who wants to miss anything with their children? Plus, our forces leave behind their husbands and wives. Their siblings. Their parents. Their friends. All they can grasp onto is the man next to them. Their family becomes their platoon and their unit.

We expect these brave men and women to sacrifice for us. To put themselves and their families through these hardships, and now we’re going to withhold their meager fucking pay? I’m not sure if you know this, but most of our armed forces don’t make much money. Truthfully, you can probably make more money running a women’s clothing store. These men and women do this for pride and for honor and it pisses me off to no end that the children of these people are going to suffer because our motherfucking government can’t remove the collective head from their asses.

This whole situation is ri-goddamned-diculous. The last thing we need to do is bite the hand that protects us.

I do not agree with everything (hell, much of anything) that our government does, but this is the lowest pile of horseshit I’ve ever heard of.

Pay our troops - and thank our troops and our veterans. It’s because of these people we are able to have the lifestyles that we do. Our men and women in the Army, Navy, Airforce, Marin Corps, Coast Guard, Reserves, and National Guard (and anything else I’m missing) have more guts and more honor than any clothes-shilling armchair blogger – and more than everyone else who had never served as well.

Honor their sacrifice and take care of these people and their families.