The Marine Corps Taught Me How To

We Mistakenly Assume That Bodily Survival Has A Higher Precedence Than Ego Survival. This Is Simply Not Generally True. Ego Will Happily Destroy The Body For Its Own Sake. Look At Overweight Executives Headed For Heart Attacks On The Way To Getting Their Pictures In Fortune Or Anorexic Models Suffering Slow Starvation On Their Way To Getting Their Pictures In Vogue. Protecting Ego Is The General Case.

The Marine Corps Taught Me How To Kill, But It Didn't Teach Me How To Deal With Killing.

In The Military I Could Exercise The Power Of Being Automatically Respected Because Of The Medals On My Chest, Not Because I Had Done Anything Right At The Moment To Earn That Respect. This Is Pretty Nice. It's Also A Psychological Trap That Can Stop One's Growth And Allow One To Get Away With Just Plain Bad Behavior.

War Is Society's Dirty Work, Usually Done By Kids Cleaning Up Failures Perpetrated By Adults.

It Was All Absurd, Without Reason Or Meaning. People Who Didn't Know Each Other Were Going To Kill Each Other Over A Hill None Of Them Cared About