In an effort to avoid the growing infection of obnoxious teenagers whose privileged parents dump them off by the luxury SUV-loads at the local movie theaters in a selfish effort to escape their spawn while annoying the hell out of the rest of civilization, Kevo and I have resorted to late night shows to minimize the irritation. (*Notice I say "minimize.") These hoochie little shit-for-brains are the reason we acquired 6 free movie passes recently as we refused to assume the roles of theatre chaperones to a gaggle of giggling, shrieking 14-year olds dressed like prostitutes complete with
Blackberrys and such. And these free passes are the dope that, for now, keeps us returning. --Yet another reason I prefer independent films.
Saturday, we went to see the 10:20 show of
Anthony Swofford's "
Jarhead." Of course, as the previews ran, five teeny-boppers plopped down in the row right behind us, 2 of which, while yakking on cell phones. One girl was apparently trying to convince fellow mall loitering sudo-barbie to join them for the flick. Hanging up, she turned to her comrades,
"She absolutely refuses to come see this movie 'cause she says it's an anti-bush movie." "No it's not," barks a squeaky male voice,
"it's a pro-bush movie.""Well that's what I tried to tell her, but she doesn't believe me..." yadda, yadda, yadda...
Kevo and I look at one another and burst out laughing.
"You know what I find most interesting and quite hilarious?" I said to Kev, making every effort to be heard by the 'wise ones' behind us, "The fact that teenagers actually have 'political opinions' at all. I mean, really, where do you think they get from? It's not like they formulate them on their own based on their knowledge of anything relevant, let alone use of intellect and life experience."
They heard me, I know they did, because they were actually quiet for the next two hours and hopefully paying attention to what ended up being, in my mind, a powerfully deep movie, if you had the capacity to dive below the surface of fabulous cinematography and make the painful connection that life is indeed ugly and senseless and very, very real...
A few inappropriate "Hooah!'s" at misunderstood presidential references, made me realize half way through the deployment/oil statistics scene, how probable it was that the majority of "youngins" in our midst didn't have a clue which bush the acting soldiers spoke of... They were barely born then. It was mind-numbing to me - most of these people had no idea that this film was not about the current war in Iraq... How is that possible? They clearly know everything else.
Yeah, I was one of those know-it-all kids too when the first Gulf War broke out. At the time, what it meant to me was that all my drinking buddies got deployed, Fayetteville became a pretty boring place to visit, I got lots of postcards, and some cute guy named Eric whom I had dated a few times, put me in his soldier's life insurance...
It was years before the significance of that time period really soaked in. When all the guys came home with their tales of crispy dead things, camels, scorpions, and cleaning desert shitters... stories of homemade booze brewed from embalming fluid and formaldehyde, of censored mail, confiscated nudie pictures, and assholes who mailed home enemy bodies parts as souvenirs. When Eric came back with a wife who had taken the 'easy way out' of her military assignment via conception. When guys I knew began to exhibit strange symptoms and the "gulf war syndrome" didn't exist...
And much later, as a military wife, the more I became more submerged in the "military culture" (and yes, it most certainly is, a culture) I heard more and more from those who had been there, seen and done there, american women who were slapped across the face by male merchants in Riyadh as they tried to purchase gold, men who dined with the Saudis like royalty, and who allegedly saw the infamous cheating wife video...
And later still, children, who, like a 6 year old patient of mine, were born without faces to gulf war veteran fathers, victims of a nonexistent syndrome.
I thought of Eric during the movie and all the letters he used to write me, daily - sometimes twice a day, when I was a freshman in college and I felt sorry that I hadn't written to him more often. I'm glad to say I never collected on his life insurance and sad to say we lost touch. --Where ever he is, I hope he's well and that he's found a place in the world worthy of his good nature and optimism.
And I imagine those, perhaps like some of the kids in the theatre the other night, who will be lucky enough to grow up, learn a lotta lessons the hard way, and wake up one day to discover that they really don't know much about the world and wonder how they could have ever been so blind, and in doing so, pack a bit of wisdom and compassion under their belts... And they'll think back to this time in their lives when the Iraqi war news interrupted their TV shows, their allowance was cut by inflated gas prices, their parents started dragging them to church again, and they disliked Muslims but weren't sure why...
And this war will continue to affect them as they know more and hear more and mature more and more guys come home with their stories and nightmares of war and torture, missing limbs, sleepless nights, guilt and suicides... as more books are written and movies produced and more veterans need more aid than the economy wants to give... as the true impact of this war begins to unfold, a grandiose ripple effect that no one can possibly yet imagine rears it's ugly head in angst, in agony, in mourning...
Yep. I have faith, some of them will grow to "get it."
And some of them never do.
But one thing is certain, one way or another - it will effect us all.
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
--Hermann Goering
