We've been at war for nearly the last decade, and although I don't agree with the reasons we are over in Afghanistan and Iraq, I do feel like I'm less a man because I haven't served. I have missed out on the ultimate experience: warfare. I've never disassembled an M-16 or driven a tank or shot a flamethrower. I've lived in the Middle East, but instead of rooting out terrorist cells and defusing IED's, I was eating cheap falafel and teaching Romeo and Juliet.
Hopefully, I will always lack this ultimate experience, because though I'm not as old as the narrator of this new Greasetruck song, I am close. It is too late for me, unless the war comes to our soil, and if that happens, I'm definitely screwed. I don't own any guns, and while-- unlike the narrator-- I have shot a gun, it was twenty years ago. G:TB founder Rob was with me, and we were shooting skeet, and we were not very accurate (perhaps Rob can verify, but I vaguely remember someone shooting a bunch of drying towels full of buck-shot holes . . . I'm not sure who it was).
I've got no survival skills to speak of, because instead of learning manly things like how to fix machinery and live off the land and use automatic weapons, I followed the advice of John Cougar Mellencamp and forgot "all about that macho shit and learned how to play guitar." If you listen closely, you'll hear me play an extremely macho solo for the entire length of this song. The style is classic Greasetruck: with pitch-shifting in both directions, and not one but two monologues.
War Dreams by Greasetruck
I dream of going to war.
I dream of going to war.
Bivouac on a foreign shore.
Tell a tale the girls can’t ignore (and they usually ignore me).
I want to drop some bombs (I never dropped a bomb).
I want to shoot someone (I never shot no one).
I’m only half a man-- just like John Wayne and Frank Sinatra.
I dream of going to war.
I dream of going to war.
Pull the pin, hit the floor.
But I just turned forty four. (I spend a lot of time indoors)
I want to be a man (in Afghanistan).
I want to claim some land (I lack in land).
I want to drive a tank through the desert sand.
I want my meals from a can.
I dream of going to war.
Do my tour, get me some.
I dream of going to war.
But I never shot a gun.
(I don’t even know how to load a gun. Or how to take the safety off. Or what to do about recoil.)
I do not own a gun-- I can’t shoot no one
The revolution will come (and I’ll have to run).
I can’t protect my wife and sons . . .
I’m good at having fun-- that won’t help no one.
I need to attend one of those volunteer militia training camps in the Midwest. I don’t know how to shoot a gun or skin a deer or start a fire in the rain or crawl through a trench or protect myself from mustard gas. I don’t own any camouflage. I don’t know how to peel back properly during an ambush. I don’t even actually know what the word “bivouac” means. When the barbarians storm the gates, will I be able to protect my family with absurd songs and humorous anecdotes? With my prodigious vocabulary and my ability to provide synonyms? Will my knowledge of science-fiction prove useful? This is doubtful.
The revolution will come (I’ll be overrun).
I should have learned to shoot a gun (instead of having fun).
How can you fight the Hun (when you can’t shoot a gun).
I dream of going to war.
I dream of going to war.
But I just turned forty four
I just turned forty-four
So maybe I’ll get a Harley instead. Or a jet-ski. Or a mistress. That sounds far better than combat. I could never deal with one of those Full Metal Jacket hard-ass Sergeants. It’s too late for me toughen up. If I was I was the protagonist of that Cormac McCarthy book, The Road, protecting my son after the apocalypse, the book would be seven pages long. I wouldn’t make it out of the cul-de-sac. My son would end up being a catamite. I really need to get myself some automatic weapons. And I need to learn how to use them.
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