Winning Iraq: another war-movie metaphor
George, the commander of the tank attached to our
column, was green as grass but full of confidence and other things that were
mainly himself. We had come under fire earlier on and, give him credit, he did
okay. (It always helps to be inside an armor-plated shelter, but we'll let that
pass.)
Well, one day ol' George decided that,
to hell with circling around: he decided to show off and drive the tank through
this swamp. We yelled at him not to be a damn fool. and sure enough, about
halfway across, the treads started to slip, and black water started to slop into
the engine compartment, and he sat there, gunning the engine and roaring and
spinning wheels and sending out huge clouds of black
smoke.
And we offer to throw him winch lines
off a couple of the humvees and drag him out of the swamp, but he screams at us
and tells us to go into the swamp ourselves and get behind the tank and
push.
He doesn't give a shit about the
mission, or the tank itself: he wants us to jump in with him and put ourselves
in jeopardy--and why? So he can say that he drove the tank across the swamp:
that he knew he could do it, and by God he was right. And he has the God-damn
nerve to start screaming at us that we don't care about the mission, that we're
jeopardizing it--and that we're scared to get our feet
wet.
And we stand here mulling over our
options: It would really serve him right if we just let the tank sink completely
into the swamp, with him in it--but he's right about one thing: we need the
tank. And besides, it isn't the tank's
fault.
No, what we're gonna do is get the
winch lines out--it'll take a couple, that's a big hunk of steel--pull the tank
out, clean it up, pump out the engine compartment and get going
again.
But not before we arrest George and
send him back for court-martial--with a sock in his
mouth.
(with apologies to pete
seeger)
Posted: Tuesday - May 01, 2007 at 02:48 PM