Age Limit

Can’t buy tobacco

Can't buy alcohol

You can’t even save a few bucks from insurance on a car.

But what I can do is:

Raise my hand and say I will support and defend the constitution of the United States of America against enemies, both foreign and domestic.

I can get on a bus to go to a place and stand on some painted yellow footprints that thousands have stood on before and go through a set of silver doors while someone is screaming at me who is not much older than me and say Sir to him or Maam to her and watch as my hair is shaved from my head while the line behind me stands erect and waits for their turn like a conveyor belt of products waiting to move to the next part of the process.

The mornings come with a shock and a relief. In one breath, we are done with one day, but in the next, the new day starts, which means it repeats itself, and you must be ready for what is to come.

“Sir!”

I can stand in a line of boys my age and be told how to dress ourselves again. How to put on one sock, the one shoe, then one sock, then one shoe. How to tie our shoes. How to lace them. How to label them. I can tell you how fast it takes to get from one side of the room to the next before the last word out of his mouth…The answer? Not fast enough.

“Sir!”

I can stand in a line for food and get whatever is slammed on my plate, and I can say nothing but “Sir!”. I can shovel food into my mouth in a faster time than you can tie your shoes that you just learned to tie again.

“Done, Sir, done!”

I can stare at a barrel with shapes on it spray painted white and black in a circle with the same group of boys until I hear screaming from one of them because he fell asleep staring at the barrel while lying down on the ground with your rifle in your shoulder. Expecting, at any point, that the sand fleas, ants, and ticks will carry you off on their backs and devour you like a hardy lunch. But alas, You stare.

“Sir!”

I can fire that rifle from 25 yards, 100 yards, 200 yards, 300 yards, and 500 yards. There is no need for 400 yards because no one will ever be there, so why waste your time? I can hit a piece of paper, wait for it to go down, and come back up with a cut-out circle from cardboard and held on with only a broken golf tee to tell me my score…. It'd better be a white circle to represent my good score. Pit love or else. I'm kidding.…pit love gets your buddy killed.

“Sir!”

I can climb obstacles in record time and jump off onto a rope and slide down like I didnt just learn that I can do the very thing im doing four minutes ago. When my feet touch the bottom, and I grab shredded tires in my hand and throw it in the air and scream a war cry that would make any father ashamed, he raised a pussy because the war cry is broken up and fluttering partly due to adrenaline and partly because the idea that I just did that is still catching up to the first foot on the A-Frame , I can scream only one other thing;

“Sir!”

I can be inducted into a “Brotherhood” that is unlike any other. I can hold my head up in pride, and because my cover is so low on my brow line as instructed so I have no choice but to “keep your chin up”. Tears roll down the faces of many boys as they get handed a piece of plastic with a bird on it and a half globe with an anchor. A piece of metal that will be with you forever, mentally or until you lose it physically. With only one whispered word allowed to accept this piece of metal;

“Sir.”

Eighteen, and I am now a man.

I am old enough to serve my country, and I can support and defend the country’s constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Which, in other words, means:

I can kill for my country. I can hold that rifle into my shoulders and pull the trigger with just about four and a half pounds of pressure and, in less than a second, end a man’s life.

I can pull that same trigger, and if it causes the man, who happened to be the same age as me and just earned his title of “man” with me, to be alive, I can pull that same trigger and end the life of another man, woman or child if it comes down to it.

Foreign and Domestic. It doesn't say which age “enemy” starts. That was decided at a later time by an unknown person who I will never see most likely.

I can see the blood of someone I have grown to call “Brother” across my pants and hands as I try to hold onto him for just a little bit longer, knowing that he will never see his real brother again, and the only evidence of him being alive ever in this world is that someone will have a picture of him in their home or on their phone.

I can hear the tears of my friend who wasn't ready to kill someone, but he had to in order to save someone's life and defend the country’s constitution. “Ready”…What an interesting word.

Ready, like it was something you trained for and practiced and drilled into your head from day one that you knew you would be doing and that you were expected to do, but when it comes down to it, It's you or them.

I can kill someone at eighteen, but I can't buy tobacco to relieve some anxiety, buy alcohol to drown the depression and guilt of what I have done, and I can't even save a few dollars on car insurance for a vehicle that I will probably never drive again unless I make it to the end of this deployment. I can't even buy a pistol back home even though there is a 5.56 rifle pressed against my shoulder, a 7.62 strapped to my back along with Frags linked to my chest, and the flash bangs littered across my back and the strips of det cord attached to medical tape and a piece of plastic with a metal key ring clip that when pulled turned one quarter and pressed down will blow your door off its hinges or a new hold in your wall…

But I will tell you this: though my clothes are stained with my friend's blood, and each time I pull that four-and-a-half-pound trigger, I feel a piece of myself rip out and be forced through that barrel filled with gas propelling that round intended for the human standing in front of me between 25-500 yards, minus the 400-yard mark,

The country’s Constitution is safe and sound;

"Sir."

*I am an advocate for service, and I am an advocate for protecting the man to the left and right of you over the person in front of you trying to kill you. I am an advocate for protecting yourself and your loved ones. I am not anti-military. I am also not anti-laws on age limits for certain things in this world that can kill you, so you must wait till you are of an age where killing you is no longer an issue or liability they are willing to take. I don't smoke anymore, I don't dip anymore, and I don't drink any alcohol anymore. So, in reality, I don't give two hells what the age limits are because im of an age now that I have nothing to look forward to except 55 when my Dennys discount and AARP discounts become a thing.

I am also an advocate for understanding the irony that we have laws against certain products that can kill you, but we send those same children to war and give them the right to kill in the name of freedom and democracy, and in the end, we leave them to fend for themselves with little to almost no help from professionals that are trained in helping victims of certain traumas.

I am also not saying that everyone needs medical or psychological help. You don't automatically get trauma or mentally sick JUST because you signed the dotted line. Too many times, you hear of some random no-one who never left home base going through “issues” with the VA. Those people are the ones who don't deserve disability and who do not deserve to complain about anything for doing nothing. This is NOT an attack on any specific MOS. There are admin clerks with combat experience, and there are riflemen who have never heard the sound of a gun or explosion directed at them. This is an attack on people who claim issues JUST for serving. It's a disgrace and a shame. We had that time period of “disgruntled vets,” which was a sick joke of veterans who tarnished people who served and made it “okay” and “right” to be just a disgruntled vet who hated civilians and expected to be thanked for their service even though half of the population had no idea what it even took to get that far in their life. But the EXPECTATION was there from the DV, and im happy those days are gone.

Anyway, Get offended; don't get offended; it's okay either way. It’s a writing, and If you take everything so seriously, then maybe, perhaps, you should seek some help from someone to fix the underlying issue.