Condolences Elizzybeth.
Blog thread,
As if by magic I found myself on R'n'R back in the UK. As a bonus, I stepped back into the kitchen of my home, had a cup of tea with my dad, and it felt like I never left. It's ideal; some blokes come back with snags, maybe feeling out of place or isolated but not my young self. Happy days follow.
Until today. I'm down town going to get a haircut as I'm attending a friend's funeral in the near future. Bimbling along, I'm having a bite of breakfast when three young men slowly walk alongside me looking, in that chav way, to have a laugh at someone else's expense. After a couple of the obligatory 'alright mate' remarks, the brains of the outfit, noticing I'm drinking some orange juice, remarks in a fuckwit tone that it must be 'quite refreshing'. I reply that it is 'very much so'. In addition to not talking like what some people think a serviceman talks like, I don't look like one either. When fuckwit and pals take my polite tone and nonthreatening appearance as an invitation to start taking the piss out of me, to try and intimidate me, I have a slight moment. You know, one of those pauses.
Nine times out of ten, or perhaps any other time actually, I'd've let it go and just walked off. But not today. No-hoper, time-wasting, big-timing, good-for-nothing, self-deluding scum like that still live and breathe whilst friends of mine are dead, friends who gave their tomorrow so people like that could have a today, and I felt the need to remind these young gentlemen of this fact. Losing my polite tone, stabbing a finger into the chest of 'Brains', I enquired as to how he's spent the last four months. It just so happens to have not been fighting, bleeding, or dying in a foriegn country. That being the case, I suggest to these upstanding young men that they may, in fact, wish to be ever so slightly humbler in their attitude and bearing. The words used may have been 'Then shut the fuck up and fuck off, cunts' but I think they understood the subtext of what I said.
Leaving them momentarily stunned (because that's how awesome I am, obviously) I turn and continue on my little journey. However, after some brief delay, it appears that Brains has a retort to make afterall and he runs up after me. Apparently, my 'veteran status' notwithstanding, Brains doesn't care about things such as sacrifice, respect, or common decency. In fact, with his two friends standing either side of me whilst he brandishes a length of chain to illustrate his point, he doesn't believe in fighting fair either. (That said, neither do I, so credit where credit's due). One of his sidekicks helpfully chimes in that he has previously been in prison for 4 years and that also excuses him from possessing any sort of social virtues either. Apparently they wished to engage in some form of violence to demonstrate how mature and respectable they are whilst simultaneously proving how feeble an individual I am.
Being quite impressed with this display of manliness and prowess, I feel a bit of bad sport to point out that I've faced men with machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and, on one memorable occassion, a cheerful lad with a suicide bomb who wanted to shake my hand. However, with a sense of resignation and a rising will to do extreme violence, I agree to their request for some form of martial contest 'round the corner, blood.'
Now, to be perfectly honest with your fine selves, I'm nothing special. I'm not massively handy, I just happen to have the ability to apply myself when the situation calls for it. I didn't particularly like the odds the three musketeers were offering and, in my heart of hearts, I know I'd've got a kicking. That said, if Brains and pals really had wanted a fight they would've have cracked me round the back of the head with that chain as I walked away and then kicked me to pieces once I was down. So perhaps these gentlemen merely felt publically slighted and needed to appear unafraid, loud, and antisocial to maintain public appearances. Part of me hoped they did, so (after a bit more of a performance) they'd walk away and leave me with the full use of my limbs. The other, larger part of me hoped they'd have a go after all because, well:
1) Maybe with my mate's death I was feeling a little self destructive.
2) Maybe all four of us in that little circle had a bit too much machoism for all our collective good.
In the end, after discarding the remains of my breakfast and my top (to much swooning by the ladies present, obviously) and squaring up to the trio, a local lad who knew them and vaguely knew myself intervened. He forcefully assured them it would be a bad idea to continue on their current course and that they'd be better off going with him to have a chat. Brains and company took his word and followed him. Somewhat surprised at this turn of events (as well as at how much my previously nonexistant reputation had been exaggerated), I thanked my benefactor, and feeling that somewhat hollow feeling somewhere between gratitude and disappointment I picked up my things and continued on my dour way.
Now, whilst I appreciate that little story was a bit of an anticlimax, it did leave me feeling quite down. I'm not saying that I feel the need for recognition, kudos, and gleeful cheers wherever I go. What I am saying is that it's quite saddening to see the youth of today possessing so little actual conscious thought about who they really are and what is really worth fighting for. They have the freedom to live unharrassed by violence and suffering yet all they want to do is dish it out so they can big-time it in their little worlds. Like mindless violence makes you more of a man. Like thuggery is a road to respect.
Like I say, I find it quite saddening.
Peace.
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Topic: Re: Whatever, Let's Have A Goddamn Blog Thread, But Try And Keep It Reasonable, pt B (Read 70371 times)