Today's Ryan

Sometimes you have to get down in the mud to meet the enemy where he is. But if you start to get used to being down there, you start to lose the plot, because you'll eventually become indistinguishable from what you're supposed to be fighting against.

Unless you count my stint as a pump jockey and wrench-bender at Zupe's Standard in the late 70s, I never served in uniform. Not that that has anything to do with it.

But anyway, I grew up surrounded by men who fought in WW2 and Korea and Vietnam. The ones who were able or willing to talk about it, all said something along the lines of, "You do what you have to do, but you do it with honor - otherwise, what's the fuckin' point?"

They all said something else: There's nothing good or glorious or ennobling about combat. It sounds bad, it looks bad, it feels bad, and it smells bad - it's absolutely terrifying, and you end up going a little crazy just doing everything you can think of trying to make it stop.