Good evening all,
It has been too long since my last post, my sincerest apologies. However, tonight that will change. I was meaning to make a video of this, but since that failed on me I will say what I need to here and let it have the same effect.
First and foremost, happy holidays everyone. Enjoy this time to be with your families, friends, and celebrate your freedom to do so as I, as well as many others, am spending it away from home and would give anything to be in your shoes to cherish those moments. All I ask is you do it in your life for those of us who cannot. Which will lead me into my nice trolling rant. If none of you know by now, I am an active duty service member in the United States military. I am now stationed overseas away from my family, my friends, the country I know and love, away from everyone and everything I have grown up around and cherished in my life. I have been out here just over seven months now, and they have been the worst but most interesting seven months of my life, to say the least. I've made quite a few friends by now and not only would I give my life for anyone of them because they serve in the same uniform right next to me, I've grown to love them as my sister or brother and a friend. It really hurts me to see any of them in pain: anger, sorrow, loss of loved ones. To me, one of the most painful things I have seen in my life is the cries of a Marine upon hearing the loss of a loved one and being stationed so far away from home. It angers me even more to see family of one of my fellow Marines not only turn their backs on them, but then publicly humiliate them on their own Facebook page. This, my friends, is only the beginning.
Two sisters, 37 and soon to be 21, acting worse then my 3 year-old nephew on his bad days, to their Marine sister who is stationed out here and has become one of my friends. She paid $2,200 and used her own leave days to fly home and be with her family during the Thanksgiving holidays. Now, just the other night, out of the blue, one sister posted the most rude and uncalled for super long post on her Facebook wall. Not in a message, not in an email, but publicly on her wall for everyone to see. The things I read in that message not only made me angry, but offended me as a fellow service member. Telling her that she should appreciate the fact she got to come home. I'm fairly certain she appreciates the fact she has the ability to, unlike those who are deployed to Afghanistan, but you should be more appreciative that she spent that amount of her own money to do 20+ hours of flight time to spend time with you during the holidays. Then her other sister does something similar, with an even worse choice of words. To any person who thinks what we go through are the "consequences" of joining the military, you are a very uninformed person and I personally would like to put my boot in your face. Try and tell me, or any other person fighting for your freedom, that being thousands of miles away from home is a consequence. That getting to talk to your loved ones even once a week at best, or being deployed out in the worse environments physically and not even getting to talk to their families for months at a time, fighting a war people don't acknowledge, witnessing their brothers and sisters in arms dying each day for your freedom to sit there and bitch openly, vote, love and marry whoever you want, have a job, raise a family, read a book, play video games, very mundane tasks that the majority of the population take for granted and don't view as being free, try and tell them these are the consequences they pay for serving our country. I think I speak not only for myself, but everyone in the service and the supporting families, friends, citizens of America, that these are not consequences but sacrifices. Learn the difference. Yeah, anyone who has my Facebook page and looks daily will see my rants, bitches, moans and complaints about my life in the military over here. I won't lie, most of the time it flat out sucks for reasons a lot of people cannot fully understand unless they've been in my position. But even if I were in college in the states with a part time job doing what the hell ever, I would still have my bitches, moans and complaints like every other person in society does. We vent when shit happens. Doesn't mean I absolutely hate my life to the point I can't keep moving forward or regret my decisions. Some of the greatest people I've met and greatest times I have had are because of my decision to enlist. There is no better feeling than to put a uniform on and stand tall. It's back and forthon loving and hating, like anything else in the world. I would like to see those two step in their sister's shoes for even a day and deal with what we do on a daily bases. We get told to act like adults and then get treated like children. We take orders from people younger/less intelligent/lacking in leadership/immature/what have you than us and expected to obey without hesitation. We work long hours and don't get paid any over time (given we're on a salary, and not a very good one but it's a paycheck) or get any compensation at all, at that. We wake up in the morning long before the sun is even up to run and work-out by someone else's pace and by what they want to do, with no say in what would benefit the individual...just to name a few things. Yeah, this is what we signed up for, but as misleading as most everything is, no one ever tells you these things before hand so in all actuality, it isn't what we signed up for. I know I didn't sign up to wake up at 4am almost every morning to run several miles or to sit at a desk all day and do paperwork. I signed up to do cool shit that most people automatically associate with the military. But there are jobs to be done, as boring and tedious as they may be. So we suck it the fuck up and go on with our lives, doing what we have to and making do with what we have.
Now, steering this back onto another point. One sister told my friend that she wasn't a Marine, she was just a little kid...really? Who the hell is she to say she is not a Marine? What title does she hold to tell anyone in a uniform, who goes through their respective boot camp and training, that they are not what they have earned? I'm pretty damn sure her cammies say "US Marines" on them. That she gets paid by the Department of Defense and is legally own by the government as a United States Marine. She went through 13 weeks of hell and earned her title and the Eagle, Globe and Anchor we wear over our heart every day in our uniform. No matter what you say or do, you can never take that away from her and I challenge you to even try and become what this woman has. Then if she can't do that, at best, I think her sister needs to take a look in the mirror and see who the little kid is. How childish is it to post such things publicly, name calling, threatening very stupid things and bitching about something that has no real point other than just to bitch? At least this, my whole rant, it has a point. To make others aware of the pathetic waste of carbon people like you are and that our service members don't always get the respect they deserve, even from people in their own families. I can't even imagine how I would feel it either of my sisters said those things to me and did what those two did to their sister. It would really break my heart and put me in a bind. I'd find myself asking why I'm serving when the people I love and held in my heart, sworn to protect, hated me and didn't support what I did, wouldn't even call me a Marine. It's a title that can never be taken away, and I want you to know that I am proud to call you my sister, if you're reading this.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but always remember why you have the freedom to say what you want, believe what you choose and think freely the way you do, and remember the people who are defending that freedom. Think twice about what you say to someone, because you could lose someone dear to you and regret it in the end. I will close with one last thing before I make this into a full fledged rant and it loses its point. Thank you to everyone who has served, is serving and intends to serve our country. Semper Fi.
-T'Ford
