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He was around 50, and was probably 150 pounds overweight. They showed him and a couple of much younger men doing field training with rifles. The other guys ran forty yards, jumped into a rectangular concrete ditch (maybe 3-4 feet deep), then started shooting. This shlub lumbered for about 30 yards, walked the last ten huffing and puffing, then tried to gingerly work his way down into the hole. He could hardly bend over, let alone grab the edges of the hole to lower himself slowly into it.
Afterwards, while he sat on the edge of the hole (he was never shown to have actually made it into the hole to fire his weapon), the reporter asked him what he thought about the others like himself who had decided to not answer their government's call. "They're all cowards," he said.
All I could do was shake my head and wonder how long this brave doughboy (yep, we'll have to resurrect that name for people such as he), how long he'll last before he's bundled in a body bag (triple-X , of course), and trundled home. I suspect somewhere in the first few yards of his first 40 yard run taken under enemy fire.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am 50 years old, somewhat overweight, and a veteran who has no intention of going to Iraq to be shipped home a canvas-cased sausage. And if that makes me a "coward," then so be it.
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