Yesterday was the Fourth of July, and for the first time in my life I felt sick as the fireworks roared into the sky, lighting up the night, leading the crowd's cheers. I am no expert on the history of warfare, but I'm fairly certain the spectacle put forth is a derivate, like much of our technology, of military weaponry, designed either to intimidate the enemy or reveal his location on the battlefield, perhaps both.

The lights didn't get to me, the US military has learned to thrive in darkness and with it the need, or even desire to light up the night has died. I have, however, spent time with Marines in the field, sailed half way around the world on a US warship, and rode backseat as a Marine aviator demonstrated dive bombing (not for the weak-stomached, by the way). For all our advances, explosions (or conflagrations, for those aggressive-adverse scientists, RML), propel the weapons of war. I've been in close proximity to Marine artillery, Navy 5 inch guns, and the terrible and awesome M1 tank as they have fired, but all in peace at targets of practice.

But the exploding fireworks last night, at times, sounded too much like those weapons of war, designed to destroy and kill flesh and bone.

While you sit there and so lightly speak of those who "risk of losing [their] life in combat," one of the best men I have ever known is, right now, in western Afghanistan, as a First Lieutenant leading an infantry platoon as a US Marine. The crowd may cheer, but if my friend heard those sounds tonight they wouldn't bring joy, but fear of losing one of his men. Before he left he told me on two separate occasions, months apart, that the most important thing he could do, without question, was to bring everyone home. At the time I reached back to lessons we were taught by the Bay: Truth, Mission, Service, Ship, Shipmate, Self. My friend hadn't forgotten those lessons, he is certainly smarter and more physically capable than I, but tonight more than any other I'm glad I bit my tounge as he "erred," placing his Marines before the mission.

When those bombs come it is his job to lift his head up, damn any withering spray of machine-gun fire, and instruct his weapons attachment to fix the enemy in place and direct the maneuver down upon the enemy, killing them were they stand.

But because he (the "fat and useless officer," he most certainly is not) can't be here tonight, with his young wife home alone in North Carolina, no doubt salivating over the $50K a year and yellow-ribboned-cars-galore his sacrifice is worth, I will stand up for him before I find myself, this fall, in the middle of some ocean being fat and useless as well, and say, though I try to as hard as I can to see your point and appreciate its merits, RML:

Fuck You.