Supporting the troops

I was watching TV baked the other day and I came across a WWE wrestling event taking place overseas to entertain the troops. The RAW crew had set up a makeshift ring in the middle of a base camp in Afganistan, letting our armed forces see the force of a fake forearm. The matches were fairly predictable, as is the nature of the industry, but one in particular had me cracking up the entire time. They trotted the Nature boy Ric Flair out there to fight some young arab. For those of you who dont know, Ric Flair was passed his prime in about 1988 when he got beat yet again by Rickey the Steamboat. The year is now 2005 and the Nature Boy looks neither natural nor boyish. Hes like some sort of Steroid ridden geriatric who has a washboard stomach and old man elbow flab at the same time. Not a pretty sight.
Meanwhile, the dude hes pitted against looks like he belongs on the Al-Queda jack of spades. He’s at best 25 years old and clearly in better condition than the relic that limped into the ring against him. You might have guessed that despite some early volleys from Achmed, Ric eventually overcame adversity to go off ropes and deliver punishing knees to a downed opponent. Once he got the three count, they flashed to the crowd of uniformed servicmen as they went wild cheering for their boy Flair. I was hoping to see that one pissed off face of the dude who bet the wrong side of the action paying off his brother in arms but secretly thinking to himself “I had to take it at 20 to 1, Achmed should have taken him, how could I lay off at that price.” The truth is, I would probably have taken either side of the wager at the opening bell, because at least 1 in 20 times Flair has some sort of coronary stoppage. Pissed me off a little that they couldnt just dress his opponnent up like the iron sheik for old times sake, but otherwise a throroughly enjoyable event.
My buddy Godell is currently serving in the Air Force and hes stationed in one of the Koreas(hopefully the good one). To think that we have the better part of a generation of military minds languishing in a country with the transcendental enemy that is terror, and not a physical confrontation but a guerrilla resistance, makes me wonder how they get through the days. Its hard to imagine what I would do with my time if I had enlisted, but a good guess would be running black market porn and dungarees. Those wartime stipends have to be spent somewhere, so how many were lost in a card game or a quick romp in a backroom at the bazaar?
Ive been reading Amirillo Slim’s autobiography “In a world full of fat men”, and I cant reiterate enough what a great read it is. Slim documents his rise to fame as a gambler and the different ways he built or lost his bankroll. The way it all got started was his black market sales of rationed foodstuffs and cigarettes to the enemy Germans during WWII. He was there to entertain the troops as a pool champion, but he was running full convoys of trucks on the side. When he returned to Texas to roost, he had built enough capital to take on bookmaking operations and high stakes propositions. There is no morality without moral ambiguity, and it is dangerous ground to error on the side of treason. That said, between fighting a war you dont believe in, cheering for the accidental death of a grandpa grapler, and feeding the enemy supply lines to line your own pockets, war is some fucked up shit.

Supporting the troops

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