musings . . .

You probably know at least one person who has refrained from getting married because s/he says “I don’t believe in the institution of marriage.” or something similar.  While I understand many of the arguments people make for retaining their “single” status indefinitely, I think “not believing” in marriage is, well, a load of crap.

I recently read an article about a woman who ended up getting married to appeal to societal norms and to reap the rewards that come with “legitimizing” her relationship.  See here for the story.  While she says she doesn’t believe in marriage, she also says she enjoys the recognition that comes with using the words “married” and “husband”.

The fact is, marriage is a social contract that has evolved over time into what it is today – and that can be a variety of things.  I’ve met married people who don’t spend the workweek in the same town as their spouses.  I’ve met others that include three or more people  in their marriage (though only two can be recognized legally).  I’ve known married couples who despise one another but can’t seem to make the leap to divorce.  And I’ve known other couples who were completely devoted to one another and never needed the legal or societal recognition of a “marriage”, but still considered themselves married.

Long ago, marriage was only a social contract dealing with property.  A girl was the property of her father until she (and her dowry) became the property of her husband.  Many marriages were arranged.  Either the spouses learned to love each other or they learned to satisfy their needs for love elsewhere.

In modern times, marriage has evolved to become the legal recognition of a couple’s love and devotion to each other.  Arranged marriages are seldom seen in Western society.  Couples now are able to define their marriages for themselves.  Legally, there are no guidelines (as far as I know) beyond some archaic adultery laws that aren’t even enforced any longer.

I can’t even really define what it must mean when people say they don’t believe in marriage.  Are they saying that they don’t agree with the patriarchal history?  Are they saying they think people don’t take the vows seriously enough?  Are they young and trying to differentiate themselves from their parents?  How can a person not believe in something that really, truly does exist?  It’s like saying you don’t believe in the sun.  The semantics of the statement are baffling – marriage exists (just like the sun) whether you want to recognize it or not.  And if you don’t want to recognize it, well then you shouldn’t.  But I would say that means that you can’t attend other people’s ceremonies or celebrations.  That you can’t send anniversary cards or gifts.  That you refuse to recognize the legitimacy of other people’s marital commitments.

Stating that you “don’t believe in marriage” is just plain stupid.  It oversimplifies any legitimate objections you might have to the social, legal, or religious instutions and the impact that marriage (or singlehood) has on an individual or couple.  And it makes you sound like and idiot who can’t explain the reasoning behind your dislike or opposition to a long-standing human tradition.

Sometimes you’re just in awe at the weirdness and scope of the news.  Today is one of those days for me.  Here goes.

The local Maserati dealership closed (as if every community has one) – after being open for only a few months.  I could never have predicted that, with the abounding prosperity everywhere.  I mean, who doesn’t want to spend  $140,000 on a car?

Think your mail smells funny?  You might want to make sure your postal worker isn’t smoking crack on the job.  Seriously – what the heck is going on?  I don’t really care what you do outside of the job as long as it doesn’t affect your work.  But smoking crack is going to definitely affect your work, especially when part of your job is driving around residential neighborhoods.

Ridiculously, McDonald’s is trying to defend the french fry with claims that it’s high in potassium and fiber.  Anyone who buys that as a reason to feel okay about eating McDonald’s fries has absolutely no brain.  If you’ve ever had some of these fries, you know that they’re soaked in grease (fat) and covered in salt (sodium) and that continued consumption is just a recipe for early death via heart attack.  If, despite that, you still want to eat them because you think they taste fantastic, that’s your bad decision to make.  But don’t claim you are eating them for the potassium and fiber, that’s not fooling anyone.

As with anything involving money and property damage, there is now a dispute about the responsibility for the demise of Lake Delton due to the flooding back in June.  Everyone wants the dam to be rebuilt and the lake re-filled.  I’ve got a different perspective.  Being a man-made lake, the flooding in the area and consequential draining of the lake showed how risky it is to interfere with nature’s existing landscape.  We should learn that filling the lake and rebuilding homes on the land surrounding it is a mistake, only to be wiped away again in the wake of another natural disaster.

When I was 14, I would have turned my mom in for smoking pot, too.  But the disturbing part of this story is that the mother is 30 … that means she gave birth when she was 16 (which is not unheard of, but still should be highlighted).  Also disturbing is that she didn’t try to keep her drug use secret from her children to at least create the illusion that she didn’t condone such behavior.  Once again, I don’t really care what you do in your free time.  But if you do illegal things in front of your children (like smoke pot), the state needs to come in and put those kids in a home with responsible parents.

A ten-year-old sixth grader is being investigated for the kill list she wrote.  People are arguing both sides of this, that she’s just a child and needs guidance, and that she should be punished like anyone else.  Here’s the truth: anyone who takes the time to do this is severely disturbed and needs professional help.  Whatever else they decide is irrelevant, as long as she gets professional treatment.  Without it, this girl’s future is seriously at risk.

Perhaps the weirdest story, one couple is stuck in Florida with their pet kangaroo and pet goat.  Residents of Wisconsin, they were on vacation with their pets when their RV went up in flames.  It’s not crazy to me that they have a kangaroo and goat – I’d love to have a kangaroo.  But what’s really weird is that they have their own clothes and designer diapers … and they have a daybed for one of them (the other sleeps with them).

I’ve got nothing to say … the news is crazy enough all on its own.

They do.  Maybe not all of them, but some do.  I was lied to – I know.  I don’t remember the recruiter’s name, but I bet it’s on some of this old paperwork in my filing cabinet. 

The biggest lie that I was told was that lieing on my application (is that what it is?) to get into the Army was standard – everyone did it and it was okay.  I guess I don’t want to go into too much detail, lest there be legal implications on the flipside, but I enlisted in the Army Reserve in 1997.  I did not understand the implications of this action.  My recruiter promised me the world.  He promised to take me running and work out with me to help me prepare for basic.  He promised me that there was no sexual harassment in the Army anymore – it was against all the rules.  He promised me that I would form the deepest friendships while I was there (that’s a laugh – I think I corresponded with a few of them for about a year).

Had a been 100% truthful on my application, they would have sent me home as unfit to serve.  Had I been left to myself to fill out the papers, I would have been 100% honest.  That’s how I am.  They have qualifications in place for a reason.  How would you like to be under attack with someone who would rather die than defend his/her own life?  You don’t have much chance of survival.  But I filled out these papers with Sgt. So&So coaching me on the “correct” answers.  He told me that, in many cases, mental health issues aren’t severe enough to report.  And occasional drug use (without dependence, treatment, or punitive legal action) is inconsequential.  And, in many cases, childhood asthma, allergies, and other medical problems can simply be removed from existence without repercussions.  Not that any of these situations applied to me more than anybody else.  You learn a lot when you have to answer questions about things you don’t normally consider – so you ask about the “what if”.  And that’s when you find out that a strung-out junkie with years of manic-depression and medical problems could be your “buddy” on the killing field.  Do you really want that?  I sure as hell wouldn’t.

Of my military career – it was short.  I went to basic training.  I screwed up my ankles, and graduated with shin splints and stress fractures in both feet.  I went on to AIT (job training) for Railway Equipment Repair.  Yeah – it was short – 5 weeks.  They gave us our final and let us out a few days early so we could get home in time for the 4th of July.  I screwed my feet up some more, running 7-10 miles every morning on already fractured bones and pained shins.  I learned how to numb everything with ibuprofen and Icy Hot.  You could smell me coming from a mile away, but it was necessary for me to walk. 

They say that privates aren’t supposed to “date” each other in basic or AIT.  It’s supposed to be punishable by court marshall.  People find the most creative ways to use each others’ bodies for, um, gratification and do that in the most interesting of places.  Think of basic/AIT as the poor man’s (woman’s) college campus and you sort of get the idea.  Only those seriously committed to someone abstain from the flirtation and what follows. 

And as far as sexual harassment and “equality”, it’s exactly how you imagine.  The majority of people involved in the military are male.  Until our society changes completely and women are truly respected by ALL men, sexual harassment and gender-based inequality will remain the norm – especially in male-dominated fields like the military.  It may not be as overt as it used to be, but it’s there, threatening every woman every moment. 

“But that was ten years ago”, you say.  Trust me, if ten years ago this shit was going on – it’s gotten worse since then.  Have you seen how our society has changed overall in the last ten years?  If anything, the treatment of women has lost ground – not gained it.  The military will only reflect that. 

Now, I know I was too naive to enter into this thing and understand what I was doing.  But at the time, I needed someone to pay for my college tuition and the Army said it was going to do that.  And it may have, had I remained an active member and honored my contract.  But after I got back from AIT, I went to a few months of drill.  I’d say it was about 3/4 of a year.  I suffered MORE sexual harassment – and this time I couldn’t get away as easily.  And everyone in my company already knew each other (except for the other two people I graduated AIT with) and were buddies.  If I tried to make my complaint and make something happen, I had no idea what might happen to me.  In reality, I probably would have been reassigned and made to press charges of some sort.  However, I didn’t have it in me to put up a fight not knowing what the consequences might have been.  So I stopped going.  I simply stopped appearing at drill every month.  They would call and call.  And I would never call back. 

I was scared as hell that they would come to my house and take me to jail for going AWOL or just for insubordination, but that never happened.  I got a call once or twice from female soldiers I had never met who wanted to help me file my complaint, but I continually declined.  At this point, I just wanted out.  There was an additional element of being a reservist that made me feel like I was living two lives and I hated it.  And the Army had seriously altered my attitude towards everything.  I was impatient, angry all the time, and incredibly mean.  So I wanted to try to “de-program” myself as quickly as I could so I could get back to my life and be happy again.  Eventually, the Army went away.  I had to pay back the small part of the signing bonus that I had already received, but after that they left me alone. 

At first I didn’t understand why they didn’t seek me out and force me to take responsibility for the papers I signed and the contract that I was ignoring.  But then I realized that it wouldn’t make sense for them to do that.  Would you want to force people to honor their commitment to the military when they really didn’t want to be there?  How good do you think an army made up of people like that would be?  Horrible.  Any sign of danger and they’d be running home.  That’s why they didn’t pursue me.  I was less of a threat staying home than I was participating in the Army. 

Anyway, that’s pretty much my Army story.  There’s more, but that’s the basic overview.  My advice to everyone (except the people who feel strongly the need to place themselves in the line of danger to serve the honor of their country) is DON’T JOIN THE MILITARY!  And they should make sure people know what they are getting themselves into before letting them sign up. 

I don’t really know what kind of discharge I received.  I just applied for a copy of my service records yesterday, out of pure curiosity.  So we’ll see what that holds in store . . . I can’t wait to see that document in the mail. 

If you have your own recruitment horror story or question for me about my time in the service, drop me a line or leave a comment.