This past weekend, I mentioned The Pacifist who looked at me with disgust and  rudely said to me, “Oh that’s too bad” after I told him I joined the Army Reserve.  The more I think about it, the more offended I become.  Livid is a more accurate description of my feelings.

Who does he think he is? It takes a certain amount of gall to say that to someone who has just volunteered to serve their country- offering to serve so this Pacifist can continue to have the freedom to say whatever he likes.

I’ve got to give props to my boy G.K. Chesterton who said, “Pacifists are the last and least excusable on the list of the enemies of society. They preach that if you see a man flogging a woman to death you must not hit him. I would much sooner let a leper come near a little boy than a man who preached such a thing.”

Joining the Army does not mean that I believe we should invade countries in order to obtain stuff I want.  If that were so, I’d already be on the campaign to invade Sweden in order to secure an unlimited supply of Swedish Fish.  This is why you should probably never elect me as president.  Unless of course, you like Swedish Fish as much as I do. Lifetime supply for anyone who votes for me!!

Err…Anyway, my point is this- you don’t have to be a war-hungry-bone-head to join the armed forces.

Switzerland is neutral.  Even Switzerland has an army, Sir Pacifist.

To bury one’s head in the sand pretending that there will be no war, if only you will it away is not unlike willing to never see Spencer and Heidi Pratt again on the cover of People.  It is never going to happen.

John Stuart Mill stated,

There are some things that are worth fighting a war.  Hey Sir Pacifist, do you enjoy living in America? Because we totally wouldn’t have a country if the founding fathers had decided to bend over and let England take away all their freedom.

Granted, now that we are buddy-buddy with England, this doesn’t seem quite the dire predicament as it was back then.  Plus, if England had won- we’d all have cute little accents.  Again, I digress…I’m aware that I may not be strengthening my case here.

I’m sure The Pacifist has never met a survivor of the Holocaust.  That whole debacle would surely turned out way better if we had stuck to the pacifist road a little bit longer, like Chamberlain wanted.  Oh wait, I probably shouldn’t bring up the Holocaust…The Pacifist probably doesn’t believe it really happened.

I limit my examples to these two- as this post is not meant to debate the concept of a ‘just war’- especially, given how much controversy the two newest wars have caused.  Whatever you think of the newest wars, I do not believe that anyone reading this blog would have the audacity to tell a returning Marine that he is an awful human being, because you are a pacifist and don’t believe in war.

And if you would say that, then I can say now that I’ve never been so excited to lose a reader.

I, as much as anyone, want everyone to quit killing everybody else and just get along.  Plato stated, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”  And since he was a smart old dude, I’m of the mind to believe him.  Humans have the tendency to suck at stuff like ‘being peaceful’ and shit, so I’m not holding my breath.

As George Washington once said, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.”

So that’s what I’m doing Sir Pacifist, unacknowledged by you, I’m preserving you and your family’s peaceful life.

“The pacifist is surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrong doer.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

From now on, you may refer to me as Lieutenant Suz.  Also, if you could salute the computer screen when visiting my blog, that’d be great.  Because, as of last night, I am officially a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserves.  I know- you’re all thinking, ‘Where the eff did that come from?’

Lest you think I just up and joined the Army on a whim, I assure you that’s not the case.  (Although that wouldn’t be out of character for me.) This is something that has been on my to-do list for literally ten years.  Albeit it always had little question marks beside it- like, ‘do I really want to do this?’

As you can see, I was ready for this at an early age.

I was indoctrinated to the glories of the Army grew up an Army brat, so there really was no decision to make about which branch of service- much to the consternation of my husband and his family who are all Air Force.   Now, my husband is not completely thrilled with this decision- but as he put it last night, ‘he is proud of me and happy for me’.  I think he just didn’t want me to outrank him…cough…cough.

No matter what our country has done, no matter who the president is, I have always been extremely proud of our country and I feel with all my plans to go overseas, travel, live, and volunteer that I should probably invest some time in helping/serving my own country first.  Just by virtue of birth in this country I have been afforded some amazing opportunities in my life.  Wellllll….technically I was born in Germany-but you get the drift. And seriously guys, if you start asking for my birth certificate, I’m going to ban you from my blog! (That is if I knew how.)

This isn’t something that I grew up wanting to do.  It wasn’t until I was in nursing school that I thought about it.  I highly doubt I’d do it if I weren’t a nurse, because I’m much too big of a wimp to go fly helicopters or throw bombs at people.  I throw like a girl, and would end up blowing myself up.  And the point could also be made that you don’t throw bombs.  Whatever you do with them, I would suck at it.

Bring it Osama. (To be fair- I'm not entirely sure that this is me- it could be my brother), irregardless, we're ready.

I’ve gathered that this is a decision that most people don’t understand- I usually get faced with a slight look of, ‘Why on EARTH would you want to do that?!?’.  And in their head I can tell they’re thinking that only low-life, uneducated, unintelligent, vagrants with no other options join the military.  My daily bathing schedule may put me in the ‘part-vagrant’ category, but I can assure you the rest are false.

I’m a good nurse and I’m going to be an awesome Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA), and I figure someone’s gotta go and take care of all those soldier folk.  With a husband in the Air Force, two cousins in the Army, another cousin in the Marines, and countless other friends across all service branches, it’s a little more personal for me.  I actually feel a little bit like a slacker for joining the reserves as opposed to active duty.  But two years apart from my husband for school is enough- I don’t need another two when I graduate.

Last night, the recruiters came to my house to get all this business done.  My husband flew in for the night, to support me- and probably to make sure I wasn’t signing away our first unborn child along with the next however many years of my life.

I, of course had been thinking all day, ‘what on earth am I going to WEAR?!’  I mean this is almost as big of a commitment as my wedding vows- if not bigger.  Last time I checked, you can’t get out of the Army for ‘irreconcilable differences.’  I figured I better not tell anyone my wardrobe concerns, because they totally weren’t going to let the chick in who has not one, but TWO hair flat irons, and uses more hair product than Elton John .

Holy Crap. What have I done.

I just made sure that the Army recruiters didn’t see my shoe collection.  As you can see, in the picture above I ended up in a sundress.  Barefoot.  Yes, I forgot to put on shoes.  I am going to be awesome at this job.  Well, I will right after I learn how to salute.  It was pretty neat, because as a retired Lt. Col, my dad was able to swear me in.  I sucked quite badly at that.  I couldn’t remember all the words he was saying so I would stop, and try not to laugh, as he would repeat himself.   Conduct unbecoming an officer, probably.

This could get interesting.

While it was exciting, it was over rather quickly.  I realized that there was going to be a steep learning curve when I posted on Facebook last night and I couldn’t figure out how to spell lieutenant.  The Army people were so nice as to give the book above.  Which should be helpful.  Especially since I have a hard time remembering if I’m a first or second lieutenant.  So irregardless how this all plays out, this will be interesting.  And maybe scary.  But definitely awesome.

And because this is starting to get long, I will save for tomorrow all of the thought processes that went into my decision.

Until then, I better see you salute soldier.  Totally just kidding.  I would burst into a fit of giggles and get kicked out.  I don’t think lieutenants count for much anyway.