The Battle Of Miramar Drive

I remember it like it was yesterday, man.  No…really…I mean it this time.  It truly seems like it was yesterday for me, when  I, like most red-blooded American males who weren’t into showtunes and poetry, enjoyed wargames, elaborately planned and executed within the confines of our backyard.  In almost all cases, these were recreations of some unknown war involving any combination of nations (real or imagined), based on what we could scare up from the bottom of our collective toy boxes.  In the Claymore Defense Forces, it wasn’t uncommon to find HeMan and Battlecat fall into formation with the likes of Lando Calrissian, Cylon centurions and the true backbone of any credible modern fighting force, the ubiquitous Green Army Man. 

Green Army Man was the foundation.  You didn’t show up to a neighborhood war without at least 20 or 30 of these plastic warriors in your arsenal.   The backyard warrior ethos dictated that any kid who showed up and tried to draw ranks without Green Army Man in his Nike box, was to be shunned…unless he was the kid who brought all of his dad’s old WWII tank models to the fight.   Green Army Man were commandos, rangers, snipers, sappers, engineers and most importantly, casualties.  It didn’t matter if the dude had a mortar stuck to his leg, or was in a perpetual hand-to-hand bayonet charge, Green Army Man was the shit.  The Real Deal.  He could swarm a foxhole full of Stormtroopers, beat the shit out of Smurfs and then lead the assault past the swingset, flank the opposition near the Strawberry Shortcake bicycle and strike deep into the enemy cinderblock bunker.  And while GI JOE gets all the props for being a “real American hero”, with his flocked beard and “Kung Fu Grip”,  the 1970’s Joe looked like he’d be more at home at a Village People concert than putting imaginary rounds into Stretch Armstrong’s jelly-filled guts.  No…it was Green Army Man who was boots on ground, kicking the tan army’s ass all the way back to the flower beds where they effin’ belonged. 

 

Did it matter that all of the vehicles for Green Army Man were way out of scale for them?  Fuck no.  They adapted…overcame…conquered.  So what that the Huey was too small and hollow.  So what that the Jeep couldn’t hold a single swinging plastic schwantz.  So what that the 105mm howitzer looked more like a green plastic straw with black wagon wheels slapped on it.  We had a firebase, motherfucker…deal with it.  

Green Army Man still holds his own today.  You can find him and his buds in virtually any dollar store, grocery store toy aisle and Walgreens from sea to shining sea.  Not much has changed for Green Army Man.  He’s still doing the bayonet charge, the mortar barrage, the grenade throw, the sniper crawl…all of the things he’s done for decades now, in defense of backyards all across this nation.  Yeah, he has “Made In China” stamped across his ass, and yeah you can’t really tell if he’s toting an M-16 into battle versus something that resembles a magazine fed rifle of God knows what design, but that’s not really the point.  The point is that Green Army Man, for all of the changes that have happened, for all the cooler toys and so forth that distract kids, is still there…he’s the one you can count on.  He’s the silent warrior waiting for the box top to be lifted off when there’s a problem out near the monkey grass that needs to be handled.   

So here’s to you, Green Army Man;  you never deserted, you never complained, you didn’t go AWOL or run off to Canada when I needed those Go-Bots near the dogwood eliminated.  Yeah…I remember it like it was yesterday, man.  Sometimes I wish it really were yesterday. 

Tags: Action Figgers, Backyard Warriors, Claymore

Category: Politics