Infantryman’s pride

StrikeFO sent us a link from a blog Knottie’s Niche where a Gold Star Mom republishes from a Facebook post by someone (whose name is lost to the interwebs apparently) explaining why infantrymen are so arrogant. It’s several months old, but I haven’t read it before, so you get it on a Saturday;

The pride of the infantryman comes not from knowing that he’s doing a job that others can’t, but that he’s doing a job that others simply won’t.

[…]

That’s why the infantryman carries himself with pride and arrogance. He’s aware that America has lost respect for him. To many he’s a bloodthirsty animal. To others he’s too uneducated and stupid to get a regular job or go to college. Only he knows the truth.

[…]

It’s a job most Americans don’t understand, don’t envy, and don’t respect. That is why we have pride for the infantry.

I remember after the shooting was pretty much over after the first Gulf War, we were moved up two days drive into Iraq to screen for the Shi’ites who were trying to escape Saddam Hussein’s wrath. We had no tents other than the ones we gathered up from the retreating Iraqis. We were sleeping on the ground among the gerbils and dung beetles, our medics had long ago run out of Kaopectate, the nearest pack of cigarettes was two days drive away.

Somehow we got a weeks old Stars & Stripes and they had a feature story about some “hero” truck driver who stayed on the road moving supplies to the troops (obviously not to us). But he mentioned in the article, that he was glad to be on the road, because the troops he was supplying “were living like animals”.

I looked up from my newspaper reading and surveyed the scene around me with my troops sacked out in the sand, with only a hole with an MRE box for a toilet seat, happily munching on unhydrated pork patties. It’d been weeks since our last opportunity for a freezing cold shower. Yeah, we were pretty much living like animals, but I don’t think they would have had it any other way. I don’t think there would have been any volunteers to be a truck driver in that war.

But you should read the whole piece at Knottie’s Niche.

Category: War Stories