man and boy

After becoming a man, after the blood and bones and endless nights of rush and fade and fatality and being razor-edged ragged alive there is still something the man needs. The anger and sadness will always be there, and the hope if he doesn’t give it up or sell it out.

But there is still something else. It is looking back, once out of the zone, and knowing that he was always a boy, that he still is, even as a man — becoming a man doesn’t take the boy away, it only adds to him.

patriotism is the highest form of dissent

along with things like courage, service in the armed forces, unabashed masculinity, and belief in honor and duty.

I find LT G’s story of wearing his Guinness socks to his commissioning a little too precious. Oh, he’s brave enough to stare death in the face, but for some reason feels he must demonstrate his rebellion against authority or his frail little identity might be crushed. How precious. Is mandatory rebellion meaningful, or merely a conceit?

LT G is the embodiment of transgression in the post-modern world; he is patriotic, courageous, skilled in the use of arms, and honorable. What socks have to do with it I can’t begin to fathom, but we all have our little conceits and idiosyncrasies. And, he’s cav; what do you expect? At least they’re Guinness socks. That shows character.