15 Feb '03

Ok, it's the day after Black Friday, I live in College "Walmart-Parking-Lot-of-Culture" Station, Texas, and oh yeah, we are about to go beat up an obnoxious homeless person who's been yelling threats in the street. No, I really mean we are about to invade Iraq, which makes sense because most of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and were led and paid by a Saudi Arabian named bin Laden, and if history repeats itself it'll be more fun to fight Iraqis than Koreans, and they have oil that we can keep after we beat them up.

People have different ways of coping with the stress of a goat-rope of an unnecessary war about to happen. My friends Scott and Cristina are the direct sort, they don't want war, so they protest war. Stacy picks verbal scraps with dumb rednecks who don't know she's taunting them. Kenan drinks silently in the dark A.M., muttering, alone but for the pistol on the table.

Me, I just react by letting my mind snap like a 90-year-old's shin hit by the bumper of a delivery truck. Whoo-hoo! War! President knows best! I feel better already. Hell, I am even offering my services, to form an elite strike force:

(Recruiting poster follows)

Hey bub, YEAH, YOU: You ever rip off your own arm and use it to beat somebody to death? Ever pull out a man's back-bone so you could strangle him with it? Ever tear out his eyeballs just because, I dunno, you were bored?

Are you reading this from the BRIG?

Well if so, buddy, you may be the type of mug we need in

SERGEANT "BRICK" O'MOORE'S FIGHTIN' HELL-MONKEYS!

The Fightin' Hell-Monkeys are currently seekin' to fill out their roster with:

An Italian
A Jew
A Negro (preferably a tough but non-threatening one, a la Will Smith)
A Hillbilly/Cajun Swamp-Rat/Po'White Trash Springer-Show type
A Mexican, or Puerto Rican, or other person capable of getting out the vital Hispanic vote
A Dog (mascot), and
An Irishman (talking mascot)

Also:

One plucky British Ally who knows when to say "Cheerio, what", or when to pet the dog, or when to taunt the Irishman.

One saucy French wench in mini-skirt and beret who says "zees" and "zat" when not obstructin' Fightin' Hell-Monkey attack plans so as to keep everybody rememberin' she matters

One determined Boy-President who believes in the Fightin' Hell-Monkeys 100% and who keeps the meddlin' American people out of their business.

One adorable Arab child who ends each episode by grinnin' and dancin' in joyful abandon, shoutin' "Praise Allah that you are here to save my people, O Fighting Hell-Monkeys!"

Yessiree bob, we are lookin' for the shit-pissin'est, fire-spittin'est bunch of rogues and malcontent hombres ever to kick in the teeth of their third-grade teachers, renegades able to parachute into Baghdad on a moonlit night with a rusty bayonet in one hand and a bottle o' bourbon in the other, stomp a mud-hole in a Republican Guard Division's collective ass, turn around and light up a fuel dump or flatten an orphanage, and still have time to mix Ruhipnol into Saddam's Viagra supply so that he passes out and then rapes himself. We're talkin' the kind of desperados who can go for days chewin' on an unlit cigar while engagin' in witty banter while blazin' away with a machine-gun from the back of a jeep careenin' on two wheels around a corner.

Also, and it's real important: never pronouncin' or writin' the silent "G" at the end of the present participle.

You think you got what it takes, mister? Well then belly up to the bar, knock back a stiff shot, then, if you got the guts, go take a swing at our leader, Sgt. Brick O'Moore—if you got the sand to do that, buddy, and you can go at least three rounds toe-to-toe with Ol' Brick poundin' the livin' snot outta each other, all the while engagin' in witty banter, well buddy,
maybe... MAYBE you got what it takes to become a Fightin' Hell-Monkey.

OUTLINE OF FIGHTIN' HELL-MONKEY BASIC TRAININ':

Week 1: Cussin'

Week 2: Drinkin'

Week 3: Ass-Scratchin'

Week 4: Fightin' I (fists, knives, bottles, boots, teeth, other peoples' teeth, barstools)

Week 5: Fightin' II (all above + witty banter)

Week 6: Explosives I

Week 7: Explosives II (same course as Explosives I, again, just for the hell of it)

Week 8: Drivin' a Jeep Over Foreigners

Week 9: Parachutin'

Week 10: Underwater Operations

Week 11: Underwater Parachutin'

Week 12: Fightin' III (.45 pistol (no sissy 9mm for the Fightin' Hell-Monkeys!), grenades, heavy machineguns, man-portable rockets, booby-trapped grammas)

Week 13: Drivin' a Jeep on Two Wheels Over Foreigners

Week 14: Fightin' IV (firin' a heavy machinegun from the back of a jeep that is on two weels + witty banter + simultaneously havin' a fist-fight with a rival member of the Fightin' Hell-Monkeys)

Week 15: Spittin'

Week 16: Personal Reflexions on the Teachin's of Aristotle: May philosophy be said to be the organized whole of disinterested knowledge, knowledge which we seek for the satisfaction which it carries in itself, and not as a mere means to utilitarian ends? Is curiosity the impulse which receives this satisfaction, and is it innate in man?

Week 17: Advanced Loogy-Hockin' Spittin'

Week 18: Graduation, Hell-Raisin', Shippin' Out

So you think you can suck it up and make the cut, soldier? Well mark your "X" right here then hero and get down and start givin' me push-ups 'til *I* get tired! I'll make you or break you, bwah! Because as the Boy-President is fond of sayin':

"They're not just Fightin' Hell-Monkeys... they're NUCULAR Fightin' Hell-Monkeys!