{"id":237,"date":"2003-08-29T00:43:00","date_gmt":"2003-08-29T00:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=237"},"modified":"2018-08-02T16:36:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T21:36:00","slug":"237","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2003\/08\/29\/237\/","title":{"rendered":"The American Soldier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Because Heather likes kitties, you should look at the picture at the end of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kimdutoit.com\/dr\/weblog.php?id=P2013\" target=\"new\">Kim du Toit post<\/a> (of course, it wouldn&#8217;t hurt you to read Kim every day).  This picture captures the essence of the American soldier, as only a former English major could explain it to you.<\/p>\n<p>Look at that kid.  Unlike the nutbars that pass for the irregulars in armies in most actively combative parts of the world, he&#8217;s not so enamored with his gun that he&#8217;s waving it, firing it in the air in an orgiastic pleasure in his own killing power.  He&#8217;s got it ready, but he&#8217;s not enamored with death.  His objective isn&#8217;t death, his or others, in itself, but sometimes it&#8217;s necessary.  Sadly.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of ranting, raving, foaming, or pillaging, he&#8217;s spending a quiet moment <i>petting the kitty<\/i>, a juxtaposition of Life in the dangerous, potentially deadly situation he&#8217;s in.  The kitty represents the innocence of the civilians he&#8217;s protecting, and of the world to which he wants to return someday, whole and unscarred physically from his service.<\/p>\n<p>Just from looking at the picture, I hope you come home, and I hope they let you bring the kitty if you want.  Come on, Army, it&#8217;s a good story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Because Heather likes kitties, you should look at the picture at the end of Kim du Toit post (of course, it wouldn&#8217;t hurt you to read Kim every day). This picture captures the essence of the American soldier, as only a former English major could explain it to you. Look at that kid. Unlike the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21483,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/21483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}