We all know that exercising that rather dubious “male privilege” of going to war has its many risks — becoming dead, becoming legless in the not-so-much-fun definition of the word, trying to wipe your ass without any hands, having the kind of face that makes women faint and small children run away screaming, etc. Another unfortunate effect of all this privilege, at least now that medicine can keep you alive even after you’ve been blown up, is literally having your genitals blown off so that the aptly named Dick Cheney and his mates can get their hands on someone else’s oil.
Since 2005 more than 1500 American pieces of cannon fodder have been carried out of the slaughterhouse with some sort of genital trauma, and since the bastard in the White House launched a surge in 2009, the number of such injuries has virtually doubled to about 300 a year. Does Obama care? Probably not — we know he doesn’t care about the poor, we know he doesn’t care about men, and these poor bastards are both so I don’t think he’s losing much sleep.
Personally I found this quote from the linked article rather sad, speaking as it does to a rather skewed set of priorities…
“I remember lying on my side, dust everywhere, and I looked down and saw my arms were split open and squirting blood and I had just two bloody stumps above my knees,” said Marine 1st Lt. James Byler, 26, …”My first coherent words to my Marines were, ‘Hey! check my nuts!'”
Call me crazy, but if my legs had just been blown off and my arms broken apart, my first set of words would be “Oh shit, I’ll never run or walk or do the Lambada ever again!” My second would be “Oh fuck, I hope I don’t lose my arms!” Some time after that I would idly mutter “Mmm, wonder if my nuts are still there?” And frankly, if I had to choose between losing my penis or my arms or legs, it would definitely be the less glimpsed of those five appendages getting a memorial plaque. That said, the Pigman won’t be putting his porker in a food processor any time soon.
More in this surprisingly sensitive article in the HuffPost