An Army Of Dumb

I blame my father.

You see, when a young boy asks his father what a soldier is, he takes his father’s words as gospel. He doesn’t understand how his father might see his questioning as a means to alleviate his boring afternoon of housebound babysitting. The boy wouldn’t see the gleam of mischief in his father’s eye as anything other than eagerness to answer his question. He wouldn’t even begin to comprehend the cruelty of his father’s seemingly innocent inquiry as to whether the boy’s younger brother might also like to know.

The two boys aren’t stupid, they’re just naïve.

And when the father of these two impressionable children decided that mere words might not be enough, that perhaps they would better understand what it meant to be a soldier if they were to dress up like real army men, these two angelic children might simply laugh and exclaim at what a wonderful idea that was.

And then the horror would begin.

The two boys were dressed helmets, belts, pouches and canteens. When they told their father that they wanted to have medals like a real soldier they were given “purple hearts” made from red Valentine’s Day stickers. Then they were taught the proper way to salute by their supposedly loving father. The very same father who, holding back what at the time seemed to the young boys to be tears of joy, ran to the bedroom to grab his camera and take a picture of “his little soldiers” for posterity’s sake.

Sigh; at least I’m not the one who looks like Mini-Benny Hill.