"You are an asset! An expendable asset, and I used you to get the job done, got it!"-Col. Dillion (Predator)

This Christmas, Ruth McGlothlin will prepare all of her usual holiday recipes for the family. The house will be filled with the aroma of homemade candy, fruitcake, turkey, baked ham, and candied yams. There will be a beautiful Christmas tree in the corner with numerous presents wrapped in flamboyant colors lying underneath. Countless family members and well-wishers will visit to spread the Christmas cheer. Christmas music will play throughout the house and prayers will be said before the Christmas dinner.

But this Christmas will be different for Ruth and the entire McGlothlin clan. This is the first Christmas that they will have without their son, Ryan McGlothlin. You see, Ryan will not be coming home for Christmas this year, or any other year for that matter. Ryan, as well as over 2,000 other young men, died in that giant sandbox over in Iraq. The Christmas scene described above will be repeated in homes of grieving parents and spouses all over the country.

Oh, I know, you hear about soldiers dying all the time on CNN. The over/under betting line for dead soldiers each day hovers around 5. As with all things unpleasant you get used to it after a while. How else could you explain diabetics getting used to sticking themselves numerous times each day with needles?

Most of the dead soldiers are poverty stricken young men from places like Flint, Michigan and Clarksville, Ohio. But every now and then you come across a story that just doesn’t fit the mold. Our friend Ryan McGlothlin is one of those stories. I was friends with his brother, Nathan, back in elementary school. It was a strange friendship considering I lived in the Tony Childress trailer park and Nathan’s dad was a Circuit Court judge. Nonetheless, we were friends and I vaguely remember Ryan running around the house in pajamas.

What makes Ryan’s story so bizarre was his chosen path to military service. Ryan was the Valedictorian at Lebanon High School in Virginia. Unlike many Valedictorians’ in Southwest Virginia he refrained from attending the prestigious SVCC (Southwest Virginia Community College) and accepted a scholarship to William and Mary University. A W&M scholarship is a pretty good ticket if you can get it; tuition, and room and board for a year there will run about $10,000. Not only did he take the scholarship, he didn’t turn into some wild eyed drunk that drank Everclear out of unknown Rubbermaid trashcans like some people. Ryan ended up earning a degree in chemistry from the university.

Ryan’s impressive accomplishments didn’t stop there either. He received a fellowship in chemistry from Stanford University. Yes, that is the Stanford University with the stupid looking tree as a mascot. He became probably the first person form Southwest Virginia to earn a Masters Degree in Polymer Chemistry. Now I’m not sure what a degree in Polymer Chemistry encompasses, but I assume it’s a bit tougher to obtain than my cherished Social Studies degree from prestigious Radford University.

So, here comes this strapping young lad fresh out of Stanford University ready to conquer the world. I can’t even imagine the amount of hubris that accompanies that kind of success. It looked like he was all set for a fantastic career, 401(k)’s, stock options, multiple home ownerships, and everything the American Dream is today.

For some unknown reason Ryan decided to join the Marines. Please back up and read that again as I am not joking. Ok, did you re-read that last sentence? Here you have a young man with a degree in POLYMER CHEMISTRY from Stanford University willingly signing up to be dropped into a useless war in the middle of some godforsaken desert. Ryan’s parents must be different from mine because instead of being lauded for bravery my dad would have had me committed to the Psychiatric Ward until I came to my senses.

Family members said that the events of 9/11 prompted Ryan to join the military. That’s certainly an understandable emotion, I even wanted to go and open up a can of whoop ass on Afghanistan myself, but thank God I came to my senses. I am not cut out for military service because I am basically a lazy bastard who would rather sit around and watch porn all day instead of shooting at brown skinned Iraqis. I’m smart enough to realize that our “leaders” are using the lives of our young men for their own personal conquests. The understanding of this concept separates those who are “street smart” from those who are “book smart”. As a result I’m here writing this column and will continue to do my duty as an American and expose these swine for the white devils that they are.

Ryan died tragically from gunfire during “Operation Steel Curtain”. Not that it’s funny or anything, but the term “Steel Curtain” is best known as the nickname for the 1970’s Pittsburgh Steelers defensive unit. You may not know it, but football was created by the U.S. military to simulate combat situations. A football kick-off is the exact same thing as battle charges of the past. A battle between offensive and defensive lines is very similar to trench warfare. And consider the lingo: the blitz, the bomb, quagmire, trenches, run and shoot, shotgun, red zone, gridiron, headhunters, shock troops, etc. Sorry for the football analogies, but I wanted to give you something to stump your warmonger friends with at the next cocktail party.

Dear Lord, I need to snort about 500 mg of Ritalin to sharpen my focus. Now I recall what I was going to say before going off on that football tangent. Some of my acquaintances assumed that Ryan went into the military in order to improve his chances at becoming a politician. Hmm…this could be true, but dead men tell no tales. If that was his reasoning for joining the Marines I can accept that. If you are an aspiring politician you damn well better have a military background in these days of bloodlust. Wesley Clark nearly vaulted to the Democratic presidential candidate in the last election, and the only qualification he possessed was being an ex-war general. If warrior like Achilles, Shaka Zulu, Rambo, Spartacus, William Wallace, or Alexander the Great ran for president in the U.S. today they would win 95% of the popular vote.

Most of you are probably saying, “Head, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. The troops need our support and here you are being a dissenter”. But that’s where you are wrong junior. I am supportive of the troops. Anyone willing to die to protect U.S. citizens deserves all the respect in the world. A truly unpatriotic act would be if I wholeheartedly supported sending these young (and women) over there to get killed for no reason. Our military is an excellent one and should be used only when absolutely necessary. Kind of like that last roll of toilet paper stashed under the sink; it should only be used as a last resort and it damn well better work.

I’ve been against this damn war since day one and I took a lot of ridicule from people for my stance. However, most great ideas get laughed at in the beginning. As of today 60% of the U.S. disagrees with the job that the Dubya is doing in Iraq. If it weren’t for the 70% of Republicans believing his horseshit the Dubya would be facing the fate of a Roman Emperor; somewhere deep in the night he would get knifed by either Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld.

If you don’t give a damn about all of the dead soldiers then you should look at the financial cost of the war. As of this second the cost of the war is 227 BILLION DOLLARS. However it’s hard to put that kind of dollar value in perspective, so let me take a few seconds to tell you what that kind of dinero can buy. We could have built over 2 million housing units, virtually eliminating homelessness. If you are a big education fan then you might like to know that we could have hired nearly four million new teachers for a year. If you could care less about homelessness or education than you might be interested in food, most Americans are. We could have funded the WORLD anti-hunger campaign for NINE YEARS! Or we could have made sure that every child in the WORLD had basic immunization for the next 75 years. Forget that, at least I feel safe.

May Ryan McGlothlin rest in peace, along with the more than 2,000 other dead soldiers. I also feel for the 30,000 dead Iraqi’s too. I bet you didn’t think there were actually people in those buildings you saw bombed on CNN did you? They weren’t in there on those XBOX games. I refuse to believe that those 30,000 had direct links to Al-Qaeda. Once again, it’s hard to put 30,000 dead people into perspective, so let me expand on this point. If you estimated every dead Iraqi was 6 feet tall (they aren’t, but I’m allowing for Bush’s underestimation) and laid them head to foot in a straight line, you would have a 34 mile long stretch of dead bodies. That’s longer than the distance to drive from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Miami, Florida. But hey, what difference does it make; at least you’ll have cheap gas for the trip.