faceless hordes

Does an army want to fight?  Some of them do.  I reckon the young guys do, they're pretty sure they won't get killed and they want to cover themselves with glory (probably to impress chicks, that's one way evolution gets us off our butts) and it's kind of fun in a grown-up cowboy and Indian way.  Some of the officers probably do too because it is a chance for them to advance in the ranks.  I imagine most of the lifers would rather not, because well, you can get killed that way.  I imagine an army would be a pretty good place to be in peacetime if you didn't mind the occasional spurts of spit and polish.  It would probably be like Camp Swampy without the Sarge beating up on you all the time.

Well we have a veteran right here at The Institute.  What was it like for Beagles?  Was Vietnam known then as a place where you could get into combat, and were guys volunteering to get there?  Was there a difference in motivation between the new guys and the lifers?

I wonder if the difference between the swordsman and the button pusher is anything like the difference between the holdup guy and the white collar criminal?  Probably you would rather be on a desert island with the white collar criminal, probably he would make better conversation, and if he conned you out of the last cocoanut, you would merely be embarrassed rather than having a knot on your noggin like from the holdup guy.

Maybe that's why the white collar guys get to go to those nice jails with the tennis courts unlike the ones with the yards and the walls with the gun-toting, easily-irritated guards, because they are reasonable guys who can see that they are better off if they just do their time and don't raise a ruckus, whereas the holdup guy is more of a hothead ready to bolt the first time he sees a hole in the fence and the guard napping.

And maybe Those guys, Them, remember Them, the guys who run everything, have something to do with white collar prisons.  They are probably always cutting corners and They have rivalries with other Thems and They never knew when They Themselves might get sent up the river, and so maybe They want to have a nice bed in a studio apartment rather than a row of cots, and a clay tennis court instead of a muddy patch strewn with weights.  You know, the way the Thems at the top give the CEOS those huge salaries because They never know when They will become a CEO.

So you don't mind when there is only one Other in your hood, but you don't want two because then they will outnumber you.  Unless maybe there are two of you, like you and your hypothetical wife, and then the Others could take on spouses, but then if they (the Other they, not to be confused with Them who run everything) have children that is going to be a problem. 

But then later on in your argument, you hint that it's not so much them outnunbering you as forming a mob and running over the neighborhood, becoming, oh my, a faceless horde who might kill you, accidentally or on purpose.  Well nobody likes a faceless horde, and I suppose once people outnumber you there is no way to keep them from becoming one, and you know that one Other guy who moves in, he is probably going to get married (because even you-know-whos can do that these days in Obama's muslim socialist paradise), and they are going to have (or adopt) kids, so probably the best thing to do is get down in the swamp with that bag full of ammo. 

By the way what tv do you watch?  Is there a faceless horde channel?  I'm getting a little tired of the murder channel.

Happy new year. I'll have to stay up till midnight to watch the fireworks and along that way I will probably imbibe of a faceless horde of beers so this may be a three day weekend away from The Institute for me.  Keep that beacon shining Beagles.