If you have been following this blog then you are aware that I am a bit of a scatterbrained, sports-crazed geek. If you haven't been reading and this is the first time that you have stumbled onto A Little Bit of Mojo... don't worry, it won't take you long to discover that I'm quite possibly insane. I'm not looking for validation through this blog. Quite frankly I'm amazed anyone reads it. But I have had an idea running around in my head for almost seven years and I don't know what to do with it. Four of my friends have a podcast that they are quite good at and has amassed a following. I don't think the idea I have would fly in that format. A guy I went to high school with has created an alter ego and has developed a website and video blog where he waxes poetic as a disgruntled Boston sports fan. His name is Nick Stevens, but you might have heard of his alias Paul "Fitzy" Fitzgerald. Fitzy's video blog is great, and because I acknowledge outright that any attempt by me to video blog couldn't hold a candle to him pretty much rules out this medium. So I'm left wondering what to do with this idea. I could try writing a book, but there is an awful lot of material. I could try writing a script, but I don't know if I want to cut it all down to fit into a chapter or a "pilot" that will never go anywhere. Well... now that I've been babbling about how great my friends are and how not worthy I am for most of this paragraph it's probably time to share the idea.
If we haven't met then you are unaware that I spent a little over four years as one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children. That's a United States Marine to the uninitiated. Now why do I call my time in the finest fighting force the world has ever seen the Misguided Children? Hmm... well that's the idea that I have been kicking around. You see the Marine Corps has marketed itself as The Few and The Proud and rightly so, but there is something left out here. If you haven't noticed, the best and the brightest of our high schools and our colleges don't join the military. Our best high school students go to college. Our best college graduates become scientists, executives, doctors, lawyers and politicians. So who is left to join the military? We no longer have a draft, so there is almost no chance of getting any of the aforementioned into the fray. What is left is the people who for lack of a better description are those who either don't have another option or have a deep seeded patriotism. So what is my point? Somehow despite being what society unfairly calls the bottom of the barrel, the men and women who put on the uniform have taken on the monumental task of defending this nation and have done a hell of a job.
What I can't get over is some of the characters I met in the service. When I tell stories about my time on active duty most people think I am making it up. They don't want to believe that there could be so many completely crazy and/or completely stupid people in the Marines. The sad truth is there are. Unfortunately I fall into the top of the list. I graduated from UMass Dartmouth in June 1999 with a BA in English. After graduation I enlisted (that's right, I ENLISTED) in the Misguided Children. I wasn't an officer, I was just a lowly Private First Class making less money per month than my college loan payments who at times had to answer to kids that were lucky to graduate from high school!?!? (Still not convinced that all of them did) Was this a crazy move or a stupid move? No need to answer. It was a rhetorical question.
So... here it is.. Is there any interest in hearing about or possibly seeing the comically sad and unfortunately true tails of some of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children? Don't worry I will change the names to protect the not so innocent and myself from any defamation lawsuits.
Well, if you are still reading this then you obviously have as much time on your hands as I do and if that's the case then you have my sympathies.
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