My orignial plan was to join up and become a "Psycological Operations Specialist". These are the people who do things like blast "Panama" out of loudspeakers for days on end to get dictators out of hotels, and who create and disseminate the leaflets the army drops on enemy sites, along with other propaganda.

Well, I was discussing this option with my friends, and one of them made an interesting statement:

"So, Angst, you want to join the army, create and spread rightist propaganda that I'm pretty sure would be against what you believe, all for money? ... Suck Satan's Cock!"

It was then that I decided the reserves probably wasn't for me. Now, though, I'm thinking about what going on in this nation, and I want to do something. The problem is, well, besides the obvious trouble of helping to support Laura and having two jobs, the problem is that I would quite possibly be delivering myself as a tool of those who's intentions I would deplore.

I have a feeling there are other people out there, other young men who are feeling the same way right now. Last night I read another chapter-and-a-half of 'Stiffed'. It was about the Vietnam war. About the issues of masculinety involved. How those who refused to fight (not the rare few who were actually jailed, but those who were able to avoid the draft with college or by other means) ended up feeling like cowards, while those who did fight found themselves in a directionless hell, where their superiors were more interested in personal career advancement than the development of the men under them.

At this point I really don't have anything else to say. I will just leave this essay unfinished, and perhaps return to it in time...