Emailing me, Troy
confided, "I was staring at a wall, wanting to be anywhere else, at the
tail end of an alcoholic stupor in July of 2008 when I thought, 'Hey
there's a war going on, I bet they'll take me.' Of course they did. I
was in Ft. Knox, Kentucky within three weeks."
I responded, "I
understand perfectly that feeling of being trapped, with no decent job
available, especially one suitable for a man." Nearly all the factories
are gone, and sweaty jobs such as house painting, roofing, plumbing and
kitchen work, etc., increasingly go to illegal immigrants, of which
there is an endless supply. Even legal immigrants are priced out, for
they, too, must maintain a family, and not live five to a room.
"Socially, there's nothing to do but sit in a bar, but it's expensive,
and you can't even talk much, with the loud music and several TVs on at
the same time. For a young man with little money, a crappy job and few
experiences beyond his small town or city neighborhood, enlistment to go
overseas doesn't sound too bad."
Bored to death, Troy signed up to kill or be killed, just to have a life of any kind. In no time, he was a gunner on convoys in Afghanistan, "It was the best summer of my life. I hated it at moments but knew for certain that it would be a 'peak experience (ugh)' in comparison my provincial American reality which can suffocate me if I let it. I never fired a shot in anger and am truly grateful for that. I simply tell people that I was a 'tourist with a machinegun' and that it was a beautiful country. Both true."
In too many countries, American tourists with assault rifles or machineguns have far outnumbered those with just a camera. 775,000 American troops "served" in Afghanistan, and we're not even counting the private "contractors." 1.5 million Americans "served" in Iraq. Though Americans gripe often about unwanted or dangerous illegal immigrants, they should remember that their country is, by far, the biggest source of illegally lethal visitors.
What Troy did, thousands of others have just done in Ukraine. On 3/6/22, Kiev announced that +20,000 people from 52 countries have volunteered to fight for Ukraine. Around a thousand were training in Yavoriv on 3/13/22 when 30 Russian missiles struck, killing "up to 180 foreign mercenaries," according to Moscow, or just 36 Ukrainians and no foreigners, according to Kiev. Adding to the confusion, The Mirror stated three Brits had died, and the Austrian Heute quoted a German survivor who claimed there were no survivors among the +100 foreigners in a blown apart building.
Seeing charred and mangled corpses of so many nationalities so soon after arrival, most surviving legionnaires are trying to flee Ukraine in terror, it is said, but are prevented from doing so, for they ain't done nothing yet. So far, their war experiences have consisted of some cool selfies, posted on Instagram, then, just like that, a series of pants soiling explosions, so rude, just as dawn was breaking.
Away from
bullets and bombs, Troy has returned to his solitary confinement, in a
country increasingly isolated from the rest of the world through its
serial criminality. Two days ago, Troy sent me a dark photo of a parking
lot, with two dumpsters at its edge. Since it's still winter, most
trees are barren, though there are some brown leaves on the scraggly
lawn. Behind indigo clouds, a feeble sun sinks.
"May have a chance to plant tomatoes this spring," Troy explains. "Time under the sky is where it's at."
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