Hugely Snarky, So Fun

Woke Bitches Win Gold. MAGA Losers? Still Losers.

Cope and seethe forever.

Alysa Liu exits the ice after making history. (Screengrab: the Olympics)

God, Team USA is amazing.

“They hate to see two woke bitches winning,” said US figure skater Amber Glenn, who got death threats from America’s least important humans when she dared speak her mind about the vile regime running the United States right now.

The word I want you to keep in mind for this entire post is winning, because winning is the word that differentiates Olympians from the vile MAGA pieces of shit who have spent over a week now BITCHING and MOANING and CRYING and COMPLAINING and BELLYACHING and WHINING and WHINING and WHINING, all because a number of our finest athletes have met their Olympic moments by saying Hey, you know what? I’m proud to be here, but it’s not that easy right now to embrace everything this flag currently represents.

They’re already winners because they’re there, every one of them.

And every MAGA American is an absolute fucking loser.

Not long after I started The Moral High Ground, the Paris Olympics happened. During those games the MAGA freakout was over the absolutely wonderful opening ceremonies, which totally murdered white American conservative Christian culture by … we forget how, but we’re pretty sure they still bear the scars of that sexy-ass French opening ceremony with the heavy metal and the gender fludity and the joie de vivre. This month, these whining fucking losers have gotten their culture destroyed by Bad Bunny’s flagrant Spanish-speaking behavior at the Super Bowl, and of course by all these Olympians out here, accomplishing things and some of them not even tonguing Donald Trump’s asshole like a good little obedient Nazis!

MAGA goes into these situations already mad, if you haven’t noticed. They go into every situation already mad, because despite all the years they’ve spent bitching about cancel culture and snowflake liberals needing their safe spaces, the reality is that MAGA Americans are the softest, most pathetic clumps of human detritus ever to waste our fucking time making us listen to their grievances.

Shut Up And Sing/Dance/Skate/Ski!

It is the damnedest thing.

There is this pathological tendency among MAGA Americans to be simultaneously the least valuable players of the entire human race, yet still manage to believe everybody who does things they can’t do is on this earth solely to entertain them. That there’s some unspoken tradeoff wherein God gave all these other people musical brilliance or athletic prowess or [name skill or talent here], therefore they shouldn’t be allowed to have opinions, unless of course those opinions conform with the dominant beliefs of the … least valuable players of the entire human race.

Which they seldom do.

Because winners don’t tend to look at the world the same way losers do.

They’re not eaten up by the same fears, the xenophobia, the hatred, the resentment. They’re not susceptible to politicians who tell them to blame all their problems on people who look different from them, or who are less fortunate.

They’re too busy putting in the work, and then winning. Or putting in the work and coming in second or fourth or really fucking it up, but developing the discipline and the heart to dust themselves off, perhaps heal, and then try again. (My God, bless Lindsey Vonn’s heart.)

I said it during the last Olympics, but it bears repeating that even when MAGA culture wars manage to get close to a place of excellence, it’s remarkable how far from the actual winner’s podium they happen.

(Why is Riley Gaines one of MAGA’s athletic heroes? Because she’s a fucking loser. Maybe if she had been a stronger swimmer she could have taken a better path in life.)

(snip; Substack Note embed that didn’t)

But enough about Riley Gaines, let’s talk more about Olympians!

These Team USA athletes have shown us these past two weeks how they are heroes in their disciplines, but also a number of them by truly representing the best of the USA, speaking calmly, humbly, compassionately, bravely about what it feels like to be competing under the American flag right now, as the nation that’s often been considered the hope of the world is struggling and buckling under a white supremacist, fascist, neo-Nazi regime that seeks to destroy it.

US freestyle skier Hunter Hess said wearing the American flag doesn’t necessarily mean supporting everything that’s happening in the US right now, and that “it brings up mixed emotions.” He continued: “There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t,” and “I just think, if it aligns with my moral values I think I’m representing it.”

Another skier, Chris Lillis: “I feel heartbroken about what’s happening in the United States. I think that as a country we need to focus on respecting everybody’s rights and making sure that we are treating our citizens as well as anybody with love and respect.”

Amber Glenn: “It’s been a hard time for the [LGBTQ] community overall in this administration. It isn’t the first time that we’ve had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights.…I hope I can use my platform and my voice throughout these Games to try and encourage people to stay strong in these hard times.”

Rich Ruohonen, Minnesotan, curling team:

“First of all, I’d like to say I’m proud to be here to represent Team USA, and to represent our country,” Ruohonen began his statement. “But we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention what’s going on in Minnesota, and what a tough time it’s been for everybody. This stuff is happening right around where we live.

“I am a lawyer as you know, and we have a Constitution, and it allows us freedom of the press, freedom of speech, protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, and makes it that we have to have probable cause to be pulled over. What’s happening in Minnesota is wrong — there’s no shades of grey. It’s clear.”

You’re either with the Nazis or you’re against them. Period.

For speaking out, these Olympians, some of the real champions of this country, have been bullied, abused, received death threats. Amber Glenn has gotten it some of the worst, because MAGA trash always beats up women the hardest. She had to step off social media because of a “scary amount of hate/threats,” but even as the hate messages were rolling in — you know, while she was busy doing something worthwhile with her life — she said, “I know that a lot of people say you’re just an athlete, like, stick to your job, shut up about politics, but politics affect us all. It is something I will not just be quiet about.”

And then “They hate to see woke bitches winning,” she said on TikTok, posing with Alysa Liu and their team gold figure skating medals.

But my God, how the histrionics have flowed forth from MAGA!

The New York Post can’t fucking stop whining. Wrote their editorial board, “If you don’t want to represent your country, stay home from the Olympics. That’s the message that ungrateful athletes need to hear, after they tore into America in front of the international press.”

Ungrateful athletes. Ungrateful to whom, please, bitchass MAGA losers?

In another article, they outsourced the whining to MAGA nobodies and zeroes on the internet:

“This privileged athlete’s comments clearly show that he puts himself far above his country in this competition,” one user on X wrote. “His comments are an insult to Team USA and the spirit of the Olympics.”

“When you wear the Stars and Stripes, you represent ALL of us — not just the parts you like,” another commenter wrote.

“’Mixed emotions?’ Then stay home and let someone who loves this country shine.”

Another fumed that Hess’ “whole purpose in being there is to REPRESENT the USA,” adding that if he has mixed feelings, “there are other skiers that would love to be there.”

But other skiers didn’t make the cut, and guess who else didn’t? Literally every MAGA trash American punching out mad tweets with their diabetes fingers.

Of course, MAGA’s professional whiners, its elected politicians and pundits, have been doing everything they can to goose the culture war outrage for their little piggies.

“YOU chose to wear our flag. YOU chose to represent our country. YOU chose to compete at the @Olympics,” [Rep. Byron] Donalds (R-Fla.) wrote on X. “If that’s too hard for you, then GO HOME. Some things are bigger than politics. You just don’t get it.”

GOP Senator Rick Scott wants athletes caught expressing wrongthink to be “stripped of their USA Olympic uniform.” JD Vance said some shit but we couldn’t hear it over all the people booing him everywhere he went in Milan.

“Shut up and go play in the snow,” said GOP Rep. Tim Burchett, perhaps easily the stupidest member of Congress, at least on the House side. (Can’t definitively call him the stupidest in the whole building, not while Tommy Tuberville and Ron Johnson are still in the Senate.) He was mad about Hunter Hess’s remarks.

And of course, Stupid Hitler, 2016 election popular vote loser, 2020 total election loser, and 2024 couldn’t-even-get-50-percenter, called Hess a “total loser,” lied and said Hess said he “doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics,” and whined that he “shouldn’t have tried out for the team.”

Madame Miserable Megyn Kelly referred to Amber Glenn as “another turncoat to root against” on Twitter.

Raymond Arroyo, the little circus-cast-member-looking MAGA milquetoast who goes on Laura Ingraham to say Black guys love Trump because of how they love sneakers and mugshots, told Laura it’s “borderline treason” what Hess said. (He was also really upset that British skier Gus Kenworthy peed in the snow and spelled out “FUCK ICE.”)

Jesse Kelly: “I’m openly rooting against every one of these people. I hope they fall and embarrass themselves and come in dead last. Man, sports sucks now.” So very upset and angry.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s daughter Evita Duffy-Alonso: “I don’t know why we don’t start vetting these Olympians before they actually start to represent us overseas for their patriotism.”

Sure, Jan.

There is just no shortage of sad, whining, butthurt comments from these brokedicks, messages of hate from America’s Nothings to America’s Somethings, MAGA Cletuses and Karens whose grandchildren don’t call them on Christmas, but who yet sincerely believe they’ve got something valuable to say to our very finest Olympians. My God.

Here are two more, then I will stop giving these creeps airtime:

“I’d rather us lose with patriots, than win with traitors.”

“Hey kid, you’re not doing this Country a ‘favor’ by repping us. In fact, by doing what you’ve done… you’re NOT representing us. Take the uniform off. We don’t need ya.”

We don’t need them … for what? Do these people think they’re in some kind of relationship with America’s Olympians? Bless their hearts.

Notice, please, how these human fistulas all seem to think Olympians are there to serve them, to entertain them. All these mouthbreathers, incels and shut-ins, whining on Twitter and on Fox News that these winners refuse to represent them personally.

As if these nutsacks and walking participation trophies pounding out their messages with Cheeto dust on their scaly hands are somehow characters in our Olympians’ stories? LOL.

Here’s a cold hard truth:

They don’t represent you, MAGA, not really. Because they’re winners, and you’re fucking losers.

They’re winners, and you’re stupid, inbred cows, the absolute worst this country has to offer, the most rancid shit that ever lab-leaked out of the back entrance of God’s imagination factory while His little elves were out on a smoke break.

Sure, they technically compete under the same flag these dorks are always humping with their erections whenever that Lee Greenwood song comes on, but that’s about the extent of the connection.

Because they’re winners, and MAGA are fucking losers.

Lord, the New York Post was even forced to admit that in one of its pathetic articles, that Hess has been all over winners’ podiums at the World Cup and the X Games. That Lillis won gold in 2022 in Beijing. That Glenn is the reigning and three-time US figure skating champion.

Whining that these winners should be pulled from the team? Pffffffft. What, so some kind of 176th-place MAGA athletes can take their places? They think these woke Olympians are taking jobs MAGA would get otherwise?

Maybe Secretary Shitfaced Hegseth can teach them some of his Sit And Be Fit kettlebell swings to get their training started.

Whine whine whine whine whine whine whine. That’s all we ever hear from these people.

And to make a picky point here, but no, pedophile-loving MAGA piss troughs, these athletes don’t hate their country. They hate what these MAGA fascists are doing to their country, as they’re trying to seize permanent power and turn the United States into a shithole that only reflects MAGA’s darkest and most perverted shortcomings, and yanks us all away from the light we’re striving for. They hate MAGA’s vile, inferior vision for a United States that’s nothing but a humping blanket all their most pathetic fucking fears, weakness, grievances and hatred, and a vehicle for retribution against all those who don’t have to live that way because they aren’t total fucking losers like MAGA.

So yeah, I guess Olympians really aren’t competing for the MAGA version of America that’s drenched in the piss-stench of failure. Reckon most of ‘em are too nice to say that, though.

One final thing: As Parker Molloy notes, what these Olympians have said is actually pretty tame, comparatively, and you can really see how far the fascism has encroached comparing this year’s statements to past years under Trump. An example is 2017 Lindsey Vonn, who said “absolutely not” to the prospect of visiting Trump’s White House. What about just before these Olympics? “I’m not going to answer that question because, I’m just not going to answer it,” she said. “I want to keep my passport.” Unfortunately not a crazy thing to say.

I am of course sure MAGA is thrilled at how these Olympics have gone for Vonn.

That said, I do think it’s swinging back the other direction. I think six months ago, nine months ago, these athletes might not even have said the things they’ve said. But then ICE started cold-blooded murdering Americans in the streets and building concentration camps and the Epstein Files just kept leaking out and the fascists are trying to ban James Talarico from saying words on Stephen Colbert, and, and, and.

People are fucking pissed. And I think decent Americans have gotten their groove back, and are much more full of the sense these days that we are going to win.

Speaking of winning:

And Then Last Night!

If you saw the women’s free skate on Thursday, you already know. If you didn’t, LA LA LA LA LA SPOILERS.

After one painfully unfortunate mistake in Amber Glenn’s short program — which waddling MAGA spectators also celebrated — she was pretty much out of medal contention in 13th place, but came back to have the free skate of her absolute life, and climbed all the way to fifth in the final standings.

And then it was Alysa Liu’s turn. She was third after the short program, but she just … did something incredible. She skated to “MacArthur Park,” and she just floated and bounced across that ice like she didn’t have a care in the world. She was flawless. You knew you were seeing something special, the way the commentators just shut. up.

More than anything it was so fun. This woman, my God she is cool.

“THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT!” Liu shouted as she came off the ice. [It has been pointed out in the comments that she actually said “That’s what I’m FUCKIN’ talking about!” and that it was censored in subsequent broadcasts. This makes Liu even cooler. – Ed.] She won the US’s first women’s individual figure skating medal since 2006, the first American gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002.

Two winners.

Oh yeah, and again, the American skaters won the team gold. Which includes Amber Glenn.

“They hate to see two woke bitches winning.”

Fuck yes they do.

Cope forever, losers.

“Before Trump’s efforts to make kids healthier, there was Michelle Obama”

Aug 13, 2025 Barbara Rodriguez

This story was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

At an elementary school in Washington, D.C., the speaker at the podium wanted to talk about children’s health and the impact of childhood obesity.

“Our generation is facing so many devastating health problems because of how we live and how we eat — illnesses like diabetes and heart disease and cancer — that cause so much suffering and cost our economy billions,” the speaker said. “And today, we need to ask ourselves: Are we going to hand down these problems to our next generation? Or are we going to do what we’ve always done in this country and leave something better for our children and our grandchildren?”

Someone could mistake these words as being spoken in 2025 by a Trump administration official advocating to “Make America Healthy Again” — the catch-all agenda that has zeroed in on kids’ health and in particular, chronic disease and childhood obesity.

But the remarks were from then-first lady Michelle Obama, and the year was 2013.

Obama was promoting “Let’s Move!,” her initiative aimed at improving children’s nutrition at home and school and encouraging them to exercise more. The initiative is credited with making improvements to school lunch standards, creating more transparency in food labeling and bringing more awareness to childhood obesity.

But the first lady drew widespread partisan backlash for her efforts, as right-wing media personalities and Republicans vehemently criticized related regulation as government overreach. They have been more muted as the Trump administration, led in part by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now adopts similar messaging about children’s health.

“I do think that there’s a double standard going on, especially with RFK Jr.,” said Sydney Carr-Glenn, a political science professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts who studies the intersectionality of race and gender for Black women in politics, including in the media. “People seem to be a little bit more accepting or a little bit more on board with this whole ‘Make America Healthy Again’ initiative.”

Last month, President Donald Trump announced he would revive the presidential fitness test, a once ubiquitous staple of school gym class. Just a few years ago, Let’s Move! offered programming to educators to encourage physical activity at school for at least 60 minutes each day.

President Donald Trump stands, flanked by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, golfer Bryson DeChambeau, WWE CCO Triple H and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after signing an executive order restarting the Presidential Fitness Test. — President Donald Trump stands, flanked by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, golfer Bryson DeChambeau, WWE CCO Triple H and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after signing an executive order restarting the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 31, 2025. (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

In some ways, Michelle Obama’s health policy efforts walked so MAHA could run. But you won’t find many Republicans acknowledging that.

“We live in such polarized times now that you would think the Trump administration would look at the things that Michelle Obama achieved and maybe try to build upon that,” said Sharon Wright Austin, a political science professor at the University of Florida. “But there is no collaboration. There are no coalitions. I’m sure if you were to say to Trump, ‘You’re doing the same thing that Michelle Obama originally started doing when Barack Obama was president,’ he would probably not only deny it, but he probably would be pretty offended.”

Obama’s motivation to launch Let’s Move!, the first lady explained, was rooted in her experience as a working mother trying to feed her kids nutritious food. The self-described “mom-in-chief” recognized that if she struggled with what to feed her children, other families with fewer resources might, too.

Within months of moving into the White House, the first lady started a vegetable garden to help teach children about locally grown food and to start a conversation about their health. She launched “Let’s Move” in early 2010, and her husband issued a directive to establish a task force on childhood obesity. Michelle Obama was present months later when the task force released a report assessing how to reduce childhood obesity within a generation. It included roughly 70 voluntary recommendations.

First Lady Michelle Obama and White House Chefs join children from Bancroft and Tubman Elementary Schools to harvest vegetables. — First Lady Michelle Obama and White House Chefs join children from Bancroft and Tubman Elementary Schools to harvest vegetables during the third annual White House Kitchen Garden fall harvest on the South Lawn, on October 5, 2011. (Chuck Kennedy/The White House)

Zinga A. Fraser studies African American history and gender politics as an associate professor at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She noted that while Obama’s nutrition plans worked within a domesticated and gendered framework, her garden and health initiative was also part of a long history of Black women taking care of their communities through food sustainability.

“She understood what being a Black woman in that space looked like,” Fraser said of Obama’s role as first lady. “How she had to navigate and what it would be perceived as.”

Let’s Move! had several areas of focus: providing information to families about healthy food, improving the quality of food in schools, expanding access and affordability of healthy foods in communities, and increasing physical activity for children.

The first lady sought buy-in from key stakeholders early on. The American Beverage Association, a government lobbying group representing soft-drink makers, committed immediately to member companies voluntarily putting front-of-pack calorie labels on cans, bottles and vending machines within two years. Food service companies that operated in schools pledged to reduce the amount of fat, sugar and salt they put in kids’ meals over the next five years.

It’s the kind of voluntary industry action that Kennedy is touting 15 years later as he seeks voluntary commitments to remove certain dyes from the food supply and to switch the kind of oil that fast food chains use for cooking.

But the first lady was also politically savvy in broadening her initiative’s appeal to the general public. She danced on “The Ellen Degeneres Show” and did “mom dancing” on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon. She released a “focus group” video with kids that featured comedian Will Ferrell. She shared a fitness video of herself working out. She appeared with members of the Miami Heat, including dunking a ball with LeBron James.

“She was strategic,” said Fraser, who is also director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women’s Activism. “She strategically used her positionality in many ways to move a needle, whether people saw it as influential or important at the time or not.”

It didn’t seem that Michelle Obama was entering controversial politics at first. She had settled on an area of public interest — children’s wellness — that was politically viable for a first lady, said Laurel Elder, a political science professor at Hartwick College in New York who has researched public opinion about presidential candidates and their spouses. There had already been a history of first ladies with projects like an anti-drug campaign and expanding literacy.

Elder noted that Obama was promoting a form of “new traditionalism” in the role of first lady.

“[The public] wants them to be traditional, but also the ‘new’ part is they really do have an expectation that the first lady should be out there and visible and should be leading campaigns in appropriate areas,” she said.

But as regulation policy emerged, so did the criticism. A child nutrition law passed at the end of 2010 included a phase-in of new federal school nutrition standards for milk, whole grains and sodium. The narrative that emerged was that the government was telling people what health choices to make.

“Your America is turning into a nanny state thanks to the Obama administration’s efforts to rein in the junk food industry,” said Sean Hannity on Fox News in 2010.

Glenn Beck, also on Fox News, described Michelle Obama’s efforts in 2010 as the beginning of efforts to police people for not eating healthier.

“You’re going to have to tax, you’re going to have to make it more and more difficult. But when those options don’t work, how do you get people to stop eating french fries, because french fries still beat carrots. What’s left? Well, now you have to start thinking about punishments — maybe a fine, maybe even jail. But it always starts with a nudge,” he said.

Even some Democrats criticized the Obama administration, arguing it didn’t go far enough to hold the food industry accountable to proposed changes.

In 2013, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin sipped a large soda during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC. She was responding to a proposed ban of large sodas by then New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but the stunt became part of a larger commentary on the government’s role in people’s health choices.

Sarah Palin holds up a large soda as she speaks about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed large soda ban, at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference. — Sarah Palin holds up a large soda as she speaks about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed large soda ban, at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference, on March 16, 2013, in National Harbor, Maryland. (Pete Marovich/Getty Images)

In 2014, Republicans in Congress sought exemptions to the 2010 school lunches law amid backing from a powerful school lunch industry group that expressed concern over implementation and costs. Michelle Obama pushed back in a New York Times op-ed. (In 2018 under the first Trump administration, the agriculture department sought to revert the new standards. It was challenged in court.)

A MAHA commission released a report this spring for addressing “the childhood chronic disease crisis.” Among its future policy focus will be poor diet, the “aggregation of environmental chemicals,” a lack of physical activity and chronic stress, and “overmedicalization.”

Kennedy told Fox News host Laura Ingraham earlier this year that while he didn’t want to take away “choice” from people, he believed in making changes to food assistance programs and school lunches. Several Republican-led states have recently begun restricting whether people on food assistance programs can buy processed foods and soda.

“We shouldn’t be subsidizing people to eat poison,” said Kennedy, who has separately started promoting that people should track their health metrics via “wearable” technology.

Kennedy’s MAHA initiative comes as the Trump administration cuts federal food assistance, key financial support for Medicaid and reduces environmental protections.

“You can’t cut benefits — Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP benefits, all of those things — to children and families and then still have an initiative where people are saying that they are about creating healthy environments for Americans,” Fraser said.

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a history professor at The New School in New York City, noted that when Beyoncé shot a related music video for the Let’s Move! initiative in 2011, she surrounded herself with young children dancing in a school cafeteria. It was common imagery for the first lady as well, as Michelle Obama swayed with kids to get them excited about nutrition and health. Trump’s recent announcement about the presidential fitness test featured former WWE wrestler and current Chief Content Officer Triple H doing a signature water spit at the White House.

First Lady Michelle Obama exercises with students and Olympic athletes during a Let's Move event. — First Lady Michelle Obama exercises with students and Olympic athletes during a “Let’s Move” event at the River Terrace Elementary School in Washington, D.C., on April 21, 2010. (Samantha Appleton/The White House)

“To me, that arc kind of says a lot about what’s changed in our wellness and fitness environment,” said Petrzela, who is author of “Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession.” “That now there’s this highly individualistic, ‘strong man’ approach to things, and I think, even more interestingly, it’s tied to that anti-institutional critique, which used to be coded as really left, and in the intervening years, has become, almost completely seen as right wing.”

Austin at the University of Florida said that while Michelle Obama has never been an elected official, she held immense power in her role as first lady and left the White House with high polling. Austin believes the first lady balanced the political challenges of intersectional identities, and her mission to help children continues to resonate 15 years later — even though the messengers have changed.

“It just goes to show that as a Black woman, you’re never going to get the respect that you deserve,” she said.

Someone who gets the most from his body and is prepared for an attack

One Hundred (100) Minutes …

Please remember when you read what I write, I never went through Army basic. I was a former US Navy, so showed up at my first army post with no uniform. It freaked the low level E4 – E5s out, they were demanding I change into a uniform I did not have.

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Hi Ten Bears. I reblog this not only because it is impressive and the fact is a lot of it I couldn’t do at 20 and in the US Army. Just being honest. My job valued our technical skills not the physical aspect of military life. In the one live action three day drill with laser tag gear in the early 1980s where our people in our satellite compound were included we happily dressed up in face paint (mixed with face cream for easy removal) listened carefully, and that morning took up our assigned places. We quickly grew bored but diligently shot at any enemy we saw. We were proud defenders of our installation from the evil USSR.

Early in the afternoon our upper ranks pulled us in. Told us to clean up and there would be a meeting in the morning. Excited about the meeting we all gather in the morning looking for our gear, our faces and hands again well coated with face cream colored camo. We did not find our laser tag stuff, no vests, nothing to place on our M16s. Then the meeting started and we all felt shitty. We no longer would be part of the drill. The infantry base that was assigned to protect us would do so without our help. A lot of barely out of our teens boys clamored to know why, we had fun even if it was very boring.

Turns out that the reason they pulled us in the afternoon before was in our eagerness to protect our site and play soldier … which we all knew we were not. To be continued …

(side note during one of the yearly common task training we all had to pass one thing was to recognize which tank was from which enemy. I couldn’t do a single one. My answer was always the same. “I don’t know which country it is from but I am sure as hell not going to shoot at it with an M16 and piss the fucker off” I passed the test with 100%. Also during that testing was a requirement to open and correctly orient, sight the target, and then press the correct buttons to then fire a LAWS rocket.

When it was my turn I proudly took my 117 pounds up to the table, took the law dummy, stepped up to the mark and tried to pull it open which would slide the two halves into the fully opened locked position. I struggled for a few times until the training officer stopped me, took the training tool, turned it around to the proper direction showing me the markings. Ok I felt a bit foolish but determined now to ace the test. I yanked on both sides and nothing happened. I did it again. Then I tried doing it by jumping up in the air to use the momentum to help. It did not. After about three minutes and in frustration I put the thing between my legs to try to pull it open. At that point Sergeant Emory rushed to me and took the training tool, opened it up and positioned it on my shoulder. I sighted it like a pro and pressed the correct buttons plus trigger and registered a direct hit with the system. I passed. I was an Army soldier on the books.

One last note on that training. The old timers in the unit told us many tips like the face cream for the face paint, but the never addressed the placement of stuff on our waist belts. The shoulder belts did have special places for things, but the waist belt was not defined. I was so small that by the time I got everything I was to have on the belt, I had no place for the canteen … So I placed my full of water very regulation hard canteen right in front of my body. Yes follow the body line.

The drill required us to run and zigzag then when ordered drop and cover ourselves. I proudly started my run, hell one thing I had going for me was I was fast, I zigged, I zagged, and then the command was bellowed to drop and cover. Very much into the moment of playing army … Remember I never went through Army Basic Training … I dropped full on my belly … and nearly lost my mind and consciousness. Only the fact of my abusive past allowed me to roll desperately sideways, clawing desperately at a place some lower than my waist. For those that still can not picture what happened let me explain.

My canteen was hanging directly down in my front. Think of what is in the front of a boy / guy that landing on a hard object at a full run dive might be the resulting impact point. Yes my very sensitive testicles took the impact of my full 117 body weight fully on my regulation hard canteen. I couldn’t breathe, I rolled, I staggered to my knees, then fell again, then I struggled to me feet, staggered a few steps and collapsed into a fetal tight posture. I lost the world.

When I woke up I was in the hospital, I was told that Sergeant Emory had rushed to me and tried to open my posture and then realized what happened. I did not suffer any lasting effects except for some reason I never had to do common task testing again while in the unit. Every time they came up someone was needed to be at the site and somehow the schedule always had me pulling shift leader. But I always passed.)

Now to the reason we were pulled from and stopped from being part of the three day drill. As I said we took defensive positions inside our fenced in satellite site and even when bored we shot any enemy we could see. The problem was the first day the program did not introduce the enemy yet. The people we proudly lined up on with our tag system M16s were our very own defenders from the nearby infantry base.

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So that is why I admire Ten Bears and his program of personal health, exercise, and being ready for those that might attack him. My body long ago gave out with decaying bones, nerves fraying and shorting / dying, my spine doing 5 different ways of causing me pain and the lack of ability to keep standing when my legs go out under me suddenly, the broken bones of childhood refused to heal properly. I admit I admire him, I wish I could do the same. And on that point, one more last thing for a long post.

In the last year I went from not being able to walk 8 car lengths and back to and from our mailbox to now my daily walk I do most days is 2.08 miles. I bought a small hand weight system, the max is 11 pounds on one hand bar and there are two bars. The weights come in 1 pound units and can be placed together with the handle being 3 pounds. I started out using two 1 pound weights hooked together for arm and what my different shoulders can do with the torn / ripped apart muscles in my shoulders. I am now up to using the 3 pound handle for arm stuff, including triceps. I still can not use that weight on my shoulders and can not use any weight on my left shoulder that I need / have an MRI order for.

The entire point is I agree with Ten Bears. Things are going to get bad. We who are not on the maga side need to do all we can to protect ourselves. Those of us LGBTQ+ need to do all we can to protect ourselves and each other. Look the person that did that bombing was a native born Army vet, yet the right wing media including fox entertainment is still claiming it was an immigrant. They have long blamed the LGBT+ for all social ills, and the last three years attacked every drag queen story hours claiming they were saving kids. What will they do or manufacture now? Hugs