individually wrapped slices

I sat behind this real popular guy in one of my high school classes and I said something funny out loud and then he turned around and said something even funnier! And I was supposed to snicker and let it go. So I politely laughed. 20 seconds later, I think about it and was like "dayum, that's super funny. I think I'm going to laugh out loud again even though the moment has clearly passed. Maybe this will be our inside joke thing or a lifelong friendship will blossom or something. Yes, I'll sign your yearbook. Remember that time in Mr. Casas class? Yeah, how could i forget?" And I laughed out again. Everyone involved in the experience has moved on. But Im just starting apparently and have got on the roller coaster [of Laughter]; I'm heading into the first loop. I stopped laughing really fast because I cannot lose my cool, right? Social suicide. I mean, popular guys talk to me all the time. I think I see a 2nd loop. OMG they just took my picture did I have a stupid face? WEEEEEEEE LAUGHING OUT LOUD WHEN EVERYONE ELSE IS LISTENING TO MR CASAS IS CRAAAAZYYY. [Why is muffling laughter SO hard? How can I laugh at the same time I'm cursing myself?! These questions still haunt me all these years later. You would think momentary self hatred could stop a giggle. False.] I ended up having to hide my head in the pit of my elbow on my desk, pretending to sleep or something. My laughter was muffled but you could tell I was still laughing because my back was moving up and down and I was still making a sound like this fucking cartoon dog.

I think the guy even turned around and was like "it was not that funny."

OMG IM LAUGHING AGAIN ABOUT THIS BRB HIDE MY HEAD IN SHAME.

I grew up conservative. But I'm finding the Republican party and, moreso, the whole finger pointing system that plagues our government extremely distasteful; it doesn't fix the problem and it creates unnecessary strife.

I'm reading Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrel and I tend to agree with the excerpt I'm about to post than disagree. I see his gripe in the manufacturing world a lot - upper management creating rules without the advice of the people closer to the product (not at my company ... but this is a well known attribute of bad management - not listening to your workforce). Upper management determines quality of the product, end of story. They can blame the guys working on the machinery and putting the materials together. And those guys make mistakes, don't get me wrong. But their mistakes are very micro. Upper management mistakes have a long reach. The guys lugging the chemicals around don't determine the type of materials they receive to make the product (power of the purse) or how they should put the materials together. And the guys with grease up to their elbows don't determine the machinery they are able to use. This is determined by upper management.

The one thing that sits wrong with the following excerpt would be the higher chance of killing civilians. And I guess that's one of the many reasons war is war. I'm sure there's an optimal middle that can be found between the safety of our military, the safety of civilians in nations of unrest, and the capture and removal of bad guys.

So here is a long excerpt from Lone Survivor.

It's been an insidious progression, the criticisms of the US Armed Forces from politicians and from the liberal media, which knows nothing of combat, nothing of our training, and nothing of the mortal dangers we face out there on the front line. Each of the six of us in that aircraft en route to Afghanistan had constantly in the back of our minds the ever-intrusive rules of engagement.

These are drawn up for us to follow by some politician sitting in some distant committee room in Washington, DC. And that's a very long way from the battlefield, where a sniper's bullet can blast your head, where the slightest mistake can cost your life, where you need to kill your enemy before he kills you.

And these ROE are very specific: we may not open fire until we are fired upon or have positively identified our enemy and have proof of his intentions. Now, that's all very gallant. But how about a group of US soldiers who have been on patrol for several days; have been fired upon; have dodged rocket-propelled grenades and homemade bombs; have sustained casualties; and who are very nearly exhausted and maybe slightly scared?

How about when a bunch of guys wearing colored towels around their heads and brandishing AK-47s come charging over the horizon straight toward you? Do you wait for them to start killing your team, or do you mow the bastards down before they get a chance to do so?

That situation might look simple in Washington, where the human rights of terrorists are often given high priority. And I am certain liberal politicians would defend their position to the death. Because every knows liberals have never been wrong about anything. You can ask them. Anytime.

However, from the standpoint of the US combat soldier, Ranger, SEAL, Green Beret, or whatever, those ROE represent a very serious conundrum. We understand we must obey them because they happen to come under the laws of the country we are sworn to serve. But they represent a danger to us....

I can say from firsthand experience that those rules of engagement cost the lives of three of the finest US Navy SEALs who have ever served....

I am hopeful that one day soon, the US government will learn that we can be trusted. We know about bad guys, what they do, and, often, who they are. The politicians have chosen to send us into battle, and that's our trade. We do what's necessary. And in my view, once those politicians have elected to send us out to do what 99.9 percent of the country would be terrified to undertake, they should get the hell out of the way and stay there.

The entire business of modern war crimes, as identified by teh liberal wings of politicas and the media, began in Iraq and has been running downhill every since. Everyone's got to have his little hands in it, blathering on about the public's right to know.

Well, in the view of most Navy SEALs, the public does not have that right to know, not if it means placing our lives in unnecessary peril because someone in WAshington is driving himself mad worying about the human rights of some cold-hearted terrorist fanatic who would kill us as soon as look at us, as wlel as any other American at whom he could point that wonky old AK of his.

...

I promise you, every insurgent, freedom fighter, and stray gunman in Iraq who we arrested knew the ropes, knew that the way out was to announce he had been tortured by the Americans, ill treated, or prevented from reading the Koran or eating his breakfast or watching the television. They all knew al-Jazeera, the Arab broadcasters, would pick it up, and it would be relayed to the USA, where the liberal media would joyfully accuse all of us of being murderers or barbarians or something. Those terrorist organizations laugh at the US media, and they know exactly how to use the system against us.

...

I am not a political person, and as a Navy SEAL I am sworn to defend my country and carry out the wishes of my commander in chief, the president of the United States, whoever he may be, Republican or Democrat. I am a patriot; I fight for the USA and for my home state of Texas [shocker]. I simply do not want to see some of the best young men in the country hesitating to join the elite branches of the US Armed Services because they're afraid they might be accused of war crimes by their own side, just for attacking the enemy.

And I know one thing for certain. If I ever rounded a mountainside in Afghanistan and came face to face with Osama bin Laden, the man who masterminded the vicious, unprovoked attack on my country, killing 2,752 innocent American civilians in New York on 9/11, I'd shoot him dead, in cold blood.

At which point, urged on by an outraged American media, the millitary would probably incarcerate me under the jail, never mind in it. And then I'd be charged with murder.

Tell you what. I'd still shoot the sonofabitch.