Marine Humor vs. Sheltered Society
A controversy has emerged about a Marine, Cpl. Joshua Belile, singing a song about killing Iraqis (watch Video here). First, you have to understand it is meant to be humorous. Yeah, it is humorous in the sense that the saying “and napalm sticks to kids” is humorous (for example, as used in a boot camp song in the movie Officer and a Gentlemen). It is humor meant to shock you, but of course the literal meaning of it is not meant to be endorsed.
Keep in mind that these are the Marines, trained as Marines to aggressively engage in combat, and they are risking their lives everyday. You have to have context when watching this video.
People trained to kill, and who are in a situations everyday where they may have to kill people or be killed themselves - well they tend to have a little different sense of humor than us sitting in our homes and offices.
These guys in the video are blowing off steam. Marines joke about killing people, having sex, and whatever other raunchy stuff that they can come up with. This kind of humor may strike many living in polite, safe, peaceful, western societies as excessively vulgar. Well get over it … or maybe you would like to get over to Iraq and go on patrol everyday. Watching a friend get blown away may bring out a little vulgarity in you too.
Personally, I thought the video was funny. It was a little shocking - but again, its some Marine groundpounders letting off steam. You have to approach it from that perspective.
Cpl. Joshua Belile has already been forced to apologize. Michelle Malkin has much more. She has all of the lyrics written out too. BTW, if you don’t know, the Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad line is from the movie Team America.
True, politically this will not go over well (in the US, in Iraq, or anywhere else). It is just too bad that someone passed on this private video of some ordinary Marines letting off steam.
