Free Marc Watercus

The Army tried to send this guy Marc Hall aka Marc Watercus back to Iraq, after he'd already fulfilled his commit to them, under their bullshit stop-loss policy, so he did the only reasonable thing to do in that situation: he wrote a song about killing his superiors in the military and mailed it to the Pentagon. Now he's in jail awaiting trial for violating the Universal Code of Military Justice. What the fuck kind of bullshit is that?

Cliick here to read all about it and listen to the song, which is fire btw.

A couple of things:

1) It's generally my policy not to feel sorry for people who were dumb enough to join the military in the first place.

I could see if he was trying to get some money to go to college, like they say in those commercials, and he fucked around and ended up having to go to war, but this guy only joined the Army like four years. The Iraq War had already begun by the time I graduated from college, and I graduated from college way more than four years ago. (Yikes!)  So obviously he's not against the war per se. I wonder if he was one of those people who thought they were over there to avenge 9/11, or if he just couldn't get a job. The fact that he's black would suggest to me that it wasn't the former (fuck this country), in which case he should have looked into a career selling drugs. Seriously, if your options are down to joining the military or selling drugs, you need to holler at papi about copping a brick. It's arguably the morally superior choice of the two, and it might be the safest. I know plenty of people who used to sell drugs four years ago (whom I met by accident, of course) who haven't been caught yet, let alone killed.

2) Iraq might be the best place for this guy.

The fact that the Army has yet to drop this guy like a bad habit lets me know they must realize this. If you notice, they've got him locked in the pokey, awaiting trial, but they haven't said shit about kicking him out of the military. If this was 10 years ago, they probably would have kicked him out first and then arrested him. I used to work with guys who joined the military right out of high school, did something stupid and ended up getting kicked out. Yeah, they were working in fast food, and probably still are, but I bet those motherfuckers were popping bottles of J. Roget when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq started and they weren't going, just the kids dumb enough to actually follow orders. I'm surprised the New York Times or somebody never thought to do a trend piece on them. It's probably because no one in the New York Times building is unfortunate enough to come into contact with people like that. Maybe with all of these layoffs we'll start to see more stories that take place in the world I inhabit. Another trend that needs to be documented? The Army purposely sending crazy people to Iraq and Afghanistan. You think they didn't realize that guy Nidal Hasan was crazy as cat shit? That's probably why they were trying to send him back over there. Imagine the damage he could have done. And I'm assuming that's why they want to send Marc Hall back over there. If he's crazy enough to write a song about killing members of the military and mail it to the Pentagon, he might be an even more effective soldier now than he had been. I'm not saying they should send him back to Iraq. I'm just saying. I'd rather have him there than out walking the streets here in the US. I don't look altogether different from that 19th hijacker guy. He might see me walking down the street, on my way to get a burrito, and try to put me in a kung fu grip.

Having said that, it's obvious to me that this guy is a political prisoner. The military didn't toss him in jail because they're afraid he might shoot up an Army base, like Nidal Hassan. Black people don't do shit like that, white people and Arabs do shit like that. No, they locked him up because they don't want people to find out the truth about this stop-loss bullshit. Which sounds to me like the new slavery. Who ever heard of some shit where the Army can hold you indefinitely, regardless of your contract? Didn't there used to be a saying, a contract is a contract? It's too bad Johnny Cochran isn't alive. He could have ended the Iraq War back in like '06. No but really, stop-loss sounds like it may have been purposely designed to keep black men mired in something along the lines of slavery, but not slavery per se. Just like the prison-industrial complex. Except, at least you get to do something bad (that you actually wanted to do) before you go to prison. You can get stuck in the Army just for being stupid. And of course there's a race element. The dead giveaway is at the end of the song, when we learn that the Army is the only branch of the military that even has stop-loss. And we know that the Army is the branch that a lot of black people join, because they aren't smart enough to join any of the other branches. No Jimmy the Greek. I remember when I was in high school, a friend of mine, who was probably the wimpiest guy I knew, explained to me how he was allowed to join the Marines as an officer, because he'd done well on some test, and most people who join the military are as dumb as a box of rocks. How much do you want to bet he never came anywhere near combat? Whereas this guy Marc Hall was probably dodging bullets the entire time he was there. That's probably the main reason doesn't want to go back. It's not like he's got a job lined up. But that career as a drug dealer is probably starting to look more and more tempting.