It’s possible Men’s Journal Magazine can take credit for my hairy chest.
This is totally unscientific, like everything I talk about, because I’m not a scientist. But, over the years, the magazine has made me feel more manly, and manliness must be connected to chest hairiness.
Every issue has someone jumping from a helicopter to ski, or some other feat of reckless, derring-do, manly abandon. I’m never jumping out of a helicopter to ski, mind you, but the magazine always makes me feel like I could do it. It’s the ultimate men’s magazine, minus pictures of nekkid women.
Each issue is like a hypodermic needle shooting a combo of adrenaline, testosterone and Cialis directly into your heart. I should point out: In addition to not being a scientist, I am also not a medical doctor, and ergo, do not recommend you fill a hypodermic needle full of adrenaline, testosterone and Cialis and plunge it into your heart.
Seriously. That’s probably bad.
I’m mad but don’t want to cancel ’em
But read Men’s Journal? Sure, you should do that, even though I’m mad at them. Generally speaking, “Cancel Culture” sucks, no matter what political side is doing it and pretending they don’t. I’m not going to take my songs off Spotify to force Men’s Journal to write different articles.
Still mad enough, though, to pen a strongly worded blog about it. This is the only option as they don’t make it easy to contact them.
I’m talking about the article in the February/March edition, Pages 44 to 52, called, “Bloody Duty: Was the torture and killing of a German businessman by three U.S. Army vets a gruesome hit job? Or a simple shakedown gone horribly wrong?”
It is a really good article up until the last two paragraphs.
For those not running out to buy the mag right now, here’s the summary: Thomas Schwarz, a German living in the Netherlands, owed Lukas Fecker, a Swiss businessman, a lot of money. Fecker hired an Army vet by the name of Justin Causey to collect the money, or scare Fecker into paying it, or something worse. You with me so far?
Causey reaches out to two more Army vets – Jacob Mazeika and William Johnson, a sheriff’s deputy from Mississippi. Long story short, they screwed it up — or maybe this was the plan all along — and Schwarz ends up bound, tortured, and dead. The Army vets and Fecker are in prison, awaiting trial.
Good and bad in the military
I’m still not mad at this point. Let’s be honest. Not everyone who served in the military is a hero. Some are just bad people who do bad things who certainly aren’t owed 10 percent off next time they shop at Home Depot. I’ve run into a few of those heinous types. Two of the worst, I recall, were a lieutenant colonel court-martialed for molesting little boys, and a senior airman who took a razor to slash up a tattoo artist in France because the purple tattoo she got didn’t show up well on her skin.
I’m still not mad at this point. Let’s be honest. Not everyone who served in the military is a hero, and some are just bad people who do bad things who certainly aren’t owed 10 percent off next time they shop at Home Depot. I’ve run into a few of those heinous types in my 20-year Air Force career.
The military is a microcosm of society. There are a lot of really great people who serve and have served. And sometimes, some others are just plain bad, stupid or criminal — just like we have bad, stupid and criminal types who didn’t serve in the military.
“Bloody Duty” is a great read until the author writes:
If the three were actually there to execute a hit, how could three, well-trained American servicemen with experience in personal security be so inept in covering their tracks?
Let’s get real. Just because someone served in the military, doesn’t necessarily make them well trained in anything. We hope most people are well trained and do their jobs well. Some are good; some aren’t. Just because someone deploys to Afghanistan doesn’t make them personal security pros. And, just because you were in the military, and just because you work in private security, or any job for that matter, doesn’t mean you’re good. Yet, dumb, bad people find ways to find work and get paid, regardless of their background, every day.
Saving the worst for last
The last paragraph is even worse:
Each man’s training was in military force, using aggressive action and violence to defeat an enemy, rather than the law enforcement practice of de-escalation to maintain control of a situation. All of which hoists a red flag for the thousands of companies and individuals around the world currently using U.S. military members as hired guns.
In the words of the great, 21st century philosopher, Scoop Hansen, “That just chaps my ass.”
Yes, many people in uniform are trained in how to go to war and kill the enemy. We need people like this. We sleep securely at night knowing they are out there, doing things many of us could never do or wish to do.
Then, hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of them and others in military uniform go on to lead productive lives in successful careers — be it security, law enforcement, flying airplanes, maintenance, administrative, janitorial, hospitality, or high-level executive — and thousands of other jobs in between.
Schwarz didn’t die because these were incompetent, former soldiers trained to kill the enemy. Schwarz is dead because a criminal named Fecker hired a guy to do criminal things, and the guy he hired happened to be a veteran.
The author uses an awful big brush for his paint job, assuming all who served in the military are killers and can’t be trusted to be in jobs that require security. This job likely would have gone the same way had Fecker hired another team that never served in the military.
Shame on the writer, who probably never served in the military. Shame on the Men’s Journal editors for not questioning this ending and asking for something that makes a little more sense.
