Entry # 57: June 29, 2006

Camp Buehring, Kuwait (Somewhere near the Iraq border)

I’ve got the room to myself. Shawn has headed out for his leave. Before he even got on the plane, he’d called me twice. The first time was to see how the day went and if we all missed him yet. I told him I had forgotten he was leaving. The second was to tell me about the Cuban cigars he had just bought at the airport. Calmly, I told him just where he could stick those cigars. Damn Yankee.

As many of y’all know or have found out by reading my entries here, I’m not a big fan of Yankees. I know it’s a real cliché for a Southern boy like me to say that, but I don’t. Where does this inner ire come from? Well, I’m tired of being put down just because of where I come from. Yankees are regional racists. Even in the Army in dealing with fellow officers and Soldiers, whenever they find out I’m from the South and they’re from up north or, just as bad, California, I get this little smirk and I can hear their inner voices squealing “redneck”. I’ve rambled on before about the term redneck, but I’ll say it one more time. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

I don’t have many Yankee friends. It’s probably because they can’t take me. I am notorious for my outspoken affection of my beloved South. In all my travels, I have discovered that when people think of Americans, they think of Yankees. Loud, obnoxious, brash, and stuck-up. When I studied in England, I played soccer on the university team. Once my teammates discovered I was from across the pond, they began calling me Yank. That lasted about two minutes. I had to explain the difference to them in their terms. For example, you never called a Scotsman a Brit. Technically, Scots are Brits. Scotland is a part of the island of Britain. But if you call a Scotsman a Brit, you’re liable to get a Claymore sword shoved up your posterior. Same with Southerners and Yankees. I guess technically we’re all Yankees, but you call a Southerner a Yank, you’re liable to be staring at the business end of a gun.

I guess it’s fitting that Shawn is the ultimate Yankee. He’s from New York, right outside “The City” as he refers to NYC, as if no other cities existed in the world. His favorite baseball team is, yup, you guessed it, the Yankees. I like the Dukes of Hazzard, he watches endless episodes of Seinfeld. Somehow, we’re friends. We are yin and yang. I think he’s yang. And so the Soldier’s life continues…