Terminal Lance #314 “Rock Tossing”

Can we just talk about rock tossing for a few minutes?

Rock Tossing is a favorite pastime of Marines everywhere! There’s an equation for this. If you put a Marine or two in a place with nothing to do, and there are rocks around, they will start throwing rocks.

Marines(Boredom)+Rocks=Rock Tossing

The sum is always true. You’d be surprised how many people have actually taken the time to email me and message me and ask “bro why hasn’t there been a comic about tossing rocks?” Every time I read them, I ask myself the same question.

The game itself is simple really… You pick up a rock and you throw it at something. There’s usually some kind of target. In this case, it’s a random piece of rebar (a harrowing target to say the least), but it can just as easily be a hole in a HESCO barrier or even other Marines. Usually, Rock Tossing almost always ends with Marines throwing rocks at each other. I would say you’d be surprised at how often Marines toss rocks when they’re bored, but you probably wouldn’t be, considering Marines are bored literally all the fucking time. I guess a key component to this is being bored outside, which they usually are. There’s always some stupid reason you’re sitting around outside waiting for something. You could be waiting on your buddy, you’re waiting on word from Staff Sergeant, you’re waiting because you were told to hang out at the company office until formation for some fucking reason; there’s an indefinite number of reasons this could occur.

Oh, and for those of you still reeling with the news that I had sold out to start “Staff Sergeant,” I am happy to inform you that that was an April Fool’s joke.

This might seem like a tame comic given this week’s events at Ft. Hood, but that was kind of what I was going for. I’ve already addressed the issue of public perception about violent crimes committed by service members a couple of years ago. From what I’ve read, the guy who committed the act at Ft. Hood this week was an Iraq veteran, but it was a 4 month deployment in 2011. Having absolutely no idea to the specifics of his deployment, I don’t think it’s really fair to comment on it. I was in Iraq for a second round in 2009 though, and it was anything but a kinetic warfare environment.

However, I think more to the point, his deployment history is irrelevant to what happened. It’s an unfortunate truth that the media will focus its attention on the fact that he was an Iraq veteran. The media and the people at large are quick to want to comprehend why something like this happens, in a latent attempt to prevent it from happening again.

I think it needs to be clearly understood: This man’s deployment to Iraq was not why this happened. For whatever his mental history is, there are literally thousands of good men and women that served in Iraq and Afghanistan that have not gone on shooting rampages. The narrative being spun that he is damaged goods because of his wartime experience are an injustice to all of those who are functioning admirably after such (which is most of them).

We’ve been at war for over a decade. Can we stop being afraid of veterans yet?