Intro:
I joined the Army in the middle of 2005. I was 19 years old and a half-stoner type kid with no real drive. At the time I considered myself intelligent and thoughtful (little did I know how arrogant these thoughts were.) As arrogant as I was, my opinions towards gays were indifferent and not something I gave any thought towards.
wtf.
I was pissed off. I had been ****ed with for the past month straight for voicing my opinions and trying to tell people who outranked me they were wrong. In response to my "insubordination", they did little punishments to me. One was taking away the ability to read Maxim. At the time Maxim seemed funny and original... e.g. my sergeant would read portions off all the time and our squad would laugh. I was so bored that I don't know if it really was that funny. It was the only form of pop culture we had though.
In order to add on my punishment, they told me to read Field Manuals (FM's) instead. These were long, boring, factually written manuals concerning weapons, equipment, and tactics. They were about as mentally stimulating as the cardboard shack I found myself sitting in. I came to the realization that I really hated things about the Army. It was a weird time for me.
In the late evening of my 24 hour shift, I was granted the ability to walk over to the hajji shop. They sold everything from hookahs to sabers. I was there to pick up a few pirated movies that we could watch on shift. My first decision was easy. I found a James Bond flick I hadn't seen yet. The one with that black girl who showed her **** in that ****ty movie by the matrix brothers. Since I got to choose, I loved grabbing the ones labeled "sundance winner". They always stumped the people I watched them with (which was funny) and were quality DVD rips.
After picking it solely for it's sundance merit, I looked at the two main actors. It was Jake Gyllenhal and Heath Ledger. I knew Gyllenhal from "Jarhead" and Ledger from that "knight movie" I remembered only because it had "Queen" playing in the background. I thought this was playing it safe. I paid and left.
I walked back to the shack and handed off my movies. They immediately started calling me ******. I had no idea as to what could warrant the almost instantaneous harrassment. As it turns out, Maxim writer's had a field day writing jokes on this movie. For the next 30 minutes until radio guard shift I was made fun of... At this point I recognized that this was the movie that was gay as hell and made fun of all the time in Maxim. I thought, "god damnit...", since there was nothing I could do in my defense.
On radio guard I was in the back room listening to the battalion radio net and could still hear the rest of the shack. Forty-five minutes into my shift I suddenly heard the black kid screaming at the top of his lungs. It's so incredibly high pitched that it felt as if it was piercing my eardrums. I can hear others as well but he drowns them out. Upon inspection and to my amazement I see that they are all watching Brokeback. Not just one or two of them. All of them... even guys who were off shift. I immediately turned around and went back to shift trying to process what I had just seen.
They watched it all the way through. In the end, I still haven't seen it. This didn't stop them from calling me a *** for the next few weeks. To this day they will give me **** over it. Yet when they had a chance to watch the gayest movie of all time, even KNOWING what it was, they did.
I joined the Army in the middle of 2005. I was 19 years old and a half-stoner type kid with no real drive. At the time I considered myself intelligent and thoughtful (little did I know how arrogant these thoughts were.) As arrogant as I was, my opinions towards gays were indifferent and not something I gave any thought towards.
wtf.
I was pissed off. I had been ****ed with for the past month straight for voicing my opinions and trying to tell people who outranked me they were wrong. In response to my "insubordination", they did little punishments to me. One was taking away the ability to read Maxim. At the time Maxim seemed funny and original... e.g. my sergeant would read portions off all the time and our squad would laugh. I was so bored that I don't know if it really was that funny. It was the only form of pop culture we had though.
In order to add on my punishment, they told me to read Field Manuals (FM's) instead. These were long, boring, factually written manuals concerning weapons, equipment, and tactics. They were about as mentally stimulating as the cardboard shack I found myself sitting in. I came to the realization that I really hated things about the Army. It was a weird time for me.
In the late evening of my 24 hour shift, I was granted the ability to walk over to the hajji shop. They sold everything from hookahs to sabers. I was there to pick up a few pirated movies that we could watch on shift. My first decision was easy. I found a James Bond flick I hadn't seen yet. The one with that black girl who showed her **** in that ****ty movie by the matrix brothers. Since I got to choose, I loved grabbing the ones labeled "sundance winner". They always stumped the people I watched them with (which was funny) and were quality DVD rips.
After picking it solely for it's sundance merit, I looked at the two main actors. It was Jake Gyllenhal and Heath Ledger. I knew Gyllenhal from "Jarhead" and Ledger from that "knight movie" I remembered only because it had "Queen" playing in the background. I thought this was playing it safe. I paid and left.
I walked back to the shack and handed off my movies. They immediately started calling me ******. I had no idea as to what could warrant the almost instantaneous harrassment. As it turns out, Maxim writer's had a field day writing jokes on this movie. For the next 30 minutes until radio guard shift I was made fun of... At this point I recognized that this was the movie that was gay as hell and made fun of all the time in Maxim. I thought, "god damnit...", since there was nothing I could do in my defense.
On radio guard I was in the back room listening to the battalion radio net and could still hear the rest of the shack. Forty-five minutes into my shift I suddenly heard the black kid screaming at the top of his lungs. It's so incredibly high pitched that it felt as if it was piercing my eardrums. I can hear others as well but he drowns them out. Upon inspection and to my amazement I see that they are all watching Brokeback. Not just one or two of them. All of them... even guys who were off shift. I immediately turned around and went back to shift trying to process what I had just seen.
They watched it all the way through. In the end, I still haven't seen it. This didn't stop them from calling me a *** for the next few weeks. To this day they will give me **** over it. Yet when they had a chance to watch the gayest movie of all time, even KNOWING what it was, they did.
Originally Posted by FastGamerr
I'm guessing thats what puts you a notch further along the schoolyard gayness measuring stick.