Holding Manhoods Cheap

The news hit the airwaves immediately. Fox News ran a two-hour special on verified claims of mass murder by the Russians on Palacio. Newspapers, TV channels and other media were soon in turn flooded with images of the massacres, the bullet-riddled bodies of brave natives - and for once, Americans weren't the bad guys. Bloggers everywhere rose up in outrage. The streets filled with demonstrators, demanding vengeance and retribution. And some of these even protested Russia's actions.

"Putin could keep his atrocities hidden in his backyard," one blogger wrote, "but bringing them to our doorstep is asking for it. Time to smoke the Russkies!"

And all the while, Groggy Dundee looked on and smiled, knowing he'd soon have his regiment. All he had to do now was send out a call for volunteers.

And thus was born the 1st United States Volunteer Regiment.

* * *

MARCH 27TH
12:38 PM
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
PITTSBURGH, PA

They gathered in a corner of Market Central, determined on a plan of action. These bright young scholars were in between classes, but they had more important things on their minds than Intro to Logic or How to Type 1. Higher things, like patriotism and war and glory.

Charlie spoke up first. He was a tall, handsome young man of about 20, theatrically inclined - he was in fact a drama student, and thus earned the occasional ire of his colleagues for his incessant quoting of Shakespeare and Shaw. A young bearded student, Kyle, and his girlfriend Susie sat next to him. Also at the table were other students - Steven, Elizabeth, Dan and Terry. Most of them were friends, or at least acquaintances of, Groggy Dundee.

"It is wonderful that at least we have a real war," Charlie said eloquently, "not stained with the droppings of imperialism and lies but one with a just cause and a real sentiment."

"Do you think Groggy will allow us to join his regiment?" Kyle asked.

"He's taking all comers, haven't you heard?" came the answer.

"Even girls?" Susie asked.

"Even girls," Charlie affirmed, smiling at her.

"I don't think I'm much keen on the idea of war," Steven said. "I would have joined the Army long ago if I wanted to die for my country."

"But you'll be dying for President Obama, and for freedom!" Charlie said persuasively.

"That prick Putin wants to start World War III," Dan added. "Re-establishing the Soviet Union isn't a prospect I'm particularly fond of. And he's starting it."

"And the humanitarian justification for the war screams from the front page, gentlemen!" Charlie said melodramatically. "Look at these atrocities! It is our duty as young men - er, and women - of the world to put right the wrongs, to lead the world and to shape it. Enough cheap talk, enough food drives and rock concerts! Time for action!"

"Well, I'm in," Elizabeth said curtly, smiling. "I'll have to see about my boyfriend, though."

"I've got a D- this term in Calculus," Terry said. "What the hell?"

Kyle and Susie nodded their assent, but held hands somewhat .

Charlie dramatically stood on the table. "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers!" he recited, holding a glass of Diet Pepsi into the air. Instead of continuing into the hackneyed and overexposed words of Shakespeare, he launched into a decidedly different citation:

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.
The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling
which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight,
nothing which is more important than his own personal safety,
is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free
unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

"Hear hear!" his friends all stood, holding their glasses in the air like knights of old, pledging allegiance to the zeal of patriotic glory.

The tableau was broken as a freshman slipped on a banana peel in the background, falling face-first into a tray of mashed potatoes. But the starry-eyed scholar-patriots paid him no mind and they drunk to their own oblivion.

* * *

Others were less eloquent in their volunteering. When word reached the Kansas home of Richard "Chill" Scotsdale of war, he looked around at his messy home, his fat, drunken wife asleep on the couch, his delinquent children running all over the house, and jumped in his tractor, driving down to a recruiting station and signing up.

Miles Truelove, ordinarily a pacifist, was disgusted by the idea of war. He had, after all, voted for Obama specifically to avert a catastrophe on this scale - well, at least under a Republican's leadership. But when his laptop crashed and his Internet connection was severed, he realized he had nothing better to do, and decided what the hell, why not sign up? At the very least he could be a thorn in the hawk's side. For his troubles, he was commissioned a Corporal.

A man emerged from his Cellar Door in Utah and went over the recruiting station, bringing a large machette with him, eager to join the cause. He was arrested on the spot, and as soon as he was let out, he returned. This time, he was accepted.

Tom Overtsar heard of the war and joined the fray. Assuming because of his name he would be given a superior rank, he was disappointed when commissioned as a buck Private. His friend Gordon Sumner gloated when he was made a Private First Class, and the two got into a violent fistfight that was only broken up by the intervention of a half dozen MPs.

Old Paul, a veteran of Vietnam and multi-lingual dilettante, was at the firing range testing out his gun collection - a collection of pistols dating from antiquity to the present - when he heard of the atrocities and the call for war - well, received word, as he was almost deaf and wearing ear muffs. But the tap on the shoulder and the sight of a friend's newspaper was all he needed to know. He marched down to the nearest station carrying all of his weapons with him. Needless to say, he too was arrested, but then allowed and commissioned a 1st Lieutenant immediately afterwards.

Sven Celeton, a Finnish immigrant, and a prickly old seaman named Whalestoe, decided to join the expedition for lack of anything better to do.

As did hundreds of others from all over the nation. Soon, Colonel Dundee had hundreds of recruits swarming over. And before he knew it, he would have many others - men from every conceivable background, belief, race, gender, even nationality. His regiment was truly a polyglot creation, his janissaries recruited from every possible walk of life, all the far-flung corners of the nation and the globe. He couldn't have been more pleased by the turn-out, and couldn't wait to lead his men into battle.

War fever had swept the country, uniting it in a fashion the country hadn't known since the dark days immediately after 9/11. Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Klansmen and Communists, Americans and non-Americans, all rushed down to the recruiting station to volunteer their services to the Cause. Not all were assigned to the 1st Volunteer Regiment, nor would many of them see combat - but all were united in a common cause, regardless of motive or reason for joining.