In the Heart of the Heart of Hypothetical Combat Scenarios

By Scott B. 



How does this piece fit in with the OYIT Guide To Summer? It’s a direct consequence of being trapped inside of a climate-controlled corporate office building. Avoiding the heat doesn’t necessarily mean avoiding crypto-fascism. Or Strangeness.

The scene begins with my trainee, an older Israeli veteran with a penchant for laying vague and circuitous nuggets of wisdom about the evils of Islam down on your brain stem. I call these arguments “OK…but let me blow your mind for a second”. After they’ve been expressed, you can usually find yourself staring back into an empty moon-face waiting for you to admit how blown your mind is and how your life will never be the same after experiencing the counter-intuitive raw naked truth of whatever racist/sexist/cliché/banal/embarrassingly conspiratorial stand that has just been taken.

Guy: Say that you’re on guard at night.

Me: OK

Guy: And you hear someone coming.

Me: I see someone coming.

Guy: No, no…you can’t see them.

Me: Why not?

Guy: It’s night!

Me: It’s the United States Army, I don’t operate at night without night vision goggles.

Guy: No, because then I could just shine a flashlight at you and blind you.

Me: That’s why you always keep one eye closed at night.

Guy: Hm…

Me: Seriously.

Guy: OK, you don’t have night vision…

Me: Fine…

Guy: What do you say to the guy coming?

Me: Stop.

Guy: OK, and then?

Me: Identify yourself?

Guy: No, you ask for a password.

Me: Ok.

Guy: He doesn’t know the password. What do you do now?

Me: I tell him to get on the fucking ground and put his hands behind his head. Then I call it up to higher for guidance.

Guy: No…he could be one of you guys.

Me: ? So…?

Guy: You would quiz him!

Me: No…

Guy: Yes! You would ask him a quiz to decide if he was an enemy or not.

Me: No, I wouldn’t quiz him. But to help you get to your point, say I quiz him.

Guy: What do you ask him?

Me: Something really specific that only someone working on the base would know. What’s your unit and commanding officer…

Guy: No.

Me: OK.

Guy: You ask him who the president is.

Me: Really?

Guy: Yes…and he knows.

Me: Surprisingly.

Guy: Yes! And now is he the enemy?

Me: OK, lets get this over with. I’ll say that he’s not because he knows that Obama is President of the United States. And you’re going to tell me that he actually is.

Guy: YES! Because the Muslim enemy knows more about us than we know about ourselves.

Me: Of course.

Guy: They study us closely. Because they’re jealous of us. Especially Israel. So so jealous of Israel.

Me: Like a prom queen.

Guy:…yes….