Thread by @wigwam

Time for a story. Pull up a chair, if you'd like.

In July 1979, I shipped to Marine Corps Boot Camp in San Diego. I graduated October 27, 1979.

On November 4, 1979, Iranian 'students' stormed the US Embassy in Iran and took 52 American citizens hostage.

They held them for 444 days, releasing them on the day Ronald Reagan took office, making Jimmy Carter's humiliation (including a failed rescue attempt) complete.

They released them, we believed, because Reagan had promised to make Tehran glow in the dark.

Most of us believed Reagan would nuke Iran in a hot minute. I guess Iran believed it too. True? I don't know. My viewpoint was and is probably too simplistic.

This was my introduction to global politics and it featured Iran. Keep this mind if you will. I was very young.

Flash forward a few years. It's 1983 and I'm stationed on Okinawa, Japan.

On October 23, 1979, the Marine Barracks in Beirut was blown to rubble by a Hezbollah suicide truck bomber. 241 Americans died in the blast. 220 of them were my Brother Marines.

Hezbollah was and still is funded, trained, and given direction by Iran and Syria. Iran again.

We all thought we would be deployed into Lebanon to pick up the mission, to get some pay-back, to stack some bodies. But no. Reagan took responsibility for the failure.

Our 'peace-keeping' mission was ended, we left.

This should help to set the stage for my complicated feelings vis-a-vis Iran.

Iran (and Syria) are predominantly Shiite. The majority of the rest of the Islamic world in the Middle East is Sunni. They hate each other.

Flash forward. 1984. I was given my honorable discharge and sent home as a Corporal (E-4) to serve the remainder of my contract on Inactive Ready Reserve (IRR) status. Except that didn't happen.

I was called back and sent to Fort Hood, Texas. For 'player patient' assignment.

In a small area of Fort Hood, they had set up a MASH unit, with inflatable tents and Army doctors and so on. There were reservists from the USMC, Army, Air Force, Texas National Guard, and even the Navy. We were 'player patients.'

But then they took away our uniforms. We were issued olive drab unmarked uniforms from a huge pile that they dumped on the floor of our barracks and told to find some that fit. We only kept our boots and belts. No rank insignia. No military patches. No markings.

We got on a bus. We got on a plane. We went somewhere. Let those who have understanding grasp the rest.

We came back (all of us, thank God) 89 days later. I was sent home. I was promoted to Sgt (E-5) meritoriously. No medals, no honors, no records kept. We were in TX.

We were 'player patients' at Fort Hood, get it? That's what my Service Record Book says.

Other places in the world, US troops were allegedly 'training' Contras to fight Sandinistas. Other places, drugs were being sold and the money was going to buy arms for Iran.

Iran again.

Flash forward many years. The Iranian Nuke Deal.

I was against it. I held a grudge against Iran. Iran = EVIL.

I knew that this was a bunch of bullshit. Iran would play games and we'd wink and nod, and they'd eventually end up with nukes and they'd attack Israel with them.

Well, the deal happened. I didn't like it. I don't like it.

But Iran seemed to be sticking to the deal. At least that's what I hear.

So Trump pulls us out of the deal. As much history as I have with Iran, as much as I dislike the leaders of that nation, still seemed weird.

It seemed like another of Trump's personal issues with Obama. I didn't vote for Obama, but I sure did come to respect him. Trump hates him. It's pathological. It's personal. And that doesn't make pulling out of the deal seem smart to me.

But we're out of the deal. Iran continues to follow along with it, more or less, with the rest of Europe.

Then Trump gets impeached. He lashes out in every direction, because he's emotionally a child, deranged even. He's not smart, he's a bully and frankly an idiot.

When Trump had Qasem Soleimani assassinated, I instantly believed it was to distract from his impeachment. I still believe that. Information since then seems to confirm that to have been the case.

I figured that Iran would strike back - they've been provoking the US a lot.

That, I thought, would lead to war pretty quickly. Yet another quagmire in the Middle East. We would have no allies, except Israel, and we'd be very hesitant to ask for them to help - if Israel joined, the rest of the Middle East would fall on them instantly. WWIII for real.

Fortunately we seem to have stepped back. Thank God. I hope it holds.

I hold no love for the Iranian government. They are the same people that I've had to deal with since 1979. They have not changed. They are bad people.

Qasem Soleimani was a murderer of Americans.

He absolutely deserved to die.

I am angry only about the timing and the reasoning. We've known where he was and what he was doing for decades. We've had him ready to take out at any moment.

It happened when it did because Trump got impeached and it pissed him off.

That's my long story. Iran is responsible for most of why I'm so FUBAR as an old man. I have no love for Iran's leaders, even though I think the Iranian people are great.

I'd love to know what you think. I'd love to see what people who know more about this than me think.

That's all I got. Thanks for reading. Feel free to share.

#SemperFidelis #Resist #TrumpsWar #Impeached45 #PTSD #IranContra #Hezbollah