Blatant thievery

I am totally stealing Murphy's shit, because it's cool. Check this out:



If you like his concept, the guy who does it all the time is over at Military Motivators - it'll give you a case of either the misty eye or the giggles, and, occasionally, both.

I laughed out loud when I saw Murphy's take, though, because we did that. We accumulated Beanie Babies. People back home sent them to our Soldiers, and since we were the people who hung out with locals, other soldiers in other units passed them on to us when their church groups and such sent them.

Swear to God, I participated in the distribution of Beanie Babies to every terrorist in every don't-go-there-if-you-want-to-live village in our AO. Really, once you've rolled out into Injun Country and done your basic assessment of infrastructure, atmospherics and local needs, why not hand out some stuffed animals while you hobnob with the insurgents?.

It actually took us a few months to figure out that simply driving out to any of the small, hostile villages we referred to as Mulla Jihad (all the little towns seemed to be named Mulla Something), asking questions and handing out stuffed critters was a really bad idea.

But we did have fun with the Beanie Babies. We lashed 'em to bumpers, and some of our guys would stick one in a helmet band now and again. They rode shotgun on the dash, and I think we lashed one to a radio antenna. And you know what? We all lived. Coincidence? Possibly, but I ain't gonna laugh at anybody's hood ornament. If it gets you back alive, it's good voodoo.