We live in a world that has more prosperity than ever before in history, with even the poorest parts of Africa and Asia lifting themselves out of poverty. We live in a world of scientific and engineering miracles being achieved almost on a daily basis. We live in a world where access to information about everything has never been easier or less costly; it’s Gutenberg+. We live in a world where the ability to reach out to strangers and friends, not matter how far away, has never been easier or less costly.

And we’re still pissed off? Well of course. We’re human and we can see the downsides to everything, and to be fair there are downsides to every one of those positives that I’ve listed – especially that part about easy contact with other people. And of course there are real catastrophes in all this; civilisations and nations and cultures and systems and people that rise and fall, often for no fair reason. The reason is that humans have not changed in thousands of years, which means we have to go through hard times created by our own stupidity before we reach better times.

And there is no Utopia.

Having waxed philosophical I give you this piece of humor, courtesy of a US Army soldier serving in the FUBAR of Iraq:

Before you read this, you must understand the difference between a fairy tail and a War Story. A fairy tail begins, “Once upon a time…,” while a War Story begins, “Really man this is No Shit!”

So here is my War Story for this Sunday Morning—for your reading pleasure and amusement…and “Really man, this is no…!” (Well….mostly).

Back in ’03, I was in command of a crappy little logistics base, just East of Falluja, IZ. Early one morning, my Command Sergeant Major & I were drinking some coffee, I was smoking my death sticks & we were both kinda enjoying the relatively cool morning air (hadn’t quite reached 100 yet) along with the fact that the “neighbors” down the street weren’t at that particular moment, chucking mortar rounds into our compound.

At that same time, one of my stalwart Soldiers, a young private, is filling up sandbags to reinforce our position…due to the folks down the street who I may have mentioned, liked to chuck mortar rounds into the compound, thus disturbing my much needed beauty rest. While we were standing there watching this young stud, the CSM and I got into an argument.

We got into an argument about sex. I opined (at that time, I was at the august rank of Lieutenant Colonel and in command, thus I got to ”opine,” rather than just “say sh…er…stuff.”) that sex was 80 percent pleasure and maybe 20 percent work. My CSM, being the wise, old TACTFUL noncommissioned officer that he was, replied, “Sir, You’re full of shit! Sex is at most 20 percent pleasure and at least 80 percent work!”

We went back and forth on this for a while until finally, the young private had had enough. He threw down his e-tool (small folding shovel) stood up, climbed out of the hole he was digging, put his hands on his hips and said in a voice eloquently dripping with sarcasm, “With all due respect to both you august personages, you are both full of shit. Sex is 100 percent pleasure!

We asked him how he had come to that conclusion and he artfully replied, “Because if it had anything to do with work, you two old farts would have me doing it.”