{"id":399,"date":"2019-10-11T13:33:55","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T13:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/?p=399"},"modified":"2019-10-11T13:33:55","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T13:33:55","slug":"the-voice-of-military-humor-in-a-post-911-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/2019\/10\/the-voice-of-military-humor-in-a-post-911-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Voice of Military Humor in a Post-9\/11 World"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY DOMINICK TAO <\/span><\/p>\n

Like many of the <\/span>3-million<\/span><\/a> U.S. military veterans of the Global War on Terrorism, Paul Szoldra left the Marine Corps with no clue what he wanted to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was 2010. Szoldra was 26. The war had just turned 9.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoy the news,\u201d he thought. \u201cI\u2019d enjoy doing that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So why not, he decided. He\u2019d use his G.I. Bill benefits to go to college and become a journalist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As he would later tell the world in a Reddit \u201cAsk Me Anything\u201d thread, he\u2019d go \u201cto an actual school, fuck the online stuff.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But along the way\u2014before his name would appear in places like the <\/span>Wall Street Journal<\/span><\/i> or atop the masthead of <\/span>Task & Purpose<\/span><\/a>\u2014Szoldra became one of the most influential arbiters of military humor for a generation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It happened because Szoldra, like many U.S. veterans these days, saw vast differences between military and civilian life, with few avenues to connect tales from war with tales from home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Especially on topics either comedic, or critical.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>“We don\u2019t have comedy movies with just a bumbling military guy,” Szoldra said. \u201cUnfortunately, there’s not really a bridge.”<\/span><\/p>\n

While Szoldra avoided the scam online <\/span>University of Phoenixes<\/span><\/a> of the world \u2014 a trap many veterans, unwise to the hierarchy of higher education, have fallen into \u2014 Szoldra struggled to adjust to life as a civilian student.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was the civilian-military <\/span>language barrier<\/span><\/a>. There were his <\/span>classmates\u2019 silly veteran stereotypes<\/span><\/a>. And like many of his colleagues fresh out of service, there was the <\/span>dislocating \u00a0 adjustment<\/span><\/a> of having to learn to do nearly everything, from greeting people to addressing emails, in strange new ways.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a Marine, Szoldra had been trained to destroy the enemy. Now his enemy was simply everyday life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He devoted a class project at The University of Tampa to building a program that helped veterans transition into the civilian world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing much came from the project (though he recalls with amusement that it did get an \u201cA\u201d) \u2014\u00a0 except for one section that used tongue-in-cheek, satirical articles as a sort of therapy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was just kind of like, writing stories from my own personal anecdotes, that I\u2019ve made into satire from my own experiences,\u201d Szoldra said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of his first stories seemingly made fun of \u201ca Marine in formation, running, really upset because his girlfriend is a brain dead amputee.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He published it on his own newly-launched website \u2014\u00a0 <\/span>The Duffel Blog \u2014 <\/span><\/i>a play on \u201cduffel bag,\u201d the typically olive drab item issued to nearly all U.S. service members since World War II. The article\u2019s headline:\u00a0 <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Marine With Brain-Dead Quadruple Amputee Wife Upset Over \u2018My Girl\u2019s A Vegetable\u2019 Cadence,<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/a>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>A sad, borderline sordid topic \u2014\u00a0 to the uninitiated.<\/span><\/p>\n

To the millions of Marines and Army soldiers who have gone on grueling pre-dawn runs, regardless of the weather, and have sung the crude, irreverent, decades-old running cadence <\/span>\u201c<\/span>My Girl\u2019s a Vegetable,<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/a> the subject of the story tends to bring out knowing smiles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a surgeon cracking a joke during open heart surgery. It highlights a difference in opinion over what\u2019s funny or what\u2019s not [between cultures],\u201d Szoldra said in an interview.<\/p>\n

When the \u201cMarine With Brain-Dead Quadruple Amputee Wife\u201d story hit Facebook, reactions followed.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>“Holy shit…..,” was the first comment.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>“Ho-ly shit” was the second.\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>The commenters, it seemed, were in disbelief. The inside jokes of their generation, for the first time, were being cracked in the public domain.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>\u201cThis is some Pulitzer Prize winning shit right here,\u201d another commenter posted.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>For some, the <\/span>Duffel Blog<\/span><\/i> was too good to be true.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Wrote one reader: \u201cThis is soooo not going to end well. \ud83d\ude09 it’s *almost* like yer writing his stuff simply to draw fire from the idiots of the world.\u201d
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>\u201cPeople enjoyed it, so I kept going,\u201d he said.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>And the \u201cfire from the idiots of the world\u201d never did come. <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>\u201cI rarely get hate mail,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In helping himself, and others like him, Szoldra had found an untapped market.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the perception of the wider public, Szoldra said, \u201cVeterans are either A, completely damaged, or B, they are absolute heroes and can do no wrong.\u201d\u00a0 (A perception, incidentally, backed up <\/span>by media research<\/span><\/a>).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to laughs, Szoldra founded <\/span>Duffel Blog <\/span><\/i>to help bridge that gap and give himself and others the creative outlet he sought<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

If <\/span>The Onion<\/span><\/i> is the satire news equivalent of <\/span>The New York Times<\/span><\/i>, Szoldra had invented the parody analogue to <\/span>Stars and Stripes. <\/span><\/i>It would focus on military-relevant tropes, failures, stupidities, and frustrations that are funny because they are, at least a little, true.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Szoldra was pursuing a journalism career after graduating from UT, first at <\/span>Business Insider<\/span><\/i> in California, his creation began to resonate far beyond its humble beginning as an obscure blog about military humor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Retired Gen. James Mattis (after his stint as the commander of U.S. Central Command, but before his tour as Donald Trump\u2019s chief-of-staff) would tell <\/span>the Washington Post<\/span><\/i><\/a> in 2013: \u201cDuffel Blog is a beautifully crafted response to an increasingly stuffy environment in today\u2019s America.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Mattis would go onto be lampooned by no fewer than three-dozen bits on the site.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a nod to who, when, and where it\u2019s ok to make fun of U.S. prisoners of war, Senator John McCain tweeted in 2017, \u201cHilarious,\u201d when Szoldra\u2019s outlet ran the headline: \u201cJohn McCain Angered Over Loss Of Hanoi Hilton Honors Points.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Many on the outside, though, sometimes failed to get the jokes. After apparently mistaking a <\/span>Duffel Blog<\/span><\/i> satire for a real investigative news report, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would be <\/span>duped <\/span><\/a>into asking military leaders whether detainees in Guantanamo were <\/span>receiving G.I. Bill benefits<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While <\/span>Duffel Blog<\/span><\/i>\u2019s audience has extended to the highest halls of power (the site receives more than 2-million unique visitors per month), its core audience remains the servicemembers on the front lines \u2014\u00a0 and also in office cubicles and motor pools (even <\/span>fobbits<\/span><\/a> can get in on the jokes) \u2014\u00a0 around the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had writers that say, \u2018hey, this is the one thing that has helped me getting out, dealing with stress,\u201d Szoldra said.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve had messages from readers \u2014 they have PTSD \u2014 they tell me, \u2018I go through life, I struggle, I hardly get to laugh \u2014 it\u2019s a huge relief to laugh.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Like his undergraduate project at UT, which started \u201cwithout any idea where it would go or plan or direction,\u201d Szoldra\u2019s post-military non-satire journalism work has benefited from his military experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He became a full-time reporter for Business Insider. He has gone on to write for publications including <\/span>The Washington Post <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Wall Street<\/span><\/i> Journal<\/span><\/i>. And in November, he became the editor-in-chief of <\/span>Task & Purpose<\/span><\/i><\/a>, a respected news and commentary website that covers national security. All the while, he has continued with Duffel Blog on his own time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite its at-times<\/span> irreverent tone, however, Szoldra said as <\/span>Duffel Blog <\/span><\/i>evolved, it became a platform for highlighting truths not covered his more straight-laced reporting.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe military, national security \u2014\u00a0 we\u2019re taking a satirical standpoint to effect change. If we write about issues like the U.S. being in Afghanistan, there is a target in our writing, who will get what we\u2019re going to say,\u201d Szoldra said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s found himself at the helm of two media outlets that give a voice to a generation of veterans who are still coming home from war and military life like he did back in 2010.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what you do as a satirical production \u2014\u00a0 make fun of people in power without fear or favor,\u201d he said. <\/span>